Craving Jamie

Heaving a deep sigh that expressed frustration and resignation, she turned off the taps. No point in looking back any more. The man she’d left asleep in his bed was so encased in self-made armour, he was not about to let anyone break it open. Her probing had been turned away again and again. If Jamie still existed somewhere, he was suppressed under so many layers he was unreachable.

Despondently she towelled herself dry, then sorted through the clothes she’d collected from the living room. Her yellow suit was hopelessly crumpled. Not that it mattered how she looked this morning. She was not about to meet anyone she knew. Once she was at her hotel, she would have plenty of time to change into a fresh outfit before Aunty Em collected her for their trip to the old farm.

Nevertheless, she didn’t feel comfortable in the clothes that had been stripped off her by Jim Neilson. She knew she would never wear them again. Needs must, until she could get to her luggage.

Grimacing at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, she reached for her handbag, took out a hairbrush and lipstick and proceeded to achieve a fairly respectable appearance. Having braced herself to get on with her life, she left the bathroom and headed down the hallway, hoping the private elevator would not present any problem in making a quick and quiet getaway.

Wrapped in her own purpose, she was several steps into the living room before the aroma of freshly brewed coffee registered. Her feet faltered as she frowned at the smell. It had to mean...

“Good morning.”

Her heart lurched. Her head jerked around to face the source of the unexpected and unwelcome greeting. He stood by the huge picture window she had unveiled last night, a steaming mug of coffee in his hand. Although a black silk robe covered him from shoulder to knee, it did not diminish the impact of powerful virility. Instead it increased his sexual appeal, the belt loosely looped, ready to fall open with a finger flick, the deep V neckline showing an inviting expanse of raw masculinity.

Beth felt her throat drying up. There wasn’t one inch of his body she wasn’t intimately acquainted with, and it was a magnificent male body. But in the end, it was just a body, she fiercely reminded herself.

He showed no surprise that she was dressed. He waved casually to the long glass table between the sofas where he’d set down a tray—coffee, milk, sugar, biscuits. “I’d hate you to go without some sustenance,” he said with one of his quirky smiles.

“Why?” she asked bluntly, ignoring the tug of physical attraction.

He shrugged. “Perhaps I want to show you I can be civilised.”

“You’ve shown me all your sides. I don’t need to be shown any more.”

He raised a mocking eyebrow. “Giving up?”

Her smile was wry. “I know when I’m beaten.”

“Perhaps not.” There was a curious expression in his eyes. “Give me your name.”

She shook her head. “It’s irrelevant. This is goodbye.”

He frowned. “What if I don’t want it to be goodbye?”

“It is, anyway.”

“It was great sex,” he reminded her with wicked appeal.

“Yes,” she conceded flatly. Through ultimately soul-destroying, she added, crushing the wistful thought that it might have been different if he’d opened the doors she’d knocked on.

“What more do you want?” he dressed, looking for a response he could work on.

The doors to Jamie were locked. Beth had come to the conclusion that Jim Neilson had thrown away the keys and that what she wanted was irretrievable. Not even the greatest sex in the world could make up for it. It only made the loss greater.

“I want to go now,” she said decisively. “I have other things to do.”

He turned to face her full on. She felt the unleashed blast of his formidable concentration as his eyes probed hers with all their brilliant and magnetic intensity. “Not once have you used my name,” he said with slow deliberation. “Now you’re going without telling me yours. Did you intend all along for us to be ships passing in the night?”

She shrugged, dismissing the point as of no real importance. “It was always a possibility.”

He nodded consideringly. “You turned last night into a contest.”

“Did I?” She paused, her eyes mocking his view of what had happened between them. “Or did you?” She threw the question at him.

His mouth twisted. “Why do I have the feeling there is more to this encounter than you’re letting on?”

“Why worry?” she asked him flippantly. “You won the contest. You didn’t let me get to you. You stayed on top.”

“If you go, I lose,” he stated with a certainty that puzzled her.

“I’m sure you can generate great sex with any amount of women,” she said sceptically.

“No. It was the mental fight. Something... quite different.” He hesitated, seemingly feeling his way along uncharted territory. “I think I’ve been looking for someone like you for a very long time.”

The sickening irony of those words cut deep. “No, you haven’t,” she retorted with blistering certainty.

“Shouldn’t I be the judge of that?”

“If you’d been really looking, you’d have found me long before this.”

His eyes narrowed on the burning derision in hers. “Perhaps I’ve been blind.”

“No.” The bitterness of total defeat poured into words before she could stop them. “You’ve been too busy being Jim Neilson. I think you’ll never be anyone else but Jim Neilson now. So I’m leaving, because I didn’t come for Jim Neilson and I don’t belong in Jim Neilson’s life. Is that enough recognition of your name for you?”

“For whom did you come?” he asked her, homing in instantly on the one significant point.

She sighed, wrung out by this futile confrontation. She looked at him with dull, weary eyes, seeing the aggressive vitality of the conqueror determined on climbing another mountain. But her mountain had been climbed, and she was returning to the valley he’d put behind him.