As if someone had injected him with one of those poisons that paralyzed a person, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t lift his hand, couldn’t blink his eyes. His heart stopped beating. Just moments ago, it had been beating so hard, he wouldn’t have been surprised to see it burst through his ribs. The sex—damn, it wasn’t sex. It was love. What he and Ellie had just experienced transcended sex. It transcended their bodies. It was the most intimate, the most personal, the most emotional connection he’d ever felt with a woman. Sex was what he’d experienced with Moira. They’d enjoyed each other, satisfied each other, but his soul had been light-years removed from the act. The evening at her hotel room in Boston, he’d been half-crazed with hunger and self-loathing. The few days they’d spent together in California, he’d been a little less crazed and a lot more riddled with guilt. When he’d volunteered to travel to California to finish up the Benzer deal, he’d known the real reason he wanted to fly to the West Coast.
