Everything You Need: Everything For You Trilogy Book 1

by Bailey, Orla

  Chapter Six

  Jack throws a provocative glance in my direction as he gets up, lifting our empty plates. He disappears through the door the waiter emerged from earlier.

  I take the opportunity to cool my frayed nerves but before I realise what I’ve done, I’m hiding the fact I’ve emptied another Champagne flute by refilling it.

  He returns a few minutes later with a smug expression, carrying two dinner plates. “Do you think I’ve forgotten I’m a Dublin man? Growing up in my family it was every man for himself and I can’t bear to think my dinner date is laughing at me for summoning service with a bell.”

  Despite myself I laugh. It seems touches of the old Jack are still in there somewhere but I hear a warning too. I must be doubly cautious not to be taken in by his easy Irish charm.

  He settles the two new plates before us. “I’ve sent the hired kitchen staff home. I can manage things from here.”

  “I bet you can.” The words slip out before I can stop them. I really must stop drinking.

  Jack narrows his eyes at me. “Scallops, in the shell…”

  “I see that.” Is it getting hotter in here, or is it just me? Jack appears cool enough. Actually Jack appears totally divine in his dinner jacket; that enticing veneer of sophisticated gentleman concealing a raw sexual male. I can’t stop watching his Adam’s apple as he swallows or quit staring at the golden triangle of skin at the base of his throat.

  His eyes wander over me too with a strange expression on his face as he pours another scant mouthful into my next empty glass. I may be holding my breath but I refuse to be intimidated. I down the drop he’s given me then snatch up the bottle and entirely refill my glass before gesturing to see if he wants me to fill his too. He covers it to decline so I teeter the bottle back onto the table and glug mine down again.

  “…with miso and wild ginger butter.” Jack draws my wandering attention back to dinner.

  “That, I might have guessed by tasting it.” I prop my elbows on the table and taste my drink instead.

  “Now that would impress me.” He isn’t smiling. “So would you easing up on the Champagne.”

  “You want me to relax, don’t you?” I ignore the warning in his eyes. “Okay, maybe miso would have been a bit tricky to detect.” I have absolutely no idea what miso is, to be honest, let alone what it tastes like. “And I’m not convinced anyone can tell the difference between wild ginger and… what else would you call it? Tame ginger?” I snort at my own silly joke. Remembering my elbows I slide them off the table clumsily, knocking my napkin to the floor. “But there’s never been anything wrong with my sense of taste.”

  Jack sweeps my napkin up and hands it back to me. “Are we still talking food here?” His focus seems to have shifted to my runaway mouth. I lick my lips and he follows the action with a far-away kind of gaze.

  “Fishing for compliments, Jack? My taste in men has matured, considerably.” I definitely feel a bit intoxicated but I’m not convinced the Champagne is entirely to blame. More the situation. Better to push him away now than to let him in and get wounded again.

  “Then what are you doing here?” Jack sounds annoyed with me again. He’s like a turbulent plane ride which makes me queasy with all its ups and downs.

  “Preparing for the worst, apparently.” I raise my glass in cheers and swallow the lot. What’s left of reason tells me I ought to stand, walk away, but I’m not sure I’m up to it any longer. I stick to my default position. “We have a deal, Jack. I’m only here because of that, nothing else.” I put my elbows on the table again and prop my chin up. “The only thing I need from you is to hold up your end.” I snort again.

  The atmosphere chills perceptibly. “Let’s be straight. You’ll sleep with anyone that promises you a deal? You’ve agreed to sleep with me hoping Zee-Com signs a new contract with CaidCo?”

  I pin my eyes to his with effort. “It was your deal. A leg over for a leg up.” I salute my linguistic gymnastics by drinking more Champagne. “But not anyone.” I try to pull a stern face and waggle my finger at him. “I do have some standards.” I’m never going to let him know he’s the standard by which I’ve measured all others. “Zee-com’s is the deal I want. This month anyway.”

  “Very mature. You’re right. You have changed. The Tabitha I knew would never have behaved like that.”

  He surely can’t be blaming me for all this craziness. He can get stuffed.

  “That Tabitha was an easily manipulated child. Let’s forget this stupid dinner-date charade and cut to the chase. You want to screw me. I want your business. Let’s get the nasty bit over with. Where do you want me?” I stand, flinging my napkin over my gingery scallops. “Bedroom? Sofa? Floor?” My eyes sweep the open plan apartment looking for likely places to be carnally possessed. Despite my brave words, tears threaten but I fight them back. I don’t know why I’m behaving like this. I don’t know why he is.

  Jack rises and steps towards me. “Don’t ever make us sound like that.”

  I step back. My spiked heel snags on the hem of my dress but Jack moves so fast he steadies me in his arms before I stumble. I push him away. “I can’t offer you innocence any longer. But you never wanted that in the first place. Right?”

  He looks hurt. Bitter. Battling for self-control. And I’m glad.

  But his countenance clears, his voice cools. “If you’ve changed your mind about being here, say so.”

  “I haven’t. Have you?” I don’t take his implied rejection well. “I’m staying put.” I poke him hard in the chest and find the muscle there so solid it hurts my finger. I suck on the tip of it.

  Jack removes my finger from my mouth and pops it into his own, sucking gently. I gasp as the warm, wet heat inside his mouth shreds my nerve endings. I’ve never felt anything so charged. Blue eyes challenge mine and his free hand suddenly forces my body flush against the steel of his as lust rages through me like a forest fire. I must not forget he’s a seasoned seducer.

  He expels my finger between his lips millimetre by millimetre, never letting his eyes lose mine, leaving me panting for more. “Far be it for me to disappoint a lady. It’s obvious the only thing you’ve come here for.” His voice is as cold as his blizzard-swept, Arctic-in-winter eyes.

  He’s calling my bluff I decide as I frantically reassemble my strewn senses. “Fine.” But I’m flighty as a filly. How did our affable dinner turn into this?

  Jack steers me firmly towards the open fireplace and the Persian rug as my crazed mind hops and leaps all over the place. I’m about to have sex with the man I’ve dreamed about my whole adult life. I’ve imagined him taking me in every possible place, every conceivable position and the fantasy is always sweet but the imminent fact makes my legs stumble and my stomach cartwheel as I’m relocated at his will.

  In my head, I always maintain control of this moment: where, when, how. How much. But real life contradicts me. Jack’s fully in command of every move I make.

  He flips me round to face him trapping me in his arms. The strength of his body both excites and terrifies me. I barely have much more experience than a few quick student fumbles in the dark and I don’t even want to think about how many women he’s taken to his bed. It hurts too much.

  He stares at me for an interminable length of time before crushing his mouth onto mine. His forearm around my waist raises me up to my toes, squeezing me so tightly against his body I can’t breathe. I’m shocked to discover his rigid erection insinuate itself against the flimsy silk covering my belly as he gently rolls his hips against me, revealing his potent lust. He’s ready to take me. That fast. He places his thigh between my legs forcing them apart and I gasp as he works his leg at frustratingly unhurried speed against my needy sex.

  It’s too soon, too intense. I resist, turning my head aside, breaking our connection, pushing against his chest ineffectively.

  The rasp of shadowed growth covering his jaw scrapes across my skin as he works his mouth back across my cheek to recapture my lips be
neath his. Urging them apart, he holds my head firmly in place with a hand fisted in my hair. His muscular tongue explores my tingling lips and trips over the curve of my teeth. He invades me, teasing up against my palette and sporting with my own tongue; nipping and licking at my rapidly swelling lips. I’m gasping and feeble, held upright only by him, by the time he pauses, his forehead resting against mine, his breath ragged and torn.

  I’m so out of my depth I don’t know what to do. He’s some wild, remote mountainous terrain I’m travelling in bare feet.

  “I know you want me, Tabby cat.”

  I cling to him and the only thing I understand. “I want Zee-Com.” It’s a pitiful affectation of indifference.

  “Fight it all you have to but you’ll lose.” His self-assurance in this matter, like everything else is supreme.

  Yet I’ve seen the way he looks at me. “Maybe it’s you who wants me,” I suggest.

  His scrutiny penetrates so deep I might believe he’s trying to look inside my mind. His lips curve like a hunter spotting prey. “More than my next breath.”

  Jack works soft wet tongued kisses along my jaw and neck, up behind my ear where his breath shivers through me. I might as well be standing naked in a white-out snow storm.

  Perhaps he senses how much he overwhelms me, as he pauses. “I can be patient. Don’t be scared, I’ll make sure you’re ready for this.” His lips linger at the pulse beating savagely against my throat but I fail to subdue a fugitive moan.

  My will to refuse him anything he wants fades like twilight with the rising dawn as I slip my arms over his shoulders pushing my fingertips up into his hairline. He murmurs his approval almost indiscernibly pushing his head gently back into my hands, enjoying my touch.

  “That’s it, kitten. Abandon yourself to me.”

  He wants me. Yet I know all about his wanting. It’s the excitement of an untried female body. An elevated sex drive and high-flying achievers like Jack go together like fire and pain. The rest of me doesn’t matter to him. Perhaps he wants to punish me for what I attempted this afternoon. I’m not that drunk after all. Not on Champagne. Not on memories.

  Beneath his caresses, my body’s demands soar. I hang on tight as lips and tongue excite my skin. He’s moving far too slowly now, teasing out each moment, making me wait for him but I’ve been waiting since I stepped from the elevator. Waiting since I was eighteen. Soon he’ll know how ready I am and it no longer embarrasses me. Desire overrides all reason. I’m handing him the power to hurt me. This can only end badly but I’m beyond caring. I need to feel his body inside mine. I want him to make me come so badly I tremble.

  “Yes.”

  Jack’s fingers locate the hidden zipper tab which is all that holds me inside this dress. He draws it downwards, so slowly I think I’ll die before he gets it to the bottom. My internal muscles niggle as I cling for endurance with fists bunched in his black dress jacket. He makes sure he doesn’t catch my skin by sliding teasing fingers down between the metallic teeth and my tender vulnerability. Those minute sensations coursing over heated flesh push me to the limit.

  The dress floats away in one soft movement as Jack eases back. It puddles round my feet in an ocean of silky waves leaving me standing like Venus rising from the sea, unsteady in heels and longing, wearing nothing but that miniscule blue silken thong.

  Jack steps further back to observe my near naked body. His eyes scorch a quick path down my flesh and another, more dangerously arduous route back up leaving me burning beneath his gaze. “Such a glorious creature. Heavenly.”

  He lifts his hand to cover my swollen breast, his fingers flexing gently against the firm resistance, an action that feels so intimately familiar, I’m ready to accept I’m losing my mind.

  “You’re exquisite. So soft.” His fingertips stroke and sense and his eyes wander, gathering impressions and translating them into heady expressions across his features until I’m certain my body pleases him.

  His pupils dilate and darken like islands of desire in ice-blue oceans and I rediscover the thickening evidence of his arousal when he rocks his hips into me once more.

  “Divine.” His hands and exquisitely long fingers tenderly explore downwards, stroking my waist, belly and hips.

  “Aren’t you going to take your clothes off too?” I gasp. He looks so hot, standing before me sexually disturbed in that tuxedo but I want to see the prime male flesh I’ve only imagined until now.

  “Oh no, sweet girl. Definitely not.”

  Horror sweeps my face. And when he looks amused I want to die. I’m completely vulnerable standing before him all but naked. Just how badly does he want to hurt me?

  “Why?” My voice is barely audible. He’s going to humiliate me all over again. I push against him to move him off me.

  He grasps my face between his hands and holds me until I stop trying to escape and focus on him instead. “Hush, Tabby, sshhh. Because I want you to do it for me, baby girl.” He says it like no power on earth will prevent it.

  I want to hit him. Kiss him. Instead I burst into stupid, stupid tears. I’m so on edge; living his rejection all over again.

  He hugs me close. “Sorry, Tabby.” His voice croons, soft and soothing. He moves a lock of dark hair back from my temple but my shutters are up. Placing a finger beneath my chin, he raises my damp eyes to meet his. “It was insensitive. I shouldn’t tease you that way. I forgot. It’s been a while.”

  I thump him on the shoulder then sink back into his arms for comfort. “No. You shouldn’t. We’re not like that anymore.” And the loss of something so simple makes me want to howl but I sniff back the rest of my distress until I almost see the funny side. He used to tease me all the time and I liked it.

  “Can things ever go back?” He sounds almost wistful but laughs it off, kissing my forehead. “So, are you going to?”

  “What?”

  “Undress me.” He lifts a questioning brow and pulls a wary face. “Or have I blown it?”

  I pull myself together, wiping the backs of my fingers beneath my eyes. “Well if you think I’m going to be the only one standing here butt naked, you’re delusional.”

  He grins at me. “That’s my girl.”

  Am I? Maybe for one crazy night. He stands, unresisting, letting me push his jacket off his shoulders to slide down his arms. He catches it in one hand, flinging it over the back of the adjacent sofa deftly, giving me that look that says he knows he’s a class act.

  If it’s possible, he appears even bigger standing in his white shirt. He snatches my breath away for real. I want him more than seems reasonable. My fingers shake as I drag his shirt from his waistband and reach for the first closed shirt-button at the base of his neck. I have this overwhelming urge to sink my teeth into the strong column of his throat and bite the rise of the Adam’s apple buried beneath sun-browned skin. Gooseflesh surges all over my body in spite of the warmth from the open fire as I tremble with apprehension and mounting need. I want him so badly I’m all clumsy thumbs.

  Jack encloses my quaking fists in his hands and clasps them tightly for a moment against his chest. “There’s no rush. We have all the time we want.”

  That’s what I used to think too.

  I feel his body heat against mine, warming my flesh like sunlight. With steady encouragement, my fingers deal with the rest of the pearly buttons while he caresses the sensitive skin on my back.

  “You glow in this firelight, your skin’s so perfect.” Jack’s fingers trip over my shoulders, breasts and stomach again and again. “You’re a precious work of art, kitten.” He drops a kiss onto my collar bone.

  It’s such a romantic thing to say, I have to remind myself it’s his experience that tells him what a woman wants to hear. The worship of his hands centres a dull ache of longing between my thighs which soars and tightens as his thumbs sweep back and forth across my tenderly engorged nipples, making me moan.

  Reaching the lowest button, I part his shirt and spread my hands up and over his taut s
tomach muscles, exploring the dips and rises where the individual muscles separate between my fingers. He hasn’t neglected his body in his climb to the top. When my fingertips graze the hard tips of his nipples I feel a tremor of sensation shudder through him. I kiss his curved pectoral muscle, lapping and sucking at the flesh wanting to leave my mark on him.

  A low hum of pleasure escapes his throat. That sprinkling of dark chest hairs over honey-gold skin mesmerises me. This is so much more heavenly than any dream I’ve ever had. It’s warm and alive and real. I reach up to ease the shirt from his broad shoulders.

  “You might want to deal with the cuffs first,” he reminds me, holding his shirt-tethered wrists out towards me on either side.

  I feel self-conscious again, an awkward young woman who has never properly undressed a man before. Not like this, while he waits, giving me space and time to explore and enjoy. I don’t want Jack to know I’m so inexperienced. The young guys I’ve casually dated have always ripped their own clothes and mine off in heated lust. Jack’s mature finesse is a first experience for me. I pull one cuff round and spot the cuff-links.

  “You kept them?” I’m surprised.

  I’d given him these very ones for his twenty-eighth birthday, long before I’d ever seen him wear any formal suit. They were white gold with the Tibetan Buddhist eternal knot I’d had engraved on each so he’d know I wanted him for eternity.

  He discarded me.

  The symbol before me taunts me, ridicules me, on the one and only night I might ever spend this way with Jack, for the silly notion I might order the world I live in. How very bloody Zen.

  “Of course I kept them. They’re special. Aren’t you pleased to see me wear them tonight?”

  Special? An eternal reminder of what a fool I was. The more I think about them, the angrier I become. How dare he mock my sincerity? My true heart. They were a token of eternal love. A love he so easily rejected.

  I open the first link in a second. It’s so simple. Before I gift-wrapped them, I’d opened and closed them a hundred times, worn them in my own blouse sleeves, pushing little holes through the fabric, to imprint myself on them, even reached for them beneath my pillow and played with them in the dead of night whenever I thought of him. I could have opened them blindfolded.