Carly Phillips: Secret Fantasy

His eyes opened wide and she felt the rapid increase of his heartbeat beneath her chest. “Then what the hell changed your mind about me?”

“You did.” She ran a hand down his cheek. “You said you loved me when you had nothing more to gain. It was something I should have realized and believed in long before Stuart ever showed up.”

“I used you.”

His honesty now touched her. She inclined her head. “You came to Secret Fantasy for a story. You didn’t leave the moment you got one. Any other arguments?”

He clenched his unshaven jaw. “My fantasy was a lie-at first.”

“And later?”

His hands cupped her cheeks. “I wanted to put you first and I wanted to help you heal. Instead, I repeated old mistakes and hurt you even more.” In the depth of his eyes, she saw his pain.

In hurting her, he’d hurt himself. If that wasn’t love, then Juliette didn’t know what was. “Oh, Doug. Loving me isn’t hurting me. Who hasn’t made mistakes? I made mine when I followed some nonexistent plan I thought my parents had for my life. The only bright spot is that it led me to you. Oh, and that fantasy of yours? About putting me first and making my dreams come true? Did I mention I’d like you to keep it up for the next fifty or sixty years?”

His hands held onto her hips, preventing her from falling, and his deep chuckle reverberated inside her. “Is that a proposal?”

“Damn straight, since you might have just gotten me pregnant.” This time she made sure her challenge was light and fun. She had him and she damn well knew it.

He grinned. “No way can I turn down a proposal like that. Especially from a woman who accepts me the way I am.”

“Darn right I do.” She turned serious. “How’s your father?”

“Home and eager to meet the woman who’s turned me inside out, upside down and made me inhuman since she’s been out of my life.”

Her heart kicked up a beat. “Sounds like someone’s missed me.”

He let out a heartfelt groan. “You have no idea. But you do realize, you don’t even know if I squeeze the toothpaste from the top or the bottom.”

She laughed. “Are you trying to scare me off?”

He shook his head. “I’m realizing it’d take a lot more than my living habits, thank goodness.” He brushed a light kiss over her lips.

“We have a lot more to discover about each other.” As if to make her point she slipped her hands downward in a slow, leisurely exploration of the body she adored.

“And we’ve got a lifetime to learn.” He greeted her hands-on journey with some incredible moves of his own, causing her to writhe and squirm on top of him.

“Well, I’m game.” She managed to speak through the desire quickening inside her.

“And I’m glad.” Love shone in his eyes, making her feel complete. “But don’t you think you ought to read that article?” he asked. “There’s nothing in there about you. Not a word, not a hint, not a mention. Just your father’s wisdom.”

Her father. He’d said when she got around to reading the article she’d fall for Doug all over again. At the time, she thought he was applauding her courage for going after the man she loved, but she realized now her father probably had a hand in working things out with Doug.

“Juliette?”

She heard his silent fear, but he no longer needed to prove anything to her, and by trusting him without reading that article she hoped to prove that to him.

Besides, trusting Doug was easy because she’d learned to trust herself. “I already know I’ve got an intelligent man who puts me first.”

Doug’s heart filled with love and satisfaction-emotional satisfaction because he’d found his other half. A woman he loved to distraction who put her complete faith in him. He’d just have to make damn certain he never let her down.

“I promise to read the article,” she said.

But her actions belied her words as she began an erotic swirling of her hips and arching of her back, tormenting his already hard body with an enticing invitation-one he planned to take her up on, and he met her with determined thrusts of his own.

Her lashes fluttered shut and purred. “Mmm. Guess I’ll be reading it later.”

“Much, much later,” he muttered. Unable to withstand her teasing and needing to be inside her, he took charge, tossing the blanket onto the floor and lifting her until she could ease herself onto him, joining them together again.