Mayday. She was completely crazed with lust, unbearably infatuated with everything about this man and this evening. This was where she should back up, think this through and make sure she understood every possible ramification of her—ooh.
He’d nudged her legs apart and put his thigh between hers, which made her skirt ride upward. His hand dipped to caress her rear, which she faintly hoped, with the last glimmer of her sanity, had gotten firmer since she’d been going to the gym.
What had she been thinking? Something about pulling away. Something about…
Aw, hell.
He guided her back a few steps and lifted her onto the edge of his counter stool, stepped between her thighs and kissed her exactly how women all over the world longed to be kissed whether they knew it or not. He was very hard now, pushing the swollen heat against her thin, red, lace panties, making her nearly ready to come just thinking about being in bed with him.
Wasn’t she supposed to stop this? Something about a story, about ethics…
His lips left hers to explore her neck; his hands drew her skirt slowly up, building her arousal with the expectation of more intimate touch. He slid those same warm hands back and forth on her hips as more and more of her skin became available to his fingers.
Must…hang on…to brain. “Jack.”
“Mmm.”
“This is a little…unreal.”
“How so?”
“You and this amazing house and the incredible food and the champagne and now…this.”
“What ‘this’?”
“Nothing that should be happening.” Her voice was low and breathless, making it damn clear how serious she was about stopping. Which would be not enough.
“I know. It’s a lousy idea.”
“You do? It is?” She opened her eyes. “Why shouldn’t you be doing it?”
“Shh. Pretend it’s not happening.” He trailed his fingers across the lower edge of her abdomen, then along the lacy sides of her panties. “What happens tonight stays there. In the morning, it will all be erased.”
“So…this isn’t happening?”
“No.” He urged her legs farther apart, slid fingers teasingly inside the lace edge. “It’s not happening.”
“Mmm, Jack, but it…really does feel like it’s happening.” She braced her feet on the chair rungs, lifted her hips. He took his cue and slid her panties down, got them over one leg and let them fall down the other.
“No, don’t worry.” He knelt and she leaned her elbows behind her on the counter, tipped her head back, open and vulnerable to him, feeling his warm breath on her sex, closing her eyes in delicious impatience for his even warmer tongue. “I promise it’s not happening.”
“If you say so—oh!” She gasped, let her hips lift and retreat under his talented thrusts, so close to coming so soon that she had to take deep breaths and open her eyes to slow the process down. She wanted him with her. She wanted this to last forever. But, no, she wasn’t going to hold out much longer. “Are you sure this isn’t happening? It really really feels like it is. Any second now.”
“Let it happen, Hannah.”
“I want you with me.”
“I don’t have a condom downstairs.”
“But if this isn’t happening…” She was panting, trying desperately to hold on to some kind of logic. “Then we don’t need…oh!”
He’d moved to kiss her inner thighs, but now settled firmly back on her clit and she was lost. The orgasm started in a dark rush, then boom, steam engine blowing past, making everything rattle and roll in its wake, subsiding eventually to the distance and the past.
“Oh my goodness.” She slowly unclenched her muscles, slumped wearily back on the counter, staring at him with what was certainly a worshipful look as he stood up, smiling male triumph.
Then the impact of what she’d just done hit nearly as hard as the orgasm, creating a serious rupture in her afterglow. Sex with an interviewee who didn’t know yet that he was an interviewee…absolutely not. He’d think she’d slept with him for the story.
Jack Brattle—Jack Brattle—stepped forward and scooped her back to upright, bent and kissed her hard, once, then again and nearly overwhelmed her dismayed and blissful heart by gazing into her eyes and smoothing back what must by now be a rat’s-nest hairdo. “You know they say what happens to you New Year’s Day predicts how you’ll spend your whole year?”
“Does it?” She smiled wistfully up at him, already in love with this perfect, beautiful, incredibly talented-tongued man. “Then this is going to be the best year of my life.”
“I haven’t had a perfect night like this in a long time.”
Something about how he said it made her think that instead of being polite, he meant the words literally. “Me, neither.”
She meant them literally, too.
“I have a brilliant idea.” He held out his hand. “Come upstairs with me and we’ll make more things not happen.”
“That is a brilliant idea.” Hannah accepted his hand, slid off the stool, picked up her panties and took a moment to get her hips working while he supported her. “As soon as I can walk again.”
Up the stairs, then, resting her fingers in his, anticipation mixing with dread, mixing with elation, mixing with sadness. Maybe none of this would have happened by morning as far as he was concerned, but she doubted she’d ever forget a single second.
Not only that, but morning was going to come way too soon. And with it the dismal certainty that once again she’d done plenty of leaping without the slightest bit of looking beforehand. And once again she’d have to pay—this time by having to give up the career opportunity of a lifetime.
Chapter Four
HE WAS SO SCREWED. NO MATTER how he played the rest of this evening, Derek was screwed. Everything had gone as planned, but nothing was working out as it should.
Obviously Dee-Dee had played her role perfectly at Gerard Banks’s party, dangling the Jack Brattle interview in front of Hannah and supplying her with directions to the house. He’d had no doubt she’d take the bait. However, once the weather had changed so dramatically for the worse, he’d never dreamed she’d risk driving out tonight. After his shower earlier in the evening, he’d been about to relock the gate and front door.
Instead, he’d met Hannah for the first time stark naked. That hadn’t been part of the plan. Nor had been his immediate attraction, which only compounded the interest and curiosity that was sparked by the provocative wit she revealed in her Lowbrow column, blogs and occasional features in The Philadelphia Sentinel.
He’d started the Highbrow column as D. G. Jackson when Philly’s restaurant scene began to take off, wanting to indulge his passion for food on the one hand, and on the other, wanting to introduce the average man and woman to dishes, flavors and establishments he or she might otherwise be intimidated by. In his view, good food was one of life’s greatest joys. But once Hannah began countering his “highbrow” suggestions with her “lowbrow” alternatives, he quickly learned that she knew what she was talking about as well as he did. He took great pleasure in going—incognito, of course—to every hole-in-the-wall and mom-and-pop joint she recommended, all of which satisfied as she promised.
His interest only intensified along with their public rivalry. Who was Hannah O’Reilly? What was she like? How could he find out? He wouldn’t call her an obsession,