by Sabrina York
I licked my lips. He stared. A muscle clenched in his cheek.
“Y-yes. Yes, please. I would like some water.” I was, suddenly, thirsty. And maybe it would stop the buzzing in my brain.
“Well, go! Go, for God’s sake. She needs some water!”
Ethan sprinted out of the room, bellowing, “Martha! Martha! Water! Stat!” as though the very fate of the world depended on it.
For some reason I found this amusing and huffed a laugh.
Jimmy’s gaze returned to me, warmed. “Are you feeling better?” he asked.
“I dunno.” I struggled to sit and he tried to help, but I’d been sitting up by myself for years. As it was, he just kind of got in the way. I put a hand to my forehead to stop the spinning. “I’ve never fainted before.”
His face, his beautiful face, crumpled. “I didn’t mean to shock you. Shit.” He leaped to his feet and began to pace the room. “I should have called or something. Maybe I should have come to your office. But damn it, Paige, when I found you again, I thought this was the best way. Really. I did.”
“Can you…” I held out a hand, mortified that it shook.
He was back at my side, on his knees beside me like a shot. “What, baby? What?”
“Can you stop pacing? It’s making me woozy.”
His expression froze in a moue of such overblown contrition, it made me smile. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” I took his hand in mine because it was fluttering around me and stroking my hair and my neck and my nose as if he wasn’t sure where to touch me first.
His hand was warm. Real. I turned it over and studied the black hairs spattered on the back. “This…isn’t a dream, is it?”
A grin exploded on his face, something hopeful and happy and maybe a little smug. “Did you think this was a dream?”
“I never expected to see you again. Certainly not today.”
“I never expected to see you again, baby.” He kissed my forehead. “I’m so glad I found you.”
Oh my God. It hit me like a ton of bricks. He’d found me. He’d actually looked.
I don’t know why, but I was suffused with the sudden sense that everything was going to be all right. Jimmy was here with me. Again. I stared at him, taking him in, soaking him in like a summer rain. I sighed.
His smile wavered. He tightened his hold on my hand. “Why did you leave?”
My heart thumped at his tone—aching, wounded, desolate. I affected a shrug. “My vacation was over.”
He blew out an impatient grunt. “Why did you leave without saying anything?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer. Wasn’t sure how to explain something I couldn’t even explain to myself. “What was there to say? I didn’t think you’d care.”
His jaw dropped. “You didn’t think I’d care?”
It burned me, the look in his eye. “I’m sorry, Jimmy.” I traced his palm with my thumb. “I should have said good-bye.”
“The hell you should have.”
I blinked.
“You shouldn’t have said good-bye. You should never say good-bye.” Was I hallucinating, or was there a hint of anguish in his tone? “God, I missed you when you left. And I worried and I…” He pulled away and raked his fingers through his hair. “Shit, Paige, I didn’t even know your name.”
“You know it now…” And then. “How do you know it now?”
“You mentioned you were a publicist in LA. You mentioned…She Who Shall Not Be Named. I put two and two together.”
Impressive.
And then, in the same breath, I remembered.
Anxiety crawled through my belly. The familiar mortification I’d known since my chat with Marlee rose and spat like a roiling wave.
“You’re not Jimmy.”
Ethan, returning with a paper cup sloshing with water, gusted a sigh. “Oh, thank God. She knows you’re not Jimmy. Martha,” he called through the door. “Cancel 911.”
We ignored him, Not-Jimmy and I. Our gazes locked.
He shook his head, an infinitesimal twitch.
“If you’re not Jimmy, then…who are you?”
“I’m Danny,” he said. “Danny James.”
I gaped at him. My stomach heaved. Those annoying lights began floating before my eyes again. Danny James. The celebrity chef. The one with the book. The one who wanted to hire our firm and maybe use us for other projects as well. The “grown-up” client Suzie had insisted I take. The man I was here to see. In a rush, I remembered his apron, the well-worn one with the familiar logo. Heat rose on my cheeks. “The Stud Chef?”
“In the flesh.”
Memories of our week together washed through me and I winced. Gawd. I’d assumed he was a pool boy. I’d assumed he was a dick for hire. I’d taken what I wanted and then just walked away without even saying good-bye. I’d treated him like a thing. I buried my head in my hands. “Oh. God. The scallops… The risotto… The truffles!” This last bit I wailed.
He captured my chin and edged it up, forcing me to look at him. The quirk of his lips indicated he wasn’t pissed at me, that he wasn’t seeking some form of evil revenge.
“I am so sorry,” I said.
“I’m sorry too.”
My heart stuttered. “You-you are?”
He chuckled. To my absolute bafflement, he chuckled. “I should have told you I wasn’t Jimmy right away.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Chagrin flickered over his features. He shrugged. “I didn’t want you to leave. I was happy to be Jimmy…for a while. If it meant I could spend more time with you. I was going to fess up, probably, at some point. But you left. God. I nearly died when I woke up that morning and you were gone…”
“I nearly died,” I said.
His eyes flared in shock. “Really?”
“Yeah.” A snort. “That cab driver?”
He laughed, a full-bodied roar. “Tell me about it!”
Our gazes tangled then, and his laughter faltered, replaced with something else, something simmering and tense. My pulse thrummed in my ears. I cupped his cheek again and traced the line of his lips, savoring his warmth, his presence. “I can’t believe you found me.”
He shrugged. “Los Angeles isn’t so very big.”
His lips touched mine, a tender, reverent buss.
It didn’t go where I wanted it to go but we were, after all, in Ethan’s office. And the sofa was lumpy.
“So, where do we go from here?” I asked.
His answer was immediate and crisp. “My place.”
I chuckled. “I meant as in this thing between us.”
He nodded. “Yeah. My place.” He glanced at the doorway where no more than three of Ethan’s minions crowded in to watch. “It’s a lot more private.”
Needless to say, I was happy to let him take me there.
It was fantastic, opening the door to my home and ushering Paige inside. I’d always loved my house in the hills overlooking the lights of LA, but bringing her there was unlike any homecoming I’d ever known.
I didn’t wait, couldn’t wait. As soon as we passed through the portal I took her in my arms and pressed her against the wall and kissed her.
God, she tasted good. A little like coffee with a hint of vanilla and a lot like her.
She responded immediately. I loved that about her. She wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled me closer and dove into the kiss the way she dove into a pool—wholeheartedly. Fearlessly. Passionately.
I tightened my hold, angled my head so I could delve deeper. The kiss was riotous and wild. We ate at each other like starved souls presented with a sudden banquet. Her hands flitted restlessly from my shoulders, down my arms and up again. She threaded her fingers through my hair and dug her nails into my scalp, anchoring me there.
She did not need to.
I was anchored.
I was there.
I rubbed my erection against her belly, letting her know, without words, what I wanted. She sighed into my mouth. It tasted
like yes.
But I knew I needed to take my time, go easy. Bring her slowly to passion.
Not a lot of words had passed between us, certainly not enough to account for this savage need to be with her in any way I could. I didn’t know what she was thinking about us. I wasn’t sure.
So I eased back and ended the kiss, peppering licks and nuzzles against her cheek, her chin, her neck, instead. Her skin was soft and warm, slightly damp. The scent of arousal clung to us.
Need raged through me.
It had been too long since I’d had her. Far too long. But—
“We need to talk.” How I got the words out through the gravel in my throat, I don’t know. I nipped her earlobe. It was far too tempting to resist.
“Mmm.”
“About us. About this.”
“Mmm hmm.” She began a foraging of her own, skating her hot mouth over the line of my chin. She nipped at my lobe in retaliation. Heat skewered me. My cock, already rampant and wild, surged.
Unable to resist, I fumbled with the buttons of her jacket and skimmed a hand inside, up the silken curve of her ribs to capture a breast. She sucked in a hiss as I scored a nipple with my thumb. She wiggled against me.
“Paige…” I intended to warn her, to quiet her, to lead her back into the conversation we needed to have, but she lifted a leg, wrapped it around my hip and pressed herself against me more fully.
My brain seized. A dark haze descended.
God, I wanted her. I wanted her now.
Unable to resist, I molded her thigh and eased my palm down and down, over her beautiful knee, her exquisite calf, her slender ankle and—
My pulse hiccupped. Then shot into overdrive as my fingers found the slick surface of her heels. I traced the line of her foot, her beautiful, beautiful foot. My breath came out in pants.
A memory surfaced of another time between us. The exultant tryst when I’d indulged my desires, kissing and exploring her magnificent bare foot. I’d taken her then, like an animal, on the couch. There was something I needed to remember about that time. It hovered just out of reach. And then it skittered away completely in a rampaging surge of blinding lust.
Because she cupped me.
She reached between us and molded her hand around my cock.
And squeezed.
Fuck it. I could remember later.
I hitched her leg higher and held her with one hand while I slipped beneath her skirt and nudged at the crux of her thighs with the other.
She was hot, wet, ready.
I wanted to rip off her panties—they seemed flimsy enough to do so—but didn’t even have patience for that. I slipped beneath the band and touched her nub. It was hard and swollen and slick. She whimpered, so I stroked her again.
“Do you like that, baby?” I whispered into her ear. “Is that what you want?”
“Yes, God, yes.”
Without hesitation I found her entrance and plunged in. Deep. The sensation nearly unmanned me. Hell. Like velvet, hot, wet velvet, she clutched at me. I growled, unable to maintain any brand of civility. Or gentility. Or gentlemanly seduction.
Not here.
Not now.
Now there was only need.
Her fingers fluttered over the snap to my jeans; a question flickered in her eyes.
“Fuck, yes.” A snarl.
As she scrambled to unsnap and unzip me, I yanked her panties down. Our limbs tangled, working at cross-purposes, but we were both far too determined to fail. And as soon as I was free—didn’t even bother to kick off my shoes or remove my jeans or anything, just tugged them down along with my briefs, and my cock sprang free—I yanked up her leg once more and entered her.
She came around me. God. She came around me. One thrust and she came. The glory of that thought, of how much she wanted me, needed me, the bliss of knowing her passion, her yearning matched mine, was mind-blowing. I nearly erupted right then and there. But I held back. At great cost, I held back and dedicated myself to making her come again and, perhaps, again.
It was wild. It was savage. It was a frantic possession borne of too many days, too many nights, apart. I wanted her. Needed her. Loved her.
Loved the way she clenched me. Loved the way she climbed up me to get more, lifting her other leg and locking it around me. I accommodated her, grasping her ass in both hands and hanging on for dear life as I pummeled into her.
Nothing slow or sweet, nothing gentle in the slightest. Just pure passion. Absolute pleasure.
She clenched around me in a grip that caused me to lose my footing. I slammed her harder against the wall and shifted and found new leverage, sluicing in and out of her from this angle and that until I found it again, that special spot she had for me deep inside.
“Oh God!” she wailed, grasping at my hair. Yanking at it actually. It hurt like hell, but I didn’t care.
I took advantage of her position and zeroed in on that long, lush column of her neck, ravaging the silky skin, nipping and laving and scraping her with my teeth.
She shuddered again, and again. Her body closed in on itself, on me, making my withdrawals more and more deadly. I shivered with each retreat, quaked with each new advance.
Tighter and tighter, harder and harder, closer and closer. Together, we climbed.
The room was wreathed with our gasps, cries, pleas. The sounds of our bodies slamming together circled us, enrobing us in a shared bubble of existence. The universe narrowed down to that point where we joined.
“Please, please,” she gasped. And then she said it. She said my name, on an impassioned cry as she came apart in my arms.
The sound of it, my name, slipping past her lips, for the first time, released me.
I came like I’d never come before. Erupting, exploding, filling her. Giving her everything. Body and soul.
Blind and breathless, buried in bliss. Enslaved by the clasp of her heat.
I came.
I clung to him as he pressed me there into the wall of his foyer, holding me up, on him, impaling me with his hot shaft. I hadn’t intended for something like this to happen so quickly, right out of the gate.
Well, maybe I had.
I’d hoped, dreamed, prayed I’d made some kind of an impact on this man. That I’d been as unforgettable to him as he’d been to me.
Seeing him again, so unexpectedly, had shattered my calm, but on the quick drive to his place, I knew. I just knew.
I had to do whatever I could to lock him in my life.
If nothing else, I needed to touch him, taste him, have him again.
And this… This undeniable evidence that he’d felt the same, that he wanted the same…
It humbled me.
It made me want to cry.
But I swore I wouldn’t cry.
He tipped up my chin and kissed me and then frowned. “Are you crying?”
“No.”
He thumbed my cheeks and came back damp. “Paige…?”
I wiggled and he let me loose, guiding me to the floor. I wobbled and realized I was still wearing my heels. But then, he was still wearing his jeans. And his shoes. “I’m fine,” I sniffled, raking back my hair, which had somehow come undone.
But then, if I was being honest, all of me had come undone. And I liked it. I liked the wildness he released in me. The savage beast.
“Why are you crying?” He yanked up his briefs and his jeans as though they were armor. I sensed a hesitancy, a worry in him. I didn’t like it.
I cupped his cheek and made him look at me, though he seemed reluctant to do so. “It was beautiful,” I said with a shrug. “Absolutely perfect. And I missed you.”
“You missed me?” He perked up like a little boy offered a cookie.
“I did.”
“Ah, Paige.” He yanked me into his arms. “I missed you too. I almost went crazy thinking I might never see you again.” His brow darkened. “Do you know I even burned my risotto?”
“No.”
“I was thinking about you…
” He paused and studied me through one narrowed eye. “So obviously it’s your fault.”
“Obviously.”
“I should have known you’d have this effect on my cooking that first night.” This he mumbled, almost to himself.
“That first night?”
“You made me forget the paprika.”
I gaped at him, then burbled, through a laugh, “What does paprika have to do with anything?”
“I never forget the paprika in my risotto. It’s like my secret ingredient.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Paprika is hardly a secret. Everyone knows about it. Lots of people probably use it in risotto.”
“Not the way I do.” Those words, that tone, sent a shiver through me. No doubt, he was right. No one did anything quite the way Danny James did it.
No one certainly made love like him. I wasn’t sure what it was about him, his fantastic looks—which were…fantastic—or his laugh, or his smile or his sense of humor. Or the way the scent of him drove me wild. Or his clever quips, which always seemed to meet, if not top mine. Or his talent in the kitchen or simply…him.
I loved him. I loved him and wanted him and needed him in my life forever.
I was so glad I’d found him again.
Or he’d found me.
Whatever.
“Speaking of risotto… Are you hungry?” he asked.
Yeah. A perfect man.
I ignored his question—though I was hungry—and wrapped my arms around him and kissed his face. “I owe Marlee big time.”
“Do you?” He kissed me back.
“If it weren’t for her, we’d never have met.”
He shuddered. “Don’t even think about it. How about rolled lamb loin with mint?”
My stomach growled. “That will take too long. Do you have any peanut butter?”
I did not make her peanut butter.
For God’s sake.
One of the world’s most renowned chefs at her fingertips and she asks for peanut butter?
We settled on beef Wellington, and only because I had leftovers in the fridge. I cringed to warm it in the microwave, but once I mentioned food, Paige realized how famished she was and refused to wait for any “fancy-schmancy food.” And, did I mention, I was not giving her peanut butter?
