“I’m going to kiss you,” he said, his hands gripping her back as his mouth came closer and closer to hers.
“Okay…” Any other words were cut off by his lips on hers, brushing with a lightness that made her tremble.
Then he increased the pressure, and her thoughts scattered like marbles. Excitement. Desire. Confusion. All colliding in a powerful burst of emotion, so that she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him back.
Their lips slid together, hot and moist and anxious, while Jack’s hands guided her hips against his, grinding them together.
Oh, yes. This was it. This was kismet.
This felt like everything she’d been waiting for, a surging of heat and excitement, as his tongue dipped into her mouth. He tasted like wine, smelled like aftershave, his chin chafing hers. There was no goof, no incorrect tiltage of head or nose, no awkwardness. There was only hot, thrusting tongue and more emotion, more tenderness, more questing than she could have ever expected on a first date.
They stood there, mouth against mouth, locked in passion, striving, reaching, yearning fully for that connection, that magic, that fantastical moment of anticipation, of understanding that this was special, this was going farther.
Until someone bumped Jack’s back, sending them stumbling backward. Jamie connected with the glass window of a kitschy T-shirt and souvenir shop, her head giving a resounding smack.
It didn’t hurt, but Jack pulled her quickly forward, his voice full of alarm. “Are you okay? Let me see.”
He dug around through her thick curls searching for damage while she tried to shake off the sexual haze she had been drowning in.
Jack had taken her to red-hot and raring to go in a heartbeat. She hadn’t reacted that intensely since…ever.
“I’m okay,” she said with a breathless laugh, enjoying the feel of his fingers gliding across her head. “I think my hair protected me.”
Jack dropped his hands. “Good.”
A man nudged past them and said in annoyance, “Get a room and get out of my way.”
Jamie looked at Jack in shock and giggled. Jack’s lip twitched.
“I’m sorry,” he said with a grin that clearly showed he wasn’t sorry.
“Sorry for kissing me?” If he said yes, she was going to collapse on the sidewalk in a puddle of disappointment.
“No.”
Before she could turn a triumphant cartwheel, he spoke in a sexy, low voice that made her rethink her stance on collapsing.
He said, “I’m not sorry for kissing you. I’m sorry I got interrupted.”
Oh, mama.
She was still against the window, and he was in front of her, large and damn good looking, very much a man. His leg was tucked between hers, and his broad chest was inches from her own.
He hesitated. “Do you…do you want to go somewhere private?”
The word came out on a ragged groan that set Jamie’s heart thumping like Indian drums. Of course she did. That was a no-brainer.
But whether she should was another story altogether.
She thought for exactly one-point-one seconds. “Okay.”
Maybe it was insane, maybe she would regret it, but right here, right now, with the thousands of neon lights flashing behind his head, Jamie wanted Jack in a way that she had never felt.
There was a knowledge deep down inside that come whatever of Beckwith’s prediction, this much was true. That she was meant to meet Jack, and that she would share a powerful connection with him.
That he would touch her soul.
In a sense, he already had.
He’d made her rethink her future, made her think that not everything was concrete, that she needed to be open to all possibilities.
That she needed to be open to Jack. Literally.
Dang, she felt herself blushing on the sidewalk. She was a total hussy and couldn’t even regret it.
“Thank you,” Jack muttered, straightening up in relief. “Yours or mine?”
Jamie felt a little faint and wondered if she had knocked her head harder than she had thought. She wasn’t an impulsive woman, yet here she was going home with a man after three hours of conversation. “I have two roommates.”
“Oh, hell, that won’t work.” He lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles, the feel of his lips on her skin sending a rush of heat to her abdomen.
“My place, then.” He smiled and tugged her off of the wall.
She couldn’t think of a single thing to say, just let him draw her against him. Even as his body felt hard and comforting and arousing, doubts crept in. She swallowed, fear rising up into her throat. She didn’t do this. She didn’t go home with men she had just met.
She didn’t have casual sex, didn’t have a wild bone in her body.
Jack’s face grew puzzled. “Do you know, Jamie The Klutz, that I have the strangest feeling that I’ve been waiting to meet you? That you were supposed to collide into me and my spaghetti.”
Before she could respond, he shook his head and grinned. “Damn, that sounds crazy.”
A group of preteens was walking by, jostling each other. The one closest to Jamie lost his balance and dumped half of his soft drink on their entwined hands. Jamie jumped at the sudden cold liquid splashing her.
“Sorry,” the kid mumbled, his friends laughing.
Jack took his shirttail and wiped her hand dry, dipping between her fingers with the fabric. “Maybe I am crazy and that was meant to be a cold shower of sorts.”
“I don’t think you’re crazy.” Jamie touched his bottom lip with her finger, heart pounding. “I know exactly what you mean.”
Fear disappeared.
For while Jamie didn’t believe in casual sex, she believed in fate.
“Let’s go, Jack.”
And his response was to turn around, raise his hand, and yell, “Taxi!”
Chapter 4
Jack didn’t know what the hell was the matter with him.
He had just dragged Jamie off to his apartment in some caveman imitation. Or worse. Like a horny teenager.
But he hadn’t been able to stop himself. They had spent three hours in the restaurant, talking and laughing, and just enjoying each other’s company. They had a lot in common and more still not in common, but it didn’t matter. Being with her just felt right.
And his attraction had grown steadily every second, until he had been walking side by side with her, his hand on her smooth back, when the urge to kiss her had been overwhelming.
He hadn’t even told her his last name, for God’s sake.
Yet they were stepping out of the cab in front of his building in TriBeCa, and he was going to see this compulsion through to the end. He had been suffering through a twenty-four-hour hard-on because of this woman, and if the way she jumped out of the cab was any indication, she had been suffering something similar.
She looked around her in amazement, her eyes landing on the doorman. “This is your building?”
Damn. He was supposed to be unemployed, not living in a pricey apartment in a trendy neighborhood. “It’s a friend’s apartment. He’s out of town, so I’m staying here to watch the place for him.”
Jack fought the urge to wince. He ran his fingers through his hair and started to question his keeping the truth from Jamie. It wouldn’t matter. She wouldn’t care what was or wasn’t in his bank account, and he wouldn’t have to tell these ridiculous lies.
She was rational enough to know not to confront a criminal.
He opened his mouth to tell her the truth.
Then she said with a laugh, “Oh, good! You had me worried there for a second. I don’t know if I could date someone who lives in a place like this.”
He clamped his mouth shut again. He nodded to the doorman and ushered her inside the building. “Why not?”
She gave a mock shudder, gesturing to the art deco lobby. “It’s a little pretentious.”
Oh, hell. He gave a weak smile and slapped the elevator up button. It just figured. Jamie
gave the opposite reaction to every other woman he’d ever met. Most women’s eyes lit up in possessive greed when they first saw his apartment. Jamie was disgusted by the opulence.
And he had never once thought of the lobby as being pretentious, but now that she had planted the seed in his mind, it took root, making him uncomfortable. “The apartment’s not so bad,” he assured her.
His sister was always complaining that he needed to hire a decorator. She thought his apartment needed a theme to pull it together. One besides black plastic electronics equipment, that is.
Jamie clutched that silly little purse of hers that looked like an alligator and licked her lips. She looked as nervous as he felt. Maybe it was time to slow this down before she thought through the ramifications of going home with a guy she didn’t really know. Jack knew who Jamie was, but she didn’t know him. Had no reason to trust him. And given that look on her face, she was realizing that.
“Hey, Jamie, why don’t we go grab some coffee before we head up?” He took her hand and squeezed it in reassurance. She smiled at him, that soft tilting up of her lips that showed her teeth and lit up her eyes.
“You really are a nice guy, aren’t you?” she asked. “I don’t mean to be a tease…”
“Are you kidding? In my book, there’s no such thing as a tease. A woman is allowed to say no at any time, for any reason. No questions asked, no arguing.” Jack pulled her away from the elevators. He already felt like an asshole for not telling her who he was; he wasn’t about to coax her into a sexual relationship she wasn’t ready for.
“I’m not saying no,” she said, green eyes very glassy and bright. “Just…not yet.”
He wanted to groan, but instead gestured to the grouping of four chairs to the left of the mail slots. “Let’s just sit for a minute.”
The chairs were really damn uncomfortable—minimalist, armless jobs with stuffing that felt more akin to steel. It was like perching on a big bar of red soap, but at the moment, he couldn’t care less. Jamie was licking her lips again, and she tucked her feet under her legs on the chair.
“Our names both start with J-a,” she said, distracting his attention from her lips. “Is Jack your real name?”
He didn’t care what his name was, but he thought it was cute the quirky things Jamie said sometimes. “My real name is Jonathon.” He couldn’t force another lie past his mouth. “Is Jamie a nickname, too?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Jamie Lynn, that’s me.”
Jamie Lynn. It fit.
As he studied the upturn of her nose, the wild auburn curls, he wondered which name was the real him. Was he Jonathon or was he Jack? Jonathon at work. Jonathon with his parents.
He was Jack with Pops. And definitely Jack with Jamie.
“Well, Jamie Lynn.” He tried to remove the flatness of his Connecticut-raised voice and inject some Kentucky into it. “That’s a mighty fine name.”
She giggled. “I don’t like southern boys.”
He lost the accent. “I’m all New York, honey. But I bet you broke a bunch of good ole boy hearts when you left Kentucky.”
Rolling her eyes, she smiled. “If I broke Dale’s heart, it recovered quickly. Two months after high school graduation he married Trudy Wythbodden, who some girls used to call Trudy Wide Bottom. He wanted me to stay in La Grange and get married, but I had to leave, had to see a bit of the world for myself. I wasn’t trying to escape Kentucky—I loved growing up there—but I don’t know, I just needed some independence.”
“I never thought about going anywhere else. I grew up forty miles from Manhattan, and I guess it seemed stupid to go anywhere else, especially since I wanted to get into finance. But maybe it would have been smart to explore a little more. Maybe I wouldn’t have found myself so tired and burned out.”
Certain that there was more to life than making money. Winning.
Something he had never admitted to himself was that he had suddenly looked in the mirror and wondered if he was destined to grow old alone, a miser counting his coins.
It had scared the shit out of him, and then some.
But what was even scarier was that a year later he was no closer to content, despite ditching the career. When was he going to be done? Ready to stand still.
In his head he practically heard the screech of subway brakes. Now. He was ready now.
“Maybe this is your time to explore,” Jamie said.
“Aren’t I too old to do that? I’m thirty, for God’s sake. Isn’t there like a statute of limitations on finding yourself?” Jack grinned. “Bet old what’s-his-name isn’t interested in backpacking Europe or taking up yoga.”
“Yeah, but he wasn’t worth the spit for the shine, which he proved by falling into Trudy’s arms about a minute after I left.” Jamie fiddled with her necklace, a twisted rope, kind of a knot with green stones in it. “But most people are like paintings…they take forever to create, and every time you look at them, you discover something you didn’t see before.”
Very true. Jack was noticing that the green in Jamie’s necklace perfectly matched her eyes.
And she had freckles. Right across the bridge of her nose.
Freaking adorable, every inch of her.
Eight hours later, the end table next to them was littered with paper coffee cups, their rims going soft, the liquid contents cold, the aroma stale. Jamie’s legs were stiff, her neck tired, her voice scratchy, and her butt numb from the ridiculous scoop chair she’d been sitting in all night.
Yet, she wasn’t the least bit interested in leaving. She had spent the whole night in the lobby talking to Jack, who was funny and kind and extremely smart.
She was going to have to name her first-born child after Beckwith.
Okay, so maybe it wouldn’t go that far, but it wasn’t like she could name her first orgasm or anything, and she was sure that was coming soon, pun intended. The point was, she was falling for Jack. She wanted him more than Derby pie, and that mile-high gooey chocolate dessert was never to be underestimated.
Admittedly, she was a tumbler, falling for various guys and their hard-luck stories, but inevitably, her legs got caught up in the skirt of half-truths, and she fell on her face. For the most part, she’d never minded, because she had never fallen in love.
It was possible she’d done just that in one night.
Or at least taken a serious turn in that direction.
That was the only explanation for the way she felt—sort of inflated and overaware, her skin prickling everywhere, her throat tight, breath anxious. Excitement and pleasure rushed through her, and an irrepressible giddiness made her feet tap rapidly, her heart race.
At some point she was going to have to leave and go home, but for now she didn’t want this night, this moment, this feeling, to end.
Jamie tucked her legs over the back of the chair and leaned backward, observing Jack upside down. No one else was stirring in the lobby at six in the morning on a Saturday. “So, what’s your one big regret in life, Jack?”
His eyebrow went down, or actually up. “Besides that perm in the seventh grade?”
She laughed, holding her hands over her stomach so her shirt wouldn’t ride up. “Fashion faux pas don’t count.”
“I don’t have a one big regret,” he said thoughtfully. “More like a series of little regrets. You know, like when you were six and you went along with the kids when they picked on the kid who was overweight. Or when I blew off this girl in high school who asked me to the prom. The time I forgot my sister’s birthday. Stuff like that.”
Even though the blood was rushing to her head, Jamie stayed upside down. It was an interesting perspective, watching Jack lean closer to her, his hands resting on his spread legs. He had a nice strong jaw.
Jamie’s necklace fell over her mouth, and she let the stones slip between her lips, then bit. She was a chewer. Pen caps, sweatshirt strings, fingernails, her hair.
“I know exactly what you mean,” she said around the necklace.
His arm came toward her, and his finger brushed across her lip, pulling back the obstruction. “Say that again? I couldn’t understand you.”
“Sorry. Bad habit. I’m always sticking things in my mouth. I’ve always been very oral.”
He started laughing, and she suddenly realized how that had sounded. Oh, Lord. She blushed. Especially since he’d moved in closer and she was about an inch from his chest, his fingers still tracing over her mouth, her hair brushing down over his waist.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“What? I didn’t say anything,” he protested, a grin still on his upside-down face.
She needed to right herself before her eyes bulged or she did something crazy like lick his chest. Smiling herself, she tried to sit back up, but she was stuck in the chair, Jack too close for her to swing her legs back around.
“Geez, I’m stuck.” Her back was kind of spasming now, too, protesting the awkward position. But she wasn’t even sure she cared. She just felt too darn good to worry about spinal damage.
Besides, Jack already had it under control. With a few gentle pushes and pulls with those impressive biceps, he had her right side up and facing his chest. A pile of curls tumbled over her face, blocking her view, and she slapped at them impatiently. She put her hand on Jack’s waist and gripped the fabric of his shirt.
For balance, of course.
“Why don’t we go horseback riding later today?” Jack said, playing with her corkscrew hair lying on her shoulder. “I’m sure I’ll embarrass myself, but you said you miss riding…”
Well, that was sweet. Jamie’s hand curled into his shirt tighter as she fought the urge to sigh. “That would be fun.”
“Great. I guess we should grab a few hours of sleep first, and we can meet back up later. Let’s see if we can find you a cab.”
Neither one of them moved. Jack was still leaning toward her in his chair and he was staring at her lips. Jamie was aware that she was pressed against his thighs, and that she didn’t want to go anywhere.
Ever.
Sleeping in her twin bed with purple cotton sheets held no appeal, not even when she’d been up all night.
Unwrapped Bundle with You Don't Know Jack & Bad Boys in Kilts Page 31
