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He didn’t try to do anything about it. He’d admitted it, but made no move to kiss her, to touch her.
“You’ve won. I concede. Now you need to stop.”
His lips said stop. His eyes begged her to proceed. She moved her fingertip, letting her lips fall open in a pleasureful sigh as the vibrator skimmed across her throbbing clitoris. She knew he was going crazy, imagining what she was doing, but not really able to tell because of the discreet draping of the towel over her hand. “You’re sure you want me…to stop?”
He closed his eyes. “Yes.”
Liar. With a quick glance down, she saw that his body was still raring to go.
“The timing’s bad on this, Kate,” he said. “Really bad.”
Obviously his mind was not raring to go.
“Bad timing. Right. There’s a good reason for me not to give myself the orgasm I’m dying for,” Kate said. “This has nothing to do with you, anyway.”
“It has everything to do with me.” He stepped closer, putting both his hands flat on the counter on each side of her hips. Leaning in until his face was inches from hers, he admitted, “I want to take you right here and now, fast and hard and furious, just like you’re begging for…like it was that first night.” His gaze dropped to her lips, to the towel, which had loosened again and barely clung to her body. As if he couldn’t resist, his hands moved closer, until they touched her thighs. His fingers were cold from the ice pack, but it wasn’t cold that made her gasp. It was the heat of his touch.
“Then I want to take you to bed, kiss away the pain on your hip, spend hours exploring your body and make love to you in ways you’ve never even dreamed of,” he finally said, his voice ragged and full of need.
His expression told her he could, too. So do it.
“But not tonight, Kate. Not now.” He straightened and stepped back. “Definitely not here.”
Once she was able to think again—once her heart started beating again—she told herself it didn’t matter, that she had never planned to have sex with him tonight anyway. And he was right, she couldn’t imagine a worse place to have sex with Jack Winfield than in the same house where their parents had probably spent intimate time together.
She flipped off the vibrator. “Sure.” After tightening the towel around her chest, she slid off the counter. “Look, maybe I wasn’t playing nicely. Maybe I was being unfair, trying to pay you back a little for not calling.”
“I figured as much. And I’m sorry.”
He didn’t try to explain. Made no effort to tell her what had happened, what had changed between that night in the theater and two days later when he hadn’t called her.
She couldn’t ask him, of course. She instead relied on false bravado. “It really doesn’t matter. I got what I wanted. A little payback.” She glanced down at his body, making them both fully aware of his need for her. Then she smiled seductively.
“You go back to bed. Alone.” Stepping closer to walk around him and out the door, she continued. “While I go back to bed, too. With the mental image of a shirtless Hugh Jackman.” Holding up her hand, she glanced at the vibrator.
“And this.”
7
JACK SLEPT LATE the next morning. That wasn’t a big surprise since he’d lain awake in her bed until at least 5:00 a.m., wondering what she was doing. If she was touching herself. If she ached, the way he did. He’d listened for hours, torturing himself, waiting to see if she’d cry out when she came, as she had the night in the theater.
He wasn’t sure if he ever heard her cry out, or if he just imagined the cries of ecstasy throughout the long night hours.
Enough of that.
Rising, he pulled on some jeans, then walked down the short hallway to the master bedroom. Though the door was partially open, he knocked quietly in case she was still asleep. When there was no answer, he glanced in and saw the stripped bed.
Kate hadn’t slept in her mother’s old room.
Curious, he went downstairs and saw the pile of folded linens and a pillow on the living room sofa. Hearing a voice through the thin wall, he stepped out onto the patio and walked over to the open door of the adjoining duplex.
