The Bedroom Business

She said it as if she’d just agreed to an evening of root canal, Jake thought. And she looked about as eager.

He sighed, took her coat and let it fall to the floor.

Emily’s eyes widened. “Hey,” she said, “what do you think you’re—”

Jake reached out and tugged the clip from her hair. The damp, snowy weather had turned it to a mass of curls; freed of constraint, they tumbled around her face and to her shoul­ders like a frothy mass of coffee-colored silk.

“Are you crazy? Give me that clip!”

Jake dropped the clip in his pocket, then ran his fingers through her hair.

“You are crazy!” Emily slapped at his hands. “Stop that!”

“You have beautiful hair,” he said. “Why don’t you make the most of it?”

“What do you know about it? Curls aren’t professional.”

“Dressing like your grandmother is?”

“You don’t know anything about my grandmother, either. Jake. Jake! What are you doing?”

“Getting rid of this horse-blanket,” Jake said grimly, as he tugged her suit jacket from her shoulders and dumped it on top of the coat that lay at her feet.

“Dammit, Jake...”

“It’s a cocktail party,” he said, as he undid the first button of her blouse, “not a wake. You’re the one who pointed out that you weren’t dressed right.” Emily grabbed at his hand as he started working on the second button but he shrugged her off. “We’ll do what little we can. Let your hair down, get rid of that jacket, open a few buttons...”

“Hey,” a voice called, from somewhere outside the ele­vator, “anybody stuck in there?”

People, Emily thought desperately, people near enough to save her. But save her from what? It was hard to concentrate, when she was so furious at Jake...

...when Jake’s fingers were at the next tiny button on her blouse.

Emily grabbed his wrist. “Stop it!”

He didn’t stop. He kept going, opening buttons, muttering that it was time she stepped into the twenty-first century and let herself look like a woman, until she glanced down at herself and saw the first hint of...

“Lace?”

Jake’s voice cracked. He looked up. Emily did, too. Their eyes met, and she could see that his were no longer cold and dark but a deep, hot emerald. Her heart did a strange two­step before lodging in her throat.

“Lace,” he said again, very softly, “under all those layers of wool.”

“I happen to like...” Emily licked her lips. Jake followed the movement of her tongue with an almost unholy fascina­tion. She took a step back but there was nowhere to go; her shoulders hit the wall of the car. “I happen to like lace,” she said, in a voice that sounded as if she were a marathon runner approaching the finish line. “Besides, what I wear under the wool is none of your—”

“Shut up, Emily,” Jake said, and kissed her.

It was a gentle kiss, hardly a kiss at all. Only their mouths met, his moving over hers in soft, exploratory touches.

And then he groaned, or maybe she did. The only thing Emily knew for sure was that, suddenly, she was in his arms.

His kiss changed, then, became the kiss of a conqueror, hungry and rapacious, demanding surrender. And even as she told herself not to give in, she curled her arms around his neck, opened her mouth to his and kissed him back.

Jake gathered her tightly against him. She swept her hands into his hair, tugged his head down and lifted herself to him. He pressed her back against the wall. She moaned. He was so hard. So strong. So aroused and so completely, magnifi­cently male.

He wanted her.

Wanted her, as much as she wanted him.

His arms offered no escape and she desired none. This, this was what she yearned for. Jake’s lips, plundering hers. His tongue, in her mouth. His erection, against her belly.

Emily whimpered, twisted in his arms, wanting something more now, wanting it with sweet desperation. Jake pulled her blouse out from the waistband of her skirt, swept his hands beneath it and up to her breasts. He groaned her name, moved his thumbs against her lace-covered nipples and she sobbed with the ecstasy of it.

This, yes. This was what she ached for. Jake’s touch. The pads of his thumbs moving, like that. Just like that, stroking her there. The curling ribbon of fire that lanced from her breasts to her belly. The answering tug of liquid heat between her thighs.

“Emily,” Jake said thickly.

He drew back. She moaned, refused to let him go until she realized he only wanted enough room to undo the rest of her buttons.

“Let me,” he said, “Emily, let me...”

“Yes,” she whispered, against his mouth, “Jake, yes...”