“And all that led to you starting your own company when you graduated from college.”
“Dad helped me with that, too.” Jack’s mood became peaceful, reflective. “My dad was gone by the time I really became successful.” Jack looked reverently toward heaven. “But I think he knows what I was eventually able to build in terms of my business because of him and all the time he gave me.”
Caroline imagined that was so, since she, too, believed the spirits of loved ones lingered on. Once again, their glances held. “You really loved him.”
“I really did, and do today.” Jack made no effort to quash the wealth of sentiment and affection in his voice. He paused. Looked away for an emotion-filled moment. Finally, he continued in a rusty-sounding voice. “So did my mom.” He sighed, shook his head. “Which is why I find her relationship with Dutch so…unexpected.”
Caroline could see that this was hard for Jack. Maybe she could help. “You don’t think it’s possible to love twice?” she asked gently. She gave him a moment to reflect. “I mean, it sounds like she was a pretty great wife.”
“She was.” A pensive silence fell. Jack took a long sip of spring water. “I used to watch them together, particularly after my dad got so sick he couldn’t move anything but the muscles on his face.” He turned to Caroline. “There was such deep abiding love between them. I was envious.” He paused again, slowly spearing a bite of salad with his fork. “I’ve never seen her look at Dutch like that.”
Caroline knew dreams came in varying intensity and complexity. It did not make them any less potent or satisfying in the end when achieved. Once again, she reached across the table and lightly, empathetically, touched Jack’s arm. “Maybe your mom doesn’t feel about Dutch the way she felt about your dad. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t love Dutch, or won’t be happy with him.” Happiness came in all forms, too.
His disapproval obvious, Jack sat back and muttered, “I can’t see how, having had one great love in your life, you could ever be satisfied with anything less.”
Caroline returned ruefully, “That’s only a problem for people who’ve been lucky enough to experience that. I never have.”
Jack scoffed. “Me, either.”
Together, they released mutual sighs of heartfelt resignation. Which was something else, Caroline thought, they had in common.
Finally, Caroline offered one small shred of hope. “Well…maybe someday.”
Finished with her lunch, Caroline stood and placed the take-out containers into the sack for disposal.
Bounder lumbered to her feet and came over to be petted. Caroline slid her hand into the center of the padded Elizabethan collar and stroked the ailing dog behind the ears, on the face, the top of the head, under the chin. Loving the attention as well as the loving ministrations, Bounder groaned in canine ecstasy.
“One can dream, anyway!” Caroline said.
Jack’s eyes glittered with wry bemusement. “Or in our case, just put off inevitably,” he murmured.
Sensing a thinly veiled criticism, Caroline straightened in indignation. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded of Jack, as Bounder regained her energy and padded down the deck steps and into the yard. She and Jack weren’t the same! Not at all! She lived for dreams. He didn’t appear to have any—personal ones, anyway.
Jack’s eyes shuttered to half-mast. He surveyed her lazily. “You should have a dog.”
Being around Bounder had shown Caroline that, too.
Not about to deny wanting what she desired, she listed all the other things she had wanted for what seemed like forever. “And a daughter and a husband and a house, and a million other things. Unfortunately, I have to be practical. And right now, I’m so focused on building my business—”
“That you can’t allow yourself to dream anything for yourself that you can’t control?” Jack interrupted. He stood and put his arms around her waist. Ever so smoothly, he shifted her close.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Caroline protested. But he thought she did.
“All your dreams—the child, the dog, the business, the house—are things that are within your control. You refuse to dream about a husband or marriage or falling in love again because those things aren’t within your control, any more than they are in mine.” Jack flattened a hand over her spine. Their lower bodies touched. Then their chests.
A flutter of awareness sifted through her. Caroline lifted her palms and planted them squarely on the chiseled contours of his chest. His desire for her was evident and she could feel his heart thundering beneath her fingertips. Suddenly it was hard to catch her breath. And even harder to check the hormones surging to life inside her.
“So maybe,” Jack theorized with growing masculine satisfaction, “you and I aren’t so different after all.”
It didn’t feel like they were at this moment! Upset she could be similar to him in this particular way, Caroline protested softly in the back of her throat. “Jack…”
She did not want to be vulnerable to him or to a romance that, thanks to his resolutely unromantic nature, was bound to turn out badly! But Jack felt no such compunction, apparently.
“Fortunately,” Jack intoned, “this is within our power.”
He grinned, all the more determined, and slowly, deliberately, lowered his head. Behaving as if he had every right to go all possessive on her, to get her interested in making love purely as a way to assuage a deep physical need, he touched his lips to hers. Contact was slow, devastating and oh, so sensual. Caroline’s lips tingled. Lower still, she felt a burning desire between her thighs.
And still, Jack continued his indolent pursuit of her, sliding his fingers through her hair, kissing her lips, her cheek, her hair, and then, ever so deliberately and wantonly, her mouth again.
To the point it was almost as if he were on a mission to make her want to fulfill her own deepest wishes. To make her yearn for an intimacy that included everything but pure romantic love.
“Jack…” she said again.
He chuckled, the sound as warm and inviting as the heat emanating from his body. Still smiling, he took her hand and lifted it to his lips, kissing the sensitive underside of her wrist with his open mouth and the butterfly touch of his tongue.
“Every time we kiss, you say my name.” He emitted a long, lust-filled sigh, then paused to kiss her again, deepening the evocative caress and stroking her tongue with the rough, hot velvet of his. “It’s nice. Almost as nice as the way you taste. And feel.”
Caroline was no stranger to the unexpected—sometimes ill-advised—couplings that invariably evolved out of someone else’s nuptials. As a bridal consultant, she had seen firsthand how the excitement of the happy couple prompted everyone else to look inward. The loneliness always intensified for those not currently romantically involved. But it was the first time she had been caught up in the intensity.
Ribbons of desire swept through Caroline, even as she tried to rein in her out-of-control emotions. “Is this why you came home?”
Jack cradled her cheek in the flat of his hand. Looked deep into her eyes. And kissed her hotly, thoroughly again.
“I came home to check on you,” he related between subsequent caresses. “Make sure everything was all right, that the dog-sitting was going okay, that Bounder hadn’t gotten into any more trouble.”
She drew back, feeling vaguely irritated and a lot insulted. “I don’t need to be protected, Jack.” She was used to being on her own, handling whatever came her way, even when she was in unfamiliar territory. “Any more than I need to be seduced!”
He tightened his grip on her waist before she could withdraw from his arms completely, and brought her back, flush against him. The expression in his eyes was tender, respectful. He let his gaze drift over her face, lingering on her just-kissed lips, before returning with due deliberation to her eyes. “How about appreciated, then?” he coaxed softly.
So it all was just an excuse to see her and spend time alone with her, she reali
zed.
Pretending a great deal more detachment than she felt, she resisted the intense aching need welling up within her. Then countered sternly but breathlessly, “I thought we weren’t going to do this.”
JACK HAD TOLD HIMSELF the same thing the first and second times they had kissed.
At the time, his rationale had made sense.
Technically, they were a good match. The two of them had great physical chemistry, and even more important, an ease in communicating with each other that was rare. He enjoyed spending time with her because she had a way of making even the most mundane things interesting and fun. She had quickly bonded with every member of his family and she fit in his life. All those things were in their favor.
Emotionally, however, Caroline was correct. They were not well paired. He couldn’t begin to dream about the future. All he wanted to do was live in the present. Whereas Caroline wagered everything on a someday that might never come.
Hence, if they waited for the right time and the right place and the right words to make it all seem destined…well, neither one of them was probably ever going to be happy.
So it made sense, to Jack’s way of thinking, anyway, to quit dancing around the inevitable and cut to the chase.
“I thought so, too.” Jack shrugged, recognizing the fact he was not going to be able to give Caroline what she wanted and needed over the long haul, but knowing he could make her feel very good today, if she let him. He looked at her steadily, then continued meaningfully. “Fortunately, decisions can be rescinded, if they are the wrong ones. If you’re game.”
“Once.” Tempestuous need glimmered in her eyes as she threaded her fingers through his hair and pressed her body to his in one long, electrified line. He allowed her to direct his mouth to hers. “We’ll do this once.” She kissed him deeply.
As their lips fused, Jack’s body ignited.
He wanted her to surrender to this, heart and soul, and he could feel her melting against him. “Once sounds very good.”
Determined to make this lovemaking more memorable than either of them had ever had, Jack guided her into his house and backed her up against the wall so his hips pressed into hers. There was no mistake about what either of them wanted to happen next. She moaned as he rained kisses across her cheek, behind her ear, down the slope of her neck, before zeroing in on her mouth once again.
Caroline surged up against him and her lips parted beneath the pressure of his. Savoring everything about this day, he delighted in the sweet, warm taste of her.
Heart pounding, he took her upstairs to his bed. Watched as she undressed—quietly, deliberately—then did the same. They drank in the sight of each other. Knowing he couldn’t wait any longer, had to make her his, Jack drew her onto the bed.
Caroline wrapped her arms around him and shifted so she was on top. “This feels…”
Jack cupped the weight of her breasts in his hands, brushed his fingers across the nipples, followed that with his lips. Great, he thought.
“…illicit….” Caroline gasped.
“And then some,” Jack moaned as his own body hardened and pulsed, and together, they took on new heat. “If you mean that in a sexy, dangerously exciting way.”
Caroline chuckled her assent and assured him, “Oh, I do.”
“Then we’re definitely heading into forbidden territory,” he said, flashing her an equally wicked grin. And it felt better than anything he could have imagined….
Her lips softened beneath his and she clung to him, her fingers digging into his shoulders, his back, his hips as she passionately returned his fevered kisses. She was trembling with excitement. And so was he.
Wanting her to have everything she deserved, Jack kissed her until his heartbeat hammered in his ears and he was so aroused he could barely think. Until both of them were brimming with an emotion neither made any effort to hide. Able to feel how much she wanted and needed him, he took control and shifted positions so she was beneath him. His gaze locked with hers, he slid between her thighs, pulled her legs to his waist, and set about exploring even more.
Caroline’s head fell back as she gave herself over to his tender ministrations. And only when she was wet and aching for him, did he slide her up to a half-sitting position on the pillows.
She ran her hands over the muscles of his back, his hips. Finding the hardest, hottest part of him, slowly stroking and learning. Excitement built inside him and sensations swirled. He kissed her again as her thighs fell even farther apart, over and over, until they were both lost in a frenzy of wanting. He sheathed himself with her help. Gently, tenderly, he eased the way, engaging her completely, making sure she was as ready as he. She yielded to him as if she had always been meant to be his. Her back arched and she cried out. He smiled in triumph and brought her closer yet, luxuriating in the soft, silky feel of her as their bodies merged.
Aware he’d never gotten so close to anyone so fast, Jack held her tight and urged her on with his body. Their pleasure building, plunging her over the edge, she met him wantonly, stroke for stroke, kiss for kiss. Until there was no more waiting, satisfaction rushed through her yet again, and he followed, claiming her as his.
They lay together afterward. Aware his weight was likely too much for her, Jack rolled onto his back, taking Caroline with him.
Content to snuggle, Caroline pressed one of her thighs between the two of his, and rested her head on his shoulder.
Eventually, a trembling sigh escaped her lips. She lifted her head.
“I can’t believe I just made love to someone I’m not in love with. And enjoyed it more than I ever enjoyed making love to someone I was in love with.”
Jack chuckled and narrowed his eyes, for comic effect. “That is one convoluted sentence, lady.”
“Thank you.” Caroline straightened and preened.
He grinned at her clowning around. Figuring total honesty was the only way to deal with a situation like this, he forced himself to be candid, too. “What’s even more amazing is that I know precisely what you mean. Because I feel the same way.”
Their eyes met, held. Electricity, even more potent than their lovemaking, zigzagged between them.
“Like this was fun,” Caroline conceded breathlessly.
As if, Jack noted, she was glad he was on the same page, and wasn’t about to make more of this than there was.
“And will be fun again,” Jack predicted confidently.
JACK WAS CERTAINLY presuming a lot, Caroline thought, given that she had only agreed to a fling, thus far. But why pretend that she didn’t want that, too? At least on the kind of ultracasual basis she had never before indulged in.
“Sounds good to me,” she murmured contentedly.
Why not enjoy herself a little until her very own Mr. Right came along? If he ever came along. As long as nothing else in her very well-ordered life was disturbed.
Hanging on to a thread of common sense, however, she forced herself to stipulate, “But I’m going to take a raincheck until after the wedding.”
Jack appeared frustrated with her demand, but not all that surprised she had made it. Another plus in his favor, Caroline thought. He could read her like a book.
“Afraid I’m going to be too much of a distraction?” he drawled.
Way too much of one, Caroline mused as she reviewed the number of things left undone.
Reminding herself that this wedding could still make or break her professional reputation, she wrinkled her nose at him, chiding, “You already are. I should have finished the workup on the possible menu selections for pricing with the caterer, nailed down the number of tents we were going to need and viewed the DVDs of the traditional dancers and strolling musicians.” None of which she’d had time to do, she’d been so busy dallying with Jack and remembering what it was like to feel like a woman instead of just a workaholic.
Jack traced the sprinkling of copper freckles across her breasts. “And I should be leaving soon to pick Maddie up from school….”
&nb
sp; Caroline knew where this was going!
She removed his hand before it edged beneath the sheet and she got deliciously sidetracked again. “Which is exactly why I have to go as soon as you get back,” she said firmly.
His eyes darkened seductively. “Or not.”
How easy it would be to fall under Jack’s spell, Caroline mused. To let herself live only in the moment she was in, and feel joy without repercussions for the first time in a very long time. Instead of always, always ignoring her need for a personal life, too, and pushing on to the next goal. All to keep her heart from being broken again.
Unfortunately, as much as Caroline wished she could open herself up to love, she knew unless she could somehow receive a rock-solid guarantee that she could trust in a man and in love the way she needed to trust, that it was merely wishful thinking. There would always be a guard around her emotions as insurance, so she would never feel the pain of a failed relationship and dashed dreams again.
Aware Jack was still waiting for her to change her mind, Caroline looked him in the eye. She promised herself she was doing the right thing for all of them by putting on the brakes—for now, anyway.
“Seriously, Jack? I’ll stay until Maddie walks in the door and knows that Bounder was cared for all day by me, as promised. But after that,” she insisted, “it’s right back to the office for me.”
Chapter Seven
Jack had just walked out the door when Caroline’s cell phone rang.
“How are things going?” Patrice asked. “Is Bounder still doing okay?”
Caroline eyed the golden retriever curled on the cushioned dog bed in the corner of the living room. “She’s fine. She’s been sleeping on her dog bed all afternoon.”
“And the wedding plans? Are you making a lot of progress on those?” Patrice asked with more interest than she had shown thus far.
“Not as much as I had hoped today,” Caroline admitted, silently berating herself. She and Jack really should have waited to make love to each other until she was no longer working on Patrice and Dutch’s wedding. But the temptation had been too much to resist for either of them. Which was what came, she figured, when a person went as long as they both had without hooking up. The drought left a person vulnerable in ways she sensed neither she nor Jack had expected. But it had still been fun, and she couldn’t say she regretted the passionate tumble between the sheets with the handsome entrepreneur. She felt more alive…more a woman…more optimistic about everything…than she ever had. Turning her thoughts back to business, Caroline reassured Patrice, “But not to worry—I’m going to be working on them all weekend, so I’m sure by Monday we’ll have the majority of the contracts for vendors in place.”
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