Turn Me On by Faye Avalon

oblivion.”
    She shrugged those tight shoulders. “It’s just the way it is.”
    He stretched his arm along the sofa behind her. The urge to touch her
was almost overwhelming, but seeing as he was intrigued by the air of
resignation about her, he resisted. “Why don’t you spill? Maybe I can steer you
in a direction you haven’t yet thought about.”
    Again she shrugged, then dropped back against the sofa inches from his
arm. Her hair tickled his hand. All that soft silk. He imagined how it would
look fanned out across his pillow.
    “I had a partner,” she said at length, looking down at her joined hands
resting on the ubiquitous notebook. “We met almost eight years ago when we both
worked part-time at a restaurant. She was doing business studies and I was at
art school studying photography. When we both qualified, we worked for other
people but both really wanted to set up on our own. We had the idea to go into
business together. We’d accumulated enough money to see us through the start up
and we did okay for a couple of years.”
    She leaned forward and took a sip of coffee. “Then Debbie met this guy,
really fell for him. Apparently, he had debts, money trouble. To cut a long
story short, she embezzled funds from our company to save him from bankruptcy.
It basically ruined us.”
    Reed hated the tremble in her voice, and the way her stiff shoulders
slumped. “You couldn’t continue on your own? Get a loan to keep you afloat?”
    She shook her head. “We already had a bank loan.”
    Because she dropped her chin down to her chest and wouldn’t meet his
eyes, his antenna picked up. “Secured by what?”
    She hesitated, only slightly, but he caught it. “Various things.” She
looked at him then, or rather glared. “Whatever you’re thinking it won’t be
anything I haven’t already thought myself.”
    “What sort of debt are we talking about?”
    He saw the barrier slip right back into place. “It’s my problem. I’ll
deal with it.”
    “Are you? Dealing with it?”
    “Slow and steady. Now can we talk about the development?”
    “I’d rather we talked some more about this.” He let his fingers drift
into her hair. “Let me help you.”
    “It’s not your problem.”
    “My advice is free. People have been willing to pay a great deal of
money for it in the past.”
    She looked at him steadily, then she laughed. It pleased him more than
he could imagine, seeing that troubled look disappear from her eyes. “You
really do have an ego the size of Pluto.”
    He shrugged, smiling himself. “Pluto isn’t the largest of the planets.”
    She laughed again and her shoulders relaxed.
    Unable to resist any longer, he leaned forward and touched his mouth
lightly to hers. She gave in to the kiss, her hand finding his thigh and
setting his blood racing. Deliberately, he kept things slow and easy, allowing
her to set the pace. His patience was rewarded when she shifted closer, her
fingers digging delicately into his thigh.
    Teasing his tongue between her lips, he found the warm recesses of her
mouth. She tasted like nothing else he’d known. Tart and sweet.
    He had to have her. And while he knew she’d retreat, push him away, he
let his own hand find her knee. He left it there, testing her reaction as he
deepened the kiss.
    When she parted her legs a fraction, he took it as an invitation for him
to continue. Never one to let an opportunity pass him by, Reed dipped his
fingers along the inside of her knee and ran his hand slowly up her inner
thigh. Just a few inches. Again, testing her reaction.
    Her response was to raise her hand to his face and intensify the kiss.
He groaned and the little mewling sound she gave snapped the last of his
defenses.
    Drawn to the
heated honey of her pussy, he slipped his hand further along her inner thigh. She opened her
legs a paltry inch. Lack of room, and his unwillingness to push her too hard,
meant he was only able to brush his fingertip along the silky panel