Fixed Up with Mr. Right?

by Marie Ferrarella

  It was like her first time, only much, much better. Her experience wasn’t all that plentiful, the men she’d known hardly numbering beyond a handful, but everything she’d ever experienced paled in comparison to what her body enjoyed right at this very moment.

  Young, vital, active and energetic, Kate could still hardly catch her breath. The depth and breadth of the sensations that Jackson introduced her to, the ones that he brought out in her body that she, heretofore, had never known existed, were beyond description.

  All she knew was that she’d never felt anything this wondrous before.

  Don’t get carried away.

  She heard the little voice in her head, but she didn’t obey.

  Just as she didn’t think that her body could sustain one more burst of raw ecstasy, she felt Jackson provocatively drawing his body up along hers until their inter-locking parts were aligned.

  Lacing his fingers with hers, pivoting on his elbows, Jackson looked down into her face, a smile on his own. The very next moment, he was slipping into her, making them one.

  The hypnotic expression in his eyes captured her soul. She couldn’t have looked away if her life depended on it. And then he began to move. At first slowly, achingly, tantalizingly slow, and then she felt his hips moving against hers, the tempo growing faster and faster. Just the way his tongue had earlier when he’d anointed her and made her climax the first time.

  What little breath she had left caught in her throat as Kate hurried to keep up, hurried to reflect the heat he gave off. If she was going to burn up, then so was he.

  The need inside of her was almost overwhelming, taking her by storm.

  Kate tightened her arms around him, sealing every part of her glistening body to his. The vague thought occurred to her that the heat generated would fuse them together permanently. If this was the end—and how could her heart ever go back to beating normally after this—it was all right with her. What a wonderful way to go.

  When the final crest was conquered, Kate dispensed the last of her breath in a huge, satisfied sigh, weakly sinking back into the cushions of the oversize sofa. Her heart continued hammering.

  The last of the swirling sensations faded and Jackson’s grip around her body loosened ever so slightly. But he didn’t withdraw his arms, didn’t retreat. He didn’t want to. He wanted to hold her to him. Wanted to feel the reassuring beat of her heart against his.

  A sense of awe slipped over him. The world hadn’t disintegrated despite the fact that these feelings that had been slamming through him were very new to him. Something had happened here. Logically, he needed time to assess. To regroup. And yet…

  And yet the desire to do it again gathered strength, albeit not as swiftly as he would have wanted. That didn’t change the fact that he did just want to hold her. Possibly for the rest of the night, or the rest of his life, whichever came first.

  Kate raised her head slightly in order to look him squarely in the face.

  He couldn’t read her expression.

  “Something wrong?” he asked. Had he hurt her? Was she upset? Lovemaking with a new partner was a little like walking across a tightrope. Exhilarating, but exceedingly tricky.

  “No, I just wanted to see if you fell asleep.” She’d come to expect that as a norm. And he still had his arms around her. If he hadn’t fallen asleep, why were they still around her?

  Jackson laughed quietly. He was far too wired, despite the exhaustion, to fall asleep any time in the near future.

  “Not likely,” he told her. And then her question echoed in his brain, generating questions of its own. “Why? Did the last guy you were with fall asleep?” He could see the answer in her eyes. This woman had awakened every fiber of his body. How could her last partner have fallen asleep on her? “Was he narcoleptic?”

  “No. Just typical,” she replied. “At least, I thought that was typical until just now.”

  Jackson threaded his fingers through her hair, gently pulling them through in order to caress her cheek. “Any complaints?”

  For a second, she thought he meant about her past lovers and she was ready to give him a resounding “yes,” but then she understood the focus of his question.

  “About this? No. God, no,” she said with feeling. She couldn’t stop smiling. “On a scale of one to ten, you’re fifteen.”

  He laughed, charmed by her and also, admittedly, a bit bemused. He wasn’t sure whether just to enjoy his reaction to her or be worried by it. “I wasn’t looking for a rating.”

  “I know,” she answered. “That’s what made it so good.”

  Jackson tried to piece things together. He drew himself up on his elbow, studying her expression. “That last guy, he asked you to rate him?” he asked in disbelief.

  “Not in so many words, but…” Her voice drifted off, letting him make his own assumptions.

  He drew her to him again. “Well, no offense, but whoever that last clown was, all I can say is that you’re damn well better off without him.”

  Her eyes smiled as she reined in a desire to run her hands along his chest, his face, his body just for the feel of him.

  Don’t let yourself get carried away. You won’t be disappointed if you don’t get carried away.

  “I know,” she said aloud.

  The sigh that escaped as she said the two words was pregnant with meaning. “You want to talk about it?” Jackson asked her. “I’m pretty good at listening.”

  “You probably are,” she agreed. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but this is just a little bit weird, talking about Matt while I’m lying here, naked, next to you.”

  Jackson didn’t say anything. Instead, he tugged down the crocheted, cream-colored throw and gently covered her with it.

  “There,” he pronounced, tucking the edge around her. “You’re as respectable as a pious grandmother on her way to daily mass.” His smile was encouraging. “You can talk now if you want to.”

  Kate laughed and shook her head at the description. “Not quite that respectable.”

  “You can still talk,” he urged, his voice low, coaxing.

  “No point in talking,” she answered. “I just wasted thirteen months on someone who turned out not to be worth ten minutes of my time. Why should I bother wasting any more?”

  That meant the man in her past was either a cheat, or he had refused to commit. Possibly both since the two were by no means mutually exclusive. Jackson went with the first. “He cheated.”

  She noticed that Jackson didn’t ask, he stated. Since he had, Kate saw no point in framing a denial. “Yes, he did. The worst part of it was it seemed like everyone else knew he was cheating—except for me.” She pressed her lips together. Without realizing it, she moved even closer into Jackson as she relived the awakening moment. “Until I caught him.”

  Jackson winced in sympathy. “You threw him out, I hope.”

  “That would have been awkward,” she confessed. “It was his house. I was the one who walked out. Ran, actually.”

  He kissed the top of her head. “The effect’s the same.”

  Jackson probably didn’t realize how sweet he was, she thought. He didn’t have to be like this. She’d already gone to bed with him. Hell, it had been pretty much her idea.

  “Yeah,” she agreed. “Total devastation.”

  “I could see why he would be.”

  “No, I meant—” Kate raised her head to get a better look at his face. “Do you practice these lines, or do they just come to you when you need them?”

  Jackson answered her question with an observation. “You’re very suspicious.”

  “I’m sorry if I offended you, Jackson, but the fact is, if you get burned playing with matches, you start to view matches in a whole different light,” she told him grimly.

  “Matches can also be very useful,” he pointed out, his voice low, sensuously seductive as he began to lightly and slowly strum his fingers along the slope of her body. “Once struck, they can give light to the shadows and chase away
the dark. They can light a fire that in turn can cook your food, make your coffee, sterilize medical instruments…”

  She held up her hands. “Cease. Desist,” she requested. “I get it.” And then she laughed. “How is it you wound up becoming a banker? With that tongue of yours, you could undoubtedly sell refrigerators to the Eskimos.”

  Jackson shook his head. “Too hard to lug around the inventory,” he deadpanned.

  She began to laugh, then stopped. Kate could feel her blood stirring again. Could feel the longing whispering along the perimeter of her senses, asking for an encore. Begging for it, really. Her eyes began to flutter shut. Not from fatigue but from the need to focus completely on the mushrooming source of her desire.

  “I really wish you’d stop doing that,” she told him with effort.

  He was surprised by the intensity of his desire for her. Almost more than the first time.

  “Not that I’m not prepared to do—or stop doing—anything you ask, but you do seem to be enjoying it. Exactly why do you want me to stop?” he asked.

  Her breath was growing short again. This man had the most incredible effect on her, she thought. “Because I’m finding it difficult to keep my mind on what I’m saying.”

  His smile was positively wicked. “Why? Where’s your mind going?”

  She tried to draw in a long breath. It didn’t work. And there went her pulse again, breaking records. “You know where my mind’s going.”

  He ran his hand along her cheek, watching as her pupils grew as swiftly as sunflowers. “Tell me,” he coaxed, his breath feathering along her skin, making a chill shimmy up and down her spine.

  Any second now, she was going to jump on him if he didn’t retreat. “You’re making me want to make love with you again.”

  A mischievous grin curved the corners of his mouth. Just for a fleeting moment, she thought she saw something in his eyes. But it was gone before she could identify it.

  “Done.” Jackson slipped his hand underneath the throw.

  The second he touched her, she was his for the taking—and glad of it. Signs of his wanting her were quite evident. Kate’s eyes widened as she looked at him in surprise. “You can do that?”

  Amusement wove its way through his response. “I’m not quite sure I know what you mean by ‘that,’” he confessed.

  Embarrassed, she made the best of it. “Make love more than once.”

  Jackson didn’t answer her immediately. That was because he was processing the full extent of her words and her amazement. And then it all sank in.

  “Oh, honey,” he told her, wondering just what kind of Neanderthals she’d previously stumbled across, “you’ve been with the wrong men.”

  With one snap of his wrist, the crocheted throw was history, thrown back over the rear of the sofa. She wasn’t going to be needing it, Jackson reasoned. He was the one who would be keeping her warm. He fully intended to show Kate just how much and how long he could continue to do “that” for a second time.

  “Well, it’s about time.”

  It was all Kate could do to swallow the scream that came barreling up her throat to her lips. Up until a second ago, she’d been trying to enter her office without calling any attention to herself and thus to the fact that she was coming in a full hour later than she was supposed to.

  The greeting told her that she hadn’t succeeded.

  Swinging around, a fabricated excuse at the ready, Kate saw that the greeting had come from her brother who had made himself at home on the sofa in her office. For some reason, he was waiting for her. Why?

  She realized that the palm of her hand was spread out protectively over her chest. Self-conscious, she dropped it.

  “Look, I know I’m late, but that’s no excuse for you to give me a heart attack,” she accused. Forgoing her usual routine, she dropped her purse to the floor and sank down into her chair. She must have slept all of about twelve minutes last night and she was beat. She hadn’t felt like this since college.

  “Your late, less than dramatic entrance wasn’t what I was referring to by saying it’s about time,” Kullen told her. “I’m assuming, since you look as if you literally ran into your clothes in order to get here before noon, that you finally hooked up with someone. That’s what I thought was about time,” he explained. The grin on his lips threatened to take over his entire face and then some. “Good for you, Katie.”

  She gritted her teeth at the nickname, but let that go for now. She believed in picking her battles and this one wasn’t it.

  “That’s what you’re basing your assumption on?” she asked incredulously, hoping that a display of enough bravado would make him back away. “That I look as if I dressed fast?”

  “That,” he allowed, “and the fact that I swung by your place last night and you weren’t home. In case you’re interested, it was after eleven.”

  “Eleven o’clock?” she echoed. “What if I was asleep?”

  Kullen eyed her, his meaning crystal clear as he asked, “Were you?”

  She should have remembered who she was dealing with. The Playboy of the Western World. Kate rolled her eyes. “This isn’t the time or place to discuss our private lives.”

  “Evasion.” Satisfied, Kullen nodded. “I have my answer.”

  She didn’t like him reading her like a book. A woman was entitled to have secrets. “You do not,” Kate insisted.

  “Sure I do.” He laughed. “If it was no, you would have said so. Instead, you evaded. Point made, case closed.”

  He wanted to play it this way, fine. “No,” Kate declared, crossing her arms before her chest.

  “Too late,” Kullen crowed. “I fed you your line. Doesn’t count.” He was on the edge of his seat now, his hands clutching the armrests. There was glee in his eyes as he asked, “Do I know him?”

  “You may not know anyone in a couple of minutes,” she threatened. “Don’t forget, I was the one Uncle Charlie told all his war stories to and taught how to sneak up on a man and silently render him dead.”

  Kullen did not seem the least bit intimidated. Rising, he made his way to the door.

  “Spunky,” he pronounced, nodding his head as he gave her one last look over. “Must have been one hell of a night. Good for you,” he repeated just before closing the door behind him.

  And just in time to avoid the box of tissues she threw at him. They hit the door and fell to the ground with a thud.

  The moment her brother was gone, a wide grin spread out over Kate’s lips. Bits and pieces of last night came back to her.

  It had been one hell of a night, weaving its way into the early morning and taking her—and Jackson—with it.

  George Bernard Shaw’s fictitious Eliza Doolittle, once she found herself the subject of the famous musical, might have wanted to “dance all night” but as for her, Kate far more preferred the seductive dancing between the sheets that she and Jackson enjoyed into the wee hours of the morning and beyond.

  Kate found that no matter how hard she tried to look serious, she just couldn’t stop smiling. After a beat, she surrendered herself to the feeling.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Oh honey, where did you find him, is he taken and can I have him?”

  The words emerged like rapid-fire gunshots from Jewel’s mouth as she spoke to Kate on her cell phone. She made the call the moment her two-o’clock appointment with Jackson Wainwright was over and she was back in her car.

  On her way back to the office from the courthouse where she’d been for the last two hours, taking a deposition, Kate pulled over to the side of the road outside a residential area the moment she heard her phone ring. She was certain it was Jewel and she wanted to hear what her friend had to say, not the least of which was her opinion of Jackson.

  Kate addressed Jewel’s questions in order. “He’s one of Kullen’s overflows. Not that I know of. And you’ll have to ask Jackson that.”

  Although she had known Jewel all of her life and had shared almost everything with her an
d Nikki, Kate wasn’t about to mention the fact that she had slept with the man. At least not for a while. Since both Nikki and Jewel were well aware of her last boyfriend debacle, she knew Jewel would attach undue importance to Jackson.

  Suppressing a sigh, Kate did her best to sound businesslike. “Do you think you can help him?” she pressed, wanting to get Jewel to focus on something else other than Jackson’s looks and availability.

  Jewel had the kind of instincts that made her a natural for her chosen career.

  “Shouldn’t be a problem,” she assured Kate. “He gave me the names of all the employees at the branch in question. In this handy-dandy age of the so-called privacy act, all the information is out there in cyberspace, waiting to be plucked. Finding out if one of those people is living beyond their means, or is suddenly writing big checks that need covering shouldn’t be much of a challenge.”

  And then Kate could hear the smile creeping into Jewel’s voice. “The bigger question is, can you get Kullen to send some ‘overflow’ in my direction? Kate?” Jewel queried when there was no response. “You still there?”

  She didn’t answer Jewel immediately because she was weighing the pros and cons of her next move. “Yes, I’m still here.” Oh, hell, Jewel would find out sooner or later—knowing Jewel, it would be sooner. “Look, you might as well know that my mother had a hand in sending Jackson to Kullen.”

  “Why would she have sent him to Kullen?” Jewel asked, confused.

  “Actually,” Kate clarified, “it was a mix-up. My mother, obviously a frustrated Mata Hari with no available outlet and no country to spy for, steered Jackson to my firm and told him to ask for K. Manetti.”

  Now it made sense. “And they connected him with Kullen.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So how did you get him?”

  “You know my mother, she’s never been very good at being patient—”

  Jewel commiserated. “Gives her a lot in common with my mother.”

  “Anyway, from what I’ve pieced together, Mother must have called Kullen to ask if I’d gotten any new clients. When she found out that he was about to see Jackson, she undoubtedly ordered him to pass the man to me.”