Will shook, keeping her hand in his. “Jack and I were just discussing how beautiful you looked strolling down that aisle, Jamie.”
Her cheeks pinkened. “Oh,” she said, giving a little nervous laugh. “Thank you.”
“Beautiful is an understatement,” Jack said, in a husky tone that made Will suddenly feel as if he were caught in between a bulldog and a juicy steak bone.
Jamie’s gaze dropped to the floor, before she glanced back up. “Caroline would like us to be partners for the ceremony, Jack.”
“She always was my favorite sister.”
Will was impressed. That was a pretty smooth line. But it was time for him to exit before Jack embarrassed the hell out of the girl. She was shooting him helpless, awkward glances.
“I think I see the minister waving everyone up to the front,” Pops lied. “Run along you two, before Caroline flips her wig.” That one had a bit more of her mother in her than Will would have liked, but she was a good kid. Just a little uptight at times.
“Will you be at the dinner?”
“Of course.” He wasn’t leaving until Jack did. And thank God he wasn’t going back to that mausoleum. Rest home. Hah. It was so restful it had almost put him into a coma. It was like living with Dawn of the Dead zombies wearing bathrobes.
“I look forward to chatting with you, then.” Jamie gave him a bright smile and started up the aisle.
Jack swore under his breath. “I’m telling you, Pops, I just look at her and I feel like I’m being electrocuted. Fried from one end to the other. It’s insane.”
It was called lust, which very possibly could lead to love, if Will wasn’t mistaken. And he thought that just maybe, this girl was worthy of his grandson.
Will had been surprised that Jack had chosen to leave his career behind, but he had supported him. Only Jack still wasn’t happy, and if Jamie Peters could give him a reason to smile again, then Will would owe her a huge debt.
“Embrace the insanity, Jack-o. You just might enjoy going crazy for a while.”
Chapter 16
Jamie heard one out of every ten words the minister spoke.
“Commitment…relax…fun…left…”
Jack was standing next to her, thoroughly distracting her. He wasn’t doing anything exactly, just breathing. She could hear it. In, out, a little sigh emerging every now and then. Out of her peripheral vision she could see his fingers twitching on his pants leg.
Seeing him in that gray suit had nearly dropped her like a KO’d boxer. He was so darn hot, looking dark and dangerous, yet so vulnerable.
Plus she’d had Beckwith’s words ringing in her ears when she laid eyes on Jack, and it had taken all the courage she possessed to speak to him. But she figured better to get it over with than have it looming over her all night.
Having his grandfather there had been a useful diversion, but now it was just she and Jack, standing side by side in front of a minister. Okay, so there were twenty other people sitting in the room, and the entire wedding party standing right up front, but it didn’t seem to matter.
The only thing she was aware of was Jack.
He touched her elbow, and she nearly jumped out of her dress.
“You cold?” he murmured in her ear, his breath tickling her flesh. “You have goose bumps. Did you bring a sweater?”
“I should have,” she whispered back. “I’m always cold in air-conditioning.”
“I remember.” He gave her a smile that told her he was thinking of exactly how cold she had been naked on his couch before she’d thrown the blanket over her. Before he’d heated her with his own flesh, his tongue.
Jamie shifted. Those were not good thoughts to be having in a church.
And there was something about Jack tonight. He seemed…dangerous. Intense.
Polite and gracious, yes.
Thoughtful of his grandfather’s needs, Caroline’s needs, and her own, but somehow smoldering under the surface. She had a feeling she was seeing a different side to him, the one who went after a deal, the one who focused on success.
Tonight he was focusing on her, and it was disconcerting.
“Do you want my jacket?” he asked, rubbing the small of her back just ever so lightly.
To the casual observer, he was attentive to his wedding partner, but clearly out of duty only. Jamie knew better. Somehow, Jack was managing to look reserved, but he was not. Far from it.
He was boiling under that polite façade. He was touching her, in a casual way, but with eyes that said clearly he wasn’t.
That he remembered.
That he wanted her.
That there most certainly was something between them.
It was just a hand on her elbow here, fingers on the small of her back there. But those fingers shifted down as they waited for their turn to aisle march, lower than was appropriate for the recent acquaintances they were supposed to be. Not so low as to be crass, but low enough to claim possession.
Jack’s fingers said she was his, that he had touched her there without a dress between his skin and hers.
Jamie shifted a little, fully aware that Allison and the Irish cousin were standing right behind them. Not to mention Caro and her father just a few feet back.
Jamie glanced around the vestibule, searching for a safe conversational topic, and turned to include Allison and Finn, reaching for sexual safety in numbers. “The stained glass here is beautiful.” It was a stone Episcopal church with gothic arches and extensive windows.
Jack glanced down at her, an eyebrow arching.
Allison looked at her like she’d lost her mind. “Very pretty, Jamie.”
The Irish cousin Caroline had complained so much about turned to study one of the windows. “Have you been to Ireland, Jamie?” he asked in his lilting brogue, which seemed a bit thicker now than it had when she’d been introduced to him earlier.
“No.”
“With your coloring”—he pointed to her head—“I thought you might be a fellow Gaelic.”
She didn’t really have true red hair, and she was tired of people saying she did. Hers was auburn, heading toward regular old mud brown.
Finn didn’t have red hair either. He was the black-hair, blue-eye variety of Irishman, and really attractive. He was also a bit scruffy, like Caroline had described. He was wearing a suit, but it looked a little wrinkled, like he couldn’t be bothered to press it, and there was no tie in sight. He needed a haircut, but he didn’t seem to be the pig Caroline had suggested he was.
“Oh, I’ve got Irish somewhere in my blood. I think it was my great-grandmother. She was from Cork. But I’ve got so many different nationalities in me, I’m just a mutt.” Jamie took a peek toward the front of the church. Mandy and Steve were still standing there, waiting for the signal.
“Well, the village churches in Ireland aren’t on nearly so grand a scale as this, but they do serve to show that sometimes the most startling beauty can be found in the simplest of things.” He reached his hand out and moved it in a half circle back and forth in front of her face. “Like the way the light is playing over your striking cheekbones right now.”
Jamie was a little startled, but still felt a bit like sighing. That was awfully flattering. Jack stiffened next to her.
“Have you ever had your portrait painted, Jamie?”
Allison snorted and gave Finn a smack on the arm. “Jamie’s with Jonathon, if you know what I mean, so give it up.”
Finn just shook his head. “My interest is purely professional, as an artist. I’d love to paint Jamie, capture that shadow as it passes over her face. The Madonna and Child, that’s the face you have.”
Jamie felt that very face split into a beaming smile. She didn’t think anyone had ever compared her to the Mother of God before. “Well, that’s awfully sweet of you, Finn.”
“What kind of face do I have?” Allison asked.
“Aphrodite,” he told her without hesitation. “Helen of Troy. Cleopatra. The kind of woman men would kill to pos
sess.”
“Wow.” Allison grinned. “I’ll buy that for a dollar. How about Mandy?”
“She’s Alice in Wonderland—whimsical, dreamy, smart, tender.”
That sounded just like Mandy.
“What about Caroline?” Jamie asked, interested despite the fact that Jack made an impolite noise.
Finn turned and glanced back at Caroline, who was standing with her father, fussing with his tie. Her blond hair was pulled back, her ivory dress classic and stunning. Jamie thought Caroline was a beautiful bride, striking in a way she could never hope to achieve.
Hands in his pockets, Finn’s head went back and forth slightly. “Caroline? Caroline is Sleeping Beauty, locked in her ivory tower.”
Jack placed her hand on his elbow. “It’s our turn.”
Jamie cast a glance back at Caroline, wondering what Finn had meant. She would have never thought of Caroline that way. But Allison gave her a push, and she focused forward, staring down that church aisle.
“You don’t remind me of the Madonna,” Jack murmured in a low voice, his lips tickling her ear.
“No?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear his answer.
“To me you’re Venus, a gorgeous, awe-inspiring goddess. And I’m going to love you, Jamie. I’m going to talk to you, make love to you, be there with a ride when you get caught in a thunderstorm. Do you understand me?”
And before she could blink, he was leading her up the aisle, gripping her hand tightly over his elbow.
Chapter 17
Jamie loved weddings. She had been looking forward to Caroline’s wedding since the engagement ring had been stuck on her finger nine months before.
Unfortunately, Jamie had gotten zero sleep the night before, worrying about Jack. Wondering how he would react to her today, and what he might pull in the name of loving her.
Regretting that her strategy to resist Jack had failed so miserably at the church the night before. He’d spent the whole night whispering phenomenally inappropriate things in her ear. How was it she’d told him she didn’t want a relationship and he’d morphed into Don Juan de Wall Street? Throw in a Spanish accent and he’d have the whole thing down pat.
Yet she was determined to enjoy the wedding day, despite Jack and his roving fingers. If Jamie ignored the fact that Jack was constantly undressing her with his eyes, and the encroaching hands, she could make it through this day without making a fool of herself. Not that she was expecting a repeat of the night before.
Nope. She was expecting much worse. He was going to be coming on to her left and right, and she was going to have to be strong. Which she could do.
Now, if only her bridesmaid’s dress would cooperate.
“Allison!” she howled to her roommate as she stood in front of the full-length mirror in her bedroom, newly hers and hers alone, now that both Mandy and Caroline had moved out. The rent was going to kill her, but Mandy and Caro had both paid for several more months, until the lease was up. Then she and Allison were probably going to have to take on new roommates, which wasn’t at all appealing, or find a cheaper place.
As she surveyed herself in the mirror with dismay, she yanked on the dress hard. She honestly did not remember the dress looking the way it currently did when she had gone to her last fitting.
It was ice blue, which complemented her auburn coloring, but sleeveless, which Jamie was always a little leery of given her healthy chest. Yet if sleeveless was paired with a high neck, it wasn’t usually a problem.
This wasn’t a high neck. It was straight across the top of her chest, forming a band over her breasts. Strapless. In theory it was an attractive dress, with a straight full-length skirt.
On Jamie the bodice appeared to be suspended in midair a foot from her body due to the thrust of her D cup breasts. Which meant anyone looking over her shoulder could see all the way to the promised land. And it wasn’t manna they were going to find.
She yanked harder, trying to move it up. The force of gravity contained within her fifteen-pound chest dragged it back down again.
“What’s the matter?” Allison called down the hall from the bathroom.
“Something’s wrong with my dress!”
“Hold on, I’m putting mascara on.”
Mandy appeared in the doorway, having come to the apartment to get ready with them. “What’s wrong with it?”
Jamie looked at her friend. On Mandy, the dress looked stunning, complementing her fair skin and light brown hair swept up on top of her head. Since she was neither short nor tall, the straight cut of the dress served to visually lengthen Mandy’s legs. It attractively hugged the small bump of her belly.
And her bodice fit snug against her skin.
She looked cute, damn it, pregnant and all.
“Look at my chest.” Jamie pointed a finger to herself, wondering what exactly she had done to deserve such bad karma.
Mandy’s eyes widened. But she said, “It looks a bit…low, but it’s fine.”
Jamie didn’t believe her for one second. Mandy, bless her heart, was trying to spare her feelings, knowing perfectly well there wasn’t a single thing Jamie could do about the dress two hours before the ceremony.
Allison wasn’t quite as diplomatic when she walked in behind Mandy. “Whoa. Where’s the stripper pole?”
Jamie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Mandy said, “Allison! That’s a hideous thing to say.”
“I can’t help it. I’m jealous.” Allison looked down at her flat chest and shook her head. “I don’t have enough, Jamie’s got too much. So unfair.”
Jamie yanked the dress again and threw her arms up in despair. “If I could share them I would, believe me. That’s it! I’m getting a breast reduction.”
“Today? I don’t think there’s time, sweetie.” Allison smiled as she patted a hair back into place that wasn’t even out of place, that Jamie could tell.
She laughed, in spite of her dress. “Very funny. I meant later, but soon. As soon as I save up some money.”
Mandy said, “But you know if you do that you can’t breastfeed.”
Jamie hadn’t thought about that, but she was doubtful she would be able to, even though she usually advocated anything natural. “Mandy, can you see me breastfeeding? I’d have enough to feed a small village.”
Allison snorted. “There’s a mental image. It takes a village…or Jamie.”
The buzzer at their front door rang as Jamie wished her breasts to perdition.
Allison rushed to the door and hit the button. “What?”
“It’s us. Come on down, the limo is parked in the fire lane.”
Jamie knew that voice belonged to Jack because of the way her breath disappeared and her legs started to spontaneously wobble like one of her mother’s Jell–o molds.
“Oh, God!” She dug her hands into her bodice and pulled up as hard as she could. Her hand slipped on the satin, and her fist ricocheted back and whacked her nose.
“Ow.” She rubbed her throbbing nose, eyes watering.
Allison ran across the apartment, her skirt lifted up in her hands. “I can’t find my purse, and I told Jonathon we’d be right down. He said we’re late for pictures.” Allison started throwing the sage green couch cushions on the floor in her frantic search.
Mandy had already padded back down the hall, calling, “I don’t even have my shoes on yet.”
The buzzer rang again.
Allison went into the kitchen, eyes darting left and right for her purse. “Jamie, go on down and appease them. We’ll be right down in a sec.”
Great. Just what she wanted to do. Appease Jack.
Grabbing her own clutch and giving her hair, pulled back in a knot, a final smoothing, she took a deep breath and headed for the door.
Walking down past the third floor she reminded herself that Jack was Caroline’s brother and wouldn’t misbehave at her wedding.
Past the second floor she reaffirmed that ending their relationship, such as it was, was
the smart, intelligent thing to do.
As she gulped and stepped up to the front door, she told herself that grimacing from desperate lust most definitely would not look good in the wedding pictures.
She pushed the door open, and there he was, his hand in his pocket, rattling change.
If Jack had looked good in a suit, he looked like sexy sin in a tuxedo. Jamie felt longing blaze up in her like a five-alarm fire.
Her mouth went dry.
She might have squeaked.
And she started to wonder if maybe she should just accept what Beckwith and Jack and even Allison were telling her.
That fate wanted her to get naked with Jack.
Jack turned from hitting the buzzer for the third time and stopped cold. Or rather, hot. Holy shit.
Jamie had opened the door and was standing there, a vision in pale blue with her hair tamed and wound up on her head. A picture of passion. His every fantasy called up and brought to life in breathtaking beauty.
She was the most intriguing combination of shy and sensual, naïve, yet knowledgeable. She licked her lips with a little sigh, the wetness of her tongue making a small smacking sound as she rolled it around her mouth.
Blood was rushing in his head, and other obvious places, as he lowered his eyes to her chest.
The sight that greeted him was awe-inspiring. In defiance of the laws of physics, somehow her dress wasn’t in a pile around her waist, but was just hanging there in front of her. Barely covering her considerable assets, and leaving a whole expanse of creamy white flesh exposed.
He came close to passing out, a garbled moan forcing out of his mouth.
“You look…amazing,” he managed to say.
Her cheeks tinted pink. “Allison and Mandy will be down in a minute. Allison lost her purse.”
He didn’t care one flipping bit about Allison and her purse. “This is nice,” he murmured, reaching out and brushing his thumb against the smoothness of her hair, so different from her normal tumble of curls.
A tendril had escaped and spiraled defiantly, and Jack twirled it around his finger. “I love your hair down, but this lets me see your long, luscious neck.”
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