The Real Deal by Lucy Monroe Page A

her damaged heart at risk again.
    Unfortunately, even in sleep, Simon was strong. Too strong for her to get away from.
    She tried shaking his shoulder to wake him. “Simon. Wake up. You’ve got to let go.”
    His face nuzzled more firmly into her neck and his hand shifted until it was cupping her right breast.
    Her brain short-circuited while her body started pulsing with unfamiliar desire.
    â€œSimon!”
    His hand squeezed and her nipple went rock-hard. She gasped. He squeezed again and darned if it wasn’t with just the right amount of pressure.
    Okay. She wasn’t going to try to wake him up again. At the rate they were going, he’d be inside of her before she ever got him out of his comatose state. And she’d be loving it.
    Which made her wicked and pathetic. For surely only a wicked woman would consider taking advantage of a man’s actions while he was sleeping and only a pathetic one would need to.
    Maybe if she lay there until he went into a really deep sleep, his muscles would relax enough for her to extricate herself from his arms.
    The hand on her breast was heavy and she was tempted to pretend for a little bit. To pretend he meant it to be there. To pretend a gorgeous, sexy man like Simon found her desirable. It should be too much of a stretch for even her imagination. It wasn’t. Not with his arms around her and his hard, masculine body pressed all along her side.
    Fantasizing was risky.
    She might start believing her own delusions.
    She had to get her mind off the way it felt to be in Simon’s unconscious arms.
    She stared up at the ceiling. Not a lot of inspiration there. Simon had a ceiling fan. She wondered if he liked to lay naked on his bed and let the gentle air brush over him like she did. She preferred the fan to running the air conditioner, except on the hottest days.
    As things started happening in her body, things like swelling and moistening, she realized that wondering about Simon’s naked sleeping habits was a bad idea.
    She let her gaze roam around the room, at least as much as she was able to without turning more than her head. The stark simplicity of Oriental design was in here too, but so was Simon’s love of hi-tech. The bed and matching bedroom suite had been designed in molded metal with a flat finish. It didn’t look like office furniture gone bad, but rather sleek and almost soothingly simple.
    The headboard and footboard on the bed were slatted with horizontal bars. She’d never seen a bed like it.
    An image of her lying on the bed, naked but for a silk nothing of a nightgown, with her hands tied to the headboard, popped into her mind. Simon leaned above her, his hands teasing her body while he whispered shocking things in her ear.
    She groaned. Simon’s leg insinuated itself between hers, his thigh pressing against the apex of her thighs and the image in her head exploded in favor of tormenting reality.
    She had to get out of this bed. She made her body go completely motionless and concentrated on breathing as quietly as possible. Anything not to jar Simon into further movement.
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    She snuggled into the delicious warmth of her bed, fighting consciousness and trying to cling to the sweetness of her dream. It had been so real, she could still smell the masculine scent of her lover, still feel the strength of his arms around her, the erotic pleasure of his legs twined with hers in the aftermath of loving.
    She shifted one leg and fancied she could feel denim rub against the smooth sheerness of her stockings.
    Stockings?
    She wasn’t wearing stockings in her dream. She was naked—Oh, my gosh! Her eyes flew open to a patch of dark blue.
    It was a shirt and the shirt covered a male chest.
    Simon.
    Her head snapped back.
    He was still asleep.
    That was the only good news she could discern as she came fully alert with a mental bump of huge magnitude. Her legs were indeed twisted together with his, right up to their