“Do you want me to wait for you?”
“No thanks.”
“What about your luggage? Shall I take it to your house? It’s on my way home.”
“Let me check if Brody’s in.” Jai took out his phone.
His housemate answered on the first ring. “Where’ve you been?”
“Stuck in the snow. Are you in tonight if my luggage is dropped off?”
“Yep, I’m not going out in this. Nev and I are about to watch your copy of Truffaut’s 400 Blows accompanied by a glass of Craggy Range pinot noir and a plate of crudités.”
“Or Debbie Does Dallas with a can of lager and a packet of nuts.”
Brody laughed. “You coming back tonight?”
“Not sure.”
“How was the Caribbean, you lucky sod?”
“Hot.”
Jai slipped the phone back in his pocket. “There’ll be someone there, so I’d appreciate you dropping off my bag. Thanks.”
* * * * *
By the time the car had pulled up outside The Three Angels, Jai’s heart was thumping against his ribs at the thought of seeing Summer again. It was almost eight. He hoped she’d waited. He was surprised how busy everywhere was considering the weather. Snow fell steadily.
He scanned the crowd inside the pub and the moment his gaze fell on her, just like in a scene from a movie, something that never happened in the real world, she looked up and stared at him. Her lips curved in a smile and he made straight for her, blind to everyone in his path.
Summer jumped to her feet and threw herself into his arms.
The moment their mouths touched, he felt as though he wanted to explode with happiness. He knew it was corny but it was if all the darkness inside him burst into light. Jai pulled her closer, sliding his hands down her back to keep her close, and he slipped his tongue into her mouth. She hooked her arms under his and wrapped her hands around the back of his neck. They could have been the only two people in the world. Life swirled around them faster and faster while they stood pressed together.
Shit, I love kissing her. She tasted of mint, sweet and tangy mixed with…rum. His cock found the space to expand in his pants and he kissed her harder. How long have I been waiting for this, waiting for her? How the fuck did I ever walk away from her? I have to make this work. She’s the only worthwhile thing in my life.
When they finally broke apart, and simultaneously gulped air, there was a round of applause and hooting. Summer glared at her friends, pushed Jai into her chair and perched on his lap, hiding his erection. The four friends sitting around the table stared at them slack-jawed.
“I know, I know,” Summer said. “We could kiss for England. I suppose I could give you lot kissing lessons but from what I’ve seen, you’re beyond hope.”
“Are you real?” a pretty brunette asked.
“He feels real.” Summer wriggled against his cock and turned to look at him. “What’s your name? I’ve forgotten.”
She was giving him the chance to lie but there was so little point. “Jai.”
“Oh fucking hen’s teeth,” muttered the same woman. “It is you.”
“Jai, I’d like you to meet Mags with the foul—ha ha—mouth, and Lindy, who is not sweet despite her wide-eyed innocent look. Kevin, with the short dark hair, is Mags’ long-suffering boyfriend, and the blond mop is Riley, who’d like to be Lindy’s anything but he’s scared stiff of her. Literally.”
Jai nodded his greeting. All he cared about was that neither of the guys was interested in Summer.
“No questions for Jai,” Summer said. “No third degree on how we met. He’s actually an international spy and sworn to secrecy. Oops.”
He nipped her neck.
“And a part-time vampire,” she added.
He gave a low growl.
She yipped. “Wow, and a werewolf. He didn’t tell me that.”
“What do you want to drink, mate?” Riley asked.
“Let me get one in,” Jai said. Except to reach his wallet, he’d need to shift Summer, and moving her would probably encourage his cock to burst through his zipper.
“You’re okay. It’s my round.”
“Have beer,” Summer whispered. “Please.”
“Pint of bitter,” Jai said.
She groaned.
“What?” he whispered.
“You know one of my favorite things in the world?”
“What?”
“A beery kiss.”
He smiled. “How did you know when I’d walked in? You just stared straight at me.”
“Karma.”
“Karma?”
“Or it could have been that every time I felt a draft of cold air, I looked over to see who was at the door.”
“Arrggh. My heart just shattered.”
“Thank you for coming,” she whispered.
“You’re welcome. You know one of my favorite things in the world?”
“What?”
You. He stared at her and didn’t say anything.
“You two are nauseating,” Mags said. “Those early days of raw lust when you can’t keep your fucking hands off each other wears off you know, and you’re left with a farting, snoring, grunting—”
“But I still love you despite your faults,” Kevin said, running his hand up Mags’ arm.
She stuck out her tongue at her boyfriend.
It won’t wear off. This is something different.
Mags turned to Jai and sighed. “We’ve just got her back and you’re going to steal her away again, I can tell.”
“Did you miss us?” Lindy asked.
“Yeah, I did,” Summer said.
“And have you solved global warming?” Kevin took a couple of drinks from Riley’s hands and put them on the table.
“Don’t start her off,” Mags said. “We didn’t miss her that much. You know how boring she is.”
Summer laughed. “You won’t say that when sea levels rise and I’m safe in my ark.”
Jai nodded his thanks for the beer and sipped it. It was something he very rarely drank. Though he didn’t have to spend hours at the gym keeping in shape, drinking beer regularly would probably change that. Summer turned to look at him and ran her thumb around his jaw and over his lips. She put it in her mouth, sucked, and heat coiled in his belly. Maybe the carbohydrate input would be worth it.
He liked listening to Summer and her friends chat. She was giving them edited highlights of her time in South America. His heart jumped into his throat when Lindy asked her to tell them more about the time Summer had been caught in a riptide, then when she’d fallen out of a boat with a circling shark in the water, and when she’d been concussed by a headbutting llama. Why hadn’t he asked her more about her trip?
“Your mother must have been frantic,” Lindy said.
“Are you crazy? I didn’t tell my family. They were already convinced I’d come back in a body bag.”
“You didn’t email them like you did us?”
“I emailed my dad more than my mum but I didn’t want to worry them.”
“Just us.”
Summer grinned.
He wasn’t good at making conversation when he was with more than a couple of people. His life had been more or less a continual period of being told what to do—by his parents, by his brothers, his teachers, then by Saul and Marta. Summer’s friends didn’t ask him about modeling and he was grateful for that.
He was just beginning to feel comfortable when a gaggle of women came up to their table, their gazes fixed on him.
“Are you Jai Winter?” one of them asked.
Summer laughed. “He gets that all the time, don’t you, Cornelius? Sorry, he’s a septic tank operator from Dorset.”
Jai laughed against the back of her head. The women wandered off again but Jai didn’t want to stay. Others would come and pester him, and spoil this.
“Let’s go,” he whispered in Summer’s ear.
She pushed to her feet. “Sorry, guys. Jet lag is catch
ing up with me.”
“Say it like it is. You want to go to bed,” Lindy said. “Though I don’t think you’ll be doing much sleeping.” She laughed.
“Thanks for the drinks,” Summer said. “But next time I want cake. Can’t have a party without cake.”
Jai helped her on with her coat, a tatty red duffle that had seen better days, and he wished he was wearing more than his thin jacket. They said their goodbyes and made their way out of the pub. He lifted a bag from her shoulder and put it on his.
Outside in the cold, he shuddered. “We need a cab.”
“Where are we going?”
He took her hand. “Back to my place? Unless you live around the corner.”
“Greenwich.”
“Notting Hill. At least I’m this side of the river. Come with me?”
“Didn’t Miss Perky put out?”
He groaned. “My agent set that up. It’s supposed to look as though we’re a couple. I’m not her type and she’s not mine.”
“You’re not her type? Is she mad?”
“Gay, but if you tell anyone I’ll have to kill you.” He spotted a black cab and waved it down. “Please come,” he whispered.
“How many times?”
He smiled and pulled open the door of the cab. Once she’d climbed in, he sat next to her and put the bag on the floor. He gave the driver his address, leaned back and pulled her into his arms.
“I’m sorry about this morning. I know you’d said to go but I actually didn’t intend to desert you. I was going to make sure you were okay and I got hijacked.”
“Does it happen often?”
“Whenever my agent wants it to. It won’t be easy to be with me, Summer. There’s a lot of stuff I have to do that I’d prefer not to, but I have no choice. It’s part of my job to be seen with the right people, attend the right events. Are you going to be okay when I do a shoot with a beautiful girl and I have to have my hands all over her, and hers all over me? It’s far from romantic but we have to make it look that way. Not easy for people outside the business to understand. I don’t want you to be jealous.”
“I won’t—”
“Miss Perky?”
“Well, I didn’t know she wasn’t interested, did I?”
“And that’s my point. What you see isn’t necessarily the truth, even though one or both parties or the press might insist it is.”
“As long as while I’m with you, you won’t be with anyone else,” she said.
“As long as I’m with you, you are the only one who’ll have a place in my heart.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. He hadn’t lied but what was he going to do when he had one of those calls from Saul?
“When did you put your number in my book?” Summer snuggled closer.
“When you were in the shower.”
She sat up. “Ah. That was before I… Maybe you didn’t want—”
“Shut up.” He put his finger over her lips.
She bit it. “Make me.”
Her deep groan as he kissed her vibrated inside him until he was super-charged with longing. He pushed his fingers into her hair, held her head in his hands and his openmouthed kiss clicked into a higher gear. Fire pooled in his belly as his need for her grew. She slid her hand under his jacket and onto his cock and their kiss grew wilder. He wanted to have her in every way imaginable and he came close to doing it in the cab.
Summer was the one who dragged some sense into his skull. She broke the kiss and pulled his head against her shoulder, stroking his back over and over. All those years without kissing, he hadn’t realized he was waiting for this.
* * * * *
While he paid the driver, Summer climbed out of the cab. Jai picked up her bag and stepped out into snowfall of Hollywood proportions, his suit instantly splattered with white flakes. It was as if a dozen snow machines had been primed to pump the stuff onto their heads.
“That one.” He pointed to the door and slithered across the pavement, Summer behind him.
When he put the bag down on the doorstep to take out his key, a snowball smacked into the back of his neck. He spun round and Summer stood with her hands behind her back.
“What?” she asked.
“Accident?”
“You’re so understanding.”
He narrowed his eyes, unlocked the door and shifted the bag inside. Another ball of snow hit him on the head and splattered into the hall. Jai growled and ducked down to sweep his hand over the side of the step. When he stood to throw it, Summer launched two more at him and both hit him in the chest. His missed.
“I am such a brilliant shot,” she said.
“Right. I was holding back but you’ve asked for it now.” Jai stepped back onto the path and gathered snow from the roof of a parked car. She squealed and ran as he bombarded her with missiles. When she hid on the other side of another vehicle, he pushed all the snow off the roof onto her and heard her gasp.
She stood and spat snow out of her mouth. “That was cheating.”
“You didn’t say I couldn’t.”
When she laughed, he tossed a handful of snow straight into her face. She spluttered out a yell and flew ’round the car to his side. Jai tried to get back to the house and slipped in his totally useless Fixx shoes. He ended up on the ground with Summer on top of him.
“I won,” she said.
“Yes, you won. Now get off. I’m fucking freezing.”
She rolled off and helped him to his feet. Jai nipped into the house and slammed the door while Summer was still outside.
“Hey!” She pounded on it.
“Hey what?”
“Please let me in.”
“What will you give me if I do?”
“Anything you want.”
He smiled. “Anything?”
“Yep.”
He opened the door and two handfuls of snow landed in his face. He grabbed her by the arm and yanked her inside. “I’m going to spank you.”
Chapter Nine
“Eeek, your suit. I’m sorry.” Summer bit her lip. Jai was soaked from head to toe. “Though the spanking sounds interesting.”
“What the hell?”
She spun round to see a tall, slim blond guy leaning against a doorframe.
“What happened to you?” the man asked.
“She did,” Jai said. “Summer, this is Nev.” Another guy appeared at Nev’s side, shorter with dark hair. “And that’s Brody. We share the house.”
Brody walked forward and held out his hand. “Hi. Delighted to meet you.”
“Touch her and I’ll kill you.” Jai toed off his shoes.
Brody laughed. “Ah right.”
Summer shook Brody’s hand. Jai wrapped his arms around her from behind.
“Why are you so wet?” Nev asked.
“It’s snowing,” Jai said.
Brody rolled his eyes.
“I put your carry-on in your room,” Nev said.
“Thanks.”
“Er…want a drink?” Brody stared at Summer.
“No, she doesn’t.”
“I think you ought to.” Brody was doing something weird with his eyes. Was he trying to give Jai a message?
If so, Jai ignored it. He grabbed her bag and nodded toward the stairs. Summer bent to take off her boots.
“Hang on, Jai. I need to tell you something,” Brody said.
“I’m busy.” Jai put his palm on her backside.
“Come in the kitchen a minute,” Nev said.
“No.”
Jai pulled her up two flights of stairs. When he pushed open the door of his room, she burst out laughing.
“I’ll kill them,” Jai growled.
“Sorry,” Brody yelled.
Summer walked over to the bed and pulled out a life-sized inflatable woman. Ah, anatomically correct inflatable woman. Euuw. “Hmm, she has bigger breasts than me. Just think, somewhere out there is her perfect inflatable guy.”
Jai took the doll from her hands, threw it out of t
he room and slammed the door. “She might find two needy guys downstairs.” He toed off his shoes and peeled the wet jacket from his shoulders.
Summer winced. “Even your shirt’s soaked. I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d get that wet. Fixx needs to look at making their stuff waterproof. Coat hanger?”
“In there.”
When Summer opened the door he’d indicated, she gasped. The walk-in closet was crammed with clothes. Shirts in every color, lines of suits, jeans, pants, t-shirts, coats, ties, belts and beneath them, shoes in neat rows.
“It’s like a shop,” she said. “You don’t need to wear the same thing twice.”
Jai came up behind her and pulled off her coat. “Remember what I do for a living? I bet your place is full of books about the weather.”
“Yeah, it is. Well, and porn magazines.”
He laughed. She took a couple of empty hangers from a rail and went to pick up Jai’s jacket from where he’d dropped it on the carpet. As she hung it up, he let his pants fall too and stepped out of them. She handed him the extra coat hanger.
“They’re probably ruined. Dry clean only.” But he took the hanger.
“I feel terrible,” she said. “It’s my fault you’re so wet.”
“You should. It is. I think I promised a spanking.” Jai pushed open another door, which led to a large bathroom. He hung the dripping suit in the shower.
When he turned to face her, his hair a mess, his damp shirt and tie clinging to his chest and molded to his muscles, wet socks on his feet, she thought he had to be the sexiest guy alive, and with that thought came the realization of what a burden that had to be.
“Oh,” she whispered.
“What’s wrong?”
“Along with thinking how hot you look, I was feeling sorry for you.”
“Because I’m wet?”
She shook her head. “Just thinking how hard it must be to be you.”
He held himself totally still. “Why?”
“Because even if people say they’re not jealous, how can you believe them? You can’t complain about anything because it makes you seem whiny. Guys probably think you have a line of women desperate for you but how can you know any woman wants you for more than the way you look? Obviously I fancy you because of your huge…intellect, but…”
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