Truth was, making love to Jack over and over again for the rest of her life sounded really good right now. And there was a deceptive intimacy to huddling in the sheltered darkness while the storm rumbled and flashed in the sky. Raindrops battered the waxy leaves of the potted tropical plants, while a film of steam rose from the pool decks and fountains, obscuring the pot lights, giving the entire garden an eerie glow.
He moved in close, his whisper tortured and husky. “I can’t lose this chance. I can’t let you go.”
She squinted. Was he serious? Did he really want to see her again? Romantically?
She’d hardly dared hope.
No. Scratch that. She wouldn’t dare hope.
His fingertips brushed her cheek. “This is something, Kristy.”
Her chest contracted. She had to agree with him there. This was definitely something.
“Have you ever—” he breathed. Then he closed his eyes for a second, as if gathering his thoughts. “Have you ever, in your entire life, ever felt this way?”
She slowly shook her head. There were no words to describe how she felt about Jack—the passion, the admiration, the deep-down soul connection.
“We can’t let it go,” he said.
“We don’t have to let it go.” They could see each other again. He could come to New York. Heck, he had an office there, and his own jet plane. He could drop by and see her whenever he was in town.
He ran his hands up and down her arms. “How many people do you suppose say that?”
“Say they’ll get together again?”
He nodded. “Hundreds, maybe thousands. And how many of them ever do?”
She shrugged. Not many, she’d suspect, and that gave her a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach.
“We leave this hotel, Kristy, and you know as well as I do that’ll be it.”
Would it? Would they really walk away from a connection this strong?
“You’ll go back to New York. I’ll go to L.A. We’ll e-mail, maybe call. But pretty soon, our memories will fade. We’ll decide it couldn’t have been as great as we thought. We’ll write each other off as a weekend fling.”
She found her voice. “We are a weekend fling.”
“We don’t have to be.” His hands met her upper arms, his voice going earnest. “We can be better than that. Let me make it so we … So I have to be better than that.”
She knew he was talking crazy. People didn’t get married to guarantee a second date. She opened her mouth to tell him so, but he put an index finger across her lips.
His gaze bore directly into hers. “I think I’m falling in love with you, Kristy.”
Her entire body convulsed with a wash of emotions and hormones. Love? Could this possibly be love?
“Don’t let me walk away from you, Kristy. Don’t let me be the man I know I’ll be.”
She wanted to say yes. In every fiber of her being, she longed to complete the fantasy.
Love.
She rolled the idea around in her brain.
She didn’t know anything about romantic love, but she’d sure never felt this way about any man before. And if this was as good as it got … Well, it was pretty darn good—talking, laughing, touching. All Jack, all day, every day, for ever and ever.
“Marry me,” he groaned, his hand tunneling into her damp hair, cupping her head, drawing her forward. “Make me come back to you.”
And then he kissed her. His hot lips possessing and devouring her own. Raw passion permeated every breath, as the wind swirled around them, tearing at their clothes, rattling the broad leaves. The staccato beat of the rain matched the frantic melding of their hearts.
She clung to his shoulders, tipping her head to deepen the kiss, her spine bending as she leaned back, baring her neck and chest and body to him. He peppered kisses on the exposed flesh, cupping his hand over her breast where her nipple had puckered beneath the thin, damp fabric. Sparks flew off in all directions, lighting her brain, making her feel as though absolute clarity was within her grasp.
The world fell away until there was nothing but Jack. Their differences didn’t matter. Geography didn’t matter. Fashion, business, money and power. None of it mattered. There weren’t two of them anymore, only one. And the universe would have to settle around that reality.
She anchored her hands in his thick hair, drawing him back, staring into his passion-clouded eyes.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, yes and yes.”
He sighed. Then he entwined his fingers with hers, straightening until he faced her. “You have made me unbelievably happy.”
Kristy smiled at him, everything inside her going calm. They’d make it work. She knew with an absolute certainty that she could put her faith in Jack.
Hand in hand, they floated down the hallway to the hotel chapel.
There, Kristy was given a delicate bouquet of white roses. They signed a bunch of papers. Jack asked the organist to play “At Last,” and he chose plain gold bands, whispering promises of diamonds in her future.
But Kristy didn’t need diamonds. She didn’t need designer clothes or corporate jets or a high-end penthouse. All she needed was Jack. And, as the chaplain asked her to repeat the age-old vows of faith and fidelity, she knew she was getting Jack forever.
NEXT TO THE big four-poster bed, with Kristy in his arms, Jack ignored the heated accusations of betrayal and deceit that pounded away at his brain. Instead, he peeled away her silk dress, revealing her creamy, pink-tipped breasts, and honestly told himself he was the luckiest man in the world.
“Beautiful,” he murmured more to himself than to her. “So beautiful.” Then he placed a soft kiss on one tip and then the other.
Kristy drew in a gasp of pleasure, her fingers curling into his hair.
“I love you,” she gasped, and a knife twisted deep inside his heart.
“And I’m about to love you,” he growled in return, hating that he had to fudge the phrase. She deserved better.
“For just as long as you’ll let me,” he finished.
Then he tugged her dress down to her ankles and gently pushed her back on the bed to stare at smooth stomach, her lacy black panties and the creamy thighs that twitched ever so slightly in anticipation of his touch. He’d pay for this one, that was for sure. But no power on heaven or earth could stop him from making love to her tonight.
She reached for him, and he caught her hand, staring into her eyes as he kissed each one of her fingers.
“I want you so bad,” he told her truthfully. “Like I’ve never wanted anything in my life.”
She smiled up at him, blinking a sheen of moisture from her eyes. He stripped off his shirt, tearing most of the buttons. Then he yanked off his pants, and her eyes went wide at his naked body.
“It’s been …”
He waited.
“A while,” she finished.
A feeling of primal possessiveness welled up inside him. He reached for the delicate wisp of her panties and discovered his hand was shaking.
She covered his blunt fingers with her small, manicured hand.
“Nervous?” she asked.
Hell no. “Trying to take it slow,” he managed.
She hooked her thumbs into the lace strips at