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“Okay,” he finally said, his voice low and shaky. “Do you need any help with your stuff? A suitcase?”
“No, thanks. I’ll only need my purse and my toiletry case.” Some devil made her add, “I don’t wear anything to bed, anyway.”
He closed his eyes.
“It’ll be funny, going back to sleeping in my old room for one night. At my place in Chicago, I have a huge California King bed.” Liar. She had a queen. “With black satin sheets.” Double liar. They were percale. And pink.
Rather than looking even more hot and bothered, as she’d hoped, Jack gave her an amused look. Finally he said, “Sorry, Kate, your room’s taken. ’Fraid you’ll have to take the master bedroom…or the foldout.”
“You’re staying in my room? Why?”
He nodded. “You’re not the only one who remembers everything we talked about that night at the Rialto.”
She didn’t follow.
He stepped closer, invading her space again so their bodies were separated by only a bit of air and moonlight. “You might know what I do in the shower,” he whispered, reaching out to scrape the tip of one index finger along her shoulder, playing with her bra strap, which had somehow slipped out. His touch made her shake and she could barely keep herself focused on his words.
“But I also remember what you did in your old bed.”
By the time she understood, and felt hot blood rush into her cheeks, Jack had already turned and left the room.
6
OFFERING A SHOWER and a bed to a woman he couldn’t have—but wanted so much his nuts ached—had to rank up there among the stupidest things Jack had ever done in his life. Maybe not as stupid as the time he’d tried bungee jumping off a bridge in California, or when he’d scuba dived with sharks in Australia, but pretty stupid all the same.
The house had only one bathroom. It was upstairs, between the two bedrooms, and he listened to every move Kate made in there. He could swear he heard a metallic hiss as she unfastened the zipper of her jeans, followed by a whoosh of air as she dropped her clothes to the floor. Then the rustling of the shower curtain as it opened, the water starting, her tiny gasp as she tested the temperature and found it too hot. Or too cold.
Jack gave up trying to sleep. Sliding closer to the wall in her small, twin-size bed, he listened intently. The gurgling rush of the water from the faucet changed to a sizzling stream emerging from the showerhead. She stepped into the tub, closing the curtain behind her. Then she dropped something—the soap? As she retrieved it, her hand knocked against the tub just inches from his head. He swallowed hard.
She began to hum. Off-key. Not Benatar now, but some other old rock tune he couldn’t place.
Soon there was nothing but the pounding cascade of water, muted when her body was beneath it, harder as it struck the tub when she had stepped out of the stream to wash.
That was the hardest. Imagining her rubbing a soapy washcloth, or, better yet, her bare hand, over her skin. Easing the tight muscles of her neck. Kneading the kinks out of her shoulders. He closed his eyes and pictured the slide of her hands down her body. The way her fingers would look on her throat, her breasts, her thighs. And between them.
He shuddered. Probably the only thing he could imagine being as arousing as touching her himself would be to watch Kate’s hands on her own body. Giving herself pleasure, the way she said she had here, in this very bed, a few weeks back.
He groaned and pulled the pillow over his face, dying for sleep…for release. Both thoroughly eluded him.
Her long shower continued. Hurry up, would you? He had a feeling he was going to need to take a cold one of his own.
Jack imagined sharing one with her. It would be incredible. He’d barely gotten to taste her at the theater and his mind flooded with images of sitting beneath her in the shower. Looking up at her. Holding her hips in his hands and tilting her soft thatch of dark curls toward his hungry mouth to taste her, indulge in her, positively inhale her.
Only after he’d had his fill would he stand up, turning her to face away while he stood behind her. She’d lift one foot, resting it on the side of the tub. He could picture her hand, flat against the tile wall for support, her red-tinted nails a stark contrast to the cream-colored tiles. Her fingers would clench then widen as he stepped closer and she felt his body press against her back, his hard-on slipping between her legs.
