Mission: Make-Over

by Penny Jordan

  ‘Jake.’ Lucianna whispered his name in shock, fully intending to ask him what on earth he was doing in her home and quite obviously making himself at home, his body slick and wet from his shower and the towel, which he had wrapped around his hips, leaving little to conceal the fact that…that he was Jake…and she…she was…

  But, before she could open her mouth, to her chagrin, and for no reason that she could really think of—unless you counted the fact that she was desperately, despairingly in love with him and just the sight of him made her ache so badly inside with the need to fling herself headlong into his arms and to be held tenderly and lovingly there, whilst he—Lucianna discovered that she had started to cry.

  Not delicate, neat, tidy little dewdrops of tears that could easily be sniffed away, either, but huge great tearing sobs that blocked her throat and made her whole body shake with the anguish of what she was feeling.

  ‘What is it? What’s wrong? What has he done…? Where the hell is he?’ She heard Jake growling with increasing ferocity as he totally unexpectedly fulfilled at least one part of her fantasy by grabbing hold of her and, if not cradling her tenderly and lovingly, then at least offering her the comfort of his arms and the solid proximity of his body. He demanded, repeated, ‘What the hell has he done to you, Lucianna, and where is he?’

  ‘Having dinner at a restaurant,’ Lucianna told him in between hiccuping sobs. ‘I left him there. He couldn’t have driven; he’d had too much to drink.

  ‘He’d told people that we were engaged, that we were going to be married,’ Lucianna explained, still sobbing as Jake’s arms tightened almost painfully around her. ‘But it wasn’t true; he didn’t want to marry me at all—it was just because he’d had an affair with someone else…He just wanted to use me to protect his job. He didn’t love me at all really.’

  Now she was crying in earnest, although she had no real idea why, unless it was because Jake was holding her more like a brother than the lover she wanted him to be.

  She shivered suddenly.

  Against her cheek she could feel the hard warmth of his shoulder, smell the clean, damp, freshly showered male smell of him, and her body was reacting to it as though she had inhaled the headiest and most intoxicating of drugs. Forget the alcohol, her brain decided dizzily—being close to Jake like this was having a far more dangerous effect on her senses. She wanted to stay close to him like this for ever—no, longer than for ever—for eternity and beyond eternity—but already Jake was starting to move her away, holding her off with one hand whilst he reached out with the other to push open the sitting-room door.

  ‘What you need is a hot drink and the chance to calm down…’ Lucianna heard him saying pragmatically.

  Suddenly she had had enough. What she needed was most definitely not a hot drink; what she needed, what she wanted…

  Later she would swear to herself that if she hadn’t been genuinely overwhelmed by a sudden fit of shivers she would never, for one minute, have behaved in the way that she did. For the fit of shivers was genuine and unplanned, and it seized her body with such force that Jake immediately frowned, releasing the open door to take hold of her with both hands as he told her grimly, ‘You’re in shock. You need—’

  ‘I need you, Jake,’ Lucianna heard herself saying to him shakily. ‘I need you so much right now that I…’

  She wasn’t the one who had suggested buying the book that told her how to flirt with a man, she was to tell herself self-righteously later. All she had done was do as she was told, buy it and read it. And if she had read that to reach out and touch a man’s bare forearm with one’s fingertips and, moreover, to draw those same fingertips oh, so gently down the bare skin in a soft stroking motion was a definite and provocative come-on that very few men would be able to resist, then whose fault was that? Not hers.

  Whoever had written that book obviously knew what they were talking about, she acknowledged in heady triumph half a dozen seconds later when she had felt the whole of Jake’s arm jerk in response to her touch and had heard the soft, stifled groan he had made in his throat.

  ‘Lucianna, I know that John’s hurt you and that right now you’re—’

  ‘I’m cold, Jake,’ Lucianna told him, overriding him. ‘I’m so cold, please hold me,’ she begged him piteously.

  ‘What you need is a hot bath and then bed; things will seem much better in the morning, you’ll see,’ Lucianna heard Jake telling her gruffly.

  ‘Mmm…’ Lucianna agreed, snuggling deeper in his arms. ‘But you’ll have to help me, Jake; I’m just so cold…’

  From her position, cuddled up against his body, Lucianna could feel the groan that shuddered through his chest.

  ‘I know you don’t know what you’re doing, Luce…or what you’re inviting…but…’

  Very slowly Lucianna lifted her head from his chest and looked up at him, deliberately moistening her lips with the tip of her tongue.

  ‘What am I inviting, Jake? Tell me…show me…’ she whispered provocatively.

  Surely it couldn’t be the three glasses of wine she had had to drink that was responsible for her extraordinarily out-of-character behaviour? Lucianna questioned herself dizzily as she let her glance drop very slowly and very, very deliberately—another hint she had picked up from that book—from Jake’s eyes to his mouth.

  It worked. She could actually see the muscles in his face tense, feel the sensual hardening of his body as he tried to pull away from her, and then, with a speed and ferocity that took her off guard, he dragged her back down against his body, cupping her face with one hand whilst he pressed the other to the base of her spine, urging her against his own body as he told her between the fierce, hungry kisses he was pressing against her eager mouth, ‘Feel what you’re doing to me, Luce…Feel how much I want you.’

  Instinctively Lucianna moved closer to him, wrapping her arms tightly around him as she returned his kisses with unashamed intensity, opening her mouth to him and to the sensual probe of his tongue, moaning soft, sweet sounds of pleasure into his mouth as his kiss deepened and his hands roamed her body, stroking, moulding, shaping, caressing.

  She cried out in swift, sharp pleasure as his hand cupped her breast, his thumb rubbing demandingly against her already stiff nipple.

  ‘Jake!’

  As she breathed his name into his mouth, Lucianna reached impatiently towards the towel he was wearing, but Jake got there first, holding her upper arms as he kissed her with increasing passion and urgency, her own heartbeat starting to race as her body picked up on his arousal and excitement—and shared it as he demanded thickly, ‘What is it you want, Lucianna? Who is it you want? Is it me…?’

  ‘Oh, yes, it’s you…you I want, Jake,’ Lucianna averred frantically, kissing his throat and then his shoulder as she felt herself starting to spin crazily out of control, her emotions, her arousal bringing her flesh out in a betraying rash of goosebumps. She pleaded, ‘Take me to bed, Jake…please, please; I want you so much.’

  ‘Nowhere near as much as I want you,’ she heard Jake telling her forcefully as he swung her up into his arms, but, to her astonishment, instead of carrying her upstairs, Jake was heading for the front door.

  ‘Jake,’ she protested, suddenly apprehensive and afraid that after allowing her to believe he wanted her he was simply going to walk away from her, to abandon her as he had done the last time…The last time…‘Where are you going?’ she demanded huskily.

  ‘I’m taking you home,’ Jake responded fiercely. ‘To my home, to my bed, and once I’ve got you there I’m…’

  As she saw the look in his eyes, Lucianna started to tremble, but not from fear…

  Later she would have no clear recollection of the short drive to Jake’s house—only of her awareness that it was just as well it was a private lane since all Jake was still wearing was the towel. Jake’s home and even Jake’s bedroom were already familiar to her, but as he carried her from the front door towards the stairs the sensations, the emotions filling
her totally obliterated the fact that Jake’s home was a familiar part of her own childhood. Instead…

  At the bottom of the stairs Jake set her on her feet and slowly, cupping her face, started to kiss her, gently at first and then with increasing passion until she was writhing frantically against him, calling his name with small sobbing cries of need as she pressed herself closer and closer to him.

  Was it Jake or was it her own hands that dragged the buttons of her jacket from the buttonholes? She didn’t know, but she knew well enough that it was Jake’s hands that caressed her naked breasts, stroking and kneading them as she pushed them eagerly into his caressing palms, and Jake’s lips, Jake’s mouth that took her to even greater transports of sensual pleasure when they stopped halfway up the stairs and Jake knelt down in front of her. For slowly he started to suckle on first one and then the other taut nipple before very deliberately tracing a line of hot, thrilling kisses down to the waistband of her silk trousers and then below it as he unfastened and let them fall to the floor. His tonguetip circled her belly button, causing her to cling helplessly to his shoulders, torn between wanting to beg him to stop and aching to urge him to go on.

  But, even so, despite knowing how much she wanted him and how much she loved him and how aroused he was himself, it was still a shock to hear him tell her gratingly, ‘If we don’t make it to my bedroom soon, I’m going to have to have you right here and now where we are…’

  ‘On the stairs?’ Lucianna blurted out, betraying her innocence as she added, ‘But we can’t…’

  ‘Oh, yes, we can,’ Jake assured her, his teeth gleaming in an almost boyish smile as he flushed and then looked enquiringly at her. ‘No, don’t ask me to explain, not right now…The way I want you…need you right now is on a bed…on my bed…where we can take our time and I can show you…’

  He stopped, frowning as Lucianna gave a small sharp cry, her eyes suddenly going very dark, and his expression was very male as he realised the cause of her audible moan of pleasure was the sight of his naked body.

  As Lucianna looked a little self-consciously from him to the towel which lay on the stairs beside him, she asked him, ‘When did you…?’

  ‘I didn’t…you did,’ he told her softly, adding when she shook her head, ‘Yes, you did; it was just now when I kissed you right here.’ He touched one fingertip to the place just above the line of her briefs where his mouth had only seconds before been caressing her sensitive skin and sending frantic pulses of pleasure darting through her.

  ‘Jake…’ Lucianna started to say, and then stopped as she closed her eyes. What she wanted to say, what she ought to be saying, was that they shouldn’t be doing this, that she shouldn’t be here with him like this, not when…But as she raised her hand she inadvertently brushed her fingertips against his thigh and as she felt the hard, warm sensation of his skin, followed by the flooding sweetness of her own longing for him, she knew those words would never be spoken. Instead she looked up into his eyes and then down at his body, and then, with a low moan, opened her arms to him.

  They might not have made love on the stairs as Jake had threatened but it was a pretty close thing. By the time they reached the bed both of them were naked and as he lowered her onto it bending over to kiss first her mouth and then one breast and then her mouth again and then the other, before sliding his hands over her body, cupping her hips and then stroking her thighs and gently easing them apart, Lucianna knew that she didn’t want to wait any longer for him.

  The book on flirtation hadn’t had any helpful hints on how one might best deal with such a situation but in truth Lucianna didn’t need any, and if Jake’s reaction to the way she touched him and the soft, encouraging sounds of need she made were anything to go by she was managing very well without them.

  This time, perhaps because her body already knew the pleasure his would give it, the sensation of having him within her was so overwhelming, so explosive that the shudders of pleasure and completion started to pulse through her right from Jake’s first thrust, the intensity and swiftness of her climax leaving her shuddering in his arms. She was so sensitive to him that she could actually feel the hot, thick pulse of his own release within her body, could feel it and, unbelievably, react to it with a softer, gentler echo of her own earlier orgasm, a quick, delicate throb of her body as though it wanted to draw him even closer and deeper within it as she took from him that final, life-giving male pulse of desire.

  ‘John…’ Lucianna began sleepily as she cuddled up in Jake’s arms, her body and emotions totally exhausted after the events of the evening but still wanting to explain to Jake that she hadn’t really been upset to realise that John didn’t love her. But her eyes were already closing, her breathing slowing, and suddenly, as sleep claimed her, it was too much of an effort to say anything.

  Jake, on the other hand, was suddenly very much awake.

  John. She had called him John! As he lay there in the darkness with Lucianna’s body nestled so trustingly and lovingly in his arms, he knew with bleak certainty that there was no pain worse than hearing the woman you had just loved calling you by another man’s name. The man she really wanted.

  Lucianna woke up abruptly, confused at first by her surroundings. And then she remembered. Shivering, she tried to blink back her tears as she realised that once again Jake had left her alone in bed. His bed, though, this time, not hers. Pushing back the bedclothes, she slid her feet to the floor and started to walk towards the half-open bedroom door.

  There was a light on downstairs and instinctively she made her way down, frowning as she reached the hallway and heard the sound of someone using a computer in Jake’s office…Pushing open the door, she walked in, oblivious to the fact that she was completely naked.

  Jake was seated at his desk, dressed in a shirt and jeans.

  Still frowning, she studied the screen in front of him.

  ‘Jake, what are you doing down here?’ she asked him tremulously.

  ‘Working!’

  ‘Working!’

  All the emotions she had been fighting to suppress welled up inside her.

  ‘What is it with me…what is it that’s wrong with me?’ she demanded furiously. ‘What is it about me that makes it impossible for a man to love me…? First John and now you…Oh, I don’t care about John. I realise now I never loved him really at all…in fact I’m actually glad that he doesn’t want me…but you…’ Tears rolled down her face and she shook them away impatiently. ‘I love you, Jake, but I know you don’t love me.

  ‘You’ve even tried to bribe me, to buy me off so that no one would ever know that you and I…But you didn’t need to do that…I would never have told anyone…I suppose you thought that just because you’d…because we’d been lovers…that I’d expect…But I’m not that naive…I do know some things. And I suppose you’re down here working now because you didn’t want me to think…because you don’t want me to think…’ She started to correct herself and then stopped as Jake strode out from behind his desk, his face white and an expression in his eyes which…

  Nervously Lucianna gulped and swallowed, protesting feebly as he reached her and took hold of her, ‘Jake…’

  ‘What do you mean, you love me?’ she heard him demanding rawly.

  ‘What do you mean what do I mean?’ Lucianna countered tremulously. ‘I suppose you don’t want me to say it but it’s the truth and I’m not going…I love you, Jake, and I’m sorry if you don’t want me to…’

  ‘You’re sorry? Oh, my God,’ he muttered piously under his breath. ‘Lucianna, I—’ He stopped and took a deep breath, his skin drawn tight across the bones of his face as he shook his head and told her abruptly, ‘Come with me…’

  Docilely, Lucianna followed him as he guided her out of his study and towards the stairs, walking so fast that she had trouble keeping up with him.

  Halfway up the stairs he turned round to wait for her, and as she reached him Lucianna heard him saying helplessly, ‘Oh, Luce…Luce…Luce…’ An
d then she was in his arms and he was kissing her as fiercely as though they hadn’t kissed in years, decades, centuries, as though they hadn’t kissed for a lifetime. And in between his kisses he was telling her that he loved her, that he had always loved her and that he always would love her.

  Somewhere along the line Lucianna realised that she and rationality had parted company, but that no longer seemed to matter, not when she had Jake’s kisses, Jake’s hands, Jake’s body…

  ‘Oh, you can do it here on the stairs—you were right,’ she managed to gasp as her body responded to the shuddering thrust of Jake’s within her.

  ‘The stairs, the kitchen, the table, the floor…anywhere…anywhere you like, anywhere you want…’ Jake moaned sensually to her as he carried her with him to a climax that was a fierce starburst of sensation, the response of her womanhood to his manhood.

  ‘Don’t you ever, ever again tell me that I don’t love you,’ Jake told her thickly ten minutes later as he wrapped her in his arms and carried her back to bed and joined her there, holding her close to his heart as he whispered the words to her.

  ‘But I thought you didn’t…you said…’ Lucianna began, and then fell silent as he kissed her gently.

  He told her softly, ‘I’ve loved you from the day I was old enough to know what love was—when you were too young to even begin to be burdened with such feelings. I’ve loved you and I’ve hated myself for it, and sometimes, I admit, I’ve come close to hating you for it as well.’

  Lucianna sat up in bed, her eyes sparking indignantly. ‘You’ve loved me all that time and you’ve never said anything, never shown me…told me…? You let me think you didn’t care, you didn’t want me, even made me feel you were trying to pay me to stay out of your life by coming up with that contract to keep the bank at bay…’

  As she paused to take a deep breath, Jake interrupted firmly, ‘Now hang on; let’s take one thing at a time. For a start, when I first realised how I felt about you, you were way, way too young for me to tell you, and if I had…well, legally you might have been able to enter into an adult sexual relationship with me but mentally, emotionally, and in just about every way I could think of, to persuade you to give yourself to me then, to commit yourself to me, would have been as much a crime against you as it would have been against my love.