Everything You Need: Everything For You Trilogy Book 1 (39 page)

“Why are you so angry?” I gasp.

It’s completely the wrong thing to say. He turns and glares and his face looks like thunder. I recall what he said to me earlier about when he accompanies a woman. She’s with me. Only me.

I want to explain. Tell him I was tricked. Forced. But it seems so lame. And why should I? Especially as I’m being tricked by Jack too. Maybe that’s why he’s so mad. He wants to be the one to humiliate
me
, not the other way around. I keep my mouth shut. If he can’t see the truth of what happened back there, I’m not going to point it out. He deserves what little annoyance this gives him. He’s tormenting me too.

We exit past security as Jack pulls his phone from his pocket. “Blackstock? Quick as you can.”

I wrap my arms around myself, trembling as the effects of the assault begin to hit me. I turn away.

He pulls me back round to study me. “You’re shaking,” he observes but the anger still radiates off him.

“It’s cold outside after the heat in there.” That isn’t why I’m shaking.

Jack immediately removes his jacket and places it round my shoulders. The residual warmth from his body seeps into mine but it isn’t enough. I continue to shiver but I won’t cry. I won’t.

“Come here,” he says. He wraps me in his arms and I bury my head in his chest in relief. I calm almost instantly, frustrated that even now he can make it feel right. Jack tucks a loose tendril of hair back from my forehead and replaces it with his lips.

“Kiss me, Jack,” I whisper. I have no will-power. I don’t care if I’m mad at him for misinterpreting what happened. I don’t care if he kissed Amanda too. I don’t even care if he’s doing all of this just to punish me for over-stepping the mark. Right now I need to feel his lips against mine.

He tilts my chin up with his thumb and forefinger and scours the pad of his thumb roughly back and forth along my lips, scowling at them, as if contemplating those other lips that were planted there before his and rubbing all memory away. He takes my mouth hard, punishing me with his kiss, invading and repossessing me. He nips savagely at my lips and coaxes my tongue firmly into his mouth.

I’m glad. I need his force. I feel his heart thudding against mine and when he groans into my mouth, the harsh vibrations transfer themselves straight to the heart of me.

He pulls back abruptly. “Where’s Blackstock?” he snarls, accessing his phone impatiently. “I want you home.”

Advance’s step-too-far has worked out in my favour. I’m pulled tightly into Jack’s side. Finally he decides to stake his claim before someone else does.

And I’m ready for his taking.

Chapter Eighteen

The Limousine hurtles up the access road like it thinks it’s a sports car and slams to a halt. Blackstock can certainly drive that thing. Jack signals for him to stay put, presses some bank notes discretely into the doorman’s palm and ushers me inside himself, following behind. He gives Blackstock the nod to leave.

Once I hear him expel his tension on a sigh I think it might be safe enough to speak again. “Are you still mad, Jack?”

He frowns but doesn’t answer.

“Take a few deep breaths,” I suggest, trying to lighten the mood and sound him out at the same time. I care he doesn’t think what happened was in any way my doing.

His rigid frame suggests he’s not buying my poor attempt at humour. But it isn’t my fault that sly idiot, Gunn, decided to make a grab for me. I finally get Jack’s what-do-you-think? expression.

But perhaps I’m reading him all wrong. “The phone call. Was it bad news?”

“It wasn’t.”

“Good news?” I suggest. I work hard to snap him out of it.

“Forget it.”

I’m intrigued about the phone call but this isn’t the time to push him. I wonder if he realises Advance are playing dirty. “They wanted you to find me with him.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Advance Advertising. They wanted you to see us together.”

He looks at me with pity. “Advance isn’t that threatened by you. Trust me.”

Truth hurts. “It’s the only explanation for what happened.” My voice is small.

He glares at me like I’m some kind of cheater talking my way out of the fact I’ve been caught red-handed. “So you obliged them?” A lone muscle tics in his jaw.

All I’ve done is manage to make him bristle again. He simply isn’t used to any woman he goes out with even looking at another man. What woman in their right mind would? I bet Amanda would never let herself get caught out like that if she was with Jack.

“That man works for Advance. They want you to hate me.” Amanda wants you to hate me. Instantly I realise it’s got her name written all over it. I wonder if it’s all part of a devious plan.

If I tell him my suspicions and he defends Amanda I’ll feel even worse. After all I caught them kissing when he thought I didn’t see. I’m not going to risk it. I’m not going to risk falling out with Jack any more than I already have. Not tonight. This time I’m too close to getting what
I
want for a change.

“He’s a young man who saw a beautiful young woman all alone, looking incredibly sexy in a stunning dress. He wanted you and he went for it. Who could blame him? I’d have done the same at his age.”

I know that’s not true. Jack would never have done to a woman, what Ben Gunn did to me. Jack isn’t underhand by nature and he can’t see the truth. He thinks I agreed to dance with Gunn. And let him kiss me. Jack doesn’t even blame Gunn for trying it on so that only leaves me to carry the can.

“Jack?”

“What?”

“It isn’t what you think.”

“I know what I saw.”

“But I’m not the one you should hate.” I’ll make him see the truth somehow. Even though I’m not to blame, I know I’ve hurt his pride yet some perverse part of me likes thinking he cares.

“I don’t hate you, Tabitha. I could never hate you. I’m trying to teach you a few things but it seems I’m learning some myself.”

Like what? Another cryptic masterpiece that has my mind turning cartwheels.

“Can we just forget tonight,” I whisper.

Jack sighs, easing his rigid frame. “Not all of it, I hope.” He runs his fingertip along the edge of the bodice of my dress, making me shiver. I know he’s thinking of his promise as much as I am. I worry the only reason he wants to now though, is to mark me as his possession again, after Gunn’s challenge to his manhood. It’s a bleak prospect.

“I want you, Jack.” To reassure him of the fact I lay my hand on his thigh, wishing he’d kiss me softly and wipe away the memory of that earlier debasement.

He lifts my hand from him and returns it to my lap. “Don’t. Unless you want me to take you right here. I’m barely restraining myself.”

The prospect both excites and terrifies me. No matter how civilised the man, his male pride has been tested and he’s determined to lay claim. Right now I’m so hot for him, I really don’t care what that says about either one of us.

“Jack.” I moan out his name. I’m pretty close to letting go myself, just from the way he stares at me.

“Step on it,” he barks at Blackstock through the intercom.

We hover apart denying the magnetic attraction like some crazy lab experiment into the zero resistance of superconductivity. My fingers worry at the leather seat between us. His knuckles are white and tightly fisted, barely a millimetre from mine. We dare not touch skin on skin yet it makes no difference. Enough sparks arc between us to light up half of London.

Happily in the early hours of the morning the streets aren’t clogged with traffic as Blackstock hurtles the car round corners, no mean feat considering its size. I fight not to slide against Jack. The one collision that might send us super-nova.

Even as we enter the underground car park to the apartment complex, Jack is undoing his seat belt. I close my eyes and imagine him doing the same to the belt around his trousers. He barely waits until we brake by the lift before he flips mine open then practically hauls me from the vehicle.

“Goodnight, Blackstock.” He dismisses his driver without turning, marching me into the elevator.

“Mr Keogh. Ms Caid.”

I glance over my shoulder briefly to witness Blackstock trying unsuccessfully not to look bemused by our over-hasty retreat. I’m so embarrassed. He knows exactly what is going on. He’d have to be unconscious not to. We’re pulsating enough sexual signals to make pheromones redundant.

As soon as the doors touch, Jack is upon me. The full force of his considerable body weight slams me against the mirrors so fast and hard I’m surprised they don’t shatter. His mouth claims mine with a savage skill. He tears at his bow-tie and yanks the top shirt buttons open, like he can’t breathe for them. My lips are crushed beneath his and he claims entry with his tongue. Securing me with one hand round my throat, he raises my chin to him. Halfway to strangling me in the fury of his desire, he angles me for a closer connection. My bodice is yanked down releasing my breasts in one ferocious movement.

Then he pauses long enough to draw back and enjoy my half-naked body for a few seconds with heat searing his arctic eyes.

“You’re so fucking erotic. Is this what he wanted to do to you?” He moulds one breast firmly and bending to receive it, takes it to his impatient mouth.

“Who?” I lift myself onto tiptoe to compensate for knees that sag beyond control when he draws my nipple hard into the hot, wet interior of his mouth, suckling me to near faintness.

He breaks the connection, leaving me wanting. “That boy with his mouth all over yours.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

All further protest ceases as my nipples are assailed between lips and teeth again, rendering me senseless. He grazes and tugs until I’m fit to slither to the floor right here, beneath him. I moan and grind my hips into his, clutching at Jack’s shirt front, his shoulders; anything for purchase.

When the doors open, his eyes flash deep into mine then he pulls me inside behind him. I lean back to retrieve his jacket which has slipped from my shoulders to the floor.

“Leave it,” he snarls, unwilling to wait even those few more seconds.

Like a move executed on the dance floor, he twirls me round to press me face down over the nearest piece of furniture. The antique console table is substantial enough to bear my weight but I scatter objects as I’m compelled into place. My position instantly brings to mind my earlier desire and then what happened later in the car. Both exciting yet ultimately unfulfilling. He throws my skirts up over my back baring me.

I freeze, suddenly realising my mistake. What if he’s about to extract vengeance on my hide for the perceived injustice of me kissing another man? “Is this my next lesson,” I gasp.

I sense him stiffen and still behind me as he comes to understand what I’m implying. He hauls me backwards into his arms. “When will you get it into your head? I don’t hit women. And I’d never hurt you.” His breath rasps at my temple.

Was he that detached, he never realised he once did?

I only know I need what he’s promised me. I wriggle from his grasp and resume my former position, throwing a coquettish glance over my shoulder. “Go on then. A promise is a promise.”

His laughter is brief and harsh. “Sometimes I wonder which one of us the apprentice is.” But he tears my knickers with his bare hands and thrills me by teasing them slowly between my legs before casting them aside. It’s the table alone which prevents me collapsing completely when he plunges two fingers inside me without a moment’s indecision.

“You still want me inside you?”

“Like forever.” I’ve been wanting that since I was eighteen. It’s been a long, lonely wait.

Jack’s palm, resting between my shoulder blades, holding me down, really isn’t necessary. I’m not going anywhere until I get what I came for. I don’t care about the stupid contract. This is the only truth. The reason I’m here.

His fingers twist, teasing me shamelessly. “Is all this slickness for me?”

“Only you.” I grind out the words, biting back a tense moan when he slides his thumb firmly over the most swollen, sensitive flesh.

“I need everything from you, Tabby,” he demands in a gritty voice. “Don’t hold anything back.”

He opens his trousers one handed. Quite out of patience, he doesn’t stop to remove clothing. I hear the condom packet rip between his teeth and wonder if he carries them wherever he goes for improvised moments like these. Irritated, my endurance almost spent, I whimper as I feel hot sheathed flesh nudge against me. I take a deep breath. Prepare.

“This will be fast,” he warns. “We’ve delayed the inevitable far too long.”

I nod in understanding and consent, well beyond the need for words. The only sounds I’m capable of making are more animal than human anyway. Jack drives himself forward propelling me over the table and I squeak as the air expels from my lungs. A head-rush of sensation due to intense friction, thrums through my body.

“Oh, God.” He holds himself steady, brushing his hand down my lower spine to calm me, while I adjust to the stretch and the residual play along each nerve ending. He pants in a series of rapid exhalations. I sense he’s finding it as difficult as me, to remain still. “I want to be gentle for you, kitten.”