Everything You Want: Everything For You Trilogy 2 (12 page)

“Strategic planning, eh?” I raise an amused eyebrow.

He turns in the doorway returning me a knowing look. It stops my breath.

“Always.”

“Let’s shower together,” I suggest, sitting up. I want to cement our renewed friendship in the most intimate way I know how.

His eyes drift down over my bare breasts then away. “No.”

“Why not?” I feel hurt and rejected.

“Because you’re not fully sober yet.” He leaves.

I’m more inclined to think it’s because he’s remembering me drunk and dancing with Luc. Luc’s hands were everywhere when Jack arrived at Le Nova. I cringe. He saw it all and he hasn’t forgiven me. He doesn’t share women. His ego is as fragile as mine and it’s a revelation. He’s hurt. And I’ve been such a fool to ruin what we have here. Even if it isn’t everything I want.

Ben Gunn wasn’t my fault but Luc definitely is. Young and reckless? Idiotic. I should have known better.

I remember Jack snapping at Laurent last night as I stuff my head in the pillow. Now those two will never be friends and that’s my fault too. I only hope I haven’t made Laurent’s job untenable. Jack can be ruthless when he needs to be. Would he dismiss Laurent from the farm now he’s the boss here too?

And I’m probably in for a whole heap more mentoring on ways to behave in public. But I’ll accept it with good grace. This has been the strangest of our weekends so far and it’s only the second. Jack is right. All I ever do is run away from my problems. From Brent Tapper, from CaidCo, from Amanda, from Jack and mostly from myself. I tunnel down under the covers. Perhaps I shouldn’t get up until Monday when my life will be my own again.

* * *

Ten minutes and a lot of thinking later, I’m up. Running away gets me nowhere. It’s a knee-jerk reaction to anything that disturbs me. I’ve done its equivalent all my life. I have to grow up. And I have to start taking control of my life. It will start with the Amanda situation, I decide. I can’t get to her directly but I can get to Jack and I’ll take every advantage over the situation I can. She’s done no less to me.

I shower and dry my hair deciding to show Jack I can play nice. Although that is a bit of a lie too with what I’m planning. But I’m not in advertising for nothing.

I search one of Harry’s guest rooms where I find what I’m looking for. The clothes I choose are as ironic as they are nice. They make me look like some straight-laced secretary going for a job interview with a dusty old firm of aged corporate lawyers. I think they must have belonged to some girlfriend of Harry’s as they’re certainly not mine.

He used to bring women down here for odd weekends when I was away at school, so I wouldn’t know what he got up to. But every summer, once I was old enough – by sophisticated French standards – and knowledgeable enough – by farmyard morality – Madame would delight in telling me all about them. She never approved of the women which made her stories all the more fun.

I smile now remembering them. Despite being a bachelor encumbered with a female minor, Harry never let the grass grow under his feet. He would approve of my current intentions, I know.

I belt the tight, pale blue, knee-length pencil skirt at the waist. Inside I tuck a white, long-sleeved chiffon blouse with an enormous bow at the neck. It’s very retro. I put on subtle make-up, definitely no lip gloss, and back-comb my hair a little. Considering it is Saturday in the countryside, I look very out of place as no doubt, Harry’s sexy city girls did.

I plaster on an expression and walk through to the kitchen where Jack is busy making coffee. He glances up at me but looks away again instantly. He doesn’t say a word yet I know he’s amused. I have to bite my lip so I don’t spoil the game and laugh first.

“Going somewhere?” he asks.

“Business lunch.” I keep my expression neutral.

He joins in. “Eggs on toast okay for this business lunch?”

“Perfect.”

I watch him fix it. He pours orange juice, places it in front of me and goes back to the stove without comment.

“Don’t spill any down your blouse, it’s see-through enough already. And you forgot to wear a bra. Your colleagues are already weighing up their prospects.”

Deliberately forgot. I want to disturb Jack the way he disturbs me. I don’t want him to avoid me in the shower or anywhere else. I can’t imagine Amanda allowing such opportunities to slip through her fingers.

“I must be too hung-over to dress properly, the same way I’m too hung-over to consent to sex with a man.”

Jack stops working, turns and stares across the room at me. His eyes don’t leave mine but he’s struggling not to look down my front, I know it. He doesn’t smile and I don’t know what he’s thinking as he gives little away. I hold my ground and his gaze. If I want something badly enough I have to know how to get it.

“The eggs are catching.”

Jack grabs the pan from the stove before the scrambled eggs burn. He takes toast from the toaster, butters it and piles eggs on top. Carrying two plates over to the table he sits down, tucking in without another word until I start to feel gauche and awkward. He maintains the upper hand with this silent treatment. Enough to make me feel like a total idiot who has misread the situation. Round one to Amanda. I pick up my fork and toy with my food.

“Eat it.”

“Yes, sir.” I salute and shovel a forkful into my mouth.

He glares at me from those Arctic blues and I’m reminded this is supposed to be a trade-off to make sure I get a shot at Zee-Com’s account. This isn’t a romance.

“Time to establish ground rules again,” he tells me. “And I’m adding another. If you run from me again, the deal is off.”

I’m sick to death of his deals. “Why would you care one way or another?”

He throws his fork to his plate with a clatter that makes me start. “Do you have any idea how irresponsible it is to get that drunk in a situation like last night?”

We’re back to that again. I yank at the bow round my neck. These clothes are ridiculous. It’s far too hot to wrap myself in chiffon from neck to wrist. I tug so hard in temper I hear a rip. It’s the last straw. I keep ripping. I tear the whole damn thing apart with my bare hands until it drops to the floor in bits.

Jack stares at me in complete astonishment at my frenzy. I bet he can’t believe I just did that. I can’t believe I did it either. I’m bare from the waist up.

“I’m twenty-two. I do plenty of things that are irresponsible, incomprehensible and inconceivable. Get over it!” All my elevated speech is completely unnecessary. He can see that for himself. I’m sitting at Jack’s table once again practically naked. It’s like Groundhog Day. All that’s missing is the peach yoghurt.

When Jack has the temerity to look amused I really snap. I jump up, tear open the belt, button and zip; drop my skirt around my ankles and step out of the whole damn lot as I storm towards the back door in my panties, hold-up stockings and heels. I’m through it in a flash.

It’s not quite such a dramatic gesture as it must appear to Jack. I know that on Saturday and Sunday the chateau grounds are deserted. It is an unwritten rule that no-one from the estate comes up to the house at the weekend except in an emergency. We’re totally secluded and I’m safe from prying eyes. Jack however, doesn’t know any off this.

He’s on me like a shot. He rips his t-shirt over his head and tries to pull it over mine but I’m having none of it.

“Get off me you big oaf!” I fight him away in fury and he doesn’t succeed on his mission to cover my body up.

I laugh at his look of displeasure and concern that I’m displaying my naked body to the whole of Northern France and anyone with a half-decent pair of binoculars across the English Channel too. He sweeps his eyes around to establish who closer to home might be looking. Perhaps I am still young, drunk and reckless from last night.

He pulls me against him so my front is no longer on view.

“They can still see my arse!” I scream in demented triumph. I’m like a demon let out of a bottle.

He wallops it. “Your smacked arse.”

I laugh hysterically. “What was that supposed to be?”

He really did little more than thrust me tight against him and it’s easy to detect just how much he wants me. He seems to remember the show he believes I’m providing and grabs me by the upper arms. He pulls me over to the stone bench hidden by the vine-covered arbour and sits down heavily dragging me astride his legs. He’s wanted me frantically ever since he captured me in that nightclub. Just like he did after Ben Gunn and Laurent. No wonder he’s so mad. No wonder he didn’t sleep all night. He couldn’t. Denying me this morning has just been a way to punish me.

I’m glad I’ve broken the tension driving us both crazy. But he remembers everything and makes sure I do too. One by one he catalogues my faults which tells me clearly his state of mind about the things I’ve done.

I can’t believe he’s still raging at my flirtatious display before Laurent crossing the fields yesterday but he absolutely hammers home his disapproval of my drunken cavorting with Luc. Each hot word is meant to castigate and I know by this he’s jealous. He wants me for himself and I may be on the receiving end of his fury but I’m triumphant. Round two to me.

I want him around me. I want him inside me. I want him. Before he can protest or put me aside, I wrap my arms tightly round his neck and kiss him. My naked breasts press firmly against his naked chest and he resists for a single moment breathing hard from his lecture before he moans and submits to me the way I have just submitted to him.

“Let’s make love, Jack.” I murmur words around his kiss. He wants me, at least in this way. Will he capitulate?

He stands up but I’m so not letting go. I cling on and wrap my legs round his waist going with him. He fumbles to undo his trousers while we work our mouths frenziedly over each other’s necks and jaws. I hear the zipper as he plunders my mouth with his hot tongue.

“Mark me. Put your smell on me. Claim me,” I beg him. I know he needs this. I know I need it too.

“You want it like this?” He grunts into my mouth, forcing my breath to retreat before his.

“Always.”

Sitting back onto the stone bench after dropping his trousers round his ankles, I’m positioned over him. His fingers pull my panties aside and slide through my slick wet heat as I gasp and writhe in beautiful torment feeling him where my need is most desperate. He enters me with one hard thrust pressing me down onto him with a strong palm flat against my arched lower back. Relief escapes my body on a long moan of abject satisfaction.

He takes me savagely which I accept willingly. At breakneck speed, he seeks his own relief but I don’t care. I’m reckless and abandoned for Jack Keogh. He pounds Luc from his mind. He plunders Amanda from mine. He drives all the demons of anxiety from my body and my soul.

Jack’s muscles swiftly grow rigid with tension. The tight coil of his body lasts a second before a hair trigger is released. I feel him stiffen and jolt as he detonates in orgasm long, hard and loud, deep inside me. I want to move but he holds me tight and still against him. I’m so close to the apex I’ll go crazy if I don’t come.

In that second I understand what the next level of punishment is to be. I almost can’t bear it but I will. For him. I force myself to remain immobile. I will not receive his pleasure only his displeasure. I press my body against his until acute need slowly subsides into a throbbing ache of longing. But I breathe my way through it.

“You will never run from me that way again.” Each word is ground out in agony and ecstasy combined.

I shake my head. “I won’t. Never. I’m sorry.” I want to look into his eyes so he can see how sorry I really am. I’ll fight for you, I vow to myself but I won’t run from you again.

He accepts my word I think and nods curtly. A little more of his anxiety fades.

I arch my pelvis involuntarily against him in need but he withdraws. It’s not entirely pleasant for him to do so yet but I comfort myself he’s trying not to make this any worse for me than he has to.

“Soon,” he promises me and I must be content with that. I know today he needs me to accept his power and dominion over me. He holds me tighter when I shudder against him, against my body’s demands.

He’s a man of his word, I remind myself as I whimper in frustration. If he says I can come soon, I will.

We stay together and I love this moment of closeness with him. His forehead rests against mine like we share one breath in common. His heartbeat deepens and slows while mine flutters like a caged bird.

“I want you again,” he tells me.

This could be worse than I thought. I ask him my important question silently with my eyes but he shakes his head. “Soon.” He will not let me come yet. He’s not done showing me I was wrong.

I don’t know if I can bear this. I remember how many times he took me on my last night in London, until I had to beg him to stop, from sheer exhaustion. How many times can I accept it this way? I know he understands my fears.

“I want you to discover your inner power and strength and your ability to succeed no matter what the odds. I want you to listen to me. To trust me. To do what I tell you.”

It’s so hard. His words remind me our time together is only part of a deal and he will return to his own world and Amanda too. Soon. But I’m stronger than he knows. I will stop him or die trying, I promise myself.

He sets me on my feet and folds my hand in his. We return through the door into the house but we don’t get further than the kitchen.

“Take your panties off and stand there.” He lifts the dishes quickly from the table to clear it.

I do as he asks. Although his trousers are back up again he’s not bothered to fasten the top button. I can tell he’s already hard for me just as I’m soft for him. I want to cry out to him; to beg him to let me come with him this time. Can I submit to such unreasonable demands?

My whole body throbs. My nipples are tight and tingling and I’m crazy wild with lust. Everything in my femininity calls out to Jack to please take me over the edge with him this time.

He lifts me onto the table. “Lie down,” he orders. “Place your arms above your head and part your knees.”

I comply with everything, watching as he leans over to kiss my belly just below my navel. This time will be much more difficult for me to resist, I know.

His flat hand trails down my mid line and rests over my naked flesh before he kisses me there. I arch up to meet him.

“Be still.”

“I’ll try,” I promise.

He places my feet flat on top of the table and moves between them. I hold my breath, knowing what’s coming as he kneels.

His tongue sweeps slowly through my slickness culminating at my most sensitive place which he tips repeatedly until I moan out.

“Why do this if you don’t want me to come?”

His voice is harsh and lustful, but delivered in a whisper. “Because sometimes I like to pretend you can’t get enough of me either.”

I’m still in shock as he focuses all his attention back on my body and I rapidly forget what it was I was thinking about.

“I need to come already.” My muscles tense and I whimper as I try to hold back.

He must know how close I am. He moves back and waits, watching, for me to subside a little. My hips arch uncontrollably off the table, sweat beading on my forehead, while he divests himself of all his clothing and settles back between my thighs, stroking their inner surfaces with his straying fingertips.

“Do you feel the frustration, Tabitha?” He rumbles the words over my skin, kissing and sucking at tender flesh, bringing me quickly to that needy place again. I pant air savagely. “Answer me.” He torments my body gently.

“Yes.” I can barely speak the word.

“When you run from me, that’s what you do to me. You reject me. I can’t be denied your body unless you tell me we’re done. Through.”

“I’m sorry.” Probably more for myself at this minute than for him. I hope if I say it enough times he’ll pity me. I throw my forearms across my eyes like blocking out the sight of him might help me to resist.

“Put your arms back behind your head. Don’t move them. And keep your eyes open. I want to see you. It heightens my pleasure to see how much you want me.”

He plunges two fingers inside and watches the expression change on my face as he moves them slowly in and out. My eyes roll back in my head. I’m dying with this hot desire. His thumb sweeps me and I struggle not to abandon the fight and give in. My toes curl and my fingers grip hard round the edges of the table. He reaches up a hand to pinch my nipple.

“Please Jack, I’m going to come.”

“No you aren’t.” He steps close between my thighs. “Only I will come. This is what happens when you agree to let me take control and then challenge me.”

Did I do that? I can’t remember.

His stiff erection eases inside bit by bit so I feel every inch as my flesh parts to accommodate him. I’m crafted for his pleasure. I cannot imagine any other purpose I have in life at this moment in time. It’s crazy and twisted but that is the mind-bending power he has over me. I want to run. I can’t move. I’ve given him my word and I intend to keep it.

My fractured mind travels somewhere far away but returns when he lays himself over me, gripping the edges of the table for more purchase and thrusts into me hard. Still I hold myself back on a whimper.

“I want to let go,” I tell him. I sound angry. I am angry. Desperate.

“Don’t. Fight it.”

The noises I make are a lament as he thrusts and seizes, grimacing. I feel every sensation as he ejaculates. He comes and comes until his body collapses over mine. I grab him tight to limit each erotic twitch he works up inside me in case he accidently tips me over the everlasting edge.

“Good girl.” He praises me for my will to resist him.

“I hate you.” For making me love you.

“No you don’t.” He presses a swift, hard kiss to my lips and withdraws again. I hiss an intake of breath, still standing far too close to the wired-to the-mains boundary fence.

He pulls my wilting body upright and guides me onto trembling legs. I can’t imagine being able to hold back if he tries to take me again. It’s simply not humanly possible. I need him now with a fury of blind passion. Is this what he’s trying to get from me?

He carries me through to the sitting room, understanding we’ll never make it if I have to walk. If he means to test me in every room in the chateau, I am a dead woman.

He stands me before the huge open stone fireplace and picks up my violin case. I start. No-one ever touches my instrument but me. He places it on the sofa, opens the case and lifts it out carefully. I don’t utter a word. It seems I will allow this man anything. Everything.

“What can you play?” He hands me the bow.

“Anything.” My limbs quake from the stone bench and the kitchen table. My voice quavers. I’m totally taut and entirely liquid all at the same time.

“Play me what you feel inside.” He eases onto the sofa next to the violin case, beautiful and unashamed in his glistening nakedness. I want him so badly it’s hard to think about anything else but I place the violin between my chin and collar bone. It feels smooth and firm and matches perfectly everything I am as I stand naked before him physically and emotionally. I begin to bow without considering what music to play. It comes instantly and naturally.

This is part of me and I am part of it. We are haunting and melodic. The music stirs in me and I enlighten it. We slowly build inside each other and I find myself weeping as I play. This has been me without Jack and Jack without me. I will never let that happen. She can’t have him.

“That’s it,” Jack shouts leaning forward. He yanks me from my trance. “That note. Play it again.”

I return my conscious mind to the room and turn my attention to him. “What?”

“That note. The high one that you held.”

I go back a few bars as far as I remember and play through the music in my head.

“That one. Again.”

I play the long, high, reaching note he selects as he shuts his eyes and listens. “What do you hear?” I ask him. I’m puzzled.

“That’s the note you sing to me when you come.”

He notices everything.

I prop the violin and bow on an adjacent chair and throw myself onto Jack’s naked body shoving the violin case out of my way with my foot.

“Make me come, Jack. Let me sing your note.” I don’t care how desperate I sound. I want to orgasm with him inside me. I want him to pleasure me the way only he is able.

He flips me over until I lie beneath him and crushes his lips to mine. His weight bears down on me as I sink into the feather filled cushions. I don’t need to breathe, I only need to come for Jack. To sing out for him.

Ready again he presses himself slowly and deeply all the way inside me. He holds his body up on straightened arms and measures the way he pleasures me. His two recent orgasms afford him the leisure to take his own sweet time. But it’s much too slow for me. I try to force the speed to match my craving desire.

“If you do that again I’ll stop.”

“Don’t stop,” I plead, panting. I understand. He wants to play me at his own tempo. I am his instrument. He wants to coax and guide and make me resonate with all the gentle notes he chooses. I open myself to him. He is so beautiful and sexy in command of me, I want him fiercely.

He plays my body slowly while I rise up and climb until he is willing to let me soar. I arch up under him, unable to resist, meeting each bowing of his body with my own response.

“Come for me, kitten. Sing out.”

I have read his music well and fracture and fragment instantaneously in an orgasm so pure, so powerful, so wild and free I sing his note, high and long. Atoms fly apart and crash together again in my body in an impact so potent I am changed. He has changed me. I know it.

I score my nails through the flesh of his back deep enough for him to hiss in agony. My internal walls crush his hard maleness to me grasping and grabbing, squeezing rhythmically in an age old female harmony which refuses to end.

When he stops thrusting to study me, deeply penetrated, the concentration on his face as he minutely experiences every moment is a wonder.

“Oh baby. You’re so amazing. I can’t. Hold. Back. FUCK!” He shoots a hot gush deep inside me, his neck first arching, corded and tensioned, then his head hanging limply between powerfully muscled shoulders.

He has fed me and fought me, erotically denied me and fulfilled me. I have angered him, amused him, frustrated him and satisfied him. I am everything and nothing and I know I love him more than life itself.

But he does not love me.

So I cry.

“Hey. What’s this?” He sweeps the tears from my cheek with his thumb. He puts them to his mouth and consumes them.

He will consume me too if I let him. I must conquer this need for him. “Relief. You’re cruel to me.”

“Power play is only a game, kitten.” He withdraws slowly and shifts his weight off me.

But he doesn’t deny my accusation. And I cannot allow myself to think about the power of my impending grief when the game ends. I search beyond my need for him, for something to make us happy.

“Do you want to go swimming in the lake?”

“There’s a lake?” His eyebrow lifts as we continue to breathe violently after our exertions.

“Don’t you inspect real estate before you buy it?”

“Only when I plan to keep it.” The intensity of his stare disturbs me. “It was always meant to be a temporary deal.”

His words crucify me. I know he’s not talking about the chateau but me.

“So where is this lake?”

“Down past the meadow.” I will think only of the here and now.

He relaxes and grins at me. “Skinny dipping?”

“Unless you thought to bring swim shorts.” Harry would have some but I’m not telling him that.

“I packed in rather a hurry.” The look he throws my way says that is my fault too.

“How did you know where to find me?” It’s worth another try.

“I’ll always know where to find you, kitten.” He sweeps my hair to one side and nuzzles my neck.

I roll my eyes. “Have you got me electronically tagged or something?”

“Something like that.” He gives me the
Look
and I wonder what he means by it. He’s as cryptic as ever.

“Why won’t you tell me?”

“Just know there’s no point running. Because I’ll find you anyway.”

“I gave you my word didn’t I?”

“Did you?”

Will I ever understand Jack Keogh?

Chapter Six

We spend the afternoon swimming, drowsing in the shade and making unhurried love in the meadow down by the lake. At least I’m making love. Jack may be an accomplished lover who knows only too well how to make my body sing the way he wants it to but I know for him, this is all about the sex. And the power. He uses both to manage the woman who dared run from him. To establish who is boss.

Despite that I wish we could always be this way. No CaidCo. No Zee-Com. Definitely no Amanda Devereaux to come between us. Whatever happens, I’ll always have this memory which is more than I had last time he disappeared from my life.

I won’t even allow myself to consider that that might make the parting harder.

Catch-up sleep and lots of sex put Jack in a very good mood which I benefit from thoroughly.

“Are you dry yet, kitten? I should give you another coating of protection.” Jack’s hand sweeps across my bare belly making me shiver. He wants to guard me from everything, including the sun but I’ve learned rapidly this is his cue for wanting more sex. He’s insatiable and I’m exhausted but happy.

He convinces me the most sensible way to shield us both quickly against sunburn is if he massages oil all over my naked skin then transfers it by rubbing himself all over me. It’s a perfect excuse to explore my entire body any way he wants and the friction and contact ends in mind-blowing orgasms every single time. But he’s a complete con-artist because an hour later he insists it would improve productivity if we were to reverse the procedure. I don’t care a jot. Either works for me.