She cried out raggedly, her body shuddering beneath his. It was like pulling a trigger; he shouted as his own climax thundered through him, erupting over and over and over . . .
“Oh, God, Kat.” He sank onto her, quaking and gasping for air. Gathering her up awkwardly, he kissed her forehead, her nose, the crests of her cheeks. “God, honey, that was . . .” He was still reeling; the words wouldn’t come. Breathless, sated, astounded, he planted whisper-soft kisses all over her face. “It was . . . it was . . .”
“Yeah,” she whispered shakily as her lips touched his. “Yeah.”
“Her name was Jess,” Jack said as he lay curled up with Kat under the down comforter on his big iron bed. “Jessica Mather. Turned out she’d been seeing her boss on the sly, and about a year ago . . .” He paused. Kat lifted her head to study his face, shadowy except for two ribbons of moonlight from the window blinds. His brow was furrowed. “What’s today’s date?”
“December twenty-second.” Kat laid her head back down on his chest, a dense wall of muscle blanketed by hair that felt both soft and ticklish, like Shetland wool. She and Jack had spent the past two hours or so, after making love in the living room, sharing whispered confidences and reminiscences here in the sheltering dark while rain pattered against the windowpane.
“December twenty-second.” A little hmph shook his chest. “It was a year ago today that she left.”
“Right before Christmas.”
“She’d bought a tree, put up decorations, the whole nine yards.”
“All by herself, or . . .”
“No, I helped.” He yawned; she knew he’d be asleep already if it weren’t for her. “I actually got into it, if you can believe it, even though I’d basically soured on Christmas ages ago. I thought I might as well get in some practice, ’cause when we had kids . . .” He swallowed. “What a chump I was, huh?”
“Is that why you hate Christmas so much?” Kat asked softly.
His big shoulders twitched. “The holidays are famous for having bad stuff happen during them. People die, people get depressed, people decide something’s missing. They blame their boyfriend, their husband, their kids, whatever, and they’re outa there.”
The light bulb clicked on. Kat raised her head to look at him again. “Was that when your mom left with that guy? During the holidays?”
“Well, yeah, but I never really made that connection.”
“You were nine years old. You said you sobbed all night, but that you haven’t shed a tear since then. Of course you made the connection.”
“You sound pretty sure of yourself.”
“I do have a degree in child psychology.”
“Ah, those brainy beauties—they really get my engine revving.”
“Do they?”
Reaching for her hand under the covers, he skimmed it down his lower belly and wrapped it around himself. “See?”
“Mm. Very impressive demonstration,” she murmured as she caressed him.
“I aim to please.” He eased her on top of him and kissed her with heartbreaking tenderness.
“You do please me,” she murmured against his lips. “You please me so much. I’ve gotten so used to mistrusting men, wondering if they’re just out for a piece of me. With you, I don’t have those fears. I don’t feel like I’ve got to take things at some ridiculously slow pace just in case you turn out to be a user, like the others. You’re nothing like them. You may be the only really good man I’ve ever been with, the only one who wasn’t just exploiting me for his own purposes. I can’t tell you what that means to me, Jack.”
He was staring at her, his eyes—those amazing, soulful eyes—riveted on her, his expression unreadable in the dark. A couple of times she thought he might be about to say something, but he didn’t.
“Too heavy for precoital banter?” she said. “Hate to tell you this, but it gets even worse. I’m gonna say the L word now, and you can’t stop me. You don’t have to say it back. We haven’t known each other that long. But I need to say it.”
“Kat.” He banded his arms around her and drew her close. “Honey . . .”
“I love you,” she whispered into his ear.
He held her tighter, so tight it almost hurt. “Sleep here tonight,” he pleaded, his voice low and rough. “Stay with me . . . just for tonight.”
“I’ll stay with you tonight, and tomorrow night, and the night after that.” She straddled him, taking him into her slowly, sinuously. “We’ll have as many nights as you want.”
They rocked together, at first with a dreamlike languor, their hands stroking, exploring, their mouths meeting and parting, meeting and parting between softly whispered endearments. Their pleasure gathered up by delirious increments, until they were thrashing together with an almost violent abandon.
“Kat . . . oh, God.” He seized her hips to still her, his body taut, a growl rising in his chest as he pushed deep, deep. She came when he did, sobbing with the blissful force of it.
He pulled her back down on top of him, holding her close as the tremors eased and their breathing slowed to normal. He stroked her hair, rubbed his stubbly chin against her face.
“What am I gonna do?” he murmured drowsily, sounding almost like a little boy.
“What do you mean?”
He sighed, shook his head.
“You’re tired.” She kissed his eyelids. “Sleep.”
His breathing slowed, deepened. A couple of minutes later she realized he had, indeed, fallen asleep, still buried inside her. She uncoupled gently, so as not to wake him, and rose off the bed. The clock read 9:16. She would spend the night with him, but it was early yet, and she wasn’t remotely sleepy. In fact, she felt both buzzed and pleasantly intoxicated, as if she’d just chased a double cognac with a triple mocha cappuccino.
A cocktail of adrenaline and endorphins, with a dollop of chocolate syrup. New love; it was potent stuff.
Padding naked into Jack’s bathroom, she took a long, deliciously scalding shower. A creamy yellow oxford button-down shirt was hanging on the back of the door. It smelled like laundry detergent and Jack. She put it on, breathing him in, feeling the lightly starched cotton floating against her bare skin; it came to mid-thigh.
She opened the door to let the steam out while she ran a comb—a black Ace, a man’s comb—through her damply snarled hair.
From the direction of the living room, a phone rang. Kat paused in her combing, weighing whether to answer it. Nah. Jack would surely have either an answering machine or voice mail.
It was a machine, she discovered when she heard his recorded voice say, “This is Jack O’Leary. Leave a message at the beep.”
Beep.
“Jack, it’s Celeste.”
Kat stared at the foggy mirror, the comb poised in midair, thinking, I know that voice. I know that name. It was the woman who’d called her a high-priced whore on the phone today. Celeste Worth. Preston’s wife.
“I waited an hour and a half for your call today, Jack. I don’t appreciate being made to cool my heels. I do hope you’ve got a good excuse and you’re not just avoiding me because you haven’t made any progress yet toward, uh . . . landing your prey.”
Kat walked into the living room on deadened legs, following Celeste Worth’s voice to the answering machine, spotlit by the green-shaded lamp on Jack’s desk.
“Tomorrow is Sunday,” Celeste said. “A day of rest, and a good thing, too, because you are to plant that tight little butt of yours at home and stay there until you hear from me. If I don’t receive a satisfactory report from you tomorrow, the deal’s off. That five grand I gave you as a down payment? I’ll be expecting that back in full.”
There came a pause, during which Kat heard a faint click and a blowing sound. “If you let me down, you’ll just be letting yourself down, Jack. Trust me, this is the easiest fifty K you’ll ever earn. And if you can manage not to get hamstrung by tiresome scruples, there are, shall we say . . . perks to be had?” Celeste pitched her voice to a la
scivious timbre. “She must be a tiger in the sack, for Preston to have lost his head this way.”
Click.
The endorphins had vaporized, leaving Kat in the grip of a raging adrenaline firestorm. Her head shook; her hands shook; her legs shook.
She laid the comb on the desk with absurd care, still staring at the answering machine. Something lay on the desk near it, a small square of paper—a newspaper clipping. She lifted it, but it shook too badly to decipher. Setting it down under the lamp, she bent to read it.
WANTED: SEDUCTIVE, SELF-ASSURED MALE to take my husband’s girlfriend from him . . .
“No,” she whispered over and over as she read the rest of it. This wasn’t happening. Kat scanned the desktop, but it was nearly bare except for his computer equipment. She pulled open a deep drawer on the left-hand side of the desk, and found it stuffed with hanging files. A quick perusal revealed no “Peale” in the P’s and no “Worth” in the W’s. Shoving the chair aside, she opened the middle drawer.
A closed file folder lay on top. She placed it on the desk and flipped it open.
And sucked in a breath when she saw the photograph. It was her, shivering outside the Four Seasons that night Preston had taken her to dinner and she hadn’t thought to bring a coat. Preston was in the shot, digging distractedly through his pockets for a tip for the doorman, who was stepping off the curb with his arm raised, a whistle in his mouth.
There was a whole stack of photos, she realized in stunned horror. Lifting them, she flipped through them swiftly with spastic hands, growing progressively more sick to her stomach: she and Preston through the window of that little Tuscan place on Columbus, eating tiramisu; she and Preston gallery-hopping on Madison Avenue; she and Preston leaving her apartment building; walking in Central Park; lunching at the Plaza.
“Oh, God.” Looking down, Kat saw packets of money strewn in the drawer. She scooped up a fistful; they each held $1,000 in twenties. That five grand I gave you as a down payment . . .
“Oh, my God,” she whispered. “Oh, my God. Oh, my—”
“Did the phone ring?”
Kat whirled around to find Jack walking toward her, yawning and scratching his stomach. Wearing nothing but those boxer shorts over that well-honed bod, his hair sleep-mussed, his jaw dark with stubble, he looked like every woman’s secret fantasy.
And Kat’s waking nightmare.
He glanced blearily toward the answering machine, running a hand through his hair. In a sleep-deepened voice, he said, “I thought I heard the phone . . .” His gaze lit on the open folder on the desk, the stack of photos in her right hand, the money in her left.
Please don’t let this be what it looks like, she silently prayed.
But the sudden dismay in his expression, the whispered epithet, proved the worst.
“It was Celeste,” Kat said tremulously. “She expects a report tomorrow, or”—she gestured with the cash—“you’ve got to give this back.”
Jack took a step toward her, his hands up, his expression stricken. “Kat . . .”
“Luckily, you’ve got good news to report, don’t you? You’ve . . . how did she put it? Landed your prey. Isn’t that what she paid you for?”
“Kat . . . no.”
“This says differently.” She flung the money and the photographs at him; they lay scattered at his feet.
“Kat, please just—”
“You were right, last night, when you said I was gullible.”
“I didn’t say—”
“No, that’s right. ‘Too trusting,’ that was how you put it.” Her jeans lay on the floor nearby, along with her panties, loafers, and trench coat. Remembering how she’d thrown herself at him, how she’d thrashed and moaned beneath him, filled her with red-hot mortification. Snatching up the jeans, she started pulling them on. “I was trusting, all right—the perfect patsy. I bought your scam hook, line, and sinker.”
God, she’d told him she loved him! That memory would make her burn with humiliation the rest of her days.
“Kat . . .” He approached her warily as she tugged her jeans over her hips and zipped them up. “I know how this seems, and I admit, in the beginning, my motives weren’t exactly noble—”
“You think?” she spat out as she stepped into her loafers. “You answered a personals ad, for God’s sake, to steal me away from—”
“No.” He raised his hands again. “I didn’t know anything about that ad. I was just the guy she hired to catch Preston and you . . .” He glanced down at the photographs littering the carpet.
“You took those pictures?” She felt her throat close up. “You followed me around and—”
“It was just a job. I’m a private investigator.”
“A private . . . you’re not a sec—” A bitter little gust of laughter shook her chest. “Of course you’re not. Nothing is what it seemed, is it? Everything out of your mouth has been a lie.”
“Not everything. Kat . . .” He took another step toward her, quivering from head to foot. “It’s true, she hired me to . . . get you away from Preston. I did it for the money, but once I got to know you—”
“Stop lying to me!” she screamed, feeling her eyes burn with impending tears. “You know something, Jack? Preston Worth is an Eagle Scout compared to you. All he wanted from me was sex. With you, it was that old bottom line. Well, congratulations. You’ve fulfilled your end of the deal admirably. You seduced me away from Preston. A job well done.”
As she circled around him to leave, he grabbed her arm. “Kat.”
She hauled back and slapped him, as hard as she could, across the face. His head whipped to the side; she thought he might fall, but he held his ground. He closed his eyes, his chest pumping, his jaw clenched.
Willing herself not to cry—she’d be damned if she’d let him see her cry—Kat lifted her coat from the floor and put it on, stuffing her panties in the pocket; her right hand stung as if it had been burned. Quietly, gravely, she said, “I hope you choke on your fifty thousand dollars.”
His eyes, when he opened them, were red-rimmed; a vein rose on his forehead. “Kat, don’t,” he implored in a voice like damp rust. “Don’t leave, not yet. Please let me explain.”
She shook her head solemnly. “I don’t trust myself to separate the truth from your bullshit anymore. Goodbye, Jack.”
“Kat, no!” He leapt after her as she strode to the door, grabbed it as she yanked it open. “We can’t leave it like this.”
Kat stepped out into the hallway, paused. With her back to him, she said, softly, “You didn’t have to make me fall in love with you, Jack. That was cruel.”
She walked away before he could summon a response.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Kat’s bedside phone rang at 10:27 Monday morning while she lay there contemplating the ornate crown molding around the ceiling and thinking about the fact that it was the day before Christmas and she didn’t care. She let the machine pick up.
“Hi, you’ve reached Katherine Peale’s answering machine. Sorry I’m not in to take your call right now, but if you’d like to leave a message, just wait for the beep.”
Beep.
“Kat, it’s me again.”
Jack. Kat closed her eyes.
“You’re probably getting sick of me leaving these messages,” he said. “I know you don’t want to talk to me, you don’t want my explanations or apologies. You’ve written me off, and I guess I can’t blame you, but I need you to know that I . . .”
He sighed. “Look, it’s hard to say these things to a machine, and your doorman won’t let me up. I was hoping I’d see you at Augusta House yesterday. Nobody could believe you didn’t want to help decorate. Chantal and Pia wanted to know what was wrong, if something had happened between you and me. I said they’d have to ask you.”
They had. Other than confirming that she and Jack had parted ways, she’d basically stonewalled them.
“I don’t want you to have to miss the party tomorrow just ’cause you’re af
raid I’ll be there,” he said, “so I’ve decided not to go. But Kat, please meet with me. Or at least return my calls. I’m dying here.”
Why was he doing this? Why go to this trouble to prolong their acquaintance? He’d done what he’d been hired to do; he’d broken up her relationship with Preston. His “generous reward” was in the bag. Why should it matter what she thought of him?
“Kat, I do care for you,” he said with such fulsome sincerity that she was almost tempted to believe him. “What happened between us, it wasn’t about the money. I mean, in the beginning it was, but you’ve got to believe me when I say it became . . . more than that. A lot more. Celeste . . . she did call yesterday, and I told her she can keep her fifty grand. I don’t want it.”
He didn’t want the fifty grand. Why wouldn’t he want . . .?
“Of course,” Kat whispered when it dawned on her. Why should Jack settle for a mere fifty thousand dollars when Katherine Peale was presumably worth millions? She’d already proven herself to be pathetically susceptible to the Jack O’Leary brand of charisma. If he were to con her into forgiving him, he might be able to wheedle himself back into her life, her bed . . . maybe even marriage. Marriage to an heiress, pre-nup or no pre-nup, would trump fifty grand any day.
“Kat . . . honey.” He sounded convincingly anguished. “Look into your heart. What happened between us Saturday night . . . you know it was real.”
She reached for the phone, propped it against her ear.
He was saying, “How could I have just been pretending—”
“Save your breath, Jack.”
“Kat? Kat! Honey, listen to—”
“I’m not rich, Jack.”
“What? Kat—”
“I used to be, and most people assume I still am. But I burned out my trust fund and inheritance on Augusta House, which is why I’m having to go hat in hand to people like the Livermores in order to get Caring for Families off the ground.”
Naughty or Nice? Page 8
