‘Just work,’ Nina said.
‘How are your brother and sister?’
‘Pretty much the same.’
She was nothing like anyone he’d ever dated. Usually it was the woman trying to get Jack to open up or to tease out information from him. He knew full well that Janey had upset her today and yet Nina simply wouldn’t share it, and it infuriated him as he swallowed a taste of his own medicine.
They chatted some more about work and Nina finished her food and thanked him for stopping by, but Jack didn’t move from the chair he was sitting on.
‘Jack, I really need to work.’
‘I won’t interrupt.’
He sat quietly as she typed and Jack drank sparkling water till his patience waned.
‘What’s the report about?’ Jack asked.
‘It’s not one of your patients.’
Still he sat there.
Still she worked.
‘Tell you what.’
Nina rolled her eyes as Jack interrupted her again.
‘Why don’t you come back to my place when you’re finished?’
‘Because I have to go home. I need to wear a suit for court in the morning.’
And he really wanted to see her in a suit! ‘Tell you what, give me your keys and I’ll go back to your place …’
‘Excuse me?’ She had no idea the concession he was making, how he never went to a woman’s place. Jack liked to be at his own home, never wanted to be too far into anyone’s life. ‘Like I’m going to give someone I hardly know the keys to my apartment.’
‘Hardly know?’
‘Jack.’ She gave up typing and stood, cleared up the noodle boxes and threw them in the bin. ‘I’m going to be here till midnight at least—one a.m. at this rate.’ She walked over to him, looked down at him and it was as if he made her feel reckless. She couldn’t tell him that she adored the distraction, that right now all she wanted was bed and him, but she could not, must not give her heart over to him.
‘I really need to work.’
‘And I think you deserve a break.’ He pulled her onto his lap and they both knew where that had led last time and again he kissed her.
His kiss remained potent and brought her straight back to the places they’d once been. He was unshaven tonight and she felt the scratch on her face and pulled back just a little. ‘I need my face for court …’
‘Let me kiss you somewhere else, then.’
He was funny and dark and sexy and she had already proved they could work together, that there would be no awkwardness between them whatever went on in the bedroom, but she was not going to love him—all this her eyes told him as she sat there.
‘Nina, I know you don’t want to hear this, but I want you in a way I have never wanted anyone else …’
‘Have me, then.’ She wriggled from his lap and he watched her head lower as she bent and removed her boots and her stockings.
‘I meant—’ Jack’s voice was rising ‘—I want more of you, I want to go out, to do stuff …’
‘Jack.’ She stood there, bare-legged, bare-bottomed beneath her dress, but she would not bare her heart to him. ‘What is it you want? Do you get a kick out of really making someone fall for you, make sure that they’re really head over heels and then the second they’re yours you dump them?’
Actually, yes, Jack thought, but decided it was better not to voice it.
Because it was different this time.
‘This is different.’ He settled for that.
‘Yes, it is,’ Nina said. ‘You don’t have to pretend this is going somewhere—neither of us do.’
‘I didn’t just come here for sex!’
‘Oh, so you didn’t bring condoms …’ Nina smirked when he didn’t reply. ‘Not to worry!’ She stood over him and kissed him again and his hands held her hips and then slid down to the hem and up her bare legs.
How could this not be enough? Jack reasoned. She matched him sexually and for the first time there was a woman not asking him to change, or where this was leading.
She dropped to her knees then pulled down his scrubs. Her head moved down with the intention to get him out of her office in the space of two minutes and Jack was actually offended. He had never turned down a blow job, had never thought he would, but as he pulled up her head and kissed her, he was, in fact, thoroughly offended.
This was different, his mouth insisted as he wrestled her to the floor.
This was so different, because his mouth was all over her and she was fighting him again. Not the sex, not the attraction, not the passion—she was trying to pretend it was just sex they were having as he was wrestling for her heart.
And she would not give it.
She kissed him back and when he reached into his scrubs for his wallet, again she smirked.
‘Told you!’
‘Damn it, Nina.’ He was getting cross and with women he never did. He just moved happily on when things got too much.
‘Shall I help you?’
He pushed her hand off.
He wasn’t just angry, he was jealous, but that didn’t quite fit, but her sexuality, her detachment, her oh, a quick orgasm will do, so let’s get it over with was really starting to get to him.
He prised open her legs with his knees and still she kissed him as he stabbed inside her, and she would not give in to him. It was the strangest of fights and as she lay there beneath him he stopped kissing her and lifted onto his elbows and just watched her face. And she decided that she would just give a little bit …
‘You’re coming out with me.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘you are. I’m taking you away this weekend …’ he was moving inside her ‘… and we’re—’
‘We can’t.’
‘We are.’
‘I’ve got Blake.’
God, at every turn she blocked him.
‘Sunday night.’ Still he moved deep within her.
‘I’m busy.’
‘I
