She tipped her head back and stared at him, and he wondered if she realized that her lower body had inched down a little, and that the blunt head of his shaft had penetrated her somewhat. It was inching forward, stretching her again to make the intimate connection possible.

  He continued talking, making promises, while their bodies connected. But that didn’t stop him from cupping her backside in his hand to hold her in place, or locking his leg around her just in case she had a change of heart. Their bodies were now locked, and he didn’t intend on letting her go anywhere. With that thought in his mind, he lifted his hips off the bed to fill her even more.

  Now it was time to deliver on all those promises he’d made.

  Before she had time to react, he thrust in hard, almost retreated and then thrust in hard again. In response she moved her body to the rhythm he’d set, riding him as hard as he needed to be ridden. Never had he made love to a woman with so much intensity, an all-out assault on delivering passion to her on a silver platter. The same way she was delivering it to him.

  Somehow with their vigorous entanglements they had changed positions, and he was now the one on top. He tilted her hips at an angle to drive relentlessly into her. He was never into drama, but as far as he was concerned, you couldn’t get any more dramatic than this. This was lovemaking at its finest, the kind that made multiple orgasms commonplace. She was bringing something out of him that he’d not known had been inside of him.

  “Donovan!”

  No matter how many times he heard her scream his name, it always did something to him. It triggered his engorged sex locked inside of her to react. To explode in one hell of a release. She grabbed hold of his shoulders. Her nails dug deep into his shoulder blades, but pain wasn’t the dominant factor right now. The passionate flames burning through his veins were. And even as he felt her come apart in his arms and he exploded in an orgasm that had rocked him to the core, he couldn’t stop thrusting into her, needing this. Needing her.

  He quickly pushed away the thought that he would need any woman, no matter how enjoyable the lovemaking was. Tomorrow he would deal with all these foreign emotions swamping him now. But not tonight. Tonight he wanted only to deal with this. Immeasurable pleasure.

  Natalie glanced at the clock as she eased out of bed from under Donovan’s arms. She was glad her aunt was a sound sleeper and probably didn’t know that it was close to five in the morning and she hadn’t returned home yet.

  She glanced around for her clothes and then quickly remembered Donovan had stripped her naked on the stairs. The memories had sensuous shivers moving up her spine. The man had more passion in his little toe than Karl had had in his entire body. Donovan may be a tad arrogant, but the man could certainly deliver. He had made good on all those promises he had whispered and had introduced her to lovemaking positions she hadn’t known existed. Her body was sore but she felt good. She couldn’t even count the number of orgasms she’d had tonight. To say she had made up for lost time was an understatement.

  She wrapped her arms around her naked body as she glanced over at Donovan sleeping peacefully in the bed he’d found her in that day. Leaning back over to the bed, she brushed a kiss first on his cheek and then his lips, being careful not to wake him.

  One and done.

  At least she knew where she stood with Donovan. He had spelled out his expectations—or lack of them—loud and clear. One night of extreme pleasure and it was done, never to be repeated. A one-night stand, nothing more, nothing less. He had definitely gotten rid of her restlessness and had taken the edge off. She would always have memories of their night together.

  Backing away from the bed, she turned to slip out the door but not before glancing back over her shoulder at him. Whether she wanted him to or not, Donovan had a special place in her heart.

  Donovan nearly jumped straight up out of bed at the ringing of the phone. With hazy eyes, he glanced around the room trying to recall what day it was. Then he remembered. It was Saturday morning.

  He leaned over and snatched the phone out of its cradle. “Hello?”

  “Hey, we thought we’d get together and have breakfast at your place before heading over to the gym,” his brother Morgan said in the phone. “I’ll make a pit stop at Mary’s Diner. You want the usual?”

  Donovan raked a hand down his face in an attempt to wipe the sleep from his eyes. “Yes, the usual will be fine.” Then his stomach growled, and he remembered the intense sexual activities from the night before. “Make it a double order for me, though.”

  He hung up the phone and slumped back down in bed. Jeeze. What a night. If there was such a thing as having a sexual hangover then this was it. He shifted his body to look down at the floor. There were condom packets everywhere. Damn. How many of the blasted things had he used? If he thought all that action last night was a result of a dream, then he was looking at viable proof that it wasn’t. And just when had Natalie left? How could he have slept through her slipping out of bed? She at least deserved a walk to the car.

  Knowing he needed to get up since his brothers were on their way over, he eased out of bed and headed toward the bathroom. And he needed to get rid of any evidence of his activities of the night before or his brothers would never let him live it down. He chuckled thinking that they actually thought they could share such things with a wife. Not that he thought any of his sisters-in-laws were prudes by any means, but still. Some of the positions he had introduced Natalie to last night were scandalous at best. But she seemed to have enjoyed them as much as he had.

  A half hour later he had showered, dressed, discarded all those used condom packets off his bedroom floor and picked up his clothes that had been scattered all over the staircase.

  By the time his brothers arrived, he figured he looked like a man well-rested with no signs of what had happened the night before. Apparently not. Bas walked in, took one look at him and said, “Damn, Donovan, what’s with all those passion marks on your neck? Rough night, huh, kid? No wonder you wanted a double order.”

  Donovan rolled his eyes. Leave it to Bas to notice such things. Now of course Chance and Morgan were now giving him their full attention. “Don’t worry about any marks on my neck,” he growled, taking the breakfast bag from Bas’s hands.

  Still, he couldn’t help walking over to the mirror on his foyer wall to take a look for himself. Bas was right. He did have passion marks all over his neck. Usually he was the giver of such things, never the recipient.

  “Evidently you had a wild one on your hands last night,” Bas said, laughing, clearly amused.

  Normally, any jokes his brothers made about his conquests wouldn’t bother him in the least, but since his bed partner had been Natalie, for some reason it did bother him. Yes, she had been wild but he had driven her to it. He had been relentless to see how often he could make her come. “I’d rather not discuss it,” he said to the three and saw the surprised look in their gazes.

  “Okay.” Chance nodded. “If that’s how it is.”

  In all honesty, Donovan wasn’t sure just how it was, but until he sorted everything out in his head, he merely said, “Yes, that’s how it is.” And then he tacked on something he figured he would never, ever say about a woman. “She’s different.”

  Farrah raised a brow as she gazed across the table at Natalie. “That’s the fourth time you’ve yawned in fifteen minutes. Didn’t you get any sleep last night?”

  Natalie couldn’t help but shift in her seat under her friend’s intense stare. And she was sure she was blushing. Instead of answering, she tried changing the subject. “Do you remember Gail Porter, that girl who used to sit in the back of the class and not talk to anyone, until that day she got up in front of the class to do her report and told us her parents had taken her to a nudist camp? I wonder what happened to her.”

  Farrah simply smiled over the top of her menu. “I understand she moved away, got married and now has some top-level job at the White House.”

  A surprised expression touched Natalie’s features. “Really?” she asked, incredulously.

  With a straight face, Farrah simply answered, “No.”

  Natalie narrowed her eyes. “That was mean.”

  Farrah laughed out loud. “What’s mean is you not answering my question about your lack of sleep last night. Now are you ready to tell me where you went last night?”

  No, she wasn’t. Instead, Natalie took a sip of her water. Luckily, her aunt had been asleep when she had returned home this morning just moments before the delivery boy had thrown the paper in the yard. Without taking a shower, she had crawled between the sheets with the scent of Donovan still clinging to her skin and memories of their lovemaking in her mind.

  “Natalie?”

  Knowing Farrah wouldn’t let up until she was given an answer, she looked across the table, met her inquisitive gaze and said, “I was with Donovan.”

  Farrah lifted a brow. “And?”

  “And what?”

  Farrah rolled her eyes. “What do you mean you were with him? Did the two of you meet up at the Racetrack Café? Did you go out on a date someplace else? Did you—”

  “I was at his house. I spent the night.”

  The corners of Farrah’s lips curled up in a smile. “By spending the night do you mean you slept in a guest room? Did the two of you sit on the sofa all night watching movies and holding hands? Did the—”

  “We slept together,” an annoyed Natalie leaned over and whispered curtly. Farrah liked getting details. “But we didn’t get much sleep for mating like rabbits all night long.” She narrowed her gaze and snapped, “Satisfied?”

  A smirk of a grin appeared on Farrah’s face. “Forget about me. Are you satisfied?”

  Natalie blinked, not expecting Farrah’s retort. Natalie leaned back in her chair. Relaxed. Settled. Not as sore as she had been that morning. She couldn’t help but smile. “Yes, I’m satisfied. Extremely. Exceedingly. Enormously. Tre—”

  “Cut! I got the picture.”

  Natalie knew that Farrah really didn’t. There was no way anyone could get the picture of what had gone on inside Donovan’s bedroom last night, and in a way that was a good thing. The picture would have been erotic, X-rated at best.

  “So he was worth all those years of holding out?” Farrah asked.

  She nodded. “Every single moment I spent with my head in a book, working on projects and trying hard to forget men existed. Yes, he was worth it.”

  Farrah smiled. “Then I’m happy you got the experience. When will you see him again?”

  Natalie shook her head. “I might see him again but not that way. What we shared last night was a fling—a one-night fling. It won’t be repeated. That’s what we both agreed.”

  Farrah didn’t say anything for a moment and then said. “That might be easier said than done, Nat.”

  Natalie was glad the waitress appeared at that moment to take their order or she would have been forced to admit Farrah was right.

  Donovan pulled his damp T-shirt over his head and tossed it in the dirty-clothes hamper. Today the basketball game between him and his brothers had been brutal. Evidently there had been a lot of frustrations to unleash. Still, he felt good. Not that he’d had to work off much masculine energy since he’d done so last night.

  He left the laundry room and walked into the kitchen where he immediately headed for the refrigerator and opened it up. He pulled the beer from the six-pack Uri had left a few weeks ago, popped the tab and then took a long pleasurable gulp.

  A satisfied smile touched his moist lips, which he wiped with the back of his hand. Life couldn’t be better. Then he glanced around the kitchen and thought that life couldn’t be lonelier.

  He frowned, wondering where in the hell that thought had come from. A lonely Steele? How could that be when he had brothers and cousins living in the same city? And he could always catch a flight to Phoenix, Chicago, Miami or Boston and visit his relatives there.

  He went over to the window and glanced out. What would it be like to come home to a house he shared with someone? Not just someone, but the woman with whom he’d spent the night in bed. Could he even imagine building a life with one woman, building a family and having children, building his own dynasty like his brothers were doing?

  It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see they were happy, had eased into the roles of husbands and family men without a hitch. He’d always figured he was different, didn’t want the things they did and totally enjoyed his freedom. So why was he even considering otherwise?

  He took another gulp of beer, emptying the can. Moving away from the window, he placed the empty can on the counter. He’d promised Bron and the guys that he would drop by the café tonight since he hadn’t shown up last night, as was the norm. But he had no regrets. Last night he was here in bed with a woman that still had his heart pounding each time he thought about how his body had plummeted into multiple orgasms while inside of her.

  Natalie had shown him, proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that no two women were the same. He had met his match, and even after making love to her last night, he wanted her again.

  Chapter 12

  Natalie sat at the desk in her aunt’s office as she worked on the schedules for next week. It had been a week since she had made love to Donovan in his huge bed. She hadn’t heard from him, but she hadn’t really expected any contact. Like she had told Farrah, she and Donovan fully understood each other. He didn’t want anything beyond what they’d shared Friday night and neither did she.

  She’d been keeping herself pretty busy. The agency had taken on three new employees, and she’d been busy working them into the schedule. Her aunt’s doctor visit this week indicated she was healing nicely, and Natalie was happy for that. So it was her opinion that life was good.

  But that didn’t mean she didn’t have those dreams each night in which Donovan had a starring role. And now that she knew how it felt to make love with a man who was just as giving as he was taking, she knew he had tilted the scales and she doubted another man would ever affect her the way he had. She’d been dealing with elements of chemistry since she’d won her first science fair in the eighth grade, but Donovan had the ability to ignite a totally different kind of chemistry, the type she wasn’t accustomed to dealing with. And then there were those funny little feelings that would start fluttering around her heart whenever she thought of him. They were feelings that could grow into something more than she wanted them to be. They were feelings that had more to do with the human anatomy than with chemistry.

  She’d gone to pull one of the client’s records from the file cabinet when her cell phone rang. She quickly picked it up. “Yes?”

  “Dr. Ford, this is Dr. Stanley.”

  Natalie lifted her brow in surprise. Dr. Miriam Stanley headed the global study of the troposphere for NASA, and they had worked closely on various projects over the past two years. “Dr. Stanley, this is a pleasant surprise. Is anything wrong?”

  “No, everything is fine. However, I was hoping I could request your assistance on short notice.”

  “In what way?” Natalie asked, leaning back on the desk. She was already reviewing formulas for NASA that could imply a continental pollution source for industrial emissions.

  “We will be hosting a number of government officials on the Princeton campus next Friday, and we were wondering if you could be included on a panel for a discussion on global warming.”

  Next Friday? Natalie nibbled on her bottom lip trying to determine if it could work. Her aunt was doing fine so flying back to Princeton for a couple of days wouldn’t be so bad. She could fly out Thursday night and fly back Saturday morning. “Yes, I’d love to participate.”

  “Thank you. I’ll e-mail you a number of the key discussion topics,” Dr. Stanley said.

  A few minutes later Natalie hung up the phone, still smiling. She knew her name had been tossed about as a possible person who could sit on the Global Warming Commission. To do so would be an outstanding accomplishment. She needed to start jotting down the key points she intended to discuss, and hopefully, doing so would keep her mind occupied for a while.

  Donovan released a deep breath when he heard the sound of the front door opening. That meant Natalie had arrived for the weekly cleaning of his home. And again he’d taken a work-at-home day. He hated admitting that he’d been looking forward to this day all week long—and had even contemplated calling her during the week. But then he would remember their agreement. What they’d shared had been a one-night stand and nothing more.

  Still, he couldn’t discount the fact that she had been on his mind every day and night. Since he had yet to change his bed linen, he drifted to sleep breathing in her scent and filled with passionate memories of their one night together.

  The thought that Natalie was downstairs had his shaft hard. He could, and he would now admit that he had it bad for her. The last seven days had been pure torture. More torturous than the agony she’d delivered that night. But in the end she had relieved his suffering in a way that could still make him tremble inside. She had delivered continuous pleasure over and over again—for someone not as experienced in the art of lovemaking like most women he’d encountered. He had surmised as much from the way her eyes lit up when they tried varied positions. He had introduced her to a lot of things in that one night and like a zealous and devoted student, she had been eager to learn.

  And then there had been the way she had taken him into her mouth. What she’d lacked in skill she had made up in enthusiasm. Just thinking about what she did and how she’d done it made his shaft even more engorged and sent a rush of desire racing through his body.