“Yeah,” Eli breathed out the word. “So do I.” He paused, turned his head from side to side, stretching his neck. “People like Fred and Gretchen confound me. They seem to like being miserable. I don’t get it.”

“They’re damaged,” Brynne said simply. “Most likely, they were raised by people just like them. Or worse.”

“I don’t know,” Eli answered, between low groans of pleasure. “Makes me wonder what they were like—Fred, Sr., and Gretchen, I mean—when they were young and in love. Did they get off on making each other suffer, or what? And how the hell did they get Freddie, when the two of them are like a pair of porcupines with every quill ready to launch?”

Brynne sighed. She was sad for the Lansings—all of them—but she couldn’t help smiling at the picture Eli had painted in her mind.

“You might be a writer, like your sister,” she observed.

That made Eli lift his head, look back at her over one shoulder. “Oh, hell no,” he said with force, though that devastating grin of his was very much in evidence. “Sara makes a lot of money, and she loves what she does, but if I had to sit in front of a computer screen all day and spin yarns, I’d die of boredom. Or writer’s block.”

“I don’t think Sara gets writer’s block,” Brynne answered, feeling light-headed, as though she were trembling on the edge of a precipice, about to tumble end over end into Eli Garrett’s laughing eyes. “She told me once that she’ll never live long enough to tell all the stories inside her.” A pause. “I used to feel that way about painting.”

Eli made no comment. He stood, turned the chair around, sat down and pulled Brynne onto his lap.

She landed astraddle of his thighs, and a tsunami of heat roared through her, then pooled, pulsing, in her lower belly and between her legs.

She trembled, closed her eyes against the onslaught of physical sensations—and emotions. It would have been impossible, she thought, to untangle all the things she felt.

Eli stroked her cheeks very gently with the edges of his thumbs. “Shhh,” he said, and though that made no sense, it soothed her a little.

Then she realized he was hard. Very hard.

So much for being soothed.

She opened her eyes, gazed directly into his. “Eli—”

“It’s okay, Brynne,” he said. “If you’re not ready, that’s okay. I’m not in any hurry, here.” He paused, and an impish twinkle sparked in his eyes. “Well, actually, I am in a hurry, but we’re going to follow your timetable, not mine.”

“You,” Brynne replied, “are not a normal man.”

“Gee, thanks,” Eli drawled.

“I didn’t mean it that way, and you know it. I meant, well, you’re different. I’ve never been with anybody like you.”