by Nan Comargue
“How could you possibly know about that? I haven’t spoken to your aunt in years.”
It was true. And the truth still hurt.
She’d done exactly what Kelsey asked of her. She’d pushed Jamie onto the right path in life and kept him from throwing his future away. Yet afterward Kelsey hadn’t been able to look at Mallory without remembering the ends she’d used to gain the outcome she’d wanted.
Maybe she couldn’t help but picture her best friend and her nephew together in bed, their bodies lusciously entwined. Maybe that image made her as sick as Mallory had felt whenever she thought back to what she’d done. Her one great mistake in life. Now it was back to haunt her in the flesh.
“My marriage is my business,” Mallory said stiffly. “I can’t imagine why you think it has anything to do with you.”
Beneath lowered golden eyelashes, Jamie’s mouth was set into a hard line. This was the real him, she thought suddenly. Not the smooth stranger in the designer suit but this angst-ridden young man with an axe to grind.
Somewhere in the back of her mind she’d always thought he would come back to seek the answers and explanations she hadn’t been able to give him years ago. And to get his revenge.
She deserved it, didn’t she?
Mallory reached out to claim the glass he’d put back down on the coffee table. She drained half of its contents in a swallow, wincing slightly as golden bubbles filled her nose.
“Was I the last man you fucked before you met your future husband?”
It was a good thing she’d already swallowed or else she would have treated him to the sight of a classic spit take.
“Paul?” she managed to ask.
“If that’s his name.”
The alcohol mellowed out some of the nasty things she wanted to say. “None of your business.”
“I think it’s my business.” Jamie hooked the neck of the champagne bottle and took a long swig. “I want to know if you left me for him.”
Mallory shook her head but the movement only made her dizzy. Paul and Jamie. Jamie and Paul. The two didn’t belong in the same orbit.
Jamie’s words swam before her. If you left me for him.
Those words made their tryst seem all too real. Like a relationship. Which was the last thing it had been.
“It was nothing like that.”
His voice was low and urgent. “Then tell me what it was like. Tell me why you dumped me. After all this time I deserve to know.”
She turned her head to face him. It was a mistake. He was too close. Too handsome. Too fucking sexy.
The hot promise that had been latent in the teenager was fulfilled in the man. He looked like every straight woman’s dream.
What would he be like in bed now?
Sobering abruptly, Mallory told him, “We’ve gone over this before. I’m too old for you.”
“Bullshit.” The single word was low and vehement. “That might have been good enough for me when I was a teenager but not anymore. I’m almost thirty—”
“Twenty-eight,” Mallory automatically corrected him.
“—and that makes me old enough to do whatever the hell I want in any state in this country.”
“So do it,” she told him, her voice carefully flat. Her head was starting to throb. It was her own stupid fault. Alcohol on an empty stomach was a standard recipe for a migraine. “There’s nobody here to stop you.”
“No?”
The warning in his calm voice came too late. In the next moment he’d reached for her waist and pulled her directly into his lap. She wasn’t the only one who was turned on by proximity. The bulge in his suit pants was an iron bar against her thigh. She wanted to spread her hand over it.
God, she must be going crazy.
“Jamie!”
He spoke just a fraction of an inch from her mouth. “Everyone calls me James now.”
Mallory tried again. “James—”
His hand raked through her curls, capturing her head and turning it up to his. “You’re not everyone,” he growled an instant before his lips met hers.
The raw touch of his mouth was electric. He might have been holding a live wire against her skin because her body reacted with a jerk of awareness that left her breathless. As did his hungry mouth. His kiss was deep and draining. She had no choice but to part her lips beneath it and give him complete access to the moist recesses of her mouth. His tongue was a hot sweep of pure current. She automatically suckled it, wringing a groan from deep inside his chest.
She soothed him with her hands, running them up his arms to the back of his clean neck where her fingertips slowly stroked him. He was so beautiful. So sweet. So wholesome.
When Jamie’s tongue teasingly withdrew, she followed it with her tongue, pushing it inside his mouth, tasting him all over again.
The deep kiss made her sizzle all over. How long had it been since she’d felt this primal surge of power, this fierce ability to make a man crazed with need? It had never been this way with Paul and she’d tried to forget the feeling altogether, no longer trusting her memory.
Jamie broke the kiss first, staring up at her with fire in those dark blue eyes. Mallory realized that she was seated firmly in his lap now, her legs splayed out on either side of his thighs, their pelvises thrust together. She could feel his shaft against her mound and she wanted to strip the clothes away from it and ride it, hard and fast, all night long.
“I want your cock. Now.”
The dark fire flared and was almost immediately dampened. This self-control was new. She wasn’t sure that she liked it.
“No.” He smiled slightly as if to take away the sting from the refusal. “Not yet.”
She smiled too and kissed him briefly. This was Jamie. She was in control here. She’d always been.
Mallory lowered her hands between them and worked her fingers through his sleek leather belt.
“Mal.”
It was a single word, just her name, yet it carried with it the ring of authority. She frowned slightly. She wasn’t used to that. She didn’t like it.
With a jerk, she undid the belt then dealt quickly with the zipper. She slid down to settle on her knees in front of him, his penis in her hand.
It had been so long since she’d wanted someone the way she wanted him.
Her mouth watered for his thick shaft, already hard against her palm. Stroking it absently, she looked up at his face. What was it about him that did this to her? Why was it that when she needed to come, she thought of his face? Even during her marriage with Paul. This was the man she’d thought about.
Lowering her head, she brought his cock to her face, nuzzling it gently with her cheek and lips before her tongue snaked out to lave the velvet tip.
Jamie groaned, his face twisting as he watched her suckle the head of his dick into her moist mouth.
Mallory murmured her pleasure. Yummy.
Her eyes closed as she fed more of his cock into her mouth, moving slowly and carefully around his long, smooth shaft. Paul’s penis had been slightly smaller than average and an easy mouthful, which made for quick blowjobs but unfulfilling intercourse. After Jamie’s, all penises had seemed small to her.
She couldn’t believe he was here in front of her, his dick in her hands, half of it in her mouth. Relaxing her throat muscles, she swallowed another inch or two. Good. It was all coming back to her now.
His hands lay lax against his thighs. Her nipples were stiff and hard but she didn’t expect him to know that they needed attention. He never seemed to recognize those needs before. She’d always had to tell him where to touch her and how.
So she was startled when she felt his hands move down to cup her breasts through her bra just before his fingers latched onto her protruding nipples and squeezed them hard through the silky fabric. The sharp stab of mingled pleasure and pain made her eyes fly open and her mouth loosen its grip on his shaft.
He was staring at her with a dark look that made her shrink back. His staff emerged fro
m her mouth glistening with saliva and Mallory had only a moment to glance at it longingly before Jamie tucked it back into his pants.
But he returned his hands to her breasts, squeezing and tugging on her cloth-covered nipples with such carefully calibrated pressure that she didn’t know whether to scream out in pleasure or cry in pain. All she did know was that her pussy was flooded with her juices.
“I said not yet.”
His voice was a mere rasp but she nodded eagerly, willing to say or do anything to prolong the exquisite agony of his fingers.
Jamie widened the space between his legs so that he could see her better. Mallory could almost see the picture she made, kneeling before him on the floor of her apartment. Her flushed cheeks. Her downcast eyes. Her nipples jutting against the silky lingerie as his long fingers expertly manipulated them.
She ached for him to push the bra aside and fondle her bare skin but she dared not even ask. He was in control. Completely.
Mallory knew that her nipples were sensitive. Playing with them was the surest way for a man to arouse her and even bring her to climax. But this went beyond erogenous zones. This man knew her body almost better than she knew it herself. If asked, she would have said she liked slow, lingering suckling instead of these harsh caresses, yet this was making her more excited than anything she could remember
And this was Jamie. A man who, by all rights, should hate her.
Her breath caught as he hooked his fingers over her bra cups and pulled the fabric away from her breasts.
Mallory looked down when he did, seeing her small breasts—fortunately still high and firm since they were too petite to sag—with their hard, dark-rose nipples. This time Jamie’s hands hovered around them but did not touch.
“Why did you leave?”
The question made her look swiftly back up at his face. It was expressionless. Her pussy was soaked and throbbing. Her breasts ached. But he seemed unaffected.
The color drained from her face.
“Was that the point of this?” Her voice let her anger and frustration show plainly but she couldn’t help it.
Even now, looking at his austere, handsome and utterly cold face, she wanted nothing more than to settle back into his lap and let him fuck her silly.
He let his hands drift over her rib cage. “Just answer the question and we can move on.”
Mallory lowered her head. “I can’t,” she whispered. It was Kelsey’s secret. It always had been.
He surged to his feet, his fingers sweeping just for an instant over her exposed peaks before leaving them for good.
“Then we’re done here.”
She pressed her lips together as his legs disappeared from her sight. She wouldn’t beg him to sleep with her. But it hurt so much to be rejected by Jamie, of all men.
Her movements were stiff as she followed his example, straightening her clothes as she went.
She felt humiliated but she knew that this was part of the punishment. She deserved it for what she’d done to him.
He was already at the door, his stiff back inexpressive. She yearned to see his face just one more time.
“Jamie.”
He turned back and she feasted her eyes on those chiseled lines, that hard, handsome mouth, that perfect stubborn jaw. His eyes were no longer cold.
“What?” He grated out the single word, clearly on the edge of his control.
He hated her. What had she done?
“I’m sorry.”
He let his eyes search her face. “For leaving me?”
Mallory forced herself to shake her head. “For starting it in the first place. You were so young. I shouldn’t have—”
Before she was aware of him moving, he had gripped her by the upper arms. He looked like he wanted to shake the life out of her body yet she yielded completely to him, her small frame melting against his much larger one.
“Don’t ever say that again.”
Mallory’s scattered brain cells tried to make sense of the command. “That I’m sorry?”
His blue eyes were fiery. “That you regret starting a relationship with me.”
A relationship? Good God.
“Jamie—”
He was out the door before she could figure out what to say.
Chapter Three
The front door to her new office stuck. Mallory had to throw all of her weight against it to get in. When she did it was only to confront the same ultra-sophisticated décor she’d originally put in place the year before and now paid extravagant monthly sums on, possibly for the rest of her life.
It was funny. She still thought of her office space as her “new office”, even though she’d been in it for more than a year.
By the time she’d moved into it, Paul was already halfway out the door. One of his complaints had been that she’d spent too much time setting up the new design company, as if his constant unreasonable demands on her time and jealousy over the many legitimate business events she’d had to attend didn’t have a role to play in her leaving her old firm.
Damn Paul. She’d been perfectly content working for other people, although he’d scoffed at the idea, pointing out how much other designers were making running their own firms.
Now that she had her own firm she wasn’t making very much at all. Indeed, she’d counted on having Paul to rely upon financially as her firm got on its feet, the way she’d helped him through so many of the initial hardships in his career.
Well who ever said that life was fair? Marriage certainly wasn’t.
Mallory’s assistant Enid arrived just before ten, making her nearly an hour late. But with the lack of work and what Mallory was paying her, she didn’t even consider giving the girl a lecture.
“Brought designer coffees!” Enid chirped, doling out the paper containers evenly between the two desks—her own, near the sticky front door, and Mallory’s, hidden behind a flimsy new wall at the back.
Mallory looked at the latte, oversized muffin and crisply grilled breakfast wrap hungrily. She hadn’t eaten after Jamie left her apartment and she’d barely consumed anything prior to that.
“Take the money for the food and coffees out of petty cash,” Mallory paused to order her employee before she dug into the pile of food.
A few minutes later, Enid was sitting on the other side of Mallory’s desk, sipping her café mocha and providing a play-by-play of her date the previous evening, all while flipping through a glossy lifestyle magazine.
“And then he said he had to run off to meet his mother. His mother! At ten o’clock at night.” Enid shook her auburn head, took a sip and expertly turned the page of her magazine all at the same moment. “I don’t know where the good men are but they sure aren’t sticking around this city.”
Mallory made a sympathetic sound as she hit the refresh button on her laptop. No emails. No new hits on the website. No business. Damn it.
“The good men are make-believe,” Enid went on, expanding on her favorite topic. “They only exist on television shows or in here.”
She tapped the magazine page with a shining green fingertip, hitting a face. For a second she paused and glanced down at the image.
“Most eligible bachelor,” she read aloud. “Looks all right. Better than all right. Although I don’t usually like blonds. Local too. Twenty-eight. Pretty young.”
There was no reason for Mallory’s heart rate to speed up. Bachelor. Blond. Twenty-eight years old. That description might match several thousand men in the city. Except she thought it perfectly matched just one. And perhaps only one would be wealthy and ambitious enough to make it into the local lifestyle pages.
She’d spent a few minutes last night looking up James Reynolds and she’d found out that he’d started an investment company in the middle of his college career. Instead of coming up with the “next great idea”, he’d used a little capital he’d borrowed from his aunt—so the articles from those years claimed—to seek out and invest in other people who had good business ideas. Many fai
led but some grew into huge enterprises…and Jamie had reaped the rewards as a major initial investor.
He still sat on the boards of several of the companies he’d helped to start while his private company continued to seek out small-time inventors and businesspeople whom he believed could hit it big. Right now he was one of the biggest and most successful “angel investors” in the world.
“I’ll bet he’s a jerk.”
“What?” Startled, Mallory looked up from her empty email inbox.
Her assistant held up the magazine page and, sure enough, it showed Jamie. Although so many blond men tended to look washed out in black he looked devastating in black tie.
Enid snatched the page back.
“No man can look that amazing and not be a jerk.”
“Hmm,” Mallory murmured again. With the events of the previous evening’s visit playing in her mind, it was better not to answer.
“Door!” her assistant announced, flinging down the magazine and nearly upsetting the paper cup of coffee all over Mallory’s desk.
Sure enough Mallory heard the office’s front door being wrenched open. Enid had a sixth sense about these things.
More bills, she predicted, going back to her computer and the designs for the sole client she’d acquired in the past month. The client seemed to think the plans needed tweaking again.
Tweaking. Mallory’s mouth twisted. What the client wanted was a complete overhaul. For the third time. Thank God they hadn’t started working on the woman’s impeccable city penthouse yet. The way things were going with the design plans it didn’t seem likely that they would ever get to the implementation stage.
Enid walked back into Mallory’s office carrying a huge crystal vase filled with fresh flowers, vivid with blues and bright yellows.
“Look what just came!” Enid exclaimed.
As a designer, Mallory knew a great deal about flowers and years ago she’d studied their “language”. Certain flowers conveyed specific messages from the sender to the recipient. In the big bouquet, she spotted pretty little bluebells. That meant constancy. There were thick clusters of purple heliotrope, which meant faithful devotion.
