No Time To Dream

by Treva Harte

  Jen nodded. She usually was there anyhow, but she had seen some of the looks Nancy Jamieson had been giving Jack. Charles Jamieson wasn't the only younger man she could be interested in.

  That afternoon, as arranged, Mrs. Jamieson came, dressed in sunglasses and a demure peach suit that looked as expensive as it probably was. She didn't acknowledge Jen or Laura as she swept into the adjoining conference room. Jen grabbed her notebook while Laura buzzed Jack.

  The older woman had her back to them both as she looked out the window. Jack shut the door behind him.

  "I don't want her here," Mrs. Jamieson said, curtly, without a glance Jen's way.

  "I'm afraid Ms. Turner must stay," Jack answered. "She is my employee and will keep everything you say in complete confidence."

  The woman sighed.

  "As you wish."

  She turned abruptly. Jennifer choked off a gasp. Although she was carefully made up and her hair was artfully done, with her sunglasses off anyone could tell Nancy Jamieson had a vicious-looking black eye.

  There was a short silence.

  "Your husband did this?" Jack said in a neutral tone.

  "Yes. Foolishly, I allowed him into the house last night. I knew better." She ran her finger up and down one temple of the sunglasses. "He seemed quiet enough but that changed very quickly."

  "Then he's done this before?" Jack asked.

  "Yes. Of course," she responded. "I—need to sit down. This isn't an easy thing to discuss. What do you need to know?"

  "Why don't we start from the beginning." Jack was all business. "Tell me what you can. Do you need any water?"

  "No. I can do this."

  Jennifer jerked her attention to her notebook and began to write down the list of abuse Nancy Jamieson recited in a detached voice. There had been other black eyes and bruises—never enough to go to the hospital, never often enough to be completely expected. She didn't falter once in her recital. When she finished, she looked at Jack, and she once again seemed her usual impatient self.

  "Well," Jack said. "My sympathy, Mrs. Jamieson."

  "Sympathy wasn't all I wanted." She frowned. "I decided to tell you for a more specific reason."

  "You think it will win you points for your settlement?"

  "Won't it?" she asked, turning back to the window. "No, don't answer. I know the answer already. Perhaps. But perhaps the judge will wonder why I so conveniently brought it up now. It could be a trick."

  "It could." Jack was honest. "If it helps, I don't think you would say this for that reason. You don't like looking a victim."

  "No. No, I don't. I prefer to have others think twice before they cross me. This doesn't help that image."

  "So why have you discussed it?"

  "That girl. The one Charlie is seeing. He says he wants to marry her."

  "Yes."

  "She's the age I was when I married my first husband. I had no idea what I was going into then. Of course I had no idea what I was getting into with this husband, either. I remember once being grateful we had no children. He might've abused them. But she could have children. He says he wants them, you know. It would be—" The clipped voice wavered again. "It would be wrong to not let her know."

  "And how do you want her to know?"

  "I want to press criminal charges this time and put it in the court records," Nancy Jamieson said. "The girl might not believe me if I told her myself. But there's something very hard to ignore about a report like that in black and white. Besides, if I just told her—even if she did believe me—Charles wants children. There are other young women. This would let them all know what to expect."

  Jack began to talk about counseling but Jen knew that the other woman wasn't listening.

  Jen swallowed as she looked at Nancy Jamieson. The woman suddenly turned and looked directly at her.

  "I loved Charlie for a long time," she told Jen. "Hell of a thing, love. It lets you hurt yourself so horribly. You never know if you are choosing the right thing or not."

  The rest of the day was equally awful. Between helping to report the abuse to the police and the frantic scramble to prepare for court, Jack asked her to stay late.

  He shooed her out to get some take-out at the nearest Chinese restaurant somewhere around nine o'clock when both of them realized they were almost cross-eyed from fatigue and hunger.

  They ate the food in relative silence.

  Jen finally asked, "Do you believe her, Jack? She sounded so honest, but she can be so manipulative."

  Jack didn't look up from his chopsticks. He neatly tucked rice into his mouth and swallowed before replying.

  "I've seen women lie about their ex-husbands abusing their children and themselves. I've seen them lie about them not abusing the family. Hell, Jen, it happened to me," Jack said.

  "Your parents abused—"

  "Not physically. Sometimes things got very ugly verbally, not that either of them would admit to what they had done to themselves or to me with their words." Jack shut his eyes and opened them again. "But that isn't what I meant. My mother did try to suggest my father was an unfit parent and that he knocked me around a little. I remember having to testify about that in court. God knows why she said he was unfit in that way. She could have picked almost anything else he'd done. He was unfit to be a parent. So was she. Unfortunately it wasn't as if there was anyone else who could take care of me instead."

  For just a moment Jen remembered the gawky little boy who had lived next door to her. The one with the desolate eyes. She remembered her mother and father murmuring in another room about him. Total disregard for a child. What is wrong with those parents? She had been only five or so, but she remembered.

  Jen put her hand out to him. They gripped for a moment. Then he smiled and slid his hand away.

  "But Mrs. Jamieson—"

  "She didn't lie," Jack said. "But I wouldn't swear to it."

  "Then again you won't have to. You'll just tell the judge that it's so." Jen gave a cynical smile. "It doesn't matter what you really think, does it?"

  "Exactly. The situation is for the judge to decide. I'm glad I'm not the one who has to. God, why does anyone think being a divorce lawyer is worth it?"

  He sagged against the couch. She picked up the food cartons and tossed them into the trash.

  "It's hard to help untangle people's legal problems when there is—was—love involved. Emotions can make things pretty messy. You did a good job today." She took a closer look at him. He was drawn. Tired. "Here, let me help you relax."

  She massaged his shoulders. His knotted neck muscles gradually began to loosen under her touch. She looked down at the unfastened tie and undone buttons. She glimpsed the hair on his chest. She smelled his scent. She felt the smoothness of his skin under her hands.

  His eyes were half-closed as she kneaded his shoulders. He sighed and let his head droop.

  "Bless you, sweetheart," he got out in a drowsy tone.

  She sighed, too. Jen gave a little half-smile as she kneaded his flesh. Jack had very nice muscles. She remembered what her sisters had said. Jen hated to admit it, but they were right. Jack was one sexy male. Even she could understand that. It was fortunate that they were just friends. It would be so complicated if she let herself fantasize about anything more.

  Her hands slowed. She could feel the heat from his body. It felt so good to touch—

  What if she undressed him? Touched him the way she used to touch a man? She could imagine stroking down from his shoulders to his chest, to his stomach. She could imagine feeling his muscles bunch and quiver under her hands. She could even imagine slipping her hands down slowly, teasingly to his cock and watching it jump under her caress. She would watch as the cum dripped slowly, tantalizingly, from that sensitive opening—

  Jen realized her hands had gone from a simple massage to long, lingering strokes against Jack's neck and hair. He had such beautiful hair. It clung to her fingers…

  Jen stopped. She was caressing him, for heaven's sake, wit
hout even thinking about it. Maybe he wouldn't notice.

  Then she realized Jack's body was no longer relaxed. She looked down and swallowed. He'd noticed, all right. She could tell how very unrelaxed his body had become. Good Lord, his cock was big. Jen couldn't keep from staring at his crotch. She still had her hands in his hair.

  This was embarrassing.

  She needed to laugh and apologize. No, she shouldn't laugh. There certainly wasn't anything to snicker about. Jack's body was beautiful.

  Jen cleared her throat. She'd say she hadn't been thinking, that it had been an emotionally and physically draining day and one moment she was thinking about heading for home and peace and the next—

  Then it hit. Everything. Jen's hands began to shake.

  She stared at him. The flame-red hair tickling against her fingers. His sensual lips and strong chin. His broad shoulders. His long legs. That hard-on. Her eyes kept coming back to that erection.

  Her breath caught. Every sense in her body was alert and screaming. Screaming for him. For this man who lay so quietly under her touch. For Jack.

  All this time, he was the one who had backed her up, been there for her. She'd known the things he did for her. She'd known how attractive he was to other women.

  The jokes they had laughed over together about how he was the most eligible lawyer in the building came back to her. But she hadn't seen it for herself—hadn't seen how his blue eyes could look right into a woman's soul, how the muscles rippled in his back and chest and how his mouth could—She hadn't let herself see it. She wanted him. She really wanted him.

  Oh God. This was Jack. It was just…

  "Jack?" She couldn't stop the word.

  What did she look like, staring at him like she had never seen him before? No, worse than that, like she was some kind of teenage groupie who—She snatched her hands away from him.

  His head turned and he stared up at her. It took one moment. Two moments. God, his eyes were so beautiful. So questioning. She knew exactly when it dawned how in lust she was with him.

  Within two seconds he turned from being a drop-dead gorgeous, drop-dead tired attorney into a man with his entire attention focused on her.

  His eyes narrowed as they looked at her, just at her. His face hardened, became predatory. Hungry.

  "Jen."

  Even his voice sounded different. More dangerous. More exciting.

  She couldn't think what to say. What could you say to someone you had known your whole life but whom you had just found out could look, could be—Jen forced her hands away from his body.

  What should she do?

  She put her hand out to him. What if he…no, he wouldn't laugh, he was too nice to laugh, but what if—

  Her mouth was dry. The words wouldn't form.

  I want you.

  She didn't say that, but now he was doing the talking.

  "Jen—do you remember when I told you that you'd just have to give me a look and I would kiss you witless?" Jack's voice was as unsteady as her legs.

  "Yes."

  "And I told you I might not stop there, depending on the situation?"

  "Yes."

  "Honey, have we got ourselves that situation now? I want to believe we do but I'm not going to do anything you don't want…or…Jen, I'm not misunderstanding this, am I?" His eyes were very blue. She had never seen his eyes so blue.

  She could stop things now.

  "No, Jack. You're not misunderstanding anything." She had thought she would sound nervous but she didn't. She sounded very sure. "Jack, how about I kiss you witless instead?"

  She leaned over and kissed him. It started off gently. Jack hadn't kissed her often before this, but when he did, it had been something like this.

  She sighed at the gentleness. Sweet. So sweet.

  But she didn't need sweet right now. She was dying for something more.

  Jen ruthlessly made their kiss less gentle, and less gentle yet. Her tongue touched his, urgently, begged silently for more. Her fingers clawed suddenly, sharply at his shoulders.

  More. More! Hotter, harder, faster.

  She couldn't quite believe what she was telling Jack with the kiss, what she was telling herself with the kiss.

  Jack was the one who ended it, but she didn't have time to wonder why before he tucked her tightly against his body. He kissed her neck, caressed her shoulders. His caresses felt so nice. They felt so right. She felt so right with him.

  Jen twisted to get even closer.

  "Jen, I want to fuck you bad. I—I can't tell you the way I should tell you—"

  "Don't tell me anything, Jack. Not right now. Just go ahead and fuck me."

  Then her reliable, nice buddy, her considerate boss, became something else. She was suddenly backed up against the couch. Before she had a chance to do anything she was flat on her back and pressed against the cushions.

  Her breath stopped. His hands were under her skirt without any more finesse than the teenager she felt like. It didn't matter. Jen felt herself getting wet and hot without any more than a touch of his fingers. Her hips jerked up, begging for more. Then her panties were gone and she saw him unzip his pants and jerk them down.

  She whimpered. Had she whimpered before, for Victor? She couldn't remember. She couldn't remember him, she couldn't think, she couldn't breathe. It was Jack who was hard and very, very close to her.

  "Is this OK?" Jack's voice cracked.

  She looked at him again. It was Jack. Jack with his eyes gleaming into hers, with a sheen of sweat slicking his face. She didn't recognize this Jack, but it had to be him.

  "Yes," she whispered. "Better than OK."

  Without any more words, he was inside her. He was stretching her, filling her. It had been so long that his cock hurt at first. God, he wasn't even in completely and she was wondering if she could handle this much, this fast.

  Jack paused momentarily when she shifted uncomfortably beneath him.

  "Jen, you're so tight. You feel so damned good. Nothing ever felt so good. I'm going to try to make it good for you, too, but, God, Jen, I want you." His hands ripped at her shirt and then his mouth was close to her breast. "Tell me if it hurts you. I'll stop if it does. Even if it kills me."

  She tried to tell him touching her breasts didn't work for her, never had, but his teeth gently bit down on one nipple. She jerked forward like fire had touched her. Both nipples tightened under his now soothing tongue. Maybe she had been wrong before.

  She couldn't talk, but her muscles tensed throughout her body and her fingers burrowed under his shirt, digging into his back. She could hear his hoarse breathing. He moved slowly, slowly into her wet, stretched channel. She writhed and groaned but not from the pain. Both of them knew it wasn't pain.

  Finally he was all the way in. It didn't hurt at all by then. Far from it.

  She whimpered again and bucked. He groaned and then began to move, slowly, carefully. She moved her legs over him and dug her heels into his back. Heat was shimmering through her but it wasn't quite enough. She had to make him move. She just had to.

  She heard him say something to her, but she couldn't recognize the words. Maybe it was because his voice was choking or maybe it was because the blood pulsing all the way up to her head was making her hearing, sight, all her senses shut down to concentrate on her one hot, shimmering need.

  She writhed. She gasped.

  "Jack, hurry," she finally managed to say clearly. "Faster."

  The moment she said the words, he thrust into her. Faster. Harder. Rougher. She screamed. Yes. She was so close! She was going to go insane if she didn't—if he didn't—

  He moved harder, uncontrollably, and, suddenly, she tightened, convulsed, screamed again, just as he groaned and collapsed onto her.

  Later—she wasn't sure just how much later—she found herself propped up next to him on the couch while he stroked her shoulders. Her breathing had settled down, her heartbeat was almost normal. She felt amazingly good. Good heaven, she'd needed this. She'd
been horny without Victor but she hadn't let herself realize just how horny and lonely and needy she was.

  Sex was a wonderful thing.

  Jen blinked sleepily at him as he spoke in a low voice, not looking at her.

  "I pictured in my mind a million ways I was going to handle this, if it ever happened in this century."

  He touched her jaw.

  "Was this way in that picture?" Jen smiled. She couldn't help but smile.

  "I told myself I'd be inside you in two seconds if you so much as looked at me as if you wanted it but I think I filed that away under a wet dream fantasy." He put his face next to her neck to bite it. "I honestly thought I would have a little more control."

  "What a filing system." Jen squirmed a little. "Are you blushing, counselor?"

  "I also sort of expected to have all our clothes off before we came," he muttered.

  "You are blushing," she said.

  She squirmed, more deliberately, against his body.

  Jack looked directly at her then.

  "Shut up and let me do it right this time," he told her. "I can make it even better."

  "It was just fine last time," she assured him. "But don't let me stop you."

  He took her at her word. His mouth was on hers, his fingers on her body, stroking her legs, her stomach, her pussy…then he stopped.

  Jen bit off a whimper of frustration. Who would have thought Jack could be such a tease?

  "Jen, we're in my office." He looked up, staring as if he had just realized this fact. "The door—thank God, at least it's closed but—Jen, you've made me crazy. It's not locked."

  "Oh." She tried to care.

  "We should get to my place."

  "It's right next to mine," she reminded him. "Everyone at home will know what we're do-"

  Her eyes began to glaze over as his fingers touched her again, as if he couldn't help but touch. Those fingers were shaking.

  "OK," she managed. "In a minute. Just keep on doing that for a—minute. Jack!"

  She ran her fingers down that long, lean torso. She didn't stop until she rested them on his thighs. Then she turned her palm to cup his balls.