A moment later, Jackson caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. Turning, he saw the server returning to their table. “Ah, it seems that if you wish for it, it will come,” he told Kate.
Kate was about to ask him what he was talking about when the server unobtrusively placed a small pearl-white dish on the table. It was piled high with brandy-soaked French Vanilla ice cream, sumptuously smothered with whipped cream.
Kate’s blue eyes widened. “I don’t care how much this slides down, it’s all got to pool together somewhere.”
“I’ll take the first spoonful,” Jackson volunteered, adding, “It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it.” Slipping the spoonful between his lips, he closed his eyes for a moment, really enjoying the taste. Opening his eyes again, he told her, “This is even better than their prime rib.”
As far as she was concerned, the two appealed to completely different taste buds. “I find that hard to believe.”
“Okay, Doubting Thomasina.” Jackson inserted the spoon into the mountain of ice cream, filling it. “See for yourself.”
Holding the ice cream laden spoon aloft, he coaxed it to her lips.
The protest that she could feed herself faded away. A surge of heat made its appearance, encompassing her body. After a second, she opened her lips and let Jackson slip the spoon in.
Was it just her, or did that feel insanely sensual? Like something hot and yet cool at the same time had slid up and down her spine.
Was sliding up and down her spine.
“More?” he asked in possibly the sexiest voice she’d ever heard. Her heart was hammering practically loud enough to drown him out.
“More,” she murmured, nodding.
Jackson fed her another spoonful, then brought one more to his own lips, his eyes never leaving hers. The temperature in the restaurant went up at least another fifteen degrees.
Possibly more.
She wasn’t completely aware of things after that. What seemed like a huge bubble slipped over the two of them, sealing off everything beyond the table. Leaving just the two of them, one slowly depleting dish of ice cream and a single spoon doing double duty.
There was something hopelessly sexy about sharing not just the same desert, but the same spoon, Kate couldn’t help thinking. Her entire body tingled with each spoonful.
By the time the ice cream was gone, so was she. Or at least it felt that way.
The server returned then and asked something that sounded like, “Would there be anything more?”
God, he hoped so, Jackson thought. Deceptively simple to the casual eye, the act of eating this ice cream with Kate had electrified him.
The server continued waiting for instructions. Jackson shook his head and handed her his credit card, all without looking away from Kate’s face. The moment he heard the server retreat, he asked, “Would you like to come over for a nightcap?”
Her head was already spinning, and that had to be from the residual brandy vapors. While she knew how to handle her liquor, just this once, she wasn’t going to take a chance. Someone had changed the ground rules on her when she wasn’t looking.
“Right now, for whatever reason, I seem to be intoxicated. I don’t think I should have anything more potent than what I’ve just had.”
The beverage didn’t matter. The company did. “Coffee, then,” he suggested quietly. “Orange juice, diet soda. Whatever quenches your thirst.”
It wasn’t any of the above that would quench her thirst, Kate thought. It would be the man who was offering them.
Not a good idea.
This was where she begged off, saying something witty—or at the very least, coherent—as she turned him down. “All right,” wasn’t part of a refusal, and yet, those were the only words that found their way to her all but parched lips.
The server returned with the credit-card receipt. Jackson quickly signed it, then dug into his pocket and placed a large bill on top of the signed receipt. It was the woman’s tip, one she wouldn’t have to wait around until the slips were cashed at the end of the day—or longer.
“Wow,” the girl exclaimed, picking up the bill. All pretense at being poised dropped instantly. “Thanks, mister.”
In his position, he didn’t get to see the effects a little more money had on people’s lives.
“Don’t mention it,” he told her with a genial smile.
Was this for her benefit, or was he actually this generous? Kate couldn’t help wondering.
“Do you always toss money at people?” she asked him once the woman had left.
“Only when the service is good.”
Rising, Jackson came around behind her chair and helped her on with her lacey shawl. His fingers skimmed her bare shoulders, whether by accident or design, Kate didn’t know. Either way, she was certain that the result would have been the same: giant butterflies dive-bombing into each other as the temperature of her skin rose again.
The cool night breeze hit her the moment they walked out. It was more than welcomed. For form’s sake, Kate wrapped the shawl around herself a little tighter. She waited for common sense to materialize along with the bracing breeze.
It didn’t.
She took the few steps down to level ground. Maybe second thoughts could mount a defense.
“My car…” Her voice trailed off as she looked at the vehicle, parked to the rear of the lot.
“I can have one of my people come and get it for you.”
She looked at him as his words sank in. “You have people?”
“On occasion,” he allowed. He wasn’t the type who enjoyed being waited on hand and foot. But there was no denying that Rosa was a far superior cook than he could ever be. Or that Elsa could clean rings around him. And for that, he paid them handsomely. “Or I can drive you back here later. Or tomorrow,” he amended. Jackson watched her expression. “The choice is yours.”
Well, at least he wasn’t one to push his advantage. And the advantage was certainly his to push. She wasn’t exactly feeling like a bastion of strength at the moment. But she didn’t want to seem dependent on him for anything. That included transportation. “I guess I can have a cab bring me back here later.”
“There’s a host of possibilities,” Jackson agreed.
Their eyes held for a very long moment. “Yes,” she replied, “I suppose that there are.”
Lacing his hand through hers, Jackson gently guided her over to where his vehicle was parked. It was closer than hers, a pristine silver sports model from the Mercedes line. A convertible, currently its top was up. Kate appreciated sleek lines.
“Nice car,” she told him as they approached it.
Jackson unlocked the passenger door for her and held it open. “I’ve always had a weakness for beautiful things,” he confessed with a smile.
Again, his eyes met hers.
The man was smooth, Kate thought. Very smooth. And these were just lines, nothing more. Handsome men had lines. But for the small space of time while they hovered in the air between them, she allowed herself to believe those lines.
“This is where you live?” Kate cried incredulously, her mouth all but falling open as they approached his current address. “It looks like something out of Mansions R Us.” From where she stood, the building appeared to go on forever. “When do the tours go through? Or are they over for the day?”
The gates parted to admit them as Jackson punched out a code on his remote. “It’s not that big,” he protested with a laugh.
The driveway was bigger than the house where she’d grown up. “Not compared to a small country, no,” she agreed, “but I think Rhode Island could certainly get lost in here.”
Rather than house it in the two-storied, ten-car garage, he decided to park his vehicle in the driveway.
Getting out, he rounded the trunk and reached Kate’s side just as she opened her door. “I guess it doesn’t seem that big to me because I grew up here. This is my parents’ house.”
Swinging her legs out,
Kate took the hand that he offered. There was such a thing as carrying independence too far and she had always liked chivalry.
Given that bit of information, that it was his parents’ house, she looked at the building with a slightly different viewpoint. “Does that mean that your brother lives here?” she asked, curious.
He silently blessed his parents for their foresight. “My parents bought Jonah his own place about fourteen years ago.” They walked up to the front door and he punched in another set of numbers on the keypad in order to disarm the security code for ninety seconds. “Mother didn’t approve of his lifestyle and she knew there was nothing she could do to change him.”
“Out of sight, out of mind?” Kate guessed.
Jackson’s grim smile told her she was right. “You do what you have to do in order to make it through the day.” With that, he opened the door for her and allowed Kate to walk in first.
It was like entering a completely different world. She dealt with wealthy clients all the time and she and her family were far from poor themselves, but this was a step above that. More accurately, several steps above that.
“So you live here alone?” she asked. The very foyer was larger than her first apartment had been. “Do you have to drop breadcrumbs to find your way back to the front door every morning?”
“Haven’t had to do that for a while,” Jackson responded with as straight a face as he could muster. Taking her hand, he nodded toward the rest of the house. “It doesn’t bite,” he promised.
Maybe, but the big question is, do you? she silently wondered.
Each step she took just made the house seem bigger to her. It was even larger on the inside than it had promised to be from the outside. “If you speak up, does your voice echo in here?”
“A little,” he allowed. His eyes crinkled slightly in fond remembrance. “As a kid, I used to pretend this,” he indicated the foyer, “was the gateway to another kingdom. Over there,” he pointed to the left where the hall turned a corner, “was where the evil dragon lived. I used to have to slay him every afternoon if I wanted to make it up to my room.”
She could visualize him fighting the fiery dragon. Knowing that he had the same kind of fantasies as any little boy made him seem more accessible to her. And just that much more appealing. “An eternally regenerating dragon. Must have been a big challenge for a small boy. How old were you?”
“Thirty. No, I’m kidding,” he said quickly when she stared at him. “I was around eight.” He grinned and the years seemed to fall away from him like layers of exfoliated skin. “I’ve never told anyone that before,” he confessed.
“Afraid they’d think you were a little off?” she guessed, trying to maintain a light tone. In reality, she was very touched that he’d included her in this stroll through his young life—if, of course, he wasn’t just making it all up as he went along. She tried to remind herself that the rich, as the old book title declared, were “different from you and me.” Did that include the way they felt about people?
“Something like that,” Jackson affirmed. He guided her to the entertainment center, the well lit one, not the one that looked like a mini movie theater. “My mother’s imagination only ran toward suspecting my father of having affairs with different women. My father’s imagination was taken up by coming up with excuses he could give my mother explaining why he was gone so much. They weren’t all that good,” he confided. “An eight-year-old kid could see right through them, let alone a highly intelligent woman who had graduated from Wellesley.”
She caught her lower lip between her teeth, torn between feeling sorry for Jackson and wanting to just gloss over this because she instinctively knew he wouldn’t welcome pity. “Doesn’t exactly sound like people whose lives would have made glowing episodes for a family-channel drama.”
He nodded. “More like something you’d find on one of the darker cable channels,” he agreed.
Jackson knew that his jaded view of marriage and his desire to keep things light in any relationship had their roots in what he’d witnessed as a boy. That compounded with the way he’d felt when Rachel was killed were largely responsible for his no-strings-attached, seemingly carefree bachelor life.
Kate was still taking in her surroundings with no small awe. “And these ‘people’ you mentioned before, the housekeeper and the cook, are they here now?” Even if they were, she doubted she would be able to see them. This place had so many square feet to it, a person could easily meander around for days without encountering another soul.
Jackson shook his head. “No, they’re off for the night. They don’t live on the premises.”
She looked around again, as if to reassure herself of the privacy. “Then we’re alone in this huge place?”
“Completely.” His grin was teasing as he drew a little closer to her. “Afraid?”
She wasn’t about to lie to him. “Maybe just a little.” Kate wasn’t talking about the house, she was talking about the two of them. More accurately, about herself and the very strong attraction she felt for Jackson. Chemistry had always been her undoing.
Silent for a moment, he read between her lines. “I can take you back to Swift’s parking lot,” he offered kindly.
That was when he cinched his argument. Kate turned around to face him.
“Don’t you dare,” she warned, her purse sliding from her fingertips. The next second she wrapped her arms around his neck. And then, before she could rein herself in, her lips were on his, igniting the smoldering embers that existed between them.
The flash was inevitable. And immediate.
The second their lips met, Kate knew she wasn’t going home tonight. Knew that she had been too long without engaging in physical contact with a man, too long without the feel of strong arms around her, sealing her to someone.
Sealing her away from viable thoughts.
All she had to do was remember that this wasn’t serious. This was just for pleasure.
Her body began to vibrate inside, sending out shock-waves even as she felt the kiss deepening.
But if she felt that she could exercise any measure of control over the situation by being the one to initiate the first move, she had thought wrong. Because the second she kissed him, she found herself free-falling through time and space and spinning completely out of control, all at the same time.
It was as if someone had deliberately put a match to her face, to her skin and her body. The very essence of what made her who and what she was, was blazing hot—and only getting hotter.
It was crazy and she knew it. This was what she’d been waiting for her whole life: a man who could effortlessly make her take leave of her senses and spin so far out of control that she was actually in another galaxy. Or at the very least, in a parallel universe.
She wanted to go fast, to grab everything she could and savor it before the moment was gone. Matt—the man she’d stupidly believed she was going to spend the rest of her life with—had made love as if the very house was burning down and he had to attain his pleasure and flee before it was too late. His goal was to climax, then relax, enjoying the sedativelike effect of an afterglow. Matt claimed it calmed him more than an after-dinner drink. Putting her on some kind of equal footing as popular wines, whisky and vodka.
So it was with great surprise that she heard Jackson softly whisper into her hair, “Slow down, Kate. What’s your hurry? We have all night.”
His very breath danced along her scalp. It only helped to fuel the fire she felt in her belly.
Chapter Eleven
His words ringing in her ears, Kate drew her head back and looked at Jackson. “All night?” she repeated uncertainly.
Was he presuming too much? Jackson backtracked a little. “Unless you have to be somewhere else,” he qualified.
Here, Kate thought, the unsettling effect of his lightly skimming hands along her body almost negating her ability to form any lengthy coherent thoughts. I have to be right here.
“No,” she literally bre
athed the word out. “I don’t have to be anywhere else.”
The smile bloomed on his lips at the same time that it slipped into his eyes.
“Good,” he murmured.
It felt as if the second half of the word touched her throat a half a beat before his lips did. And there was lightning. Lighting that continued striking in the very same place, over and over again. Making her pulse race and her body prime itself for what she fervently prayed was to come.
Jackson went on taking his time, postponing his own final attainment of rapture to pleasure himself in Kate’s reaction. Undressing her an inch at a time, he excited himself even as he watched the very same thing happening to her.
It was a tango and he led her through all the steps carefully, patiently and with barely harnessed control. Kate made him want to abandon it all and just take her to the highest pinnacle, especially when he found his breath growing shorter and shorter, his blood rushing in his veins.
But Jackson was determined to draw this out, for her if not for him. He had an underlying suspicion that whoever had come before him hadn’t fully appreciated the woman that Kate was. Had, instead, just regarded her as an interchangeable partner. Someone to be on the receiving end of his largess.
For an unguarded second, he felt angry for her. But anger had no real part in this dance. It was all about pleasure.
The way she responded to his touch, to his slow, deliberate exploration of the curves of her body, to his lips tracing the varied tantalizing tastes of her skin, awakened something inside of him, despite his best efforts to keep it simple. He wanted to try harder to bring her teasingly to the very peaks, drawing back a little so that her own appreciation could be relished to the fullest capacity by them both.
Jackson reveled in her reaction, savoring more, anticipating the next steps beyond his normal scope of involvement. This one was special.
Fixed Up with Mr. Right? Page 11