The Couple Behind the Headlines (13 page)

After discarding the idea of booking a room at the hotel as way too risky and her house as way too far, they’d walked the five hundred metres or so to his. And even that had been agony.

She was so hot and itchy with desire, so dazed by the knowledge her fantasies were about to become reality that she didn’t think she could stand it, and if it hadn’t been for the threat of a lurking photographer she’d have given in to temptation, dragged Jack into a shadowy doorway and begged him to take her right then and there.

Jack, however, didn’t seem to be having nearly such a problem with self-control. He might have kissed her as if his life depended on it back in that conservatory, and he might want her equally badly, but he clearly wasn’t reduced to watery knees and dissolving bones by the experience.

While she’d been tottering around, swooning and losing her breath all over the place, there’d been nothing trembly or quivery about the way he’d marched her here. Nothing clumsy about his steps as he strode across the marble floor towards
the lift. And nothing shaky about his fingers as they punched a series of numbers into the keypad.

Jack was eerily calm, as if he was used to doing this kind of thing all the time. Which he might well be, Imogen realised with a pang of envy that she quickly squashed. But so what if he was? It wasn’t as if she wanted him for ever. She just wanted one night of guaranteed great sex. Maybe two. Starting, with any luck, right now, because, as he’d pointed out earlier, their business needed finishing and what with the desire zooming around inside her she was more than ready to help.

The doors to the lift swished open and Imogen brushed past him, stepped in and leaned against one mirrored side. She gripped the rail in order to prevent herself from slithering to the floor and shivered as he stepped in after her and instantly took up more than his fair share of air.

The minute the doors closed behind him, the air that was left turned electric, heavy and hot. Jack leaned against the opposite side of the lift and stared at her, his eyes dark and intense, his face tight with desire, and Imogen trembled. A muscle pounded in his jaw, and as he curled his fingers around the rail she saw that his knuckles were white and she couldn’t help thinking that perhaps he wasn’t as cool as she’d thought.

‘Come here,’ he said hoarsely.

Hmm. Definitely not cool. She gripped harder on the rail, her heart hammering so wildly she thought it might be about to break free. ‘What if someone else wants to get in?’

‘Private lift. It stops at my floor only.’

‘Convenient.’

‘For getting to the penthouse, extremely.’

‘And for seducing unsuspecting innocents?’

His jaw clenched with tightly controlled effort. ‘Are you the unsuspecting innocent in this scenario?’

‘Could be,’ she said, although in reality she was neither unsuspecting nor innocent.

‘And I’m the seducer?’

‘So I’ve heard.’ She paused, then added with a slow smile, ‘So I’m hoping.’

‘Then why do I suddenly get the feeling that the roles are reversed?’ he said, tilting his head and staring at her as if he wanted to look into her soul.

At the suddenly serious expression on his face, Imogen’s heart skipped a beat and her mouth went dry. He had to be joking. Had to be. Because he couldn’t possibly think he was in any danger from
her
, could he? That was ridiculous. This was the legendary Jack Taylor. The man who left a trail of broken hearts wherever he went while his own remained completely untouched.

Of course he was joking, she told herself, because while she didn’t mind the idea of being the seducer at all, there was no way he was an unsuspecting innocent. Which was a good thing because the last thing she wanted was for either of them to be unsuspecting or innocent about this. This was simply about sex. Hot passionate sex.

And speaking of which …

‘I can’t imagine,’ she said, her pulse racing and her blood roaring in her ears as she let desire take over and gave him her most smouldering smile. ‘But if you feel like that,’ she added, sliding the zip at the side of her dress down and feeling the silk slither over her skin to fall in a black shimmering pool on the floor, ‘then you come here.’

How on earth had he ever thought Imogen was nothing more than a vacuous frothy socialite? Jack wondered, utterly stunned by the sight of her. She was gorgeous. Intriguing. Wholly unpredictable. And total dynamite.

And how had he ever thought that not seeing her again was a good idea? He must have been out of his tiny little mind. Because right now, with the four mirrored walls of the lift
giving him every view of her he could possibly want, Jack thought he’d never seen anything so magnificent.

She was standing there wearing nothing but the strapless bra that barely contained her breasts, the tiniest excuse for knickers he’d ever come across, those black sky-high heels and a seductive smile, and he was about to collapse with need.

So much for fooling himself he was in some sort of control over this, that he was somehow in charge. For a while he’d actually thought he had it nailed. After all, it might have taken a Herculean effort, but he’d done a pretty good job of holding it together on the way here.

Now, however, with all that soft creamy skin encased in black lacy underwear on display and with Imogen smouldering at him, he was so riddled with desire and so wary of what might happen when his control snapped he didn’t dare move.

With an impatient little sigh, she arched an eyebrow and cocked a hip, and his vision blurred. ‘Well?’ she said softly.

What the hell? Who cared who was in charge anyway? This had been going on way too long and he’d had enough.

‘In agony, actually,’ he muttered, prising his fingers off the rail, lunging forwards to close the distance between them and slamming his mouth down on hers.

Oh, thank God for that, thought Imogen, closing her eyes and winding her arms round his neck as she kissed him back as hungrily as he was kissing her. For a moment she thought he’d been about to pass out and she’d had the stomach-curdling feeling that he’d been horrified by what she’d done and, even worse, by what he’d seen.

But to her relief and delight that didn’t seem to be the case. Not judging by the hot insistence of his mouth and the rock-hard length of his erection pressing against her pelvis.

His hands spanned her waist, holding her tight against him as his tongue and lips ravaged hers. Her ears popped and she wasn’t sure if it was from the lift zooming them up to the
penthouse or the effect of his kiss. Either way her mind was being well and truly blown.

As Jack slid his hands round to her back, down over her bottom and pulled her hips even tighter to his Imogen writhed against him, rubbing herself up and down his hardness in a desperate attempt to assuage the ache that was throbbing between her legs.

The sound of the lift door swishing open dimly penetrated the fog of desire in her head and she felt his hands slip lower, curving round her upper thighs. He pressed her back against the wall of the lift for support and, pulling her legs up, wrapped them around his waist. Breaking off the kiss and breathing heavily, he took her weight and turned.

Imogen could feel the thundering of his heart against her chest and it made every muscle quiver, every nerve ending sizzle. As he carried her out of the lift she caught a glimpse of the image of the two of them so intimately entwined, Jack fully clothed, herself practically naked, reflected a thousand times over, and it turned her on even more.

And then he was striding with her across the hardwood floor of the apartment, making a beeline for what she sincerely hoped was the bedroom. Clinging on for dear life, Imogen tightened her legs around his waist and buried her head in his neck. She could feel the tension gripping his powerful frame as he stopped to kick off his shoes and then remove hers, she could feel his pulse hammering beneath her cheek and she couldn’t resist. As Jack strode through a doorway she nipped the skin covering his pulse with her teeth then soothed it with her tongue, relishing the salty taste of him and the growl that rumbled low in his throat.

He stopped, and she slowly disentangled herself, taking care to brush him with every part of her body before standing on the jelly that seemed to have replaced her legs.

Jack let out a harsh breath and she didn’t think it was from the exertion of carrying her from the lift to the bedroom.
She took a tiny step back and the backs of her knees hit the edge of the bed. His eyes roamed over her and she watched him swallow hard then shove his hands through his hair as if to stop himself from reaching for her, as if reaching for her might lead to things getting out of control way too fast.

‘I appear to be at something of a material disadvantage,’ she said, achingly aware of how little she had on.

‘If you felt like balancing things up a little,’ he said, his voice hoarse, ‘I’d have no objection.’

‘Now there’s an idea,’ Imogen murmured, smiling a little and letting her gaze wander all over him as she wondered where to start.

Jack’s jaw clenched and his hands curled into fists at his sides. ‘You carry on looking at me like that and there won’t be a whole lot of foreplay.’

‘Fine by me. The way I see it we’ve indulged in more than enough foreplay already.’ So much so that the minute he touched any one of her erogenous zones she’d probably splinter right then and there. And, besides, they had all night, didn’t they?

Jack’s eyes blazed. ‘You forget I have a reputation to live up to.’

‘I haven’t forgotten,’ she said with a shiver. ‘But if it would help, I could try not looking at you.’

‘It would.’

So Imogen closed her eyes and, as every one of her remaining senses switched to high alert, lifted her hands to his chest. She felt him tense, heard his breath catch. Her fingers brushing over the thick cotton of his dress shirt, she undid the studs, taking her time, dropping them one by one into the pocket of his trousers and revelling in every sound and every movement he made.

As she slipped her hands beneath his shirt, and finally,
finally
laid them on his skin, he shook violently. Groaned.

‘This isn’t helping.’

His voice grated across her senses and she shivered. ‘So stop me,’ she murmured.

‘I can’t.’

Feeling a surge of power, she moved her hands up and outwards, her fingers brushing over the smattering of hair that covered his chest, over his nipples and up over his shoulders. His muscles contracted beneath her touch and when she shrugged off his shirt and jacket and let them drop to the floor she felt a shudder rip through him.

She let her hands drift down, over the defined, taut muscles of his abdomen, and had a sudden desperate urge to find out what he tasted like. While her fingers worked at the button of his trousers and slid down the zip, she leaned forwards, pressed her open mouth against the skin of his chest and touched her tongue to him.

And then it was as if her body had a will of its own and she couldn’t have controlled it even if she’d wanted to. As she dropped a series of tiny wet kisses across his chest, she pushed his trousers and shorts down. Her fingers curled around his hard length and caressed, and she heard him exhale a long shuddery breath.

‘Enough,’ he muttered hoarsely, wrapping a hand around her wrist and putting a halt to her strokes. ‘Open your eyes.’

Imogen wasn’t sure she had the strength. She’d gone all weak and languid, as if desire had melted every cell in her body. Every drop of her focus had headed south, zooming in on the feel of him in her hand. All she could think of was being flat on her back with Jack looming over her and the weight of his body pinning her to the bed. Of that hard, silken length pushing up inside her, filling her, driving her mindless with pleasure, and the anticipation was almost too great to bear.

Where she found the effort she had no idea, but when she did finally manage to open her eyes the sight that met them made her breath stick in her throat and her head go dizzy.
Her gaze drifted over him hungrily. Tanned, lean and powerful, his body was mouth-watering, and she wanted to touch everywhere.

‘Better?’ she breathed.

‘Infinitely worse.’

And then he caught her by the waist and twisted round and back, falling onto the bed and taking her with him so that she lay sprawled all over him.

Imogen didn’t have time to worry about how undignified that nifty move must have made her look, because one of Jack’s arms whipped round her bottom, the other planted itself on the back of her neck, bringing her head down. His mouth met hers and her mind went blank.

As their tongues tangled the hand on her bottom slid slowly up her spine and then back down, creating shivering ripples of delight over every inch of skin it moved.

He unclipped her bra and, when she eased herself off him a little, pulled it from her and threw it to join his clothes. Her nipples brushed against his chest and it was electric. Hearing Jack’s sharp intake of breath at the contact, she did it again and again until she couldn’t stand it any more and crushed her chest to his.