“I went to the Bondi apartment this morning and saw our stuff being carried out to the removalist van…”
“Our stuff?” She couldn’t believe he was backtracking on the division of their property. How crass could he get in the circumstances? “It was agreed this was my stuff.”
“Mostly, yes. But there were little things I left behind. Overlooked in…well, not wanting to make things worse for you.”
“Worse for whom?” she demanded with arch scepticism. “The great evader couldn’t get out fast enough. That’s the truth of it, Steve.”
He flushed. “Have it your way. But I still want my things. And since you’d obviously packed up the lot, I followed the van here, then gave you time to unpack…”
“How considerate of you! What things?”
“Well, there were photographs and mementos…”
“I threw them all out.”
“You…what?”
Amy shrugged. “Unwanted baggage. What’s gone is gone,” she declared and proceeded to drain her glass as though to celebrate the fact.
“One never enjoys being reminded of mistakes, Steve,” Jake remarked wisely.
“You could have called me first,” Steve spluttered accusingly.
“Sorry.” She slid a sultry look up at Jake. “I’ve been somewhat distracted this week.”
He instantly brushed his mouth over the top of her hair, murmuring, “Amy, I’ve got to tell you that scent you wear is extremely stimulating.”
She wasn’t wearing any scent. Unless he meant her shampoo and conditioner. It occurred to her she was playing with fire but the warmth coursing through her felt so good she didn’t care.
“Goddammit! I did my best to be decent to you,” Steve bellowed.
“Oh? You call getting another woman pregnant being decent?” Amy flared.
“I bet you were already sneaking behind my back…”
“Amy sneak?” Jake laughed at him. “She is the most confrontationist woman I know. Sparks and spice and all things nice.”
Steve glared furiously at her. “And I was fool enough not to believe Brooke when she told me you just couldn’t wait to have it off with him.”
“Well, sometimes Brooke does get things right,” Amy fired back heedlessly.
“I feel exactly the same way,” Jake declared with fervour. “In fact, I can hardly wait for you to leave.”
“And you do have Brooke’s party to go to,” Amy pressed. “Apart from which, I’m sure your wedding will supply more suitable photos and mementos for your future.” She lifted her glass in a mock toast. “Happy days!”
Unfortunately there was no champagne left in it to drink.
“Darling…” Jake purred “…let me take that empty glass.” He plucked it out of her hand and set it on the table. “Bad luck you didn’t get what you came for, Steve,” he burbled on as he swept Amy into his embrace. “But as my girl here says, what’s gone is gone. And it’s well past time you were gone, too. Would you mind letting yourself out?”
“You know what she called you, Carter?” Steve yelled at him, his face twisting in triumphant scorn. “Jake the rake!”
“Well, fair’s fair,” Jake said, totally unperturbed. He whipped off his T-shirt and spread her hands against his bare chest. “You can do some raking, too, Amy. I’d like that. I’d like that very much.” And his voice wasn’t a purr anymore. More like the growl of a wolf with his dinner in view.
It should have frightened her. This whole scene was flying out of her control. Yet the fierce yellow blaze in his eyes was mesmerising and his skin had a magnetic pulse that compelled contact.
“You’ll regret it,” Steve jeered, but the words seemed to come to her through a fog, setting them at an irrelevant distance, and the door slam that followed them was no more than an echo of the throb in her temples.
“Let me rake you as you’ve never been raked before,” Jake murmured, the low throaty sound hitting on some wild primitive chord that leapt in eager response, and his fingers were running through her hair, tilting her head back.
Then it was too late to pull away, even if she’d found the will to do it, because his mouth took possession of hers and she was sucked into a vortex of irresistible sensation from which there was no escape, nor any wish to. The desire to drown in what Jake Carter could do to her was utterly, savagely overwhelming.
THE sheer passion of that first kiss blew Amy’s mind. Conscious thought was bombarded out of existence. An insatiable hunger swept in and took over, demanding to be fed, to be appeased, to be satisfied.
He tasted so good, his tongue tangling with hers in an erotic dance, arousing explosive tingles of excitement across her palate, stirring sensations that streamed through her body which instantly clamoured for a bigger share of what was going on, a more intense share.
Her hands flew up to get out of the way and her breasts fell against the hot heaving wall of his chest, squashing into it, revelling in the rub of silk and firm male flesh and muscle. Her fingers raked his shoulders, his hair, his back, finding purchase to press him closer. She squirmed with pleasure as his hands clawed down her back to close over her buttocks and haul her into a sweet mashing contact with even more prominent and stimulating masculinity.
Clothes formed a frustrating separation.
They got rid of them.
Then everything felt so much more delicious, incredibly sensual, body hair tickling, hard flesh sliding against soft, mouths meshing, moving to taste everything, greedy, greedy, greedy, loving it, relishing it, feeding on each other in a frenzy of wanting, licking, sucking, hands shaping pathways, beating rhythms, wildly pushing for the ultimate feast of co-mingling, yet not wanting to forgo any appetiser along the way.
Exquisite anticipation, pulse racing, an urgent scream shrieking along nerve-endings, craving…and he lifted her up to make the most intimate connection possible and she wound her legs around his hips and welcomed him in, her muscles rippling convulsively, ecstatically as he filled the need.
And they were one—this wonderful man-wolf and the animal-woman he’d taken as his—as he went down on all fours, lowering her with him to some flat furry surface on the floor, and she tightened the grip of her legs around his hips, fearing the emptiness of losing him. But there was no loss. No loss at all.
With the purchase of ground beneath them he drove in deeper…oh, so soul-shakingly deep, the power of him radiating through her, waves and waves of it, building an intensity that rippled through every cell so it felt as though they were coalescing, melting, fusing with the thunder of his need to possess all of her, and she gave herself up to him, surfing the peaks he pushed her to, wallowing voluptuously in the swell of them, urging him on with wild little cries, exulting in the hot panting of his breath on her, the nails digging into her flesh, the pound of his heart, and the sheer incredible glory of this mating.
Even the ending of it felt utterly fulfilling, climactic in every sense, the shudder of his release spilling her into an amazing, floating, supernatural experience where all existence was focused internally and he was there—the warm, vital essence of him—and that part of him would always be part of her from this moment on.
Then his body sank onto hers, covering it in a final claim, imprinting the power, intoxicating her with it,