Free Leave Me Breathless by Helenkay Dimon Page A

it was another means of pushing her away.
    Resolve built back up inside her. “No. Absolutely not.”
    “You need a break.”
    “If I walk away, then guys like Jenner win.”
    Mark let out an exhale full of frustration. “Use your head. Someone is trying to do more than scare you here.”
    She waved her hand in dismissal. “I’ll be fine.”
    Mark leaned in with a voice rubbed harsh from need. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
    A short shocked silence filled the room.
    “Ever,” he added in a whisper.
    She wanted to go to him, to curl up on his lap and let him wash away all the confusion and fear with a rain of kisses. But he’d bolt. He was in superagent mode, all serious and bossy. He could handle being shot at and testifying before Congress. Female weakness, now that scared the hell out of him.
    What she needed and what he could give had never matched. Time hadn’t changed that obvious fact. So, she settled for letting him know she felt secure. “I have Keith. Nothing is going to happen with him here, or you stopping by, or Ben across the hall.”
    Mark glanced at his watch. “Where is Keith?”
    “Probably walking around the floor.” She smiled at the thought of her oversized, no-neck bodyguard pacing the hallway. “I’m sure he just lost track of time.”
    Mark was already up and out of his chair. “Keith doesn’t make mistakes.”

Chapter Eight
    T he call came around midnight. Callie fought through a fog of sexual satisfaction and rabid hunger to concentrate on the rumbling sound. Being pinned to the mattress with an arm wrapped around her waist and Ben’s firm thigh pressed against hers, she couldn’t move. Wasn’t even sure she wanted to.
    “What the hell is that?” Ben grumbled against her bare shoulder without opening his eyes.
    “Phone.” That was the only explanation she could muster in her wiped-out state.
    “We’re busy.”
    The noise stopped. She had just closed her eyes when it began again. She glanced over and watched her cell phone vibrate against the nightstand. The blue light flashed, but still she didn’t reach for it. Not after the past few hours with Ben. The man sucked the energy right out of her.
    But he still had some. Lips brushed against her skin as his fingers traveled to the bottom curve of her breast.
    Then the vibrating started for a third round.
    Ben’s forehead fell against her cheek. “Please tell me you don’t have a boyfriend.”
    “Little late for that talk, isn’t it?”
    His head shot up and his eyes glowed with an angry intensity. “I’m serious.”
    “I can see that.” With the lights on she could see everything. Him naked…furious. That last part caught her by surprise. “Care to tell me what’s behind the change in mood?”
    “Poaching another man’s woman is not an option. Not ever.”
    She remembered he had started his tenure as a judge by hearing family law cases. Callie figured those early years of contested custody cases and people fighting over forks had taken a toll. “I wouldn’t be with you in the middle of my bed if I’d been keeping someone else here.”
    “So, that’s a no?”
    Clearly the man’s big brain misfired when his dick saw some action, because he sure wasn’t catching on very quick. “It’s a no. You’re not the only one who draws that line.” She rubbed her thumb over his frowning eyebrows.
    “Okay.” He nodded. “Good.”
    She didn’t have a law degree or wear a big black nightgown to work every day, but she knew anxiety when she saw it. Knew when she felt it shoot through the guy laying all over her. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”
    The words barely left her lips when her home phone rang. Ben leaned up on an elbow and glared at the thing as if it were a foreign invader. “Who is this jackass?”
    Unease washed through her. Someone this insistent planned on delivering bad news. “Maybe something’s wrong.”
    He leaned across her and grabbed the receiver.
    Mark. With sudden