by BETH KERY
Flustered, she stood and smoothed down her skirt. “Just a second,” she called, hurrying to her kitchen where she hastily washed her hands. A moment later, she lifted a blind and peered out. She let it shut with a snap.
Jacob stood on her terrace.
She remained unmoving for a second, her breath stuck in her lungs. Finally, she drew up the blinds with a jerking motion and opened the door.
For a few strained seconds, they just stared at each other.
“What are you doing here?” she managed eventually.
His gaze flickered across her face. She clenched her teeth. Was she flushed? Her cheeks certainly felt warm.
“I was out for a walk,” he said slowly. “Is this a bad time?”
“No. I was just doing the dinner dishes.”
“I didn’t see anyone in the kitchen. I thought maybe you weren’t here.” He noticed her stunned, questioning glance. He pointed in the direction of the kitchen. “I wasn’t eavesdropping. It’s just that you walk past the kitchen window coming from the beach, and there weren’t any lights on in there.”
Heat redoubled in her cheeks at being caught in a lie.
“What do you want?” she repeated.
“I wanted to talk to you. About last night.”
She glanced aside, shielding her discomfort. He looked good tonight. As usual. The voice in her head sounded bitter. She resented the way he evoked this attraction in her with so little apparent effort on his part. He was dressed casually in cargo shorts, running shoes, and a heather gray sports shirt. His clothing seemed to emphasize all the things she was trying to forget, yet had just been remembering with such clarity on the couch seconds ago: his fascinating eyes, his lean torso, his muscular shoulders and chest . . . those long, strong legs that had powered his cock inside her with such eye-crossing results . . .
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she replied, her voice sounding hoarse. She cleared her throat. “Maybe we ought to just let things lie.”
“I can’t do that.”
Her gaze jumped to his face.
“Not until I apologize. I honestly didn’t mean to offend you last night. It’s just that—”
He broke off abruptly and glanced aside. There it was: one of those rare cracks in his armor. He was either genuinely uncomfortable, or he was a terrific actor.
“What?” she asked, opening the patio door a few inches more without being aware of what she was doing.
“You remind me of someone I knew once.”
Dusk was falling. A warbling robin penetrated the billowing silence.
“I was—” His mouth went hard and he glanced away again. He shut his eyelids tight for a second.
“I was . . . I was embarrassed,” he said gruffly.
Her heartbeat began to drum in her ears. His admission struck her as poignant and rare. She had the definite impression this man didn’t open up often, if ever.
“Why?” she asked softly. She felt for him in that moment. She really did, despite her reservations. Still, she wasn’t going to let him off easy. A muscle flickered in his lean cheek.
“For losing control.”
“I didn’t think you lost control, Jacob.”
He regarded her silently, his face a solemn mask . . . his eyes windows to a turmoil she couldn’t understand.
“But I hear you saying you think you did,” she continued quietly. “So . . . I reminded you of this person from your past, and you think it made things extra . . . intense for you?” She took a deep breath for courage. “And so you closed off in the aftermath, because it felt like too much, considering how briefly we’ve known each other?”
“Something like that, yeah.”
She nodded, trying her best to absorb what he was saying. She inhaled choppily when the full impact of his meaning penetrated, and hurt settled.
“So, you are only attracted to me because I look like someone else?”
“No.”
She blinked at his harshness.
“It’s not like that,” he assured, a hint of frustration in his tone. “Look, do you want to walk a little bit? I’d like to talk to you.”
She glanced back into her condo uncertainly. He’d just told her that the reason he’d shown interest in her was because she looked like another woman. Undoubtedly, his admission was also the reason he’d been so amazingly focused on her during lovemaking.
“I don’t think so,” she replied slowly. “I’ve told you that I was at a crossroads in my life . . . that I’m feeling pretty vulnerable lately. I thought I could do this with you. But this is different. I’m not too crazy about the idea of you looking at me and seeing someone else.”
“Harper.” Her gaze snapped to his face at the authority she heard in his tone. “You reminded me of someone else at first. But that . . . she happened a long, long time ago. What I realized today is that’s all a memory. It’s the past. She doesn’t exist anymore. Who I was when I knew her doesn’t exist anymore. The memory drew me to you.”
“But—”
“It’s you I see standing right in front of me right now. It’s you I want,” he said bluntly, cutting her off. His quiet, utter confidence left her speechless.
“Uh . . . let me get some shoes,” she murmured after a charged pause, pointing lamely behind her.
She didn’t know what to make of him. Her uncertainty remained. She was likely making a gargantuan mistake. He was the type of man who could disarm so elementally with his intensity, good looks and brilliance. But Jacob Latimer’s unsettling confession and demonstration of vulnerability . . .
Well, it’d taken her breath away.
Chapter Three
They talked more as they strolled down the beach together, the sky above them turning a darker and darker blue, until finally they walked beneath a midnight dome sprayed with countless stars.
“But don’t you think it’s a little unlikely, that you can actually separate out your past from your present?” she asked him hesitantly after a while. “I mean isn’t it a little . . .”
“What?”
“Well . . . creepy, that I look like someone you used to care about?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Maybe. But doesn’t history come into play to some degree in every case of attraction we experience our whole life?”
“What do you mean?”
She stared at his stark profile as they walked. For several moments, he didn’t reply.
“You don’t find that there are certain things about me, for instance, that remind you of something from your past?”
She gave a small laugh. “No.”
“You’re sure?” he asked quietly.
“You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met. But I get your point,” she mused after a moment. “We’re all a product of our histories. I just want to make it clear that even if I look a little like this other woman, I’m not her.”
“You actually don’t look all that much like her. It’s just you remind me of her.”
“How do I remind you of her?”
Only the soft surf penetrated the thick silence for a moment.
“I don’t know. In some kind of . . . deeper sense. Not that I’m very spiritual. And not to shortchange the physical aspect of things, by any means,” he added dryly under his breath. “It’s a feeling of connection.” He shrugged uneasily. “Who knows where something like that comes from? Maybe you don’t feel it, but—”
“I feel it.”
His stark, startling honesty had yanked the bewildering truth right out of her throat. “Still . . . I want to be appreciated for who I am. Even if—”
She cut herself off abruptly.
“What?” he asked.
“Even if this is only a sexual thing. That’s not too unfair to ask, is it?”
He stopped and reached for her hand. She halted, looki
ng up at the star-filled sky behind the blackness of his outline. Why was it that he always seemed so mysterious to her, so cloaked? And yet, at other times, he seemed achingly familiar. The paradox of him pulled at her. It was making her do things she shouldn’t.
“Of course it’s not unfair. It’s a given. You’re a unique, beautiful woman. You deserve to be more than appreciated. You should expect it.”
“Thanks,” she said breathlessly.
“Let me take you home so I can appreciate you more.”
A laugh popped out of her throat. He’d said it deadpan. Her smile widened when she heard his warm, low chuckle above the surf, twining with hers.
“Seriously. I want to talk to you about something else. Something important.” He touched her cheek. “Let’s do it back at my place. I want to be able to see your face.”
Her amusement faded. She stepped closer to his body, drawn irrevocably despite her doubts.
“I understand you saying you want a no-strings-attached relationship, and I think I can do that,” she murmured. She hoped she could, anyway. “But it makes things complicated, what you just told me. What I just admitted. I’m not going to be okay with it, if you go into silent stealth mode about it again.”
“I told you,” he said, cradling her jaw with one hand. He stepped closer, his groin brushing against her belly, the tips of her breasts coming into contact with his rib cage. Arousal flickered through her like heat lightning fluttering across the night sky . . . the promise of a coming storm. “It’s in the past,” he breathed.
“I’m not saying you have to talk about this other person or your history with her ad nauseam,” she said, highly aware that his head had lowered over her uplifted face. Their mouths were only inches apart. She could smell his clean, spicy man-scent. Arousal curled in her lower belly and tingled her sex. “I’m saying that if I think you’re going aloof and cold because you’re thinking of this other woman, I reserve the right to call you out on it. And I don’t want to be shut out if I do.”
There was a tense pause where he didn’t move and she didn’t draw breath. Again, she was highly aware of the fact that he wasn’t used to women making demands of him. She wondered if he’d refuse.
“All right. As long as you hear what I’m saying right now. It’s not going to happen again. I’ve thought about it. I wouldn’t have shown up at your house if I hadn’t come to a solid decision. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about life, it’s that dwelling on the past is like carrying around a ten-ton load because you’re too stupid to drop the damn thing and move on. Every day is new,” he said, sliding his firm lips against hers. Her lungs hitched. “I remake myself every day,” he said quietly, his warm breath brushing against her mouth.
She craned for him, her lips caressing his when she smiled.
“Do you really believe that?” she asked, her whisper barely heard above the sound of the soft surf.
“No. I know it,” he said, plucking at her lips teasingly one more time before he covered her mouth in a hot, melting kiss.
By the time he lifted his head a heart-thumping moment later, her brain was hazy and her sex had gone warm and achy. When he took her hand in his and led her in the direction of his beachside mansion, Harper followed without question. After that kiss, it seemed like the most natural—the most inevitable—thing to do.
They approached the terrace doors, Jacob still holding her hand in his while he touched his forefinger to a pad on a security monitor near the door.
“Good evening, sir,” a male’s voice resounded into the dark night. Harper started.
“Ms. McFadden is here with me, Tony,” Jacob responded calmly, giving Harper the impression it was common business for him to communicate with discarnate voices coming not only from dark woods, but as in this case, from the very air itself.
“Thank you, sir. Have a good night.”
The lock on the door clicked and Jacob opened it, drawing Harper over the threshold. She followed him through the shadow-draped great room toward a magnificent, sweeping staircase made entirely of lodgepole pine, the hushed sense of anticipation building in her. He drew her down a high-ceiling hallway to a large carved door. He glanced back at her as he turned the knob. Harper swallowed a knot of anticipation that had grown in her throat.
He closed the door behind them.
She stood for a moment, admiring the beautiful room. As in the great room, the old Tahoe lodge design mixed with sleek, modern décor. Ivory couches were set before a streamlined gray slate fireplace. The natural gold and caramel colors of the wood floors and beamed pine ceilings made a warm contrast to the distant bed and the crisp, luxurious ivory and gray bed dressing. The bed itself was beneath an alcove of windows that Harper realized during the day would offer views of Lake Tahoe’s cerulean waters from three directions.
“What a lovely room,” she murmured, turning toward him. Excitement and trepidation bubbled in her at the vision of him standing so still, soberly regarding her. He was so desirable to her. She might as well face it. Nevertheless, anxiety flickered into her awareness. “All those security people you have working here,” she began slowly, “they can’t . . . see in here, can they?”
“No. These quarters are completely private,” he said, walking toward her with that panther-like grace she admired. He reached and took both her hands in his, never breaking their stare. “I wouldn’t expose you. What happens in this bedroom is between us, and us alone. Do you believe me?”
She nodded, completely entranced by his eyes and deep, fluid voice.
“I’d like the same assurance from you,” he said.
A puff of air popped out of her throat. She wondered if she should be offended by his request, but then realized it was only fair.
“I don’t kiss and tell,” she murmured, amusement tilting her mouth.
“I’d like your assurance that everything that happens to you while you’re with me, everything you observe or experience, is kept in absolute confidence.”
“I’ve promised you that before,” she said, her brow crinkling in consternation. “I told you I would never write anything about you, or offer information to anyone at my paper—or any news source—unless we agreed upon it beforehand. I won’t even mention it to a friend, if that’s the reassurance you need.” She glanced sideways in the direction of the great, luxurious bed. “And I’d hardly be gabbing about anything that happens here. I’m a very private person, too, you know.”
He squeezed her hands gently in his.
“I know.”
“Do you?” she asked, arching her brows. “I don’t understand how you could.”
“I know that you had an affair with Louis Richton, the owner of the San Francisco Chronicle’s largest rival newspaper.” Harper gasped, but he continued, ignoring her stunned reaction. “I know you carried out that affair in complete secrecy. To this day, your boss at the Chronicle and your coworkers had no idea you were sleeping in the enemy’s bed.”
“How did you find—”
“Knowledge is my key weapon in everyday business. I can’t afford ignorance.”
She broke his hold on her hands, turning toward the circular bank of windows.
“I’ve offended you again,” he said.
“I’m not a part of your business,” she bit out angrily over her shoulder.
“I’m just trying to be honest, Harper. It might seem to you that an affair is strictly a personal experience. I wish I could say otherwise in my case, but matters of business factor into every aspect of my life. I’m telling you this because I want you to know one of the reasons that I’m inclined to trust you. You have a track record. Try to understand my point of view.” She looked back at him. “It’s not par for the course for me, to become involved with a reporter.”
“I’m not a reporter, at present. I’m an editor. And what have you got to hide?”
“My s
exual preference in the bedroom, for one thing,” he replied without pause. “That’s no one’s business but my own.”
“And your lovers’, I assume.”
He nodded once. She was struck by his solemn earnestness. Maybe what he was saying to her at that moment wasn’t flattering, but it was honest. She’d give him that.
“I don’t appreciate you digging into my private life,” she told him stiffly.
“I’m sorry. It was a necessity. I needed to be sure of you.”
She rounded on him. “And what about my certainty about the wisdom of getting involved with you? Where’s my security?”
“I give you my word I’d never expose you in any way. I’ll keep you safe, Harper.”
She blinked. Again, a strong sense of inexplicable déjà vu came over her. Dazedly, she realized he’d said the same thing last night. That must be why it sounded so familiar. But that wasn’t even the strangest part about his proclamation.
The oddest part was that she completely believed him.
“What have I got to be kept safe from?” she asked numbly. “What are these sexual preferences that you feel you need to guard so closely?”
Instead of answering her, he reached for her hand. She followed him across the long distance of the room, her heart starting to pound in her ears when she saw where he led her. He urged her to sit at the edge of the bed and came down next to her.
“I would like to bind you at times. During sex.”
“You mean . . . like you held me last night while we . . .” Heat rushed through her cheeks at the graphic memory. “You mean bind me with your hands? Hold me down?”
“Yes,” he replied. “But more than that. I want to restrain you with other things, so that I can use my hands to touch you.” He leaned closer, his agate eyes mesmerizing her. “Control you. Pleasure you.”
She licked her lower lip in nervous excitement. “What other things?”
“Any number of things: cuffs, harnesses that help me position you any way I like . . . ropes.”
“Ropes?” she asked, taken aback. He saw her anxious reaction and cupped her jaw gently, leaning closer. She caught his scent, and her heart fluttered with agitated arousal.