Craving Jamie

“No.”

She thought of Gerald and felt only relief that she had ended their relationship. She’d found his academic world too constricting in the end, and Gerald too full of himself and his life to see anything else. Besides, meeting Jim Neilson was an object lesson to her. Even if nothing came of it, the sheer physical stimulation he generated showed her what she’d been missing out on. Next time she wouldn’t settle for anything less. If there was a next time.

Her left hand was suddenly grasped and lifted, strong, purposeful fingers running over hers, feeling for indentations. Her skin seemed to spring alive under the cursory touch. She quelled the impulse to snatch her hand away, a silly overreaction.

“Satisfied?” she asked, realising he’d been checking for rings and ring marks.

His eyes blazed into hers. “No. We’ve a long way to go before I’m satisfied, golden girl. Come and have dinner with me.”

He didn’t wait for a response. He set off, weaving through the crowd, pulling her after him, her hand firmly wrapped in his. Without staging a public scene, Beth had little option but to follow, her mind whirling over his arrogant assumption she would fall in with his wishes, her heart fluttering at the thought of being alone with him. A flash came to her of Jamie pulling her after him up the bush track to the old quarry, saying she was safe with him. He’d look after her.

But this wasn’t Jamie.

Confusion roared through her in turbulent waves. She felt she was being tugged in all sorts of directions—memories, needs that had never been answered, dreams that were suddenly all awry and permeating everything, an acute awareness of the strength of the hand, the strength of the man who was making her follow him, his powerful aura of decision, action, command holding her more captive than the fingers clamped around her wrist.

They reached the steps leading to the entrance of the gallery. Jim Neilson paused to hand his glass to the attendant who’d let Beth in. “Nice showing,” he said. “Mind taking care of these for us?”

“My pleasure, Mr. Neilson,” came the obliging reply, the attendant swiftly relieving Beth of her glass, as well. “See anything you like?” A hopeful inquiry.

“Another time.” The dismissal discouraged further conversation.

Jim Neilson was already on the move again, sweeping Beth down the steps to the door. He hustled her out to the dark, tree-lined street, then adjusted his pace to a side-by-side stroll, his hand still firmly possessing hers. They were effectively alone together.

Beth struggled with a sense of disbelief. She and Jamie after all these years. Except he didn’t know who she was. Didn’t care. It was crazy to go along with this virtual abduction. There was not the slightest possibility of reviving their old relationship. He was different. He made her feel different. She should ask him to let her go.

She glanced at their hands, feeling the physical link tingling up to her brain and down to her toes. What did he want satisfied? Maybe he did feel something.

Beth was acutely conscious of never having felt satisfied herself. The bond with Jamie had spoiled any chance of a sense of rightness with anyone else. She’d tried with Gerald, tried to fool herself it was good enough. Had Jim Neilson found satisfaction with the women there must have been in his life?

He certainly wouldn’t have been celibate all these years. What would it be like to feel all of him touching all of her? It was madness to be even thinking about it. Yet she wanted to know. This was the man Jamie had become. Long, powerful legs. Her gaze travelled to the broad shoulders that needed no padding to make them look as though he could easily heft her over one of them and carry her off.

Her heart skipped into a faster beat. Effectively he was doing that right now. She lifted her gaze to his face, wishing she could read his mind. The shadows of the night frustrated her. She could trace Jamie in his profile, the resolute set of his mouth and the determined jut of his chin. He’d been a fighter, never lacking the courage to stand up for himself, a proud boy, driven through the crucible of his grandfather’s cruel meanness. What else had he survived to forge the dominance he’d achieved in his present world?

So much she wanted to know.

“Where are you taking me?” Her voice came out thin and wispy, reflecting her feeling that she was caught in two time frames, lost and treading uncertain ground.

A brief glance, a glitter in his eyes that ignited the sense of danger. Madness to feel so drawn to him in a situation that reeked of potential damage. To both of them. This meeting couldn’t lead to any fruitful future. Their paths would inevitably diverge.

“My car is parked a couple of blocks away,” he answered. “It’s not far to walk.”

His car. Part of his new life. “What make is it?” she asked, still riding the temptation to learn more about him.

A sardonic smile. “Didn’t your research pick that up?”

She frowned, jolted by the cynical tone in his voice. Her admission of knowing who he was must have prompted an assumption she knew more than she did. Research suggested he thought she was a journalist. Or worse, a gold-digger out to latch onto a wealthy meal ticket.

Should she correct him? But what could she say? How to explain her interest without revealing the truth?

The irony was, her so-called research consisted of a few articles and a couple of mentions in social columns, including an abbreviated guest list for tonight’s exhibition. It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. Having dinner with him would tell her much more. He’d set this ball rolling. She didn’t want to stop it. Not yet.

“It’s a Porsche.” Another glittering glance. “Satisfied?”

A sexy sports model, sleek, powerful, capable of devouring whatever road he chose to take, driving past everyone else. Probably black, too. “It fits,” she said, more to herself than to him.

“I’m glad you’re not disappointed,” he said dryly.

She was, deep down. Disappointed he hadn’t recognised her, though she couldn’t really have expected it on a superficial level. Even at thirteen, her hair had only slightly yellowed from the snowy white it had been through most of her childhood. It was almost brown now. She’d done a lot of growing up since Jamie had last seen her. A late bloomer, her mother had often said.

Having seen recent photographs of him, it was easier for her to identify the boy in the man, despite the changes. Still, when he had looked into her eyes... Surely they were the same, almond-shaped and deeply lidded, their amber irises quite an unusual and distinctive colour.

Golden girl. The name he’d given her brought a wry smile. He’d once said she was the only gold in his life. Why hadn’t the bond between them lasted?

She shook her head. Obviously it had meant more to her than to him. As Aunty Em said, he’d had the means to come to her if he’d wanted to. He’d picked her up tonight by chance, a stranger, to relieve his boredom. Or was it more than that? Did he feel the underlying tug of another time and place, an attraction he was pursuing beyond any rational thought?

She moved her fingers over the knuckles of his, wishing she was a clairvoyant who could see the future through the power of touch. His skin was warm, despite the coolness of the September evening. How did he transmit the electric vibrancy that was racing through her?

They turned a corner. Another narrow, tree-lined street, terrace houses crowding the sidewalk, their porches trimmed with ornate iron-lace fences. An old area of Sydney, Woollhara. It was close to the city centre and the harbour, newly fashionable again, the houses expensively renovated to suit the taste of wealthy people. She’d walked around here this afternoon, casing the area, dithering over whether to attempt gate-crashing the private showing in the gallery or leave well enough alone.

Who’d have thought she’d be walking hand in hand with Jamie—Jim—a few hours later? A burst of light-headed laughter bubbled forth.

“What’s funny?” he asked.

She grinned at him, dizzy with her daring. “I can’t believe I’m with you like this.”

The flash of his eyes seared her with a sobering reminder this was no child’s play between them. They were into a very adult game here. A quiver ran down her thighs. Should she stop now?

He stopped. He took a key ring from his jacket and released her hand to unlock the passenger door of the car at the kerb beside them. The distinctive lines of the Porsche gave her heart and mind a jolt. This was real. A black Porsche, low, dark, threatening. The old warning shrieked through her mind—never get in a car with a stranger.

Jim Neilson swung the door open for her.

If she stepped into that space... Why was she suddenly seeing it as a black hole, infinitely dangerous? The tension of decision held her momentarily paralysed.

“Not turning coward on me, are you?” he softly mocked.

She looked wildly at him, hearing Jamie daring her to be as brave as he was, her heart pounding madly, fear fighting with the need to earn Jamie’s respect and admiration. Except this was Jim Neilson, and she was a stranger to him, so how could her compliance with his game earn respect or admiration?

“Believe this!” he said harshly, and in the next instant, before she could even draw breath, she was pinned to his chest, held imprisoned there by the unrelenting strength of an arm that denied her any attempt at resistance as he curled his other hand around her cheek and chin and forcibly tilted her face to the angle he wanted. His teeth flashed, white and wolfish. “An appetiser,” he promised.

Beth barely had time to gasp. His mouth covered hers, invading it with shocking swiftness, no pause for persuasive or seductive preliminaries. His tongue embroiled hers in an erotic tangle, darting provocatively, sweeping her palate with sensational effect, inciting a fiercely primitive response. It was as though he’d pressed some dormant trigger in her, exploding a deeply buried mine of sexuality that demanded satisfaction.

A torrent of feelings pumped through her—anger to have waited so long to experience this, frustration that he’d never come for her, never invited her to share in his new life, a fierce jealousy of the women he had given himself to, a seething desire to take all he offered, experience it to the hilt, make him remember her for the rest of his life, whether he wanted to or not.

She clawed her fingers up his leather jacket, thrust them through the thick mat of his hair, curled them around his skull, urging on the passionate plunder that could not be called a kiss. Not from him. Not from her. A kiss was an exchange of good feelings, warm feelings, a wish to give and take pleasure. This was the boiling blood of a battlefield, each of them striving to win concessions from the other.

She sensed his drive for submission from her. She wouldn’t give it. With sheer wanton provocation, she rubbed her lower body against his, feeding the frenzy of released feeling, exulting in the hard bulge of his erection, hating him for being so aroused by a woman he’d merely picked up. A nobody to him. Yet he could do this to her, with her, an intimacy that had no grounds for intimacy on his side. Just sheer animal lust, taking, uncaring of the object being taken.

It was obscene.