At least she had something to thank Suzie for—her surprise visits always sent her schedules awry, and today was the perfect day for it. Though maybe it would have been better to have met Jake in private first, rather than in the busy restaurant. At least here she could tell him exactly where to go in the least polite way.
‘So I made a few modest enquiries about your movements, and—’ He ran his eyes over her. ‘You know the rest.’
Meg walked over to her cabinet. She fingered the small, intricate crystal animals—a meditative practice that had always worked before to centre her thoughts. But not today. Not with Jake standing right there in her office, barely two metres away from her. She imagined she could feel the heat of his body radiating from him. She turned to face him. ‘I want you to go.’
He covered the distance between them in a moment, his large hands wrapping around her shoulders. ‘I’ve lived long enough without answers, and I’m not leaving your side without them.’
A familiar shiver of awareness coursed through her body and she raised her head to look directly into his face. ‘I’ll call the police,’ she challenged.
His firm mouth pulled tight and his eyes bored into hers with an intensity that jolted her senses. She moistened her dry lips.
‘Go ahead. I’m sure they’ll be interested to hear that you’ve dragged them away from real cases just because you’re scared of talking to me.’
Meg tried to regain some composure, but she found it difficult even to think straight with his hands branding her arms. ‘That’s not fair.’
‘Life’s not fair.’ Amusement glinted in his eyes.
‘Tell me about it.’ It wasn’t fair he could still twist her words against her. She bit into her bottom lip fiercely. ‘You spoke to Suzie, didn’t you?’
‘Suzie was very keen to talk about you.’
Her stomach lurched. Suzie had better not have told him everything, or the world would soon be short one gossipmonger. ‘And herself, no doubt.’
‘Is that jealousy I hear, Megan J?’ He watched her intently. ‘What’s with the J anyway?’
Heat flooded her cheeks. ‘J is for James. It’s my middle name. Not that you’d remember.’ Her father hadn’t been able to bear the idea of not using his father’s name for his only child—a curse when she was young which had finally turned out a blessing when she’d decided to disappear. And it was perfect for her fashion label.
Jake’s deep green eyes were dangerously warm. ‘Meg, what went wrong?’
The tenderness in his tone shocked her. She looked to her pale ceiling. The wrenching ache in the back of her throat took her by surprise, but she wasn’t about to fall into that trap. ‘If you don’t know then you’re a bigger idiot than I thought you were.’
‘That’s unfair.’ His grip tightened and his eyes searched hers, as if probing the depths of her soul for answers to questions he couldn’t form. ‘We were young.’
It was a statement. She didn’t need to answer. She didn’t want to speak in case she broke the silence.
Meg’s ears filled with Jake’s sharp, uneven breathing. She looked into his face and the sizzling promise in his eyes scared her.
‘And now we’re all grown up.’ She twisted in his arms and struggled to free herself from his embrace before he did something stupid. ‘Can you stick around and face reality?’
He flinched. ‘You don’t think I know what’s real? While you were home I was out working in the real world. Not just tame work in some office. Out in vicious temperatures, remote wild places—it was hard. Harder than you can imagine; harder than you’ll ever have to experience.’
She stabbed her finger into his chest. ‘You have no idea what I’ve been through, Jacob Adams, and I don’t think you would know real life if you fell over it. What you described isn’t real! It sounds like some adventure a Boy Scout would go on—but when he gets home there are people there who need him to stay, not for him to find the next big adventure going.’
‘We needed money.’ His voice softened. ‘I needed to work.’ His hands relaxed their grip on her arms and he ran his thumbs gently along her skin.
Her body screamed for all the years of loneliness and neglect. She felt an unwelcome surge of excitement. Making love was the one thing in which they had been in total agreement and unison, and her loins ached at the thought. ‘I could have done with less, much less.’
He raked a hand through his dark hair and stared boldly into her eyes.
She held them.
Jake pulled her against his hard body and wrapped her in his warm embrace. She could feel his chin resting against the side of her head, hear him breathing in her perfume, her shampoo, her very essence, and her heart wrenched at the futility of it all.
She pulled back and searched his face.
He was intense, watching her lips.
Meg’s heart thudded against her ribs. The vulnerability in his eyes frightened her more than anything else.
He leant towards her and touched her lips with his. The caress was feather-light, sending her stomach into a wild swirl.
His kiss gradually deepened and she surrendered to the sensations running wild in her body. It was the goodbye kiss they’d never had.
His mouth moved over hers, devouring its softness, exploring and caressing, and a hunger attacked her. She responded like an animal, wanton and abandoned, and the pain of the past faded in the wake of the passion he was evoking in her.
She had an aching desire to retake what had once been hers, and the need overwhelmed her fears. She plundered his mouth and he responded.
He crushed her to his body.
Time melted away and it was the same as it had been. His lips and hers, dancing in unison. Electricity zinged between them like lightning, their arms and bodies interlocking in an embrace so warm, so hard, so hot that Meg could hardly breathe.
When Jake pulled back he tasted her lips again and again, as though he couldn’t get enough of her. Finally, he pulled away.
Her lips were still hungry, as her body was, and it was all she could do to stop herself crying out at his withdrawal.
The corners of Jake’s mouth twitched. He seemed to enjoy her struggle to capture her composure. ‘It’s still there, Meg.’
‘It’s not enough, Jake,’ she managed breathlessly. Her blood pounded wildly through her veins and an aching was aroused in her that she’d kept suppressed for too long. ‘I’m going home.’ She pulled out of his hold and snatched up her bag. She had to get away from him before she did something stupid.
‘Meg.’
His voice cut into her, straight to her core. She stopped.
‘You owe me a chance, Meg.’
She spun around. ‘What
