More Than Friends Read Free Page A

impatience that hadn't been there before, and it wasn't only on Teke's part. J.D. felt it. She could tell by the way he talked to her, the way he looked at her. Whatever excitement had been in their relationship was gone. They had fallen into a rut. Grady's letter couldn't have come at a worse time.
    She had been shocked when it had first arrived, had held it in her hand and stared at it while a shaking had taken root inside. Since then she had read it enough times to know the words by heart.
    He had been thinking of her, he said. He had been
    wondering how she was. He thought he might drive down and say hello. For old times' sake.
    The casualness of it had cut her to the quick. Nothing between Grady and her had ever been casual. Twenty-two years might have passed, but she didn't think she could look him in the eye and feel anything remotely casual. As it always had then, so now the thought of him sparked things intimate and intense.
    It also sparked anger. He had discarded her once, had said he didn't want her, and, though it had nearly killed her, she had succeeded in pushing him from mind. She had her own life now. He had no right barging in. His reappearance could come to no good, no good at all. She was infinitely grateful Sam had come. She needed him to take her mind off Grady.
    "In the living room!" she called.
    He was there in an instant, looking ready to burst with excitement. "We won the Dunn case!"
    She tried to place it. "The Dunn case?"
    "It's a precedent-setting ruling in cases of sexual abuse," he explained, no less excited for her lack of recall. "Up until now the statute of limitations was just three years, but women who've been abused often don't know they were abused until long after that. It took Marilyn Dunn seventeen years to realize why she had been living in hell. Seventeen years later she was able to sue her abuser and win. Do you know what this means to the scores of violated women in this state?"
    Teke did remember his having mentioned the case before. She felt a glimmer of his excitement. "You won it?"
    He grinned. "Twenty million dollars' worth."
    She came off the sofa to give him a hug. "That's great, Sam." Ebullient, he swung her around. "It's precedent1 setting. A victory, finally, for people who need it."
    "That's so good" she said, basking in the closeness. Sam was her best male friend. He was solid and sound, not J.D." not Grady, but a force in and of himself.
    "Ahhhh, it feels good, Teke. We've worked so hard for this." She made a satisfied sound and slid her arms under his suit jacket and around his waist. Sam was a toucher, just as she was. He wouldn't mind this. And she needed it. The fullness of him filled the emptiness that had been swallowing her up.
    "I've always wanted a case like this," he said against the tumble of her hair. His voice was thick with satisfaction. "They come along once in a lifetime."
    She closed her eyes in the echo of that thick voice. It was a strong sound, a masculine sound. "You sweated it," she hummed. "You earned the win."
    "My clients earned the win."
    "You earned it for them." She sucked in a breath. His body suddenly felt too good against hers, but she couldn't step back. He reminded her in odd ways of Grady. In the wake of the hollowness she had felt, his holding her was a relief and a pleasure. She didn't see that it would do any harm. "Have you told Annie?"
    "She wasn't home," he said with a moan, and, when he might have let her go, held her tighter. "I thought she might be here."
    "No," Teke managed to whisper, but a slow burn was taking root in her belly. It was Grady, damn him, Grady merging past and present.
    "Jesus, Teke."
    She whispered his name, at least she thought it was his name, though it was little more than a sigh. Her body was fitting itself to his in an attempt to
    quench the burn, and he was growing to accommodate it.
    "Jesus," he breathed.
    She knew just what he meant. She could feel the pumping of his blood--or hers--and the resistance