Never Let Go by Sherryl Woods Page B

thighs, she trembled beneath him.
    “Touch me, please,” she urged, her eyes bright and shining as they stared directly into his with frankness and expectancy. “Please.”
    After that quiet plea, there was no holding back. His touch glided over her, lingering at places that made her practically purr with pleasure. With each soft gasp, his own excitement increased until his nerves were stretched taut, the muscles in his thighs and buttocks bunched tight.
    She opened herself to him then and with a gentle thrust he was inside her, wrapped in her silken heat, swept away on a tide of passion so intense, so violent that he lay spent and shaken in its quiet aftermath. He wanted to weep at the joy of such a magnificent union, yet he trembled, instead, at its implications. Never before had he given himself so completely. Never before had any woman touched his soul.
    Never before had he been so afraid.
    Mallory curled herself contentedly into the welcoming shelter of his arms and ran her fingers across his damp chest. “There may be hope for you yet,” she said with a tiny sigh of satisfaction.
    “Really,” he said with a touch of wry humor. “In what way? I thought this was pretty spectacular just the way it was.”
    “Exactly,” she agreed, her gazelocked with his. “But you’re a little like Davey.”
    Justin’s breath caught in his throat as she continued, “Tonight was only the first step.”
    “Toward what?”
    “Trust.”
    Justin sighed and drew her to him. He was startled at the depth of her understanding of him and he prayed she was right.
    Maybe this time, he promised himself. Maybe this time, with this woman trust would come.

Chapter 6
    D r. Joshua Marshallwas angry. Mallory could tell because his bushy eyebrows were knit together in a frown and he refused to look her straight in the eye. His tone, however, was extraordinarily civil, especially considering that it was barely eight in the morning. Outside the San Francisco fog had been swept away on an early breeze and Mallory had had high hopes for a gloriously happy day. Those hopes had just been effectively dashed.
    “We have a problem, Dr. Blake,” Dr. Marshall said in the voice of a man who found the thought of all problems, except those of a psychological nature, distasteful.
    Mallory groaned mentally. After the wonderful night she had just spent in Justin’s arms, this was no way to begin a new day, a promising new life. “What can I do to help?” she asked.
    “There has been acomplaint.” He made the announcement as though the very possibility of anyone complaining about a member of his staff was extraordinary.
    Mallory waited for more. He cleared his throat, put the tips of his fingers together to form a pyramid and stared at the fading print on the wall behind her. He seemed to expect her to guess the rest, but she wasn’t about to play that game.
    He cleared his throat again. “Yes, well, there are those who seem to feel you are spending too much time with one of your patients.”
    “Those?” she repeated. “Could you be more specific?”
    “Actually, it was the mother of another patient who brought this to my attention.”
    “I see. And what is this mother’s objection exactly?”
    “She feels you are showing favoritism, that her own child is being neglected while you pursue an avid interest in one particular case.”
    “That one particular case being Davey Landers.”
    “Yes, I believe that was the name she mentioned.” His gaze had drifted up to study the ceiling tiles, which were yellowing with age and stained by a leak from the water pipes. She knew perfectly well it was not the first time he’d seen them, so there was no reason for his sudden preoccupation with them.
    Mallory bit her lip to keep from bellowing at him. She knew that was no way to reach a man who was deaf to anything but subservience. “Dr. Marshall, I’m terribly sorry if someone has complained to you about my conduct, but I assure you that the time I