Whatever … she certainly stirred something that was pushing him beyond the normal pattern of his experience with women. She wasn’t simply a peripheral pleasure to be enjoyed when he had the time and inclination. It was difficult to banish her from his mind, even when he was doing business.
He hoped she was thinking of him just as much. The idea of her having a more powerful pull on him than he had on her was unacceptable. Holding the controlling hand and capitalising on it had made him the man he was, and he wasn’t about to lose his grip on how he ran his world.
This current obsession with Sally Maguire would ease as time went on. It was tied in with what he’d never had with his father. She embodied the need that had never been answered—couldn’t ever be answered now. But it felt good to have her. He just had to keep a reasonable perspective on the situation.
Though reason was swallowed up by a surge of desire when he saw her emerge from the house to meet and greet him. Her head was tilted towards the incoming helicopter, her hair a glorious riot of red-gold curls, lit by the setting sun. She wore a snug black top, outlining the lush thrust of her beautiful breasts, and a white skirt with a deep black border. The wind from the whirling blades wrapped the fabric around her long, shapely legs—legs that had wrapped themselves around him in uninhibited passion.
The muscles around his groin tightened. He grabbed the cooler bag containing the bottle of Veuve Clicquot, ready to alight from the helicopter as soon as it landed. He couldn’t wait a second later than he had to, the need to feel her body against his again racing through his veins.
She was smiling—not the polite smile she’d put on for his first visit. This was a smile of joyous welcome, a champagne smile that shot bubbles of exhilaration through Jack’s brain and put a huge grin on his face as he leapt from his seat and strode towards her.
He was so vibrantly handsome. Sally felt her whole body tingling from the rush of pleasure at seeing him again, thrilling to the eagerness in his step which surely telegraphed his desire to be with her, the smile on his face leaving no doubt as to his pleasure in seeing her, too, the bright sparkling blue of his eyes, no darkness at all because she was bringing sunshine into his life—a wild giddy thought that made her feel wonderful.
“Hi!” he said, holding up the cooler bag he carried. “I trust you have the glasses ready.”
She laughed with sheer happiness at the togetherness they were about to share. “And the ice bucket,” she assured him.
“Good girl!” His free arm swung around her waist and scooped her along with him as he headed for the house. “I’ve been looking forward to this moment all day.”
“So have I.” The words tripped straight off her tongue. Impossible to pretend anything else. He was hugging her close to his side, the warmth of his body lighting a glow in hers, the brush of his thighs shooting quivers of excitement right down to her toes. She loved the female feel of being physically linked to this man.
He rubbed his cheek against her hair. If she’d been a cat she would have purred. As it was, it felt as though her heart was beating in her throat. She put her arm around his waist, snuggling closer, gloatingly glad now that she’d had the foresight to ask Jeanette to prepare a dinner that could be simply heated up when they were ready for it, giving the housekeeper and her husband the evening off in their own cottage. However embarrassingly obvious it had been that she wanted to be alone with Jack no longer mattered, not with this glorious sense of anticipation buzzing through her body.
“What about your bag?” she asked, suddenly remembering Graham wasn’t here to collect it from the helicopter and they had already stepped into the foyer.
“Bill will drop it off here. We’ll leave the door open for him. He’ll close it as he goes,” came the quick reply.
Jack didn’t so much as pause in his step. Neither did she, content to be swept across the foyer, down the hall to the master suite, shutting out the outside world, sharing his urgency, revelling in it. She’d left the door to it open so he could see all the marvellous changes to the bedroom straightaway, but he made no immediate comment on the redecorating.
“Ah! Glasses on the table,” he said with satisfaction, as though the rest of the room rated no attention at all, taking Sally with him as he made a beeline for the coffee table.
“Jack, do you like what’s been done?” she cried, wanting to hear his approval.
He set the cooler bag down next to the ice bucket and turned to her, both arms drawing her into his embrace, his eyes blazing with an intensity that was focused entirely on her. “You like it so it must be right, and I don’t care about anything else.”
She didn’t think about that statement right then, not for days afterwards. She heard the raw passion in his voice, saw naked desire burning in his eyes, and her heart was a wild thing, beating like a bongo drum, intent on driving a primitive dance to some ultimate end.
His mouth crashed down on hers with a ravaging hunger that instantly ignited a fierce need to feed it. She kissed him back with a wanton savagery that would have stunned her with disbelief in a saner moment, their tongues duelling for more and more intense sensation, teeth scraping, lips meshing in a mad need to taste everything there was to taste.
Her arms were locked around his neck, her breasts crushed to his chest, her stomach furrowed by the hard erection pressing against it. One of his hands was spread around the back of her skull, fingers entwined in her hair, tugging it to shift the position of her head as he broke from her mouth to rain hotly possessive kisses around her face, her ears, her eyelids, her temples, and she was kissing him, too, his cheek, his neck, laying claim to him, fastening on the pulse at the base of his throat as he clutched her head to hold her there, under his chin, holding her to the beat of his heart.
“I want you so badly, it can’t wait,” he muttered, and the vibration of his need echoed her own.
“No, it can’t wait,” she heard herself agree.
Then they were pulling off their clothes, helping each other get naked as fast as possible, craving the feel of flesh against flesh, the heat, the intimacy, the man-woman togetherness their bodies were demanding. And, oh, it was so good, so gloriously right. Sally stood on tiptoes to press herself more totally against the hard, hot muscularity of his maleness, wanting to melt into him. She loved this man, loved him, loved him, loved him, wanted all of him so much…
He hooked a hand under her bottom, lifted her off her feet and strode to the bed, stood her down for a moment as he hurled off the silk bedspread, the heap of decorative cushions flying away with it. He laid her on the green sheet, her head on a green pillow, and the word “Yes” hissed from his lips, and his eyes glittered exultantly as he loomed over her, and she moved her legs to make room for him, curling them around his hips as he moved into position to answer the urgent yearning driving both of them.
Her body arched in sheer ecstacy as he plunged deep inside her and the same word “Yes” tore from her throat. Her inner muscles convulsed joyously around him as he bent to kiss her again, and kept kissing her, their mouths wildly matching the thrusting that sought every possible peak of sensation they could create together, intensely possessive, incredibly exciting and finally exploding into a meltdown that left them clutching each other in a fierce embrace, holding onto the blissful oneness as their hearts gradually slowed and their bodies wallowed in relaxed contentment.
Jack carried her with him as he rolled onto his back, and he stroked her skin and her hair as she lay sprawled over him, too limp to do anything but feel the rise and fall of his chest as his breathing returned to a normal rhythm. She didn’t even think. Her mind was basking in a haze of pleasure.
“Happy?” Jack eventually asked, his voice furred with his own pleasure.
“Mmmm …” It was a hum of delicious euphoria.