Flashback

those last words aloud until he went still for a moment.
“No brakes?”
“No brakes,” she agreed fervently, arching herself up to him.
He swore, low and soft and nearly hoarse. He moved quickly then, almost quickly enough to satisfy her need. He was over her, probing, searching, and before he could she reached to guide him. And then he was in her, driving hard and deep, and Alex cried out at the perfection of it, the joy of being at last united, utterly filled with the man she’d half feared didn’t exist in this world.
The rhythm he set was both too slow and too fast, and she clawed at him in near desperation. She heard him say her name, once, twice and then a third time in a guttural exclamation that was the last bit of impetus she needed. Her body clenched violently, releasing all the need she’d stored up for so long in one fierce contraction, wrenching another exclamation from him. It blended with her own cry of his name as everything became clear to her in one blinding flash of power and sensation.
Alex had heard the phone ring, but then it had gone away, so she’d drifted back off. Or started to. After a moment the sound of a voice speaking softly made it through the sweet haze she was in. But listening was beyond her after a long, passionate night in the arms of the Dark Angel that had involved exploring, touching, savoring, tenderness alternating with hot, driving, pure sex.
And the occasional cinnamon roll.
She turned over, eyes still closed, her body feeling wonderfully, pleasantly used, as if she’d only now discovered its true purpose.
Or at least its capacity for tremendous sex, she thought wryly as she grew more awake.
Then the male voice stopped, and when she heard the sound of the phone receiver being replaced, she finally opened her eyes.
Justin, just as gorgeous, and still as naked as he’d been in her arms all night, was propped against a pillow, looking at…nothing, apparently.
He did not look happy.
She pulled herself up on one elbow. “Justin?”
His gaze shifted, and she realized with unpleasant certainty it was her he wasn’t happy with.
“That was Kayla. What an…illuminating phone call.”
She sat up then, knowing from his tone she wasn’t going to like this.
“So,” he said, an unmistakable edge in his voice, “you trust me enough to sleep with me, but not enough to tell me somebody tried to kill you?”
Uh-oh, she thought.
It was going to be one of those morning afters.

Chapter 11
“Was that what changed your mind?” Justin’s voice was edgy, tight. “You had a narrow escape, so you decided it was time for us to have sex, in case next time you didn’t make it?”
Alex sighed. “I hope you know me better than that.”
After he’d first spoken, she’d needed the armor of clothes. She rolled out of bed, pulled her pants and T-shirt back on, jammed her fingers through her hair and then sat cross-legged on the bed, facing him.
Now she considered her words carefully, not used to discussions like this that were about so much more than they appeared to be on the surface. She discarded one approach after another, until finally she simply told him the whole story.
He listened impassively, arms crossed, and she wasn’t sure if her explanation was going to change a thing about his reaction. Of course, sitting there talking to a man who was still gorgeously naked beneath the covers wasn’t the most calming experience of her life. Especially when she’d just had outrageously hot, killer sex for the first time in her life, with that man.
She managed to get it all out, finally. She wasn’t sure how clear she’d been, but it was the best she could do under the circumstances. When she was done filling him in on what had happened out in the desert, she took a breath, hesitated, then plunged ahead to try and explain why she hadn’t contacted him.
“I could say there wasn’t time to call you after what happened. I could say there was no point in calling you since there was nothing you could do from D.C. I could say I had it under control. I could say that when you got here there were…other things on my mind. And all of it would be true.”
Leaning against the hotel headboard, arms crossed over his bare chest, looking more like some warrior caught midbattle than the legendary Dark Angel of Athena, Justin just looked at her, waiting. He wasn’t, it was clear, going to make this easy on her.
“If I didn’t know that what you’re suggesting does happen, and often,” she said, “I’d be insulted. But I do know, so I’ll just say I had chosen long before I went out for a ride. It came too quickly for it not to have been in the back of my mind the whole time. I just didn’t realize it until I was face-to-face with the possibility of the choice being taken away from me.”
He appeared to ponder this, his expression shifting from edgy to thoughtful. But when he still didn’t say anything, Alex sighed again and rubbed at the back of her neck.
“You know, some men wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”
“Some men aren’t thinking forever,” Justin retorted.
Alex blinked. “And you are?”
“You’re not?”
She simply stared at him. She couldn’t think of a single thing to say. She hadn’t dared think of forever with him. She’d been so wrong about Emerson, letting herself be swept along on the considerable tide of her mother’s approval, something she’d never had in her life before. It had been unlike her, completely, and she knew she’d be eternally grateful that she’d awakened in time. And always amazed that she had let it go so far.
But it had also shaken her faith in her judgment. She no longer trusted—
“…we had a nice, long talk,” Justin had said.
“You’ve got it right this time,” her grandfather had written.
And suddenly she