‘Jack, please,’ I whimpered, not even knowing what I was asking for, only that I needed more – but those two words were enough to galvanise him, because he fused his mouth to mine as his hands started grappling with my dress, feeling, testing, pulling at the neck, the shoulders, sleeves. Tug, kiss, tug, kiss, tug … until I felt air, cool against my breasts. Jack had peeled my dress down to my waist.
It was only a split second of awareness – that I was half naked and that I did not care – before his hands were cupping my breasts, raising them, and the next moment his mouth was there, moving frantically from one nipple to the other, tonguing, licking, sucking, kissing.
‘Oh my God, Jack, Jack,’ I cried, clutching his head to me, desperate to keep the feeling building, building, burning me up.
Something was flickering at the corner of my subconscious, but I didn’t want to hear or think, only to feel this dark and heavy magic. And then I couldn’t hear or think, because his hands were moving down to my thighs, sliding under the hem of my disordered dress, and his mouth was claiming mine in a kiss that was almost feral.
‘Open for me,’ he breathed, mouth to mouth, and when I eased my legs apart, ‘Yes, like that.’ One hand gripped the back of one of my thighs, hitching it up, opening me further, the other moved between my legs. Gasping out words, phrases, between hard, hot kisses. ‘So damned hot. You feel so … Ahhhh, perfect. Just … so perfect.’
He pushed the crotch of my panties aside, his fingers now against my wet, swollen flesh, dipping in and out, circling, sliding, until I thought I’d go insane with need.
Trembling so hard I almost couldn’t stand upright, I moved my hands to the front of his pants, feeling the throbbing size of him through the fine wool before fumbling with his fly. And when his trousers slid downwards, I pushed restlessly at his underwear.
‘Evie, no, I’ll lose it if you touch me,’ he said, holding my wrist still.
‘I want you to lose it.’ Please, please, please, thrumming through my head. ‘I want you.’
A shudder tore through him, and I loved that it was me, me, causing that – and then he was grabbing my hips, lifting me half off my feet, holding me hard against him, so I could feel every inch of his erection. ‘That’s what you do to me, every time, every time, you’re near me. Tell me again, tell me you want me.’
‘I do, I do,’ I said urgently, and was shocked to find myself wrapping my legs around him to prove it. Uncontrollable. Crazy. But I couldn’t help myself.
Next moment, we were spinning, and I was the one with my back to the door, and with one ravaging kiss, one hard thrust of his hips, one last yank of my underwear, he was inside me.
He kept kissing me, over and over, whispering to me in between. But I couldn’t focus on what he was saying any more, couldn’t hear anything except the rush of blood in my ears, his galloping heartbeat, the slap of his thrusts, the singing in my blood. It was all I wanted. The unthinking ache and the wildness and the madness of it.
And then a wave ripped through me, every muscle in my body leapt and clenched, and I was coming, coming, coming, everything in me straining to keep it going longer, harder, brighter … ‘Jaaack!’
Jack lifted me higher, pushed harder, and a half-moment later, groaned – a deep, guttural sound. And then I went limp, head spinning, pinned against the door, and there was only our mingled heavy breathing. Sweat. Still-thumping hearts.
Pheromones. Okay. I got it.
Jack moved back fractionally, so that his forehead was resting on the door above my head. I loosened the death-grip I had on his neck, lowered my arms. My legs dropped from around his waist – and as my feet hit the floor, reality came roaring back.
Hot chocolate.
We’d been talking about hot chocolate. How did two people go from talking about hot chocolate to having sex against the door?
I felt panic burst in my veins. What the hell had just happened? How? But I couldn’t bear to face the answers. Couldn’t bear to think about it. About the two of us. Jack standing between my legs, gripping my hips, my dress shoved up and down, scrunched around my waist. Fine charcoal wool still covered his torso. I could feel the hard curve of the novelty badge I’d given him earlier, still pinned to it. His pants hadn’t made it past his knees. We hadn’t removed our footwear. Never mind my boots, I was still wearing my panties, for God’s sake. Although what state they were in after all that tugging and tearing, I didn’t dare imagine.
And it was Jack! And as I said his name in my head, my body oozed against him.
Which freaked me out even more. My body was not supposed to ooze, not over Jackson J Stevens. I had to stop touching him.
I tried to slide sideways out from under him. ‘Wait. Evie, wait.’ Jack wrapped his arms around me and adjusted his position to rest his cheek on the top of my head. ‘You’re shaking. Just let me –’
‘What? No.’ I barely recognised the husky voice as my own.
‘Just hold you for a moment.’
I took a desperate breath. ‘We’ve got to talk about … about what just happened. Because it shouldn’t have.’
I felt rather than heard Jack sigh. At last he stepped back, pulling his clothes into place. ‘Okay, we’ll talk,’ he said, watching dragon-eyed as I jerked my dress up to cover my breasts and then pushed at the hem.
‘I’ve got to go and – you know,’ I said, a smidgeon away from meltdown. ‘Just – Just, you go and sit down. Unless – Do you have to go? Don’t let me keep you. We can – We can – talk tomorrow, I guess. Or maybe … Do we need to talk? Could we just … forget it? Maybe?’
Jack ran the back of his fingers down my cheek. ‘No, we can’t forget it and yes, we need to talk. It’s time. Past time. I’ll wait for you.’ He smiled – the quicksilver one.
I fled upstairs to my bedroom, where I stripped off the green dress and threw it on the floor. I sat on the edge of the bed, unzipped my boots and tugged them off, then walked in a daze to the bathroom. Stripped off the wispy black panties I’d worn especially, but not for Jack – and threw them in the bin. So much for underwear! He hadn’t even looked.
I caught sight of myself in the bathroom mirror. My hair was wild, corkscrewing in every direction – his hands had done that. My mouth was red and swollen – his mouth had done that. I had a love bite on my left breast, just above the nipple. He had sucked me there. His mouth … Good God, his mouth. I watched my fingers in the mirrored reflection trace the mark. Jack had put it there. Jack! And I had urged him to do it. Urged him, begged him, mewled in his arms like one of his desperate star-struck groupies.
Shower. I had to get into the shower. Wash him off me, so I could think past the scent of him on my skin. Then go downstairs and find out what happened next.
Fifteen minutes later, I finally left the bedroom. I’d scrubbed off my make-up, put on an unattractive pair of my boy-leg briefs, jeans, a bra that was the equivalent of a snap-jaw chastity belt for the chest, and the most shapeless of Drew’s cast-off sweatshirts I could find.
Would Jack be waiting? Or would he have given up and left?
I hoped, contrarily, for both.
I smelled him first, before I even finished descending the stairs. How had I come to know what he smelled like? When?
He looked up and smiled as I came into the room. Eyes crinkling at the corners. Sweet and sexy. Happy. And so out of place on my clumpy, second-hand couch.
‘Right,’ I said, bypassing the couch and taking the room’s sole armchair, on the opposite side of the old, scarred coffee table.
Jack pushed a mug towards me on the table. ‘I made you some apple tea. And coffee – there’s some left if you’d prefer that.’
‘Thank you, this is fine.’ I managed five words and then every other word in my vocabulary deserted me.
Jack settled back in his original position, looking at me so … so … tenderly.
I couldn’t cope with that, so I looked down at my lap. While I’d been in the shower, I’d prepared a mental
checklist for this talk – pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases were the top priorities, given that neither of us had thought about using a condom. So unbelievably stupid!
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Right.’ Hmmm. ‘Right.’ Big breath. I looked up, trying to meet his eyes and failing, and ended up looking down at my lap again.
‘Evie, it’s not that difficult, is it?’ he asked.
‘Yes, it is. At least, I’m finding it difficult,’ I confessed.
‘It’s simple from my perspective.’
Another big breath and I managed a direct look across at him. ‘We didn’t use a condom. What if I’m pregnant?’
Still watching. ‘Pregnancy is not an issue.’
‘Not for you, because I’m the one who’d have to deal with it.’
‘I don’t mind dealing with it,’ Jack said.
I frowned. What did that mean? That he was okay with becoming a father? Or that he’d pay for an abortion?
‘Because I couldn’t have an abortion,’ I said for the sake of clarity. ‘I couldn’t – I can’t – I – Good God, I can’t believe I’m sitting here talking to Jackson J Stevens about pregnancy.’
Jack started to get to his feet, but I shook my head, held up a hand, silently ordering him to stay where he was.
He watched me steadily as he sat back down. ‘Let me be crystal clear. I would not ask you to have an abortion. And I wouldn’t be secretly hoping for a miscarriage.’
I looked down at my lap again, saw my fisted hands, white at the knuckles. ‘Right.’ My favourite word, apparently. ‘It’s probably not an issue but if it turns out to be otherwise, we can … can work … something out.’ I forced my hands to unclench. ‘So.’ Another breath. I looked up, focusing on Jack again. ‘Sexually transmitted diseases.’
‘I am unlikely to have an STD,’ Jack said.
‘But can you be sure?’
‘I’ll get tested tomorrow. But I can’t remember the last time I was so carried away I forgot to use a condom.’
I could feel the heat surge to my cheeks. Carried away. Jack. Me. Impossible. But it had happened – boy oh boy, had it happened! And there he was, sitting opposite me, talking about condoms, looking like Jack – and yet not like Jack.
Jack leaned forward. ‘So what about you?’
‘Oh, I’m fine. I mean – you know I’ve been cel–’ I stopped, bit my lip.
‘Lachlan?’
‘Not … yet.’ My eyes dropped. ‘But I’ll get tested, too, of course.’
‘Not yet?’ Jack touched the couch, next to him. ‘Evie.’
I looked at the place where his hand was resting. Didn’t move.
‘Evie.’ Harsher.
I stood slowly and made my halting way over, perched gingerly on the edge of the couch. Jack touched my cheek, and my hand came up to cover his, to keep it safely still. He brought my hand to his mouth, kissed the back of my fingers.
‘I didn’t mean for this to happen tonight, not like … that,’ he said, ‘but I’m glad it did. It was time.’
It was time. What did that even mean? Still as a statue, I closed my eyes as he rubbed my hand against his mouth. Jack must have taken my semi-stupor for acceptance, because next thing I knew, I was being lifted onto his lap.
He kissed my mouth, sucked my top lip, then licked it. ‘Evie,’ he said – no, breathed – against my mouth.
I was oozing again, my pulse kicking. Jack kissed me more deeply, and my thoughts skittled. He moved, altering our positions so that I was facing him, knees on either side of his hips. Without realising that I’d moved my hands, I found myself cupping Jack’s face as he continued to press lush, open-mouthed kisses against my mouth. And I kissed him back, kissed him, kissed him.
His hands slid beneath my sweatshirt, and I felt the corresponding tingle across my skin wherever he touched, and the push of my tight, swollen nipples against my heavy duty bra as though they sensed where his hands were headed and were dying to burst free. The traitors! Jack stopped the kiss. Hands still smoothing my skin, mouth hovering over mine. ‘You know why it’s always been the way it has with us. Because we’re it. Meant to be. You’re mine, Evie.’
And – bang – in one heartbeat, sanity came galloping to the rescue. Some phrases will do that to you. My eyes snapped open. ‘No,’ I said, and scrambled off his lap, onto the couch beside him, away from that mouth, those hands.
Because I was most certainly not his.
Jackson J Stevens was the object of affection – no, lust – of thousands of women. Tens of thousands. Hundreds of thousands. Maybe millions. Tonight’s star-studded party would make the social pages. The pages I derided as shallow and pathetic. The pages I feared.
And that meant Jack wasn’t – couldn’t – be for me. Pheromones were all very well, but no. Just … no!
He reached to pull me back onto his lap and I shot to my feet. ‘No, Jack.’
He stood, too. ‘What is it?’
‘This isn’t right.’
Smiling, he brought his fingers up, twirled them in my hair. ‘Sure it is.’
I backed away, dislodging that too-gentle touch, and kept backing away until I was safely on the other side of the coffee table. ‘This is insane.’
His smile had faded. ‘Why?’
‘It just is.’
‘Not good enough, Evie.’
‘Lachlan,’ I said, a little desperately. ‘That’s over.’
I shook my head. No. I wouldn’t let it be over.
‘You’re breaking that off.’
‘I have a chance at something with him. Something real.’
‘And not with me? Why not me?’
‘You know why. You know! You’re Jackson J Stevens. I don’t fit into your world. It’s not the right world for me.’
‘My brother is your best friend. My parents adore you. Tonight, my friends –’ He stopped abruptly, running an agitated hand through his hair. ‘You’d like them if you let yourself. Where’s the problem?’
‘It’s not that simple.’
‘You’re making it complicated.’
‘That’s because I am. Complicated. Remember?’
Silence. Then, ‘What do I have to do, Evie? Found a leper colony? Build an orphanage? Cure a disease? Tell me what I need to do and I swear I’ll give it a red hot go.’
‘It’s not that. I know – I heard tonight – all the things you do.’
Both his hands tore through his hair. ‘Then what?’
‘You know what. I don’t belong in a world where every step is tagged. Where a kiss reaches five continents.’
‘Shit. Why did I ever say that?’ He took one step, but something – the panic on my face? – stopped him. ‘Evie,’ he said, very calmly, ‘you get used to the media, I promise.’
‘I don’t want to get used to it. I don’t have to.’
I could see the thoughts chase across his face. He was changing tactics. Because he had to win. He always won. Always got what he wanted. And for some absurd reason, he happened to want me.
‘Your dream man was too busy ogling Jessamyn French to go home with you tonight,’ he said. ‘You think that’s acceptable, do you? Really?’
I swallowed. ‘That – That’s just … the celebrity thing. It’s not real. Anyone would be star-struck at that party.’
‘You weren’t.’
Which was when the reality of what I’d done to my ‘dream man’ hit me. ‘And being star-struck is a damned sight more acceptable than what I just did, isn’t it? I can’t exactly take the moral high ground.’
He practically skewered me with the intensity of the look he shot at me. ‘That’s different.’
‘Different worse.’ I covered my face with my hands. ‘I can’t think straight when you look at me like that, and I need to think.’
‘Whatever way I’m looking at you doesn’t change the fact that you don’t want Lachlan,’ Jack said.
I braced myself, forced my hands down. Opened my mouth but no sound came out.
&
nbsp; He shook his head. ‘I watched you all night – you didn’t really care what he was doing, or who he was with. If you wanted him, you would have cared.’
‘I just didn’t … didn’t see. I mean – Oh, I don’t know. I just want – I want –’
‘Me,’ he said. ‘You want me, Evie. Tell me, say it, it’s easy. Tell me you want me.’
‘No, Jack, I don’t.’
‘Then what was that about tonight? When you had your legs wrapped around me, and your tongue in my mouth and your hands in my hair?’
‘A mistake,’ I said. ‘An aberration. It shouldn’t have happened.’
‘But it did.’
‘It shouldn’t have,’ I repeated stubbornly, and turned my back on him.
In an instant he was behind me, arms around my waist, making me weak. God, oh God.
‘Evie, I know you won’t do it. You can’t make love with me like that, and then go and do the same thing with someone else.’
Make love. I’d made love with Jack. And I was letting him stand behind me with his arms around me because deep down, I knew I wanted to do it again. But all the lovemaking in the world couldn’t make Jackson J Stevens the right man for me. So, it was time to step back. I’d started something I shouldn’t have started. And now I had to finish it.
I pulled out of his arms. ‘It wouldn’t be the same, it would be better.’ Steeling myself, I turned to face him. ‘I’d use a bed at least.’ I had no idea where those hateful words had come from. What instinct I possessed that showed me exactly how to push him away. To hurt him.
Because he did look hurt. As shocked as though I’d slapped him.
Ruthlessly, I forced down the instant apology that rushed to my lips. It was better to end things now, to cut off any possibility of a relationship between us, to give no credence to that whole ‘you know why it’s always been the way it has with us’ thing. Or I’d be lost.
Wanting Mr Wrong Page 7
