Everything You Need: Everything For You Trilogy Book 1 (15 page)

I prickle with hurt pride. If he’d felt a fraction of what I’d felt for him, there was no way he could have left me. His words are smoke and mirrors. “So, you fancied me. You weren’t the only one. Plenty of boys did when I was eighteen.”

“I was no boy.”

“Exactly.”

”Condemnation, Tabitha? Are you telling me I should have known better? We both knew what we felt and what we wanted. I believe we both still do.”

I give a derisive huff. “You wanted my uncle’s expertise in promoting Zee-Com. And, of course, Jack Keogh gets everything Jack Keogh wants.”

His jaw tenses. “Maybe I still do.”

“Think again.” It doesn’t include any part of me.

The look he adopts is pure arrogance. “Okay, so you’re not going to make this easy but I like that. Don’t delude yourself it will push me away. Your defiance is the sort of challenge I thrive on. Running CaidCo, you’ll be banging heads with plenty of guys like me. We don’t desire what comes quick and easy. It’s the chase, the contest, the ultimate victory that gets our testosterone flowing. Positioning ourselves to take what we want, whenever we want it. You’ll have to learn to manage that or lie down and take it anyway we give it to you.”

His earthy description of the cut and thrust of commerce from a male perspective sounds so much like rough handling I feel the ache between my legs. No doubt Jack could demonstrate tons of stuff worth knowing about tough guys in business and I immediately think of Brent Tapper and how badly I’m managing his play for power.

“It’s macho bullshit.”

He laughs. “Which you will have to learn to shovel out of your way or swallow whole.”

The image makes me want to throw up. “For God’s sake.” I wrinkle my nose.

“A delicate stomach, Tabitha?” He scoffs. “Well buckle up. We’re not done. There’s still you and me to talk about.”

I glare at him with anger in my heart. If I join the dots, he’s practically told me I didn’t interest him because I made it too easy. If I let my resentment slip for a minute, I’m still capable of losing myself in his good looks, in the untamed wilderness of his eyes. Feeling the irresistible pull of attraction to him even now, I shift myself physically away but he grabs me and places me back exactly where he wants me, proving his point about getting what he wants. And mine about macho bull-shit.

“You can quit with the attitude, Tabitha. I was interested in you and you were interested in me. Nothing’s changed.”

“Everything’s changed.” It changed when you betrayed my trust.

“If you haven’t accepted the way things are yet, you will. They’re about to develop a whole lot more.”

My stomach does a double back somersault. Is he threatening me? Promising me? I heave the dress round to join me as each time I move it gets left a little further behind. I don’t want my already weak resistance to Jack to go the same way. I look him squarely in the eyes yet soften my voice deceptively. “You’re right. Nothing important between us has changed.”

He frowns fleetingly. “Way too cool, kitten. I know you’re not agreeing with me. Go on then, let’s have it all out in the open. I’m listening too.”

“You acted nice because you wanted something from my uncle. What better way to get it than to flatter his silly little niece with your attention. No?” I expect my eyes spark with the cold fire combusting in my heart.

“Nice?” Jack laughs mirthlessly. “That’s an interesting recollection. Did we kiss until we burned because I was nice? Did I respect you enough to leave your virginity intact even when you were offering yourself to me on a plate, because I was nice?”

I experience a jolt of utter shock at his explicit claims. My lips part but only air comes out.

“No?” He pauses for a second as it all sinks in. “Now I’ll tell you how things were. Okay, I understand, no woman wants the guy she’s interested in to back off.”

I’m a quick study. I shovel his macho bull-shit out of my way, fast. “That’s true… if she’s actually interested.”

“You were interested.”

“Go to hell, Jack. Not everyone adores you as much as you think they do.”

Jack sighs, sounding for the world as if he’s ready to give up trying. But he moves like lightening, standing, grabbing my shoulders and heaving me up tight up against his body, giving me no time to clutch the disappearing bodice to my breasts. Air whooshes from my lungs with a grunt as I land hard against him but if his actions are furious, his kiss is slow, sensuous and completely drugging. He palms my backside kneading me and rolling me against him.

And drags us apart just the second I begin to dissolve. “Still not interested? Too
nice
for you?” His stern expression and that familiar frown of concentration returns but he’s as affected by the kiss as me. “I had to leave you.”

I try to shrug his hands off me, pull my dress back into place, senses reeling, but he isn’t letting go. His fingers bite.

“Of course you did. When did you ever do anything you didn’t want to do?”

“I’m sorry if I hurt you, Tabby.”

I laugh casually up into his face yet my voice is too strident, too insincere so I resort to the sharpest blade of all: words designed to wound. “Hurt? What makes you think you hurt me? You were far too old for me. I was an inexperienced girl.” I throw his argument back in his face. “Of course I was flattered by a man’s attentions but that’s all. I practised on you but what I really wanted were sexy young guys my own age. And I got them. Plenty of them. Besides, you were a distraction from the boredom of filing. What eighteen year old wants to spend every waking hour filing office papers?”

I mean to sting but when Jack’s expression thaws to one that reads something like acceptance or relief, I feel like bursting into tears.

“I didn’t hurt you then.” He says it so quietly I wonder if I imagined it. “I’m glad.”

“We both moved on.” My mouth is moving without my brain. He moved on. I got left behind.

I listen to his steady breathing filling the dense silence before he slowly releases his hold on me.

“Anyone special in your life?” His voice stays gentle. Detached.

I wrap myself fully in a protective cloak of callousness. “I went for quantity over quality. You know what it’s like at that age.” The lies continue. I raise my eyebrows in mock surprise. “Did you hope I was pining for you? Crying myself to sleep at night? It’s not like we’d had sex or anything. Or like you didn’t go off and have other women.”

He shrugs carelessly and averts his gaze. “I was never destined for the priesthood.”

“No, you were a guy with a big –”

“Tabitha!”

“– wallet.” I’d meant to say ego and despite my deft attempt at diminishing him by suggesting his attractiveness to females was financial, I say it like an accusation. I sniff scathingly to hide my hurt.

He hooks a lock of hair behind my ear and smiles gently as he looks down at me. I can’t read the strange expression in his eyes though. “I have no right to have expected anything different of you.” His voice is so forgiving it makes me want to apologise for my meanness, admit to my lies, even whilst I want to punch him for wanting any woman but me. “You were too young. You’re still pretty young.” He pauses, deep in thought. “Perhaps the past is better left where it is.”

I stare at him like he’s disappearing before my eyes.

He studies me. “I’ll help you, whatever happens. You decide, Tabby. This is your life, after all. Am I too late?”

A vision of losing Jack punctures me. I’m so confused by my feelings I don’t know what I want. “You’d just love that wouldn’t you? Why stop now? It’s clear you enjoy hurting me. You thought you’d upset a silly teenager by dumping her – well that backfired. She wasn’t bothered. Now I’m a woman you try to humiliate me by making me dress up and deliver myself, gift-wrapped, just so you can break our deal. I don’t think so. This is business. You agreed to it and I’m not backing out. Aren’t you man enough?”

My accusation is ridiculous. I’ve never encountered a male more worthy of the title but I’m angry, scared. He makes everything sound so final.

Jack’s teeth clench. His jaw muscles spasm. “Man enough? God, Tabby, the things I want to do to you.” His chest rises and falls. His fingers curl up into my hair, tighten against my scalp until the barest edge of pain makes me gasp before he releases me. “This could get way out of hand.” He points his finger at me accusingly. “You’re the only woman who has ever driven me close to losing it.” Jack pulls me to my feet, yanks my dress into its rightful position and zips it efficiently closed.

“What are you doing?” I’m astonished.

“I have no idea,” he admits. “Letting you go. Sending you home while you’re still safe.”

I wrench myself from his grasp. “No you’re not. You’re not going to back out of our deal.”

“You mean you want me to fuck you like this?” He sounds angry, like he has a raging fever eating up his brain. “Haven’t you learned not to play games with me yet?”

“I’m just sticking to our bargain.” I can’t admit the truth, even to myself.

“Time for another lesson then. Never offer anything you aren’t willing to concede.” Jack rapidly backs me up against the bedroom wall, rearing over me, fixing me firmly in place with hips and thighs.

He has no idea how much I want to concede. My breasts rub against his chest every time I inhale, I’m pressed so tightly between him and the wall. His hips move in lazy circles against me, each movement increasing the brain-frying friction I feel until I cry out. Suddenly he groans and moves like a rapacious beast, gnawing on my bottom lip, drawing it hard into his mouth. I bite down on his top lip and swear I draw blood but he doesn’t seem to care.

“I’m ready.” I murmur the words against his mouth.

He burrows into me like his sanity depends on getting beneath my skin.

I hang on when he hauls the bodice of my dress downwards without any trace of his earlier finesse. My fingers rip frantically at his shirt with no reproving cuff-links to stop me before he takes over, impatiently tearing it from his body simultaneously shimmying the dress fabric over the curve of my hip and pressing the hot unforgiving rigidity of his body into the soft nakedness of mine.

I whimper when he breaks off and starts to drag me out the bedroom door. I pull back. “Don’t stop.”

“Naked. In front of the fire.” His voice emerges in a harsh growl. My eyes widen until he shrugs one shoulder looking through me like an x-ray. “Indulging a fantasy, kitten.”

Of me? “Jack?”

“Christ, how can a woman’s sound travel straight to a man’s balls?” Jack boosts me against him and I swathe my thighs around his hips as he strides through to the place he wants me.

His hands slide down the curve of my spine to find my buttocks and the sounds of him groaning as he palms my flesh, rubbing me against him to tease his hardness causes some pretty urgent exchange of sounds between us. I fumble to undo his belt and unzip him, snaking my hand inside, discovering the rigid heat through his underwear. He’s solid against my palm and the low hiss of pleasure that emerges from his mouth shivers through my senses.

He burgeons longer, thicker, tighter under my fingers as I murmur in awe of the fragile control I wield over this incredibly dominant man. Nothing has ever felt this good before. Ever.

His mouth trails a liquid path of fire down my neck, tonguing and nipping until my hips undulate without conscious effort against his body in a desperate response to increase the stimulation. He must sense the damp heat of me. The tease of his geared-up body is so exquisite I’m practically ready to orgasm against him.

Jack drops to his knees on the Persian rug before the fire, lowering me onto my back with infinite power, yet with brittle patience tempering the frantic nature of his desire. As my shoulders connect, my spine arches offering my breasts to his mouth to be relieved of their sweet ache.

Four years I’ve imagined this one critical moment. Such long denial renders me abandoned and fraught. I’m so caught up in physical need, I hurt, writhing like a serpent as his flat palm travels the length of my body, between my breasts, over my belly to rest against my hot core.

He plays over the damp silk for a moment as I jerk and twist beneath him.

Jack peels the thong from my raised hips, dragging it down my thighs and freeing it from each of my legs in turn, staring at the juncture of my body where I’m open to him: hot, wet and willing. There’s frustration in every one of my whimpered moans and he freezes for a second to interpret its signals. God, I want him to touch me. I’m saturated for him. Swollen. He tears off shoes and socks and settles his body between my thighs, pushing back up on his arms to read my face.

“Can I get deep inside you?”

I nod, incapable of speech, incapable of understanding his true meaning. I curve my pelvis up to meet his and he half-answers my plea by torturously sliding two long fingers inside me as I moan. My urgent muscles clench immediately feeling so good my eyes roll back. The exquisite, slow repetitive motion makes me voracious for more intensity. I need him pushing against me, dividing me, thrusting hard within me. I reach for him. Nothing less will satisfy this raging lust.

“Please, Jack. Please.”

He allows the pad of his thumb to slide over me and I twitch and buck, inviting him to take me fast, I want him so badly. He pushes his trousers and underwear to his knees, I give him time for little else.