“No.”
Before she could turn a triumphant cartwheel, he spoke in a sexy, low voice that made her rethink her stance on collapsing.
He said, “I’m not sorry for kissing you. I’m sorry I got interrupted.”
Oh, mama.
She was still against the window, and he was in front of her, large and damn good looking, very much a man. His leg was tucked between hers, and his broad chest was inches from her own.
He hesitated. “Do you…do you want to go somewhere private?”
The word came out on a ragged groan that set Jamie’s heart thumping like Indian drums. Of course she did. That was a no-brainer.
But whether she should was another story altogether.
She thought for exactly one-point-one seconds. “Okay.”
Maybe it was insane, maybe she would regret it, but right here, right now, with the thousands of neon lights flashing behind his head, Jamie wanted Jack in a way that she had never felt.
There was a knowledge deep down inside that come whatever of Beckwith’s prediction, this much was true. That she was meant to meet Jack, and that she would share a powerful connection with him.
That he would touch her soul.
In a sense, he already had.
He’d made her rethink her future, made her think that not everything was concrete, that she needed to be open to all possibilities.
That she needed to be open to Jack. Literally.
Dang, she felt herself blushing on the sidewalk. She was a total hussy and couldn’t even regret it.
“Thank you,” Jack muttered, straightening up in relief. “Yours or mine?”
Jamie felt a little faint and wondered if she had knocked her head harder than she had thought. She wasn’t an impulsive woman, yet here she was going home with a man after three hours of conversation. “I have two roommates.”
“Oh, hell, that won’t work.” He lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles, the feel of his lips on her skin sending a rush of heat to her abdomen.
“My place, then.” He smiled and tugged her off of the wall.
She couldn’t think of a single thing to say, just let him draw her against him. Even as his body felt hard and comforting and arousing, doubts crept in. She swallowed, fear rising up into her throat. She didn’t do this. She didn’t go home with men she had just met.
She didn’t have casual sex, didn’t have a wild bone in her body.
Jack’s face grew puzzled. “Do you know, Jamie The Klutz, that I have the strangest feeling that I’ve been waiting to meet you? That you were supposed to collide into me and my spaghetti.”
Before she could respond, he shook his head and grinned. “Damn, that sounds crazy.”
A group of preteens was walking by, jostling each other. The one closest to Jamie lost his balance and dumped half of his soft drink on their entwined hands. Jamie jumped at the sudden cold liquid splashing her.
“Sorry,” the kid mumbled, his friends laughing.
Jack took his shirttail and wiped her hand dry, dipping between her fingers with the fabric. “Maybe I am crazy and that was meant to be a cold shower of sorts.”
“I don’t think you’re crazy.” Jamie touched his bottom lip with her finger, heart pounding. “I know exactly what you mean.”
Fear disappeared.
For while Jamie didn’t believe in casual sex, she believed in fate.
“Let’s go, Jack.”
And his response was to turn around, raise his hand, and yell, “Taxi!”
Chapter 4
Jack didn’t know what the hell was the matter with him.
He had just dragged Jamie off to his apartment in some caveman imitation. Or worse. Like a horny teenager.
But he hadn’t been able to stop himself. They had spent three hours in the restaurant, talking and laughing, and just enjoying each other’s company. They had a lot in common and more still not in common, but it didn’t matter. Being with her just felt right.
And his attraction had grown steadily every second, until he had been walking side by side with her, his hand on her smooth back, when the urge to kiss her had been overwhelming.
He hadn’t even told her his last name, for God’s sake.
Yet they were stepping out of the cab in front of his building in TriBeCa, and he was going to see this compulsion through to the end. He had been suffering through a twenty-four-hour hard-on because of this woman, and if the way she jumped out of the cab was any indication, she had been suffering something similar.
She looked around her in amazement, her eyes landing on the doorman. “This is your building?”
Damn. He was supposed to be unemployed, not living in a pricey apartment in a trendy neighborhood. “It’s a friend’s apartment. He’s out of town, so I’m staying here to watch the place for him.”
Jack fought the urge to wince. He ran his fingers through his hair and started to question his keeping the truth from Jamie. It wouldn’t matter. She wouldn’t care what was or wasn’t in his bank account, and he wouldn’t have to tell these ridiculous lies.
She was rational enough to know not to confront a criminal.
He opened his mouth to tell her the truth.
Then she said with a laugh, “Oh, good! You had me worried there for a second. I don’t know if I could date someone who lives in a place like this.”
He clamped his mouth shut again. He nodded to the doorman and ushered her inside the building. “Why not?”
She gave a mock shudder, gesturing to the art deco lobby. “It’s a little pretentious.”
Oh, hell. He gave a weak smile and slapped the elevator up button. It just figured. Jamie gave the opposite reaction to every other woman he’d ever met. Most women’s eyes lit up in possessive greed when they first saw his apartment. Jamie was disgusted by the opulence.
And he had never once thought of the lobby as being pretentious, but now that she had planted the seed in his mind, it took root, making him uncomfortable. “The apartment’s not so bad,” he assured her.
His sister was always complaining that he needed to hire a decorator. She thought his apartment needed a theme to pull it together. One besides black plastic electronics equipment, that is.
Jamie clutched that silly little purse of hers that looked like an alligator and licked her lips. She looked as nervous as he felt. Maybe it was time to slow this down before she thought through the ramifications of going home with a guy she didn’t really know. Jack knew who Jamie was, but she didn’t know him. Had no reason to trust him. And given that look on her face, she was realizing that.
“Hey, Jamie, why don’t we go grab some coffee before we head up?” He took her hand and squeezed it in reassurance. She smiled at him, that soft tilting up of her lips that showed her teeth and lit up her eyes.
“You really are a nice guy, aren’t you?” she asked. “I don’t mean to be a tease…”
“Are you kidding? In my book, there’s no such thing as a tease. A woman is allowed to say no at any time, for any reason. No questions asked, no arguing.” Jack pulled her away from the elevators. He already felt like an asshole for not telling her who he was; he wasn’t about to coax her into