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There was a plea in my voice, because I couldn’t imagine not feeling him inside me. So hard and long and thick.
    His head lifted and I shivered at the raging lust in his dark eyes, knowing exactly how it would feel to have it unleashed on me. “There’s no way I’d pull out,” he said, his voice guttural with desire. “No way.”
    I opened my mouth to say it was okay...that I was on the pill...that I wanted to feel him come inside me without anything between us...but the doorbell rang, followed by a quick “Room service.”
    I moaned.
    A pained look crossed his face. Then he laughed softly. “Saved by the bell.”
    “Wait—”
    But he was already grabbing my robe off the floor and draping it over me. “Don’t move,” he ordered.
    He got the door, barred the server from entering, and took care of everything in the hallway. When he reappeared, he was carrying the tray in one hand, deftly balancing the bottle of wine, wineglass, and a dome-covered meal.
    Setting it all on the desk, he glanced at me as I sat up, my legs stretching out in front of me. “You’re killing me.”
    “You deserve it.”
    Jax’s mouth curved wryly. “I don’t doubt it. Still, there’s only so much a desperate man can take. I have to get out of here.”
    I pouted. “Spoilsport.”
    “Get your sexy ass back to New York, and I’ll give you all you can take.” He ran a hand through his hair, restoring order to it. “I’m going to start making the arrangements for your return.”
    My brows rose. “You have to make arrangements to fuck me?”
    “No, for you to move in. And I have to let you eat so you have the strength for everything I’ll do to you while fucking you.” He grabbed me as I pushed to my feet and gave me a quick, hard kiss. “And if you’re ready to go raw with me, we do it right—in our own apartment, in our own bed.”
    I swallowed hard. “I have to talk to my brothers. My parents.”
    “We’ll do it together.”
    “You’re moving fast for a guy who just had his hand forced.”
    A softness came over Jax’s face. “I’ve thought about this for a while. Tried to plan it in my head...come up with a way to make it work....”
    “Maybe it won’t be as hard as you think.”
    He brushed my damp hair back behind my ears. “The media is going to love you, Gia,” he murmured. “You’re a walking wet dream. You’ve got sex appeal, baby, and a body that won’t quit. They’re going to take a look at you and see me looking at you, and they’re going to imagine hot, salacious monkey sex. And that’s news.”
    I shoved at him. “Be serious!”
    “They’re going to get it wrong, and think I’m just having a good time with you. They’ll start speculating right away on how long it’ll last. They’ll pair us with other people, inventing news just to have an excuse to publish another picture of you.”
    I’d seen it before, with other couples. But Jax and I were different. We weren’t celebrities. I was nobody, and even though he was a Rutledge, he worked behind the scenes of the political circles that had made his family so well-known.
    “You don’t believe me.” He rubbed his temple against mine. “You’ll have to trust me. I’ve seen what can happen. I’ve seen the stress rip people apart.”
    A niggling suspicion spurred me to ask, “Someone you cared about?”
    “Yeah.”
    “What happened?”
    Jax pulled back and I saw that he’d shut down. “She checked out,” he said tonelessly. “I’m not going to let that happen with you.”
    My fingers flexed into his lean waist. It was hard thinking about Jax loving someone else. It was harder still thinking about his former lover hurting him so deeply that he’d pushed me away to avoid becoming vulnerable again.
    He kissed my forehead. “When are you coming home?”
    “Day after tomorrow.”
    “All right. See if we can’t get together with your family that night. We’ll get you moved in the next day.”
    I felt as if I was standing on the