by Miranda Lee
Abby scrunched up her face as she stepped back and stared at it for a long moment. ‘I can’t make up my mind if it’s brilliant or an Emperor’s New Clothes piece of rubbish.’
Jake had to smile. Only Abby would dare to question what was considered to be Jackson Pollock’s best work.
‘No, no, I take that back,’ she said after a few more seconds of narrow-eyed scrutiny. ‘It’s definitely one of those paintings that grows on you. But you could hardly hang it in your living room, could you?’
‘True,’ Jake said, trying not to laugh. But she was such a delight. And so natural, her opinions untainted by the one-eyed opinions of art critics and pseudo intellectuals.
‘I certainly wouldn’t pay twenty million for it,’ she added.
‘Me neither,’ a male voice said from just behind them.
Jake recognised that voice. Instantly.
He spun round. ‘Tony Green, you old devil! Fancy running into you here.’
Abby was astonished when Jake enfolded a tall, skinny, darkly bearded man in a big bear hug.
‘I thought you weren’t ever coming back to Australia,’ Jake added as the man hugged him back. When at last they pulled apart they both had boyish grins on their happy faces.
‘Neither were you, if I recall,’ the bearded man said. ‘Till a bullet changed your mind.’
Abby sucked in sharply at this news, but Jake just shrugged. ‘I was about ready to come home, Tony. I’d had enough. Now, before we go and have a drink together and catch up on old times, I think I should make some introductions.’ He turned back to Abby and took her by the hand again. ‘Abby, this is Tony Green, the most fearless cameraman money can buy. But also just a tad dangerous to work with.’
Tony laughed. ‘You ought to talk. This man’s a maniac. I told him he was crazy to go into that particular village that day, but he wouldn’t take any notice. Said he’d come to help rescue some girls who’d been kidnapped by a gang of rebels and he was going to free them, come hell or high water. He just wouldn’t listen to reason. And guess what? The girls did get rescued but our boy here almost lost his life in the process.’
‘Goodness!’ Abby exclaimed. ‘I had no idea…’
Tony grinned. ‘Modest as well as brave. That’s our Jake. But also stubborn. Once Jake makes his mind up to do something, nothing will change his mind. But then you probably already know that, since I gather you two are an item.’
‘We are,’ Jake said, giving Abby’s hand a squeeze. ‘And I’ll have you know I’m not a maniac any longer.’
‘Possibly true. I couldn’t believe it when I got back to Australia last month and saw you hosting that chat show. I mean, that’s not you, mate.’
‘It suited me at the time, Tony. And it’s my own production. But I’ve decided to sell it before Christmas. Abby and I are going on a world tour together next year. Not to the places we went to. To the nice places.’
‘Wow. So you two are pretty serious about each other then?’
‘You could say that,’ Jake replied, and gave Abby’s hand another squeeze.
‘You have changed. Look, as much as I’d like to get a drink and catch up on old times, I can’t. I’m meeting someone up at Parliament House in about fifteen minutes. I just popped in here to fill in time till she gets off work.’
‘Someone special?’ Jake asked.
‘Very. We met over the internet. She’s the reason I came back to Australia.’
‘I see. Well, I hope it works out for you.’
‘You too. We should stay in touch.’
‘I’m on Facebook,’ Jake told him.
‘Me too. Have to go, mate. It’s been great seeing you again.’
They hugged once more and Tony was gone.
‘Well,’ said Jake with a sigh, ‘fancy that. I honestly never expected to see him again.’
There was so much Abby wanted to ask Jake, the many questions in her head underlining how much she didn’t know about him and the job he used to do. But right now, here in this gallery, with people milling around, didn’t seem the right place to have such a conversation.
‘I don’t really want to walk around looking at art, Jake,’ she said truthfully. ‘Can’t we just go to that hotel you booked? Or is it too early?’
Their eyes met, the desire which they’d both put on hold earlier flaring between them.
‘And you accused me of corrupting you,’ he murmured wryly, then glanced at his watch. ‘It’s only half past two. Check-in time isn’t till three. But I suppose I could call them and play the celebrity card.’
He played the celebrity card, Abby wishing for a few excruciating minutes in Reception that he hadn’t. The behaviour of the attractive brunette behind the desk was more than embarrassing. She gushed all over Jake, half flirting with him whilst totally ignoring Abby’s presence. By the time Jake steered Abby over to the bank of lifts in the corner, she wasn’t sure who she felt sorrier for, herself or Jake.
She sighed as they entered a blessedly empty lift.
‘Yes, I know,’ he said ruefully. ‘But it won’t be like that when we’re booking into hotels overseas. Over there, I’ll be a nobody.’
‘I suspect you’ll always get special treatment from female staff, Jake,’ Abby said a bit tartly. ‘You’re way too handsome for your own good.’
He smiled at her. ‘That’s the pot calling the kettle black. I haven’t forgotten the way dear old Raoul came on to you, beautiful.’
Abby blinked up at him. ‘Are you saying you were jealous of Raoul?’
‘Painfully so.’
‘Good,’ she said, and he laughed.
‘I like it when you get stroppy with me. And when you’re jealous.’
The lift doors opened on the tenth floor, Jake wasting no time steering Abby along the corridor to their room. Their overnight bags were waiting for them inside, as was a bottle of chilled champagne and a fruit basket, courtesy of the management. The room was what was called superior, with views over the lake, a separate sitting area, a king-sized bed and a spa bath.
Although impressed, Abby wasn’t all that interested in any of it. All she wanted by then was for Jake to take her in his arms and kiss her.
‘Care for a glass of champagne?’ he asked her as he lifted the bottle out of the ice bucket and set about opening it.
Abby winced. How did you tell a man that all you wanted was him?
He glanced over at her then and laughed. ‘You should see the look on your face.’
Now she blushed.
‘I take it you don’t want the champagne just yet,’ he said as he walked slowly across the room to where she was standing beside the bed.
‘Do you?’ she asked him.
‘The only thing I want at the moment, my darling girl,’ he said, ‘is you.’
He undressed her quickly, without so much as a kiss, not stopping till she was totally naked. Then he left her standing there like that whilst he undressed, his eyes on her all the while. Her own gaze was hot and hungry as she watched him strip off, her need intense before he’d even laid a finger on her. She closed her eyes when he scooped her up and laid her on the bed, gasping when he started stroking her body, first her breasts then her stomach, her thighs, her calves.
‘No, no…’ she moaned when he spread her legs and used his mouth on her.
But protesting was useless and she splintered apart under his tongue within seconds. Her climax hadn’t abated when he rolled her over on to her stomach and started stroking her again. Her back this time, then her buttocks. And between. She writhed beneath his knowing hands, and his wickedly probing fingers. In no time her desire for release became desperate again. Her legs moved invitingly apart, her hips moving restlessly in a circular fashion.
‘Not that way, my darling,’ he growled, and flipped her back over. ‘Not this time. I want to see your e
yes when you come. Just give me a sec.’
She groaned at the time he took to don the condom, crying out when he entered her at last, penetrating her with a forceful surge which filled her to the hilt. His own eyes, she noted, were wildly glittering, his breathing ragged. He groaned when she wrapped her legs high around his back, pressing her hips hard up against his.
‘Hell on earth, woman,’ he ground out. ‘Be still or I’ll come.’
‘I want you to come,’ she told him in a wickedly wanton voice as she moved her hips in a slow sensual circle, squeezing him at the same time.
A decidedly crude four-letter word punched from his throat.
Abby didn’t swear much herself, but somehow, today, at this moment, it turned her on. ‘Yes,’ she said with a low moan. ‘That’s what I want, too. Just do it, Jake. I don’t care if I come or not.’
‘Bloody hell,’ he muttered, then started to move, the veins in his throat standing out as he set up a steady rhythm.
Abby was touched by his efforts to last, but she would have none of it, certain that she would come if he came. She kept squeezing him mercilessly, and rotating her hips, watching with increasing frustration as he tried desperately to maintain control. Desperate herself now, she removed her hands from where they’d been gripping the sheet on either side of her, clamping them onto his buttocks and digging her nails in as she pulled him even deeper into her.
It was the final straw for Jake, tipping him over the edge with a speed and power which Abby found thrilling. He didn’t watch her come because his eyes were shut at the time. But come she did, exulting in the way her body matched his, spasm for spasm. They shuddered together for ages till finally they were done, Jake rolling from her and collapsing on to the bed, still gasping and panting. Abby just lay where she was, a very deep languor seeping through her sated body as her breathing calmed and her muscles relaxed. She didn’t want to go to sleep, but her mind had other ideas. Five minutes later she was out like a light.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
JAKE WAS BEYOND words for some considerable time. Frankly, he was somewhat stunned at how he’d lost control of the lovemaking. There he’d been, thinking he would show Abby this weekend what a great lover he was and bingo, he’d come with the speed of a randy teenager. For a girl of limited experience, she seemed to know exactly what to do to drive a man wild.
Jake sighed. So much for not wanting this weekend to be a sex-fest. Suddenly, that was all he could think about. His head turned to where Abby was lying on the bed, her naked body splayed out in the most provocative pose. Unfortunately, she was also sound asleep. But that didn’t stop Jake from looking.
Naked, Abby had the sort of body a man could look at for hours, with its delicious combination of slenderness and curves. Her breasts were just the right size. Full but not heavy, her nipples surprisingly large and yes, very responsive. Not pink, they were a dusky brown colour which made them stand out from her rather pale skin. Jake’s stomach tightened at the urge to roll over right now and suck them. But he didn’t. Though he would, after he’d been to the bathroom. She didn’t need to sleep for long. Hell, it was only mid-afternoon. She could sleep later tonight, after he’d run out of steam. And condoms.
Climbing off the bed, Jake walked into the bathroom to attend to the condom. He wished he didn’t have to use them.
‘I really don’t want to take any chances, Jake,’ she’d reiterated at breakfast today. ‘I went through a few nasty moments there last night when I thought I’d forgotten to take my Pill.’
It would have given him more than a few nasty moments if she’d become pregnant, Jake accepted. Which meant he would just have to keep on using condoms.
Not that it really mattered. Safe sex was a way of life for him. Still, perhaps after they’d been together for a while, she might tell him not to bother with the condoms any more. He trusted her to take the Pill every day. After all, she seemed just as paranoid about falling pregnant as he was. Meanwhile, he still had almost a dozen condoms left for this weekend, which seemed overly ambitious…but then he walked back into the bedroom and saw that Abby had rolled over and curled up into a foetal position.
Just looking at Abby’s peachy bottom started doing things to him which would have been impossible a few minutes earlier.
Jake climbed back on to the bed with a rueful smile on his face.
‘Abby, darling,’ he crooned, running a single finger up and down her spine. ‘You can’t go to sleep yet. It’s only four o’clock.’
‘Go away,’ she mumbled. ‘Tired.’
Jake smiled as he rose and went back into the bathroom, where he poured some of the provided bath salts into the spa bath he’d noted earlier. After that, he turned on the water, adjusted the temperature, then went to collect the champagne and the fruit basket, the bath fortunately having ledges large enough in each corner to accommodate the ice bucket and two glasses. Once the water was at the right height, he switched off the taps, hid a couple of condoms amongst the fruit then joined Abby on the bed, this time bending his lips to her shoulder.
‘Jake calling Abby,’ he murmured between kisses. ‘Do you hear me, Abby?’
Her eyes fluttered open as her head turned and gazed up at him with heavy lids. ‘You can’t possibly want to do it again this soon,’ she said sleepily.
‘Not right away,’ he said. ‘I’ve run us a spa bath. There’s room enough for two.’
She blinked, then sat up abruptly, her messy hair falling across her forehead and one eye. ‘But I haven’t… I’ve never…’
‘What happened to the girl who told me she wanted to experience everything?’ he said as he gently pushed her hair back from her eyes. ‘Trust me, okay?’
She rolled her eyes at this.
‘I’ve taken some refreshments in there for us to enjoy,’ he went on. ‘I thought you might be hungry. We can eat and talk at the same time.’
‘You want to talk? I thought you wanted sex.’
‘Not until you wake up properly.’
Jake kept a straight face as he said this.
But, perversely, Abby took him at his word.
‘So what are we going to talk about?’ she said even before she’d lowered herself into the warm water.
‘Whatever you’d like to talk about,’ he replied, temporarily settling back into the opposite end of the bath. ‘But first I’ll pour us both some champagne.’
Abby wondered as she watched Jake pour the bubbly just how often he’d done this. She wasn’t jealous, but she did rather envy his know-how. Did he have any idea how awkward she felt at the moment? How…ignorant?
Not a total fool, however. He hadn’t brought her in here to talk. And whilst she did want him to make love to her some more in whatever exotic ways he wanted, there was something she wanted to talk to him about whilst she had the chance.
‘That man in the gallery, Jake,’ she said as he handed her a glass of champagne. ‘Tony,’ she added after taking a sip.
‘What about him?’ Jake asked.
‘He said you were shot. And I was wondering where.’ She hadn’t seen any scars on him.
‘Africa. Sierra Leone.’
‘No, no, I mean where on your body.’
He laughed. ‘Here,’ he said, and showed her a scar on his inner thigh which was more towards the back than the front. No wonder she hadn’t seen it.
‘Heavens. You were very lucky.’
‘Sure was. A couple of inches either way and I would have lost the family jewels.’
‘Which would have been a dreadful shame.’
‘My feelings exactly.’
‘Still, it was very brave of you to do what you did that day.’
‘More stupid than brave.’
‘I don’t agree. So I suppose that was when you stopped making documentaries?’
‘Yep. I had to come home to get proper
medical treatment. Then, once I was home, I decided I’d had enough of traipsing around the world. Craig said I’d get tired of it one day and he was right.’
‘Then why do you want to go back overseas?’
‘Travelling as a tourist is very different from what I was doing, Abby. Have you seen any of the documentaries I made?’
‘No.’
‘Then don’t. They’re grim viewing.’
‘Then why did you make them?’
He shrugged. ‘Initially, I thought it would be great fun, following Craig around and filming the places he went and the things he witnessed. But after a few years I found myself becoming emotionally involved in the injustices I saw. I naively thought that if the problems of the Third World were shoved in the face of the Western World, they might do something to solve at least some of those problems. That was when I became a crusader. But I was deluding myself. People liked watching my more hard-hitting documentaries. I made a lot of money out of them. But they didn’t inspire much action. There’s still war and poverty and abuse of the worst kind. Nothing ever changes.’
‘But you tried,’ Abby said gently. ‘All you can do is try, Jake.’
‘You are sweet,’ he said. ‘But could we possibly change the subject?’
Abby was touched by his sensitivity. Clearly, he wasn’t as selfish and self-centred as he liked to pretend. But then, she’d already known that, hadn’t she, even before she’d heard the good things Tony had said about him. Look at the way he’d followed through with his uncle’s legacy to her, even though he hadn’t wanted to at first.
A thought suddenly occurred to her.
‘Were you telling the truth when you said you were jealous of Raoul?’
‘Jealous? I wanted to tear him limb from limb.’
‘But why? I mean…we weren’t an item then.’
‘Maybe not. But I already wanted you like crazy.’
She shook her head from side to side. ‘I find that hard to believe.’
‘Oh, Abby, Abby, you gorgeous thing, you.’ He sighed and shook his head back at her. ‘You don’t understand men very well, do you? Now, drink up your champers, sweet thing. I have an urge to have my wicked way with you. All chit-chat is to cease as of this moment. That is, except for words like, Yes, Jake. Please, Jake. Don’t stop, Jake.’