Make Me Feel

by BETH KERY

  “Look at all the cars and people,” Harper murmured.

  “It is a holiday weekend,” Jacob said distractedly, frowning down at the newspaper.

  “Is something wrong?” Harper asked him.

  “No, not at all,” he replied briskly, folding up the paper and shoving it back in his briefcase. Jim had picked them up at the airport. Jacob opened up the window to the driver’s area of the car and spoke to him.

  “Can you take us to Harper’s first? She’s going to run in and get some things to take to my place, then come right back out.”

  Her heart jumped. Again, she had that feeling of being trapped between her desire and caution. She longed to be with him, of course, to indulge in the lush, sensual connection they shared. She wanted it too much. The velocity of their growing attachment to one another, the sheer power of it, left her vaguely panicked that they were on a path together that could only end in catastrophe.

  And that didn’t even take into account that she was increasingly feeling like she wasn’t fully getting what was going on with her and Jacob . . . what was going on with him.

  “Jacob, I really should run some errands and check the mail,” she prevaricated when Jim pulled up to her townhome entrance. She leaned forward to hand Jim the clicker that activated the privacy gate. She looked back at Jacob when he grasped her extended hand, and was abruptly caught in his stare.

  He’d dressed casually for their return trip to Tahoe in jeans and a forest green collarless shirt that emphasized his riveting eyes and broad shoulders. He pulled her hand into his lap and pushed a button, and the window between them and Jim silently closed. She didn’t say anything when he silently drew her against him, his hand at her lower back. She put her hands palms down on his chest and inhaled his scent, her logic about why she should resist his demands already melting.

  He touched her hair. “It’s still the weekend. Still the holiday. Surely you can wait to do errands.”

  She pressed her nose to his chest and inhaled, sacrificing her last remnants of resistance. His fingers moved in her hair, and she shivered. He slid two fingers beneath her chin and lifted it, so that she met his stare.

  “Do you really want to go home?”

  “No,” she whispered.

  “Then why are you hesitating?” he asked, his brows slanting.

  “It’s nothing.” She shrugged helplessly. It was hard to put her insecurities into words. “I just have this feeling—”

  The sedan came to a halt outside her townhome. Jacob’s hold on her didn’t flinch.

  “What kind of feeling?” he asked.

  “That the faster we go, the more intense we are, the quicker it will end,” she admitted.

  “You can’t know that, Harper.”

  “I know I can’t,” she admitted, staring at his chest. “I told you. It’s just this feeling.”

  “Of dread?”

  She looked up sharply, stunned by his insight. “Yes.”

  He nodded. “I think I know what you mean.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. But it’s like I said last night. We can’t go back. We can’t tread water. The only way to go is forward.” He caressed her cheek, and she instinctively moved her face toward his touch. “Besides. It’s not just dread, what I’m feeling. Far from it, Harper. Is it for you?”

  “God, no. I wouldn’t be here, if it were. But aren’t you even a little worried we’re moving too fast?” she asked softly. That there’s some big unnamable thing happening, something either threatening or wondrous. She couldn’t tell which . . .

  “I told you before. I don’t think I can be with you in any way but all the way. One hundred percent. Look at me.” She met his stare reluctantly. “Everything’s going to be okay, Harper. Trust me.”

  She drank in his quiet confidence. How could she be so intimidated by him and everything he represented, and yet feel incredibly secure with him at the same time?

  “The only thing you have to agree to is this afternoon. Tonight,” he said.

  “What about tomorrow night? And the night after that? You said in San Francisco that you wanted us to spend every night together that we could—”

  “Then I’ll take it back, if it makes you feel better about it. I guess I’ll just have to talk you into every night each day at a time.” He reached up the back of her head firmly, his gaze on her a smoldering demand. “I want you with me tonight. I want to go out on the boat and spoil you a little, and make love to you a lot. I want to watch the fireworks with you and fall asleep under the stars with you in my arms. Do you think you can manage that?”

  She stared at him, her lips parting in bemused arousal. “How do you do that?” she whispered. She felt his little smile like a tickle in her lower belly.

  “Is that a yes?” he murmured.

  Of course it was. She was beginning to wonder if she’d lost the ability to even say no in his presence.

  Harper returned to the sedan a few minutes later, having emptied her clothes from San Francisco and replaced them hastily with clean ones and a few more toiletries.

  “Did you bring a swimsuit?” he asked her when she returned, and they resumed their journey via limo to his home.

  She glanced over at him and saw his nearly imperceptible smile. “Of course I did. You didn’t think I was going to wear that itsy-bitsy one from before, did you?”

  He shrugged as if he didn’t see the problem. “I liked that swimsuit.”

  She snorted with laughter, her anxiety fracturing, her happiness swelling when he grinned full out and reached for her, bringing her against him.

  Even as she drowned in the bliss of the moment, a flickering, dark thought took shape. Jacob hugged her closer, and it faded.

  But maybe it burrowed into her unconscious, like a persistent worm.

  How had it happened, that she’d fallen to this dangerous depth, when she was so unsure of him? How was it even possible that he could disarm her so completely, when she’d only known him for such a short period of time?

  Admit it, Harper.

  Why was she having so much difficulty acknowledging her growing, unsettling suspicions to herself?

  Because what you’re considering isn’t a remote possibility, that’s why. Because to actually believe you’ve known Jacob Latimer in some other time or place—in some other life—is to admit that you’re losing it.

  It was just her confusion and longing making her consider such bizarre possibilities. Everything was blending together: her grief over her parents’ sudden death, her ruminations about her childhood, and Jacob’s inexplicable, powerful effect on her.

  The present loss was making her relive the past one.

  It hit her then, how odd it was that he’d told her she reminded her of someone else, when she’d been making similar connections, impossible comparisons. For the most part, her musings seemed totally wrong, nonsensical . . . just plain crazy.

  She rubbed her cheek against Jacob’s chest and stared out the window, tears filling her eyes. Jacob pulled her closer against him. The pain of what she’d done so long ago had dulled over the years. But at that moment, the memory of that childhood ghost—that beautiful, brave boy—rose and stabbed at her brutally.

  He’d vanished from her life. But unlike in the case of her parents, Harper herself had been the one responsible for that loss.

  Look for Part 7, MAKE ME REMEMBER, available from InterMix on May 17, 2016.

  Keep reading for an excerpt from SINCE I SAW YOU, available now from Berkley.

  Lin Soong hurried down the sidewalk, her face coated in a thin layer of perspiration overlaid with an autumn mist. Damn this fog. There hadn’t been an available taxi for blocks. She’d finally ended up just walking the three-quarters of a mile from Noble Towers to the restaurant. Her feet were killing her after a long day’s work and rushing in heels. To make
matters worse, her hair would be a disaster from the humidity. She imagined herself at ten or eleven years old and her grandmother standing over her, wielding a comb and a flatiron like a warrior’s weapons.

  “You got this hair from your mother,” Grandmamma would say, her mouth grim as she dove into her straightening task. Lin had been left in little doubt as to what her grandmother thought of the potential threat of her mother’s rebellious streak surfacing in Lin herself. According to Grandmamma, hair was something to be conquered and refined by smoothing and polish, just like everything else in life.

  Lin plunged through the revolving doors of the restaurant and paused in the empty foyer, straining to calm her breathing and her throbbing heart. She despised feeling flustered, and this situation called for even more than her usual aplomb.

  By the time she entered the crowded, elegant restaurant, she’d repinned her waving, curling hair and used a tissue to dry her damp face. She immediately spotted him sitting at the bar. He was impossible to miss. For a stretched few seconds, she just stared. A strange mixture of anxiety and excitement bubbled in her belly.

  Why didn’t Ian mention that his half brother looked so much like him?

  She soaked in the image of him. He was very good-looking, even if that frown was a little off-putting. He wore a dark blue shirt, and the rich brown of a rugged suede jacket brought out the russet highlights in his hair. Kam Reardon didn’t know it—and she’d never tell him—but she herself had picked out the clothing he wore. It’d been part of the mission Ian had assigned her to make his half brother presentable for a potentially lucrative business deal here in Chicago. Ian had suggested a new wardrobe for his trip to the States. Kam had grudgingly agreed after some skillful nudging on Ian’s part, but insisted upon paying for everything. It’d been Lin who actually chose the items, however, and sent the articles to Aurore Manor in France. In fact, she’d been choosing and sending home furnishings to Aurore Manor—Kam’s once grand home that had fallen into disrepair—as well.

  It warmed her to see him wearing the garments, firsthand evidence that he’d considered the clothing suitable to his taste. Her clothing selection hadn’t helped much in getting Kam to blend in, however. He was too large for the delicate chairs lined up at the supersleek, minimalist bar. He stuck out like a sore thumb in the trendy establishment, all bold, masculine lines and unrelenting angles.

  No . . . not like a sore thumb, Lin amended. More like a lion that found itself in the midst of a herd of antelope. His utter stillness and watchful alertness seemed slightly ominous amidst the sea of idly chatting, well-heeled patrons.

  Suddenly, she realized his gaze had locked on her from across the crowded dining area.

  “Bonsoir, beautiful. We have your table waiting,” a man with a mellow French-accented voice said.

  Lin blinked and jerked her gaze off the man who was a stranger to her, and yet wasn’t: her boss’s infamous half brother, the wild man she’d been sent to tame.

  She focused instead on Richard St. Claire’s smiling face. Richard was a neighbor, good friend, and the manager of the restaurant where she stood, Savaur. He owned the world-renowned establishment with his partner, chef Emile Savaur. Lin was a regular here.

  She returned Richard’s greeting warmly as they hugged and he kissed her on the cheek. “Can you hold the table for just a moment, Richard? My dinner companion is waiting at the bar. I’d like to go and introduce myself,” Lin said, turning as he began to remove her coat.

  “Mr. Tall, Dark, and Scowling?” Richard muttered under his breath as he draped her coat elegantly over his forearm, looking amused. He noticed her surprised glance as she faced him again. How did Richard know her dinner companion was the man at the bar? “You mentioned you were having dinner with Noble’s half brother on the phone when you made the reservations. I noticed the resemblance; who wouldn’t? I can’t wait to hear the full story behind this little scenario,” Richard said with a mischievous glance in Kam’s direction. “He’s like Ian Noble posing as a Brazilian street fighter, but with the added bonus of having Lucien’s seduce-like-the-devil eyes.”

  Lin stifled a laugh at the apt description. Richard was good friends with Lucien Lenault also, Kam and Ian’s other half brother. He’d undoubtedly heard part, if not all, of Kam’s story from Lucien. “He’s actually cleaned up quite nicely,” Lin murmured. “Not six months ago, the people from the village near where he lived thought him homeless and mad, when he’s truly brilliant and extremely focused,” she added, her head lowered. She smoothed her expression, acutely aware of Kam’s sharp gaze still cast in her direction.

  “He hardly seems like a vagrant, but he has been sitting at the bar, looking like he’s been chewing nails for the past ten minutes. Victor doesn’t know if he’s scared to death of the man or in love with him,” Richard said under his breath, referring to the bartender serving Kam. Indeed, Victor was surreptitiously studying the tower of whiskered, glowering brawn seated at the bar, with a mixture of wariness and stark admiration as he dried a glass.

  Lin threw her friend a repressive, amused glance and walked over to meet Ian’s brother. Kam was one of the few people seated at the teak bar, a half-full glass of beer in front of him.

  “I’m so sorry for being late. Work was crazy, and there wasn’t a single available cab to be found when I finally did get away. You must be Kam. I’d have recognized you anywhere,” she said when she approached him, smiling in greeting. “Ian never told me how much you two resembled one another.”

  He turned slightly in his chair, giving her an unhurried once-over. She remained completely still beneath his perusal, her expression calm and impassive. Inwardly, she squirmed. Ian had also failed to warn her that Kam Reardon oozed raw sex appeal—not that Ian would ever say that about his brother.

  Although it couldn’t have been any more than a second that he studied her, it felt like minutes before he finally met her stare. She recognized the hard glint of male appreciation in his eye. A strange sensation rippled down her spine. Was it excitement? Or that uncommon brand of lust that strikes like lightning during a rare, uncommon rush of attraction? His face and form were similar to Ian’s, although up close, there were notable differences: the nose was slightly larger, the skin swarthier, the mouth fuller, the hair not quite as dark as Ian’s, with hints of russet in the thick waves. Gorgeous man-hair, Lin assessed. It had to have dozens of females longing to sink their fingers into it on a daily basis.

  Ian would certainly never go into public with a day-and-a-half’s growth of stubble on his jaw. Although Kam’s clothing was suitable for the restaurant, it was far more casual than Ian’s typical Savile Row suits. It was like seeing Ian in some kind of magical mirror—a shadowy, savage version of her debonair boss. Kam’s silvery-gray eyes, with the defining black ring around the iris, were certainly strikingly unique, despite what Richard had said about them being similar to Lucien’s.

  Maybe it was more the effect they had on Lin that was singular.

  “Ian probably never noticed our similarity,” Kam replied. “He’s never seen me without a full beard.”

  Another stark difference. Much like that of her grandmother, who had learned English in Hong Kong, Ian’s accent was all crisp, cool control. Kam’s French-accented, roughened voice struck her like a gentle, arousing abrasion along the skin of her neck and ear.

  She put out her hand. “I’m Lin Soong. As you probably already know, I work for Ian. I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to finally meet you.”

  He took her hand but didn’t shake it, merely grasped it and held on. His hand was large and warm, encompassing her own. The pad of his forefinger pressed lightly against her inner wrist.

  “Does my brother make a habit of overworking minors?” he asked.

  She flushed, the temporary trance inspired by his voice and touch fracturing. She knew she looked younger than her age, especially with her makeup faded from th
e mist and her hair curling around her face like a dark cloud. Besides, she was young for the position she held at Noble Enterprises as Ian’s right-hand woman. She was used to the observation, although it typically didn’t fluster as much as it did at the moment.

  “I’m hardly a minor. Ian seems to find me capable enough for all my duties,” she said smoothly, arching her brows in a mild, amused remonstrance.

  “No doubt.” She blinked at the steel of certainty in his tone. His finger moved on her wrist, and she suddenly pulled her hand away, afraid he’d notice the leap in her pulse.

  “Actually, I’m twenty-eight,” she said.

  “Isn’t that young for the position you hold at Noble Enterprises? I’ve heard the stories from Ian and Lucien and Francesca. He can’t seem to function without you,” he said.

  She flushed at the compliment. “You might say I was groomed for the role. My grandmother was the vice president of finance for Noble. She got me regular summer internships during college and graduate school.”

  “And one day you ended up in Ian’s lap?” he asked, silvery-gray eyes gleaming with what appeared to be a mixture of humor and interest. “Does your grandmother still work for Ian?”

  “No. She passed two years ago this Christmas.”

  Her breath stuck when he reached around her waist. Was he going to touch her? She jumped slightly when a chair leg made a scraping sound on the wood floor. She exhaled when she realized he was pulling back on the chair next to him so that she could sit.

  “Our table is ready,” she explained.

  “I’d rather eat at the bar.”

  “Of course,” she said, refusing to be flustered. She set down her briefcase in the seat next to her and reached for her chair. A frown creased his brow and he stood. “Thank you,” she murmured, surprised when she realized he’d grudgingly stood to seat her. Maybe he wasn’t so rough around the edges, after all.