The Girl He'd Overlooked (12 page)

Jennifer rested her hands flat against his shoulders and shuddered at the first touch of his tongue tasting her. He took his time, licking and exploring and then falling back when she thought she couldn’t take any more. She was cresting a wave except, just when the wave threatened to break, it simply ebbed and began building again. It was the most incredible experience. She had wondered what it would be like to be with him. Nothing like this. This was way, way better than anything she had conjured up in her head.

‘I can’t take any more of this,’ she gasped, when he had, once again, brought her almost to the point of no return.

She slid off him to lie on her side where she could try and let her breathing return to normal, but how could it when he was nudging his thigh between hers and sending her right back to the brink?

‘I can’t take much more myself,’ James admitted shakily. ‘I never lose control but I’m in danger of doing so very soon.’

‘Shall I see how much stamina you have…?’

She wriggled around so that while he explored her with his mouth, she could likewise explore him with hers. He was rock hard and tasting him made her want to swoon, as did his continuing exploration of the delicate groove between her legs.

Their mutual need was frantic by the time her mouth joined his in a wet, musky, greedy kiss.

‘I need you. Now.’

And I love you so much,
was the reply that flew through her head. ‘I need you too,’ she returned huskily.

‘Are you protected?’

‘I’m not at the moment but I can be…’

J
ENNIFER’S
bag was lying on the ground next to the chair. She unzipped it and rustled in the side pocket where a memento of that non-event four years ago lay. The condom, optimistically bought and never used for a love-making session that had never happened, had been through a lot. It had jostled next to coins and make-up and packets of chewing gum. It had been transferred from bag to bag, a secret talisman and a permanent reminder of her youthful foolishness. It had even drowned and been resuscitated when, on a boat trip with her father in Majorca, she had accidentally dropped her bag in the sea.

Fetching it out of its compartment felt like fate.

‘Not yet.’ He caught her hand as she was about to tear open the little packet. ‘My back feels up to a little bit more foreplay…’

In truth, he felt fighting fit and this time she was the one lying on the duvet as he explored every glorious inch of her succulent body. She tossed beneath him and he pinned her down, subjecting her to the onslaught of his mouth and tongue and hands. Their bodies were slick with perspiration when, unable to take any more, she cried out for him to enter her.

The condom that had been through the wars was finally serving its purpose and as he thrust into her she bucked
and cried out in ecstasy. The feel of him inside her was beyond all expectations. He was big and powerful and he filled her in a way she would never have dreamed possible. It was as if their bodies were made for each other. They moved in perfect rhythm and her orgasm, when she finally came, was wave upon wave of such pleasure that her whole body quivered and shook from the strength of it.

The used condom joined the logs burning in the open fire and she curved her body against his with a gurgle of contentment.

‘Amazing,’ James murmured softly. ‘It’s done my back a world of good. I think we’ll have to carry on with this method of physiotherapy if I’m to improve and suffer no lasting damage.’

Jennifer had never felt so blissfully happy and completely whole. For the first time in her life, her body was complete.

Then she wondered how long the physiotherapy was destined to continue. She glanced outside through the window and the snow reminded her that this was a snatched moment in time.

‘Pretty incredible.’ She brushed his cheek with her hand. He had shaved earlier but she could feel the stubble already trying to make a reappearance. She nuzzled his chin and settled on top of him so that she could feel every inch of his body underneath her.

‘Everything you dreamed of?’ There was laughter in his voice but the navy-blue eyes were solemn.

‘I’m not going to feed your ego by telling you how great it was, James.’ She unglued herself from him to allow his hands to wedge over her breasts where he could tease her nipples.

‘Cruel woman.’ He laughed out loud this time and continued to roll the pads of his thumbs over her nipples,
which were already standing to attention even though it had only been minutes since they had been lavished with devotion. ‘I’m tempted to punish you by not allowing you to get any sleep tonight. In fact, if I had my way I wouldn’t let you leave my side…’

And he almost succeeded in doing just that. At least for the next forty-eight hours, during which the snow began to slacken in its fury and the unremitting leaden grey skies gradually showed glimpses of pale, milky blue.

Jennifer yielded to the bubble in which there were just the two of them, playing house like babes in the wood and making love wherever and whenever, which was everywhere and often. Her one condom had done its job but James had more at the house because he would never, she assumed, take risks of any kind with any woman.

He told her repeatedly that he couldn’t get enough of her and, with every smile and every touch, she fell deeper and deeper into love. It consumed her and it was only when, lying on her bed, wrapped up with him, she looked outside and noticed that the snow had finally and completely stopped.

‘It’s not snowing any longer,’ she said and James followed her gaze to see that she was right. He hadn’t even noticed. In fact, over the past three days there was a great deal that he hadn’t noticed. Starting with the state of the weather and ending with his work, which he had rudimentarily covered. Most of the time, his computer lay on the dressing table, which neither of them had bothered to relocate to the bedroom, untouched.

‘If I know anything about the weather here, we’ll wake up tomorrow morning to find bright sunshine and the snow melted.’

She couldn’t prevent a certain wistfulness from creeping into her voice because with the end of the snow came
the beginning of the questions that she had conveniently put to one side. What happened next? Where did they go from here? Was this a relationship or was it only a consequence of the fact that they had been cooped up for days on end?

She wasn’t about to start asking questions, though.

James was adept at picking up the intonations in women’s voices. He waited for her to continue and frowned when there was nothing forthcoming.

‘I don’t want you to return to Paris,’ he surprised himself by saying, and Jennifer looked at him in astonishment.

‘Well, we can’t stay here for ever pretending the rest of the world doesn’t exist,’ she pointed out. She turned back to face the window, resting in the crook of his arm. The moon was big and fat and round and it filled the bedroom with a silvery glow.

James was accustomed to women making demands on his time. It irritated him that she made no attempt to demand anything. Having spent the past few days living purely for the moment, he was now driven to get inside her head and discover what she was thinking. He had just nailed his colours to the mast and told her that he wanted her to quit her job immediately for him, and was her only response to be that they couldn’t stay put and block out the rest of the world? As if that were the only logical option to ditching her Paris placement?

‘I’m not implying that we should do that,’ he said edgily. ‘But we’re going to have to start thinking about leaving here… and we’re going to have to decide what happens with us now.’

‘Maybe we should go our separate ways,’ Jennifer told him. He might want her to give up her job immediately but that was just him reaching out and taking what he wanted without a scrap of thought for what
she
wanted. She had
been a keen observer of his girlfriends down the years. None of them had ever lasted longer than a holiday. He had taken what he wanted from them and discarded them when he thought that it was time to move on.

‘You mean that?’ He raised himself up and spun her round to look at him because he wanted her undivided attention.

‘Look, you’re not into long-term relationships—’

‘And that’s what you want?’

Of course it was! But she knew what would happen next if she were to say that. His pursuit, such as it was, would come to a grinding halt. She might play hard to get, but, really and truly, did she want this to end so abruptly? Eventually, it would, but why shouldn’t she enjoy herself for as long as she could and let tomorrow take care of itself? She hated the weakness behind that choice but even more she hated the hypocrisy of pretending that it would be worthwhile to walk away now and become a martyr to her principles.

‘Let me finish,’ she inserted, picking and choosing her words very carefully. ‘We… this… I guess, for me, this is unfinished business…’

‘Unfinished business?’
He flung aside the duvet and strode towards the window to glare outside at the picture-postcard winter scene before swinging around to scowl at her. ‘I’m
unfinished business
?’

‘Okay, maybe I didn’t phrase that quite as well as I should have…’

She sat up and drew her legs up. ‘Come back to bed. I… I…’ Some truth forced its way out. ‘I don’t want to go back to Paris either,’ she confessed, at which he slowly returned to lie down next to her.

‘Then pack it in. Tell them something. Anything. I want you here with me.’

‘Yes… it’s fun… it would be nice to carry on seeing one another, I guess…’
But for how long?
That was a question that was definitely off the cards. ‘I mean, no strings attached, of course…’

He could feel a return of that groundswell of dissatisfaction, the same dissatisfaction that had slammed into him when she had labelled him as
unfinished business
, and he couldn’t understand why because what she was saying tuned in perfectly with his own personal philosophy. No strings attached had been his motto for a very long time. And wasn’t she, in her own way, his unfinished business as well? Something had been started four years ago and it had now reached fruition.

‘I never took you for a
no-strings-attached
kind of girl.’

Jennifer stilled. He knew her so well, but did she want him to ever suspect how much he meant to her? Did she really want to open herself up to being hurt all over again? She couldn’t face his pity for a second time.

‘It just shows how much you have to learn about me,’ she murmured lightly.

‘So you’ll email your Paris office… bid them a fond adieu…?’

‘I’ll go and discuss the matter with my boss over there,’ she said firmly.

‘I don’t know how long I can wait before you return. If we’re talking in terms of months, then forget it. I’ll go over there myself and drag you back to London.’

He propped himself up on one elbow, rested his hand on her stomach and traced the outline of her belly button. Jennifer, caught in the now familiar tide of longing, fought to stay in control.

‘Do you always get your own way when it comes to women?’ she asked breathlessly, staring straight up at the ceiling and not pushing him away when he dipped his fingers
lower to sift the soft, downy hair between her thighs. Before he could start doing even more dramatic things to her body, things that always seemed to wreak havoc with her thought processes, she wriggled onto her side so that their bodies mirrored one another, both of them propped up on their elbows, staring directly into each other’s eyes. She didn’t want to get hopelessly lost in making love. She wanted to talk, really talk.

‘I can’t tell a lie…’

‘What do they hope for?’ she asked in genuine bewilderment. She knew what
she
hoped for, but she was a lost cause and had been from as far back as she could remember. Other women, women he had gone out with for a matter of a few weeks, surely they couldn’t all be silly enough to think they could tie him down? Or was he only attracted to women like himself, women who wanted affairs and were happy to part company when the lust bit was exhausted?

‘What do you mean?’

‘Do they honestly think that you’re going to offer them a lasting relationship?’

‘How can they?’ James said impatiently. ‘The women I date always know from the beginning that I’m not interested in walking down the aisle. Why are we having this discussion, anyway? When we both agree that you’re going to leave Paris immediately and come back here…’

Jennifer ignored his interruption. ‘And they don’t mind?’

‘I suppose,’ James admitted grudgingly, ‘there are instances when one of them might have wanted to take things to another level, but, as far as I am concerned, if a woman chooses to go out with me, then she chooses what she’s signing up for.’
No-strings-attached fun…
He swept
aside the unsettling memory of how her easy acceptance of that had thrown him.

‘And you’ve never been tempted?’

‘You talk too much,’ he growled.

‘You’ll have to get used to it.’

‘You never used to ask so many questions.’

‘I never used to ask
any
questions… but then again, we were never in the place we are now, were we?’

‘I’ve never been tempted.’ He lay back and shielded his face with his arm, then he pulled her against him and slung his arm around her shoulder so that the tips of his fingers were brushing her nipple, although his mind appeared to be far away.

‘You probably don’t remember when my father died,’ he surprised her by saying. ‘You would have been… what… fifteen? It was a pretty terrible time all round. Daisy was in pieces.’

‘I remember. You abandoned your gap year and went to work. It was tough. I know.’

‘They had just lost their figurehead. The employees were edgy and so was the bank. I’d worked there before, summer jobs… well, you know that.’ He felt her nod against him and he inhaled deeply. He had always thought it a myth that confessions were good for the soul, so why was he telling her this? ‘I knew a bit about the accounts but I was green around the ears. Like it or not, though, I was a majority shareholder and responsibility fell on my shoulders.’

‘And you were still grieving for your dad… How hard that must have been, James…’ Her heart went out to him because, however mature he might have been for his age, he had still only been a kid, really, one forced to grow up very, very quickly.

‘It was… very hard. I was in a bad place. I got involved with a woman.’

‘You
got involved with a woman
?’

‘You say that as though I started growing two heads and five arms,’ James said drily. This was new ground for him. This window in his life had always been kept a secret. No one, including his mother, knew about that indiscretion ten or so years ago. He had never been tempted to confide in any of the women he had dated, even though they had all pressed him for details of his personal life as though getting beneath the armour would guarantee a foot through the door.

Jennifer had a moment of feeling special until he continued in the same flat, neutral voice, ‘And the reason I’m telling you now, aside from the fact that we go back a long way, is that I want you to understand why I’ve made the choices that I’ve made with women.’

Jennifer was still trying to work out which woman he was talking about. She remembered that time quite clearly, although it was many years ago. He had lost the easy banter and the light-hearted teasing and was beginning the transition to the man he would later become. Controlled, single-minded, adept at channelling his incredible intelligence towards a single goal and getting there whatever it took. For the first time he had been around and yet she had hardly seen him.