Everything You Need: Everything For You Trilogy Book 1 (2 page)

Jack stands and heads for the kitchen. It’s far more reassuring when a figment of my imagination does what I want him to at last. It stands to reason, only someone conjured out of my own head would know I left the second bottle in the freezer.

I decide to prepare for stage two of my reconciliatory Jack-begs-Tabitha-for-mercy situation and heave off my strappy t-shirt myself, saving phantom Jack the bother when he returns.

Dressing in old cotton pyjamas was a sensible option. I had no intention of venturing outside again before Monday morning when I’d no doubt haul my sorry, hung-over backside into CaidCo and battle my way through another week trying to keep Harry’s show on the road. And it’s not as if this Jack is the real thing anyway. Anything less than a sexy silk negligee for real Jack would be mortifying.

Before I manage the shorts, he’s back. He freezes in the doorway.

I lean onto my backwardly outstretched arms, arching my spine to display the goods enticingly, watching as his eyes attach themselves to my naked breasts. He swallows hard and his tongue snakes out to moisten one half of his lower lip. Taking a good long time to look his fill, his ice-blue eyes darken pleasingly. His heavy eyelids finally lift in slow time to catch mine watching him as the skin tautens over his fine-looking cheek bones and his chest rises and falls in shallow soughs.

This is more like it. Back on track. I giggle sexily. “You’re not allowed to touch me. Yet.” No matter how much his fingers itch to discover the delights he so callously rejected.

“For God’s sake, Tabitha.” Jack’s voice erupts on a harsh groan. He shoves his black hair back off his forehead then rushes forward placing my glass of vodka on the cabinet. “If this is how you behave when you drink, it’s going to stop. Right now.”

I laugh at his idle threat. I think it’s sweetly pointless that he’s bothered to pour vodka into a fresh glass instead of just bringing the bottle but at least he knows exactly how I like it. Undiluted. Teasing the rim. No space-wasting chunks of ice.

He looks round, spots my t-shirt on the floor, grabs at it and tries dressing me again. It can’t be easy I know and I’m hardly helping. I grasp his large hand and hold it over one breast shutting my eyes and letting my head drop back, going all limp and willing in his arms. His hot palm feels so good right where it is.

I sense him examine me some, gently investigating the firmness of my flesh by flexing his long amazing fingers. But when I moan out in pleasure he snatches back his hand like he’s been scalded. I clamp my arms round his neck again to try to seduce some behaviour into him.

He holds me off. “Take care, Tabitha. You can ask a man so much and no more. If you weren’t so damned drunk…”

“Why are you fighting me?” I yell, exasperated.

He shoves my arms awkwardly through the arm holes and pulls the constantly falling shoestring straps back up over my shoulders while I squirm. It isn’t easy kissing a ghost who doesn’t want to be kissed when you’re completely sauced.

“You don’t know what you’re doing.”

I scoff. “I know exactly what I’m doing. I’ve done it loads of times before.” I shoot him my best
been there, done that
expression.

“Who the hell with?” My apparition appears angry.

He makes me laugh. “You, of course. Only not like this.” I flap my wrist around between us. For a completely one-off imaginary experience, I think I’m handling things rather well.

“How then?” One of his eyebrows arches.

Fantasy Jack is rather sweet when he looks confused. He almost makes me forget what an obnoxiously cold, control freak the real one is.

“With you wanting my body desperately and me fighting you off but only until you’re really sorry. That’s how.” If I know it, he should, surely? We’ve been through this dream together hundreds of times.

Jack’s lips curve. He has such a sexy mouth. I reach out and touch my fingertips to his lips.

“When you sober up, it’s you who’s going to be sorry. And why would you be fighting me off anyway?” he asks, removing my fingers from his face and holding them in his.

“Because I hate you.” I push him away from me as I remember why. The familiar feelings of devastation overwhelm me in a rush. I adored him so much, I thought he cared about me too but he abandoned me without looking back.

His smile disappears. “Too bad. I’m going to change that too.”

I glare up at him. “Where’s my drink?”

Jack picks up the glass from the cabinet and holds it to my lips while I take a huge desperate swallow. And choke. I cough as it goes down the wrong way then glower at him.

“Are you trying to poison me?” I croak. “It’s water.”

“I know it’s water and you’re going to get it down you. All of it.”

“I want vodka.” I clamp my lips together and shake my head.

“You’ve had quite enough vodka.” He sounds adamant. “And enough time to grow up and discover what you want from life. It isn’t this.”

I stare at him incredulously. Who the hell is this weird phantom? I kick my legs out from under the duvet preparing to drag myself to the kitchen if necessary and get my own damned drink of preference. “I haven’t had nearly enough. You’re still here.”

He forces me back into bed which is hardly difficult when I can barely stand.

“I hoped it might have been a previously opened bottle you were drinking from. You’re pretty drunk.”

“A pretty drunk?” I try to smile. I’m not sure I succeed. His frown grows deeper but this is more like my usual illusionary Jack. Complimentary.

“Completely drunk. You look a mess.”

I’m not certain, because I’m confused enough already, but I’m not sure it’s a good sign when even your own hallucination tells you you’re a drunken mess, rather than reassures you he’ll die in agony if he can’t have your body lying beneath his. My delusion definitely isn’t obeying the rules tonight.

“Don’t bother to stay if all you’re going to do is criticise. You can puff off back where you came from.”

“Puff off, is it?” He laughs mirthlessly. “You’ve no idea how angry I am that you’d pull a stunt like this.”

“It’s no-one’s business,” I tell him. “I can look after myself.”

“It’s clear to me you can’t. Someone needs to be here. What would Harry think?”

We face off for a few seconds, mulishly, before my expression crumples. I start to cry thinking of Harry Caid, who raised me since I was nine years old and real Jack, who dumped me when I was eighteen and love-struck. Both gone from my life.

I don’t even question why my mirage of Jack gathers me up into his arms and holds me tight against him. Hallucinations are allowed to do anything you want them to. I sob quietly into the front of his shirt until I’m done and wipe my wet eyes on his silk tie. He doesn’t stop me.

He strokes my hair back from my face over and over in a soothingly rhythmic caress. “Hush now. Harry wouldn’t want you to be doing this to yourself.”

I figure hallucinations have complete insight into the workings of your lucid brain because that much is true. News of Harry’s heart attack reached me just a few months ago.

“He said he was doing fine.” I shudder out the words.

“He had the best medical care available. There was nothing you could have done better.”

“I could have taken care of him. Been here.”

“He wanted you to go back to university and take your finals. You did what he asked you to do. It made him happy.”

“I never saw him again.”

“I know.”

We sit in silence for a while.

“I’m making a mess of everything.”

Jack holds me from him at arms’ length and stares solemnly at me. “What could you possibly make a mess of?”

I stare back at him. “You’re just a figment of my imagination. What would you know about it?” I twist out of his arms and collapse onto my side down into the bed. Utter exhaustion overwhelms me. “Go away. I’m not explaining to a drunken delirium just how badly I’m stuffing things up at CaidCo.” I’m not sure if I’m speaking out loud or not. Everything converges in the centre of my brain. I’m wholly drained.

He barks a laugh. “Drunken delirium or not, I’m staying right here until you sober up, kitten. Then we’ll discuss what’s going to happen next.”

That crazy delusion is reading my thoughts now… And calling me kitten... Real Jack used to call me kitten all the time…

To everything else I grow insensible.

* * *

Lots of things have the ability to irritate me. I haven’t the will to open my eyes but this morning they won’t let me be.

Annoying lights dance behind my closed eyelids until I have to move my forearm slowly over my face in an attempt to block them out. Notting Hill on a Saturday morning drones inside my head: vehicles rumble, brakes screech, voices are louder than they ought to be and music is playing everywhere. All sounds converge into one. It would have to be this morning my hearing becomes hyper-sensitive and my apartment’s triple-glazed sound insulation fails, simultaneously.

Even worse is the banging and thumping coming from so close by I’m beginning to think dwarves must be mining their way into my apartment. A faint sense of déjà vu drifts in on a tide of memory but ebbs away again.

I decided to escape work yesterday afternoon to drink myself stupid. And mission accomplished apparently. I always lock the door behind me and turn my phones off but for the life of me I can’t remember anything else. I desperately want to go back to sleep yet the exquisitely irritable feeling of a bladder about to explode forces me to wake up. I need to crawl out of bed and skulk my way to the bathroom.

Even before I move, I notice sun shining straight onto my face through the open window. When did I open that? I never leave my window open at night even though I’m on the top floor. I’m shocked to think I might have got so drunk I tried to crawl out of it.

Yet I can’t quite square that level of inebriation with the fact that my head isn’t even pounding. I twist my head carefully to one side. On top of the bedside cabinet is a huge glass jug with barely an inch of water left in the bottom. That would account for the bladder, I suppose. I lift the duvet gingerly to check this isn’t my second exploding bladder of the morning and am relieved to find the sheets dry. That would definitely have been me hitting rock bottom.

I’m confused. When did I ever prepare in advance to get water into my system before I went to bed? What would be the point of that? I look around for the empty vodka bottle but it’s gone. Beyond my closed bedroom door, it sounds like someone is trying to break their way into my apartment. Perhaps there’s building work being done in the block.

When I hear voices, I still and listen. They’re speaking in some oriental language and they’re coming from inside my apartment. I glance towards the open window.

Oh, God, I’m being burgled as I sleep.

I crawl out of bed. I don’t want to be lying here wide awake when the thieves come back through with all my valuables. My heart pounds and my respiration rate amps up into shallow air-sucking gulps. Please don’t let me have a panic attack now. I look about for something to arm myself with.

Quickly dismissing the idea of filing off the corneas of the Chinese mafia with the nearest emery board, I opt for the tennis racquet propped against the wall. I’m told I have a dynamite fore-hand volley for a girl with few obvious arm muscles.

Not that I intend to attack them. I just want something for self-defence if they discover my hiding place. I search for one. I wonder if I have time for a pee first. I’m pretty desperate. Of all the inconvenient moments to be invaded by triads.

Halfway to the closet the voices stop. Sure footsteps move in my direction and the door flies open. I whirl round holding the racquet, ready to serve, between me and them.

“The police are on their way.”

It’s a complete lie. How could I think about calling law enforcement when all I can think about is having a pee?

Seeing Jack Keogh standing there, I nearly take one right where I’m standing.

Chapter Two

The heart-stopping hotness and amazingness that is Jack Keogh halts in my bedroom doorway just a couple of feet from where I’m hunched over the racket, quaking. And only a moment ago I’d been absolutely convinced I’d sobered up fast.

His sharp business suit trousers and quality cotton shirt look like he’s spent the night in them, especially with the top shirt buttons undone. I stare at the triangle of tanned flesh. His jacket and tie are missing. And he’s in my apartment. What the hell is he doing in my apartment?

At thirty-two he’s even more outrageously, dangerously masculine than he was four years ago and I hate that I’m still so instantly attracted. But I’d defy any heterosexual woman with even one of her five senses intact not to be.

The man’s seriously scorching.

My stomach clenches so hard in reaction I’m surprised my bladder doesn’t rupture. It isn’t doing anything to stem my arousal either. Anyone would think I’d spent all last night thinking about sex when I can’t remember what I spent last night doing, let alone thinking. But I’m incapable of any other rational response when Jack is standing two feet away from me – beyond checking to see my jaw isn’t hanging.