by Orla Bailey
He covers my soft nipple with his mouth and suckles with such infinite tenderness and exquisite thoroughness that it’s raised to a peak of throbbing need in moments. I’m panting by the time he moves his head to the other side. His face lifts, harsh with lust as he kisses my parted lips and drops me back onto the bed again. I’m languid with lust and he knows it.
“No touching what’s mine. I want you hot and swollen all afternoon, waiting for me.” The growl of his voice is almost sufficient to get me there.
He flashes a dazzling smile that completely melts my insides just before he slips through the doorway, tweaking the top of his pale blue silk tie into a chic crimp. I mentally kick myself. You’d think I’d have had enough of Jack to satisfy me physically, at least for a few more hours, but it seems that he’s my addiction too.
I blow-dry my hair, trying to ignore the compulsions of my flesh. Because I feel like it, I apply an exotic sweep of black eyeliner above my lash line before tossing my lip-gloss with finality into the bin. Every movement inadvertently teases my cravings as I dress in an elegant soft jersey dress. Anything more structured would be entirely too torturous in my state.
Jack is in the kitchen discussing domestic matters with Lenuta so routinely no-one would imagine he’d thoroughly fucked me just a short while before. I imagine my belongings will be moved back into his bedroom again by the time I get home. They’re better travelled than I am.
Lenuta looks up as I enter. We give each other a brief knowing glance. Too knowing. Jack raises an eyebrow at me and I have to avoid his eyes for fear of snorting. I’m like the cat that got the cream as it is. He sits at the counter sipping hot coffee while I take the stool next to his and Lenuta slides another cup across.
“Strong today,” she says ambiguously busying herself over the sink.
I pinch my leg hard and compress my lips before I laugh out loud at the innuendo. I love that woman. Jack leans over and claims my mouth while her back is turned.
“Behave,” he mouths against my lips.
I try to look innocent and utterly unaware of what he’s implying but must fail miserably. I resort to my new weapon of choice and mouth back, “I love you.”
He runs the backs of his fingers across my cheek affectionately. He hasn’t offered me the engagement ring to wear again. He retrieved it from the floor of the hotel suite on that awful night before he left and I haven’t seen it since. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad one. I’m scared it means he’s not even going to pretend we’re engaged anymore.
“I have bed to change.” Lenuta leaves us alone. “Is good it is only one.” She’s gone.
Jack’s coffee cup suspends momentarily between the saucer and his open lips. I stare aghast. Did Lenuta say what I think she said? She’s happy we’re sharing a bed again. When Jack looks over I blush and I think it’s only my acute embarrassment that tempers his reaction.
“Is good it is only one.” He whispers Lenuta’s words to tease me. The heat in his voice and the ice-fire in his eyes make my aroused condition ten times worse. As if he didn’t know it.
He brushes his knuckles across one of my jutting nipples as casually as if it was by chance and I hiss in an intake of air when the sensation courses straight downwards. I don’t believe anything Jack does is accidental.
His words confirm my suspicions, reminding me. “I want you hot and swollen all day.”
Brazenly, I place the palm of my hand over his obvious erection and squeeze. “I will if you will.”
His fingers trail a languid path up the inside of my thigh but I clamp them together to stop him getting to the top. There is only so much teasing a girl can take.
“Open,” he orders.
“Unfair bossy tactic.”
He narrows his eyes slightly. “You only have to remember one thing.”
I understand completely. “You like to make all the decisions.” I part my knees.
“Good girl. I think.” He rewards my sassy, short-lived mutiny with a wicked smile then takes complete advantage of me. I’m positively moaning before he withdraws his fingers to his lips. “Hold onto that feeling.”
“You’re plain wicked.”
“Yet I have a gift for you.”
“Oh?” Am I getting back the diamond after all, for the sake of appearances? I don’t think I can accept it any more under those circumstances.
He reaches inside his jacket pocket and hands me a cell phone. It isn’t mine.
“Where’s my old one?”
“I have it.”
“Can I have it back?”
“No.”
“Why not?” I can’t believe him. It only confirms his lack of trust.
He doesn’t reply. “I’ve transferred all your contacts. You have everything you need right there. It’s better than the old one.”
I look down and start pressing buttons checking out the stuff. It is better. All my numbers seem to be here. I don’t know why I can’t have my property back though. I look at him.
He seems almost annoyed I’d question it. “I’m keeping it. You’re taking that one with a new number. I’ve sent it out to everyone on your contact list.”
You’d think I’d know better than to argue when he uses that tone but I’m not happy. “Okay.” I appear to concede. It’s obvious he still has a few nagging doubts about the bastard who drugged me in the hotel room that night being my lover. Is he waiting for the guy to call so he can trace his number? He’s undoubtedly checked my call history already.
I prod the sleeping tiger. “Have I missed any important messages?”
He stiffens. “Expecting anything in particular?”
“Nothing. In particular.” I say it exactly like I might be. We both glare at one another. “God, you still don’t believe me. I can’t believe you!” I get up, throw the remnants of my coffee down the sink, rinse the cup and load it into the dishwasher.
He follows me across the room. “I’m just making certain neither of us has anything to worry about. Is that okay with you?” The implication is, it had bloody well better be.
And I’m not going to change his mind, either about the phone or the feelings of doubt he still has. I’m disappointed, to put it mildly. I thought we were getting somewhere.
“What you mean is you won’t have to fret that my secret lover is making contact without your knowledge. Well, I’ve got news for you. I have landlines in my office. He can contact me there instead.” I’m playing with fire but just can’t seem to help myself. I seem either to be completely docile or raging like a mad bull, around Jack. There seems to be no middle ground.
I brace myself for an angry retort but he calmly collects his own cell phone and heads towards the door.
“Are you coming?”
I’m incredulous. He can’t even pretend to be jealous any more now he’s had me. I stare after him, he’s so infuriating, and remind myself never to play poker – of any kind – with Jack Keogh.
He turns in the doorway. “Coming or not?”
I grab my handbag. “You realise you said that as if you were giving me a choice in the matter.” I elbow my way past him. “You’re allowing your tyrant’s standards to slip.”
There’s absolutely no point arguing when he’s in this mood. The distinction between my Jack and the Boss becomes more obvious daily. Is it possible to love one yet resent the other?
I keep sniping. I can’t help myself. The calmer and more in control he is, the more I push to get a reaction. “You want to make certain no-one without your approval gets within a phone call of me, but I’m expected to accept anything and anyone.”
“What are you talking about, Tabitha?”
“You know fine well what I’m talking about… who I’m talking about. I’m talking about Amanda Devereaux. Your former fiancée.” I spit my alliterative insult.
“Please let’s not go over that again.” The elevator door opens below on Blackstock waiting by the Bentley.
I shut up only for the amount of
time it takes us to get seated then lower my voice. “She wants you back. Enough to hurt me to get you. Isn’t that a good enough reason to send her packing?”
“You have no proof of that. You might be mistaken.”
“So might you.” I fold my arms defensively and stare forward. “Carve it on my tombstone: She wasn’t mistaken.”
He places a hand on my cheek, turning my head to face him. I can see he’s enjoying this. “I like that you’re jealous.” The curve of his lips calls to my senses but I’m not caving in.
“I’m not jealous.” I’m as eaten up with the emotion as a moth-ravaged fur that’s been carelessly stored. “You can be such an arse.”
He clicks his tongue in reprimand. “Bad language. I thought you were a lady. My lady.”
“You treat me more like your whore.” I want to shock. I want to hurt. Yet I keep my voice lowered. It’s for Jack’s ears only.
“Because I refuse to indulge your whim to get rid of Amanda?”
“It’s not a whim. She’s dangerous.”
“All the more reason to keep her close.” He pauses and softens. His thumb eases along my bottom lip making me wish I hadn’t thrown away my lip gloss. “I won’t let anything happen to you.” He takes my hand in his. “I swear it.”
I snatch it back. “You might not be able to stop her.”
In all honesty I’m not considering something happening to me. I have no intention of falling into another of Amanda’s snares. It’s all about the two of them being together so much. I’m scared she’ll take him from me. She’s had a damn good try already and she’s not the sort of woman to give up easily. Whatever part of Jack I hold is precious and as fragile as crystal. Amanda is the sledge-hammer that might just smash us to shards.
“I’ve made my decision.” His autocratic tone anticipates I’ll shut up and put up. He’s far too comfortable being a boss.
Well tough. If I’m an over-achiever, as he once put it, it’s because I never let anything important go. I’m like a border terrier with a rat. “Don’t I have a say in the matter?”
“You’ve had plenty to say. And forgive me if I’m wrong but haven’t you already agreed to let me decide?”
The stupid new deal. Amending it was the way I’d got him to come back and I’m reneging on it already. “Alright. But I don’t know why everything has to be your way.”
His mask slips a little. “Is it? Haven’t you got anything you want out of this too?”
“Of course I have. I love you and I want you in my life.” So much it hurts. I’m not going to pretend otherwise any longer.
“But?”
“I’m frightened.”
He shifts in his seat to face me and takes my hands in his. “Of what?”
That he’ll leave me again. That he’ll go back to her. Can I be that honest? “That you’ll want her more than you want me.”
He gives an exasperated sigh. “You’re living in my home. You’re sleeping in my bed. I merely utilise Amanda’s skills at work. She’s very good at what she does.”
That’s what worries me. It’s strange having an increasingly personal disagreement at a low enough volume to pretend Blackstock can’t hear us. I’m relieved when he turns up the music in front.
“I don’t want her in any part of your life. I don’t want her in mine. And the fact that you only want me for –” I lower my voice to a whisper “– sex, doesn’t go anywhere near enough to compensate for the fact she is.”
Instantly he’s brittle, his eyes sparking angrily like harsh sunlight glancing off still blue waters.
“Blackstock.” Jack attracts his driver’s attention. “Park up. Take five minutes.”
Uh oh.
“Yes, sir.” Blackstock turns up a side street, searches for a quiet spot to glide into and turns off the engine. He steps out of the car and walks up the road without a backward glance.
I’m so embarrassed. I recall what happened the first time Blackstock was ordered to do that. If Jack thinks a quick fumble will settle matters, he’s mistaken.
Jack rears over me. His hand grips mine even harder. “Is that all I want from you? Sex? Really? Just like every other woman I ever took to bed? I can’t believe you’d say that to me. After everything.”
“You can’t believe? You still don’t believe I’m not guilty as charged.”
“Now listen here. You’re asking me to believe quite a lot, without a shred of proof to back it up. You want me to trust you and I’m trying. I’m really trying because I want to believe you. I need to believe you. But you have to accept things have changed.”
Have they? I really don’t like the sound of that. “Nothing important has. Jack?”
His eyes bore into mine. “I’ve changed. I always stayed in total control of my life and everything in it. My only goal back then was creating a company bigger and better than any other. Then you came along and changed everything. But Harry made me see sense. He made me leave you and it was hard but I did it. Because it was for you.”
His words fill me with emotion. Is he saying I always meant something more to him? I move towards Jack but he holds his hand up to halt me. He gives a sharp mirthless laugh.
“Funny to think I might have you to thank for the stellar rise my company made in the months and years after that. If I didn’t focus on Zee-Com to the exclusion of all else, I’d have gone crazy thinking about you out there somewhere, without me.”
“I never knew.” My words are a mere whisper.
“Of course you never knew. That was the whole point. You were doing what you were meant to be doing at eighteen and nineteen and twenty. Having a carefree life. Making mistakes. Discovering the world.”
God, they were wasted years. “You forgot me.”
“Like you forgot me?”
He hasn’t forgiven me for moving on either and I’m stunned by the sudden understanding that I wasn’t the only one who was hurt by our shared past.
“I never forgot you, Jack. Not for a single second. I was lost without you.”
For a second Jack unstiffens. He looks ready to respond to my silent tears but the mask drops over his face again.
“So why didn’t you come to me? Why was it that I had to force you back into my life?” He notices my confusion. “What? You think it was by accident you got to hear about Zee-Com signing with Advance at the very last moment?”
“It was you who tipped us off?”
“Of course it was. And you did exactly what I expected you to do. Overcome your fears and your doubts, no matter how scared you felt inside and come rushing back to claim what was yours.”
“The contract?”
“Me! It was never about the damn contract. It was all about you and me. I needed to find out if you had any feelings left for me at all.”
I’m stunned. “I never knew.”
“That’s what hurts the most. How could you not know? How could you think I’d ever forgotten you?”
I stare at him.
“No trust. No faith. None. It’s me who keeps faith. With you. I was the one who took all the risks, trusting you’d come back to me, kitten. One day.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?” Much sooner. “While I was at university. I was grown up by then.” I’m angry he left me lonely for so long. Put me through so much misery thinking he’d moved on.
“You were doing well. Getting top grades. Experiencing life. Making friends. Becoming a woman.” The fleeting look of pain that crosses his face is torture to me. I don’t try to touch him again. He’s talking and I need to know everything. “Harry knew the kind of life he gave you was a shadow of the family life it should have been. He was a business man. He didn’t understand how to raise a kid, especially a daughter.”
Harry and Jack must have discussed me. Harry would have boasted about my progress like any proud dad. “Harry was a great parent. I couldn’t have asked for better.”
He nods, pensively. “You drank far too much at college, you know that?”
<
br /> I’m viscerally shocked. How could he possibly know about those drunken benders, on campus with my friends? We all did it. I don’t remember sharing my catastrophes with Harry though.
“How –?”
“Did I know? I wasn’t as good at moving on as you seem to think I was.”
“You checked up on me?”
He looks a little apprehensive. It’s fleeting. “I had discrete security assigned to you. With Harry’s knowledge and approval,” he hastens to add. “He wanted to protect you too, as much as let you learn about the ways of the world.”
Harry was always protective. Compensation for not feeling able to connect as closely as a biological parent might, perhaps? But Jack? I never imagined he would go that far.
I’m not sure how I feel about it. “The two of you are unbelievable.”
Jack doesn’t make a joke of it this time. “Not the guy you thought I was? Kitten, you have no idea.”
“Then tell me.” It isn’t a request. If I’ve had my life tracked, spied upon, I have a right to know to what extent.
He hesitates. “Sometimes an impersonal security report wasn’t enough for me.”
I frown then realisation dawns. “You followed me?”
“I never interfered,” he says quickly. Too quickly. “Well hardly ever.”
“What did you do? I want to know.” He’s right. Everything has changed.
“Sometimes your choice of company was a bit dubious.”
I laugh bitterly. “You warned them off?” Those bad boys I let near me when the good guy I loved abandoned me and I was feeling at my most vulnerable? They never stuck around for long. “I thought I had a guardian angel.”
“You did.” His lips curve wryly.
I remember one guy who crossed the line and came right back to apologise with a black eye and my taxi fare home. It didn’t make sense. Until now.
“You engineered everything.” None of it was fate. Everything I ever believed about Jack and me was a lie.
“I planned our reunion, yes. I was never going to let you go for ever. I’d done my share of waiting for you. Needing you.”
