Climbing High (28 page)

Patricia didn’t hesitate. She started running, her cameraman racing behind to keep her in view. Now
this
was breaking news. Siree watched Patricia pull a rape whistle out of her purse and blow it. “Stalker! Killer!” she screamed between blasts, pointing her phone, still connected to Siree, at the women.

Gribbs broke the hold the constables had on him with two quick chops, head-butted the one in front and raced toward Jake.

Jake whipped around. Screaming, his stalker leapt at him, the knife coming down in a wide arc. He sidestepped, grabbed her forearm and with a twist threw her onto the grass. She landed, winded, the knife falling from her hand.

Siree staggered around the room like a woman possessed. Popcorn crunched under foot. She ignored it. All the adrenaline of the last minutes saturated her system, leaving her a crying wreck. On the screen police officers and RCMP converged on the woman. Cuffed, she screamed obscenities at them. “Jake, I worship you! You can’t be hers! I couldn’t let her destroy you!”

Jake never so much as looked at her. Siree suspected at some point he’d find compassion for such a sick creature, but right now he’d be boiling angry at all the damage she’d done. His attention fixed on Patricia, who had turned off her mike, and was talking rapidly. His eyes sought the CTV camera. He looked directly into it, his lips moving soundlessly. “Thank you, my love.” She hugged the silent message to her, repeating the words over and over while tears poured down her cheeks.

Patricia switched her mike on and launched into the interview of the year. Jake gave her an exclusive five minutes, rewarding her generously for her swift actions. Gribbs and the RCMP huddled. Siree hoped they’d release him without an assault charge.

Siree lay on the sofa, lashed by a storm of tears. The tension, fear, stress, and the loneliness of eight long months without Jake poured out of her.

Patricia circulated, getting people’s reactions to what they’d seen happen. The rest of the press followed Jake’s every move. He shook hands with the flustered-looking mayor, crossed over to Gribbs and, with a few words, walked him out of the circle of scarlet and over to the limousine. Through eyes half blind, she saw them drive away. Sobs shook her body, choked her throat. Tears poured down her cheeks, her nose ran. She cried on.

Her phone rang. Jake’s name popped up. She tried to steady herself, muffle the great gasps that poured from her soul. “Jake,” she sobbed as his beloved face came on the screen.

“Siree, my love, it’s all right. Hush now. Hush, sweetheart. I’m okay. Everything is okay.”

“She went after you,” she wailed like a forlorn child. “I planned it, but I never thought she’d go after you. I’m so sorry, so sorry.” Another flood of tears made her incoherent.

“Darling, it’s the best thing that could have happened. You don’t know how relieved I am to have it over. Shh.” His husky chuckle filled her ear. “You’re outdoing the Niagara Falls.” He groaned. “You don’t know how badly I want to hold you. You’re sobbing your heart out and I feel so helpless.”

“I should have anticipated she’d turn on you.” A sob punctuated every other word. She took a deep breath and managed to stop the tears. “I almost got you killed.”

“Well, now you know how I felt.” Jake’s voice deepened. “You’re breaking my heart, little one. I’m sure you deserve the cry. I’ve wanted a good one myself a time or two through this, but it’s over now. Fix that in your mind. It’s over.”

“Is it really over? You’ll let me back in your life?”

“Listen to this carefully and make it stick in that stubborn mind. You are my life. You’ve been the desire of my heart and the center of my world since I met you in that Paris café. We’re on our way to the plane. I will be with you in approximately five hours.”

“You’re coming?” She snuffled, new tears dripping at the realization he would soon be with her.

“Of course I’m coming. My arms are empty without you. I want you in them.”

“Oh, Jake.” She laughed through her tears. “Mom would call me a watering pot.”

“Call your mother. Let her know what’s happened. Tell her we’re free to be together. She’ll be ecstatic. But tell her not to rush home from her cruise. I want you all to myself. Oh, and while you’re at it, why don’t you get Tyrus to use his pull with your new boss and get you a leave of absence. I need to take my pregnant girlfriend for a romantic hide-away,” he quoted.

“No hopes of that. I haven’t been with you in eight months.”

His voice grew husky. “You have in my dreams. We’re boarding. See you in five hours.”

She hugged the phone. Joy seemed a possibility again.
Not just a possibility
. A smile she couldn’t control stretched her mouth, a reality, a forever. “He’s coming.” She had to keep saying it to herself to believe it. After all the months of loneliness it seemed surreal that it would actually happen now. “I have to phone Mother. I have to clean up. Soon I’ll be in his arms, and I want him to find me silky smooth and delicious smelling, before I love him to exhaustion.”

The television flashed jolts of color and sound from across the room. Oblivious to the animated coverage, she sat hugging a pillow and painting erotic images in her mind.

****

She paced the floor at Jake’s Vancouver penthouse. She wrapped her arms around her torso, shivering with delight. He had to have touched down by now. He just had to be here soon or she would shatter. A brief shore-to-ship call with her mother had not settled her nearly enough. She had texted Jake,
Meet me at yr place
.

Hi 5. S will let u in. Night off. U & me, kid
, he texted back.

She swiveled to take in the combined efforts of the now absent manservant and herself. Scarlet roses scented the air, champagne chilled in a silver bucket full of ice, a variety of hors d’oeuvres, crackers, a port wine cheese, grapes, decadent brownies and petite cheesecakes covered the coffee table in Jake’s personal suite. Cold foods, she’d decided, knowing they be low on the priority list. She intended to have her way with him before she fed him. She’d turned down the bedding, sprinkled rose petals on the sheets and, after a long soak in his decadent tub, opted for a short flirty dress, remembering how he loved to uncover the scraps of silk and lace she favored. Music drifted from speakers in every room, filling the condo with sobbing violins and throbbing strings. It filled her heart with such bliss it could not be contained and overflowed like a fountain, drenching her in joy.

She circled the great open living room again, taking in the three-sided view of the city. Rush hour traffic filled the streets with zigzagging streaks of color. It would slow him down, she concluded and added another ten minutes to his ETA.

The elevator pinged before she could complete another circuit of the room. Breathlessly, she stationed herself in front of it. The doors swished open. Transfixed, they stared at each other.

“Jake.” She thought her lips moved.

“Siree.” He stepped out and opened his arms.

She leapt at him, winding her arms around his neck, her legs around his hips. She clung like a shipwreck survivor to a life raft. Their lips met. The kiss went on and on as they tried to slake their thirst for each other. She pulled back to cover his face with kisses, worshipping every inch of it with warm presses of her lips. He moved down the hallway to the bedroom, shouldered the door shut, shrugged out of his jacket and took her mouth again. In seconds they were drowning in passion, and he tumbled them onto the bed.

She surfaced from the kiss and looked up at Jake. His eyes burned a brilliant blue. A flush road his cheekbones, his lips parted over white teeth. He looked exotic, wildly arousing. “Let me.” She twisted to push him onto his back. ‘Let me show you.” Greedily, her hands ran down the smooth cotton of his golf shirt. With a few tugs, she pulled it from his jeans and over his head. Her hands relearned the hard curve of his pecs, the long line of his back. She reveled in the patch of hair that decorated his chest, followed the wispy line down to his fly and inched down his zipper. He groaned as she found him hot and heavy, pulsating with need. He kicked off his loafers and lifted his hips so Siree could pull his jeans and shorts off. She tugged off his socks and kissed her way back up his legs, loving the warm brown of them, the long hard muscles that flexed under her lips.

He reached for her, his long fingers tangling in her hair. She cuddled his scrotum, took his penis into her mouth.

“Siree,” he groaned, “come up to me.”

She looked up, licked her lips. “I want to pleasure you.”

“Much as I love what you’re doing, I have an overwhelming need to hold you, feel your heart beat against mine, know you’re really in my arms again.”

She reached across him to take a condom from the bedstand and fit it over him before beginning to slowly kiss and lick her way back up to his mouth. “And I have an overwhelming urge to feel you filling me,” she said between nips.

“Not fair,” he growled. His fingers sliding up the inside of her legs, and stroking the delicate flesh beneath her thong. He slid one finger into her, rotating against bundles of nerves, overstimulated to the point of explosion.

She pressed her lips to his neck and went spinning as Jake lifted her, turned her, dragging her thong down her legs. He filled her with one thrust. She came, her contracting muscles giving him immense pleasure, as spasm after spasm carried her into a realm beyond. He let her drift, while he undressed her, running his hands and lips over each bit of skin exposed. When she was with him again, he settled into a rhythm of slow withdrawals countered by quick, deep thrusts. Hands interlocked, foreheads touching they climbed to the peak together and tumbled over into glory.

The food didn’t get eaten till midnight, and even that was interrupted by another bout of lovemaking in a moonlit puddle that turned their undulating bodies silver.

Twined together, they slept in each other’s arms.

****

The half marathon brought them all back to Vancouver, Sharon wearing an attractive tan and a cushion cut diamond in a platinum setting, and Ty sporting a mile wide smile and a leaner body.

Josh and Sam wanted to hash over the takedown of the stalker, insisting on knowing every detail around the new information uncovered after the arrest. The woman had been a former employee at JDI, let go because of her drug problem. During that time she’d acquired an enormous crush on Jake, and the GPS signal for his tracking device.

“So that’s how she always knew where he was,” Siree explained. Just back from Dubai, she spoke from the depth of Jake’s embrace. They could hardly wait to be alone. He’d flown in the night before from Hong Kong, but had spent it hosting his friends.

Because Janice had been her running partner, Siree had asked her if she wanted to join them. So, seven of them rode to the course in Jake’s limo.

The end of June treated the ten thousand runners participating to dream weather. At 7:30 a.m. the sun rode well above the horizon, rippling light across the Pacific. Temperatures stayed moderate and a breeze came off the ocean to cool the runners. They’d decided to start and finish together and leave winning to the pros. They’d challenged each other to bring in the most pledges and competed with the same focus and intent they applied to business. Jake won, Sam and Josh handicapped by having to ask their American friends to donate to something that would benefit only Canadians. Sharon came in second. Ty and Siree had matched each other. When they’d added up their totals they were amazed to see that if they all crossed the finish line, they’d have thirty-five thousand dollars to give to HOME. Getting each other across that line was now their goal. A ripple of excitement spread from the starting line down through the runners packed in over a mile of the course. The starter’s voice came over the speaker, too garbled to understand. A gun fired. Slowly, the people in front of them began moving forward.

“Here we go!” Jake yelled. He lifted his fist in the air and six fists rose to bump it. “Slow and steady wins the race.” They turned forward and fell in with the pack.

****

“We brought it in in one hour forty-eight minutes,” Jake announced as he collapsed beside Siree on a patch of grass at Stanley Park.

“A darn fine time seeing we had women holding us back,” Sam winked at Siree.

“Women who beat the average woman’s time for a half marathon,” Sharon noted placidly.

Around them runners sat, stood and sprawled, groaned in agony, sighed in defeat, or smiled victoriously. The course closed in another half hour.

“Let’s get out of here before everyone else tries to,” Josh suggested. He’d thrown himself on the grass beside Janice’s long brown legs and watched her stretch, his eyes icy grey. “So what’s the story behind why you didn’t have Siree’s back when she was attacked?” He drawled. “Better things to do?”

Her lips tightened. Her eyes fired with the need to defend. She rose, turned her back on him, and walked over to Sharon.

“You’re out of line.” Jake leaned closer to warn him. “She wasn’t on duty. I’m the one who didn’t show up.”

Josh looked at Janice’s receding figure, took a step toward it and then stopped. “I need a cold beer and a warm shower.”

“That’s because you’re in such crappy shape,” Sam hooted. “Ty ran laps around you.”

“I never claimed to be a runner. Have you ever seen me run?” Josh squinted at his friend. “Give me my motorcycle any day.”

“Well, you did an excellent job of pretending to run,” Sharon said, straight faced. “Between our two places, Ty and I can supply you each with your own shower. Let’s clean up and go out and celebrate our success.”

“I’ll get Thomas to bring the limo over.” Jake punched in his number, then bent to kiss Siree while he waited for an answer. “Do you have any idea how sexy your butt is when you run?” he whispered.

She leaned back and smiled into his face. “Of course. That’s how I kept you behind me, so I could beat you.”

“I might have to beat you if you try that trick again.”

“Did you say eat me?” Siree’s golden eyes teased. “Then for sure I’ll keep it up,” she whispered.