“Aren’t you going to reply?”
“Are you going to start tormenting me again?”
“Is that what I do?” he asks, coming to sit beside me on the bed. I stiffen as his closeness fills my senses. “What if I told you I was the one in torment?" He whispers against my neck, “from having you so close, within reach, from seeing your body respond even without me touching you.”
I swallow, fixing my eyes on the image on my screen. “You used to date her didn’t you?” I say, changing the subject and taking his attention back to the face on my screen. I read too much about him in the news not to know the names and faces of every single woman with whom he was ever rumored to have an affair.
He chuckles. “When did you start reading gossip magazines Olivia?”
I don’t reply.
He considers me silently for a moment. “Why do you want to know? Underneath all your indifference, are you jealous?”
Yes, I am jealous. I hated every single person he was ever photographed with. I hated them almost as much as I loved him. I remove the laptop from my lap and get up, putting some distance between us as I move away from the bed. “I couldn’t care less,” I retort. “I was just trying to change the subject. Are you jealous of all the men I’ve been with in the last seven years?”
He’s watching me like a hawk. “What if I said I was?” He says, “What if I said that I wanted to make you forget that you were ever with anyone else?”
“I’d say you ought to have your head examined.”
He laughs. “I should have my head examined if I can stand to be in the same room with you, and even want it, anticipate it.” He gets up and moves towards me, stalking, like a hunter to its prey. “Does it make you feel powerful, to know that you drew me back here, against my better judgment?”
“I don’t feel anything when it comes to you,” I snap. “Why aren't you somewhere with Elaine, you did spend all evening flirting with her.”
“She’s not you.” He says.
I sigh. “Don’t think saying stuff like that will do you any good.”
He smiles. “That would mean something if I had any good in mind.” His hand catches my wrist and starts to caress the tender skin on the inside. “All I have in mind is the bad things I want to do you.”
“Jackson…” I start.
In one swift movement, he pulls me to him, pressing my body flush against his. I can feel the hard muscles of his chest, the thud of his heart against his ribs vibrating against my breasts, I can feel his warmth, and the hard ridge of his arousal pressed against my hips.
I want him. I want him with a desperation I can’t seem to control, I want to stroke my hands along his hard length and hear him moan, I want to explore the hard contours of his body with my fingers, my lips, my tongue. I want to lose myself in him, to surrender body and soul.
“What did you do to me?” his voice is harsh. “Why on earth can’t I get you out of my mind?”
Through the fog of my arousal, I almost laugh. I should be the one asking him that, I think resignedly.
His hands move up my back, trailing a sweet path up to my shoulders and making me tremble perceptibly. Then he cups my chin and tilts my face so that I’m looking up at him. “Protest all you want,” he says, “It won’t change the fact that this thing we have between us, it’s undeniable.”
“Jackson.”
“Give in to it. Sweetheart,” his voice is soft and tempting. “You know you want to.”
I almost give in just then, I almost allow him to take control of my body, to give me the fulfillment I’m is aching for.
His lips are trailing a sweet path along my throat. One hand cups my breast, squeezing softly as he strokes a thumb over a hungry nipple. His other hand moves down through the waistband of my silk pajama shorts to find the warm, pulsing wetness between my legs.
“Olivia.” The sound is somewhere between a moan and a sigh as his fingers slip through the wet folds. “Don’t say no to me.”
I don’t want to, not when his hands are doing the most sensual things to my body. My back arches when his finger finds the sweet nub between my legs. When he strokes it I almost lose the power of coherent thought, but my sense of self-preservation rescues me at the last moment. I brace my hands against his shoulders and push away from him, feeling the loss as his fingers slips away, leaving me wanting. “No.” I say thickly, “Get out of my room, Jackson. Leave me alone.”
“You know better than to think I will,” He says, the threat obvious in his soft words. Then he turns and leaves the room, his posture relaxed, as if he hasn’t just turned my world upside down.
Chapter Sixteen
I spend the whole night tossing and turning, my body consumed by yearning. Stubbornly I refuse to let my fingers reach for where I’m throbbing uncontrollably and caress myself just as Jackson had done, to close my eyes and imagine him making love to me while I bring myself to a release that would only be a faint shadow of what he could give me, but release nonetheless.