Second Chance Proposal: A Man Without Mercy / Bring It On / Rancher to the Rescue

‘Would you like it to be an art gallery again?’ Vivienne asked, doing her best to refocus on business.

Jack shrugged. ‘I’ll leave that decision up to you. I know I’ll like whatever you do with it.’

Oh dear, Vivienne thought with some dismay, only too aware that she was slowly being sucked into a situation from which there was no escape. Because in truth she really wanted to do this job, wanted to transform Francesco’s Folly into the type of home Jack would love. His faith in her abilities was extremely flattering. And the house itself was a fantastic challenge. It was impossible to say no. And yet she knew she should. Nothing good was going to come out of working side by side with Jack. She could feel it in her bones—and several other parts of her body as well!

‘This way,’ he said, and walked over to the double doors in the centre of the semi-circular wall, throwing them both open and waving her inside with a flourish of his right arm.

Vivienne walked past him into a massive rectangular-shaped living room, which she knew instantly would look fabulous if and when it was properly refurbished. Her designer’s eyes were picturing the room with its hideous wallpaper stripped off, the walls painted white and the dated furniture replaced by more modern pieces. The marble fireplace at the far end of the room could stay, but the rest would have to go, especially the heavy brocade curtains which framed the glass doors leading out onto the balcony, and which were simply horrible.

‘I can see that decorating head of yours is already ticking away, Vivienne,’ Jack said, smiling as he headed over to the glass doors. ‘But first things first, madam. The view!’

Even from where she was standing Vivienne could see that the view from up here was even more spectacular than from the lower balcony. But to get there she had to brush past Jack, who was still standing in the half-opened doorway, waiting for her. She somehow managed to move past him without actually making bodily contact, hurrying over to the railing like the hounds of hell were after her. But as she closed her fingers over the top rung, leaning her weight against it at the same time, the whole thing suddenly shifted.

CHAPTER NINE (#ud8887f14-a148-5fbf-8088-29c9a3d45c2b)

JACK SAW THE railing give way a split second before Vivienne screamed. With a burst of fear-fuelled adrenaline, he covered the distance between them with a speed which would later amaze him, grabbing at Vivienne as she began to lose her balance, her arms flailing wildly, her sunglasses flying off her face into the valley below. All he got hold of at first was the back of her suit jacket but it was enough to stop the momentum of her fall. Finally he managed to wind one firm arm around her waist and pull her back from where she was still teetering on the edge of disaster. She fell back against him, her scream silenced as she gasped for air. By the time he dragged her body back further from the edge of the balcony, her shock had turned to an almost hysterical sobbing.

This time, Jack didn’t hesitate to comfort her, turning her trembling body in his arms and holding her close.

‘There there,’ he murmured, one of his arms wrapped tightly around her lower back whilst the other gently stroked the nape of her neck. ‘Stop crying. You’re safe.’

But she didn’t stop crying. She wept on and on, Jack suspecting that her close brush with death might have released more emotions than just relief. Possibly she was crying over what had been happening in her life recently.

Whatever, having her pressed hard against him was not conducive to his peace of mind. Or the peace of his body. Despite willing his sex-starved flesh to stay calm, it did not. Common sense demanded he push her away from him. But to do so whilst she was still sobbing so disconsolately seemed heartless. All he could hope for was that she wouldn’t notice he was getting an erection.

Things went from bad to worse, however, when she moved her arms from where they’d been jammed between their chests and wound them tightly around his back, her head nestling into the crook of his neck. Now he could feel the soft fullness of her breasts, not to mention the warmth of her breath against his skin. When her crying finally stopped, he tried moving his lower half away from hers but it was almost impossible with the way she was clinging to him.

‘Vivienne,’ he said a bit brusquely.

Her head lifted, her tear-stained face no less beautiful, her lovely green eyes searching his with a strange intensity. And then she did something which shocked him. She planted her hands on his shoulders, reached up on tiptoe and kissed him full on the mouth. When he jerked his head backwards, her hands fell away and she sank back down on her heels, her face crumpling.

‘I’m sorry,’ she choked out. ‘I thought...I thought...Oh, it doesn’t matter what I thought. Obviously I was wrong.’ And she staggered back from him, her shoulders slumping, her eyes wretchedly unhappy.

‘No. You thought right, Vivienne. I’ve been struggling with my desire for you since I saw you naked in that bath yesterday. It’s come as a surprise to me, I admit, but I want you, and I’d like to take you to bed more than anything. But not like this, Vivienne.’

She lifted startled eyes to his. ‘What do you mean, not like this?’

Jack sighed as he pushed his sunglasses up on top of his head. ‘Your kiss just now. It wasn’t for me, not really. It was just a reaction to your close call with death. An instinctive wish to feel still alive.’

‘No,’ she denied quite fiercely. ‘That isn’t true. It was for you.’

Jack stared at her, shock rendering him speechless.

‘I’m not sure I understand this sudden sexual attraction I have for you any more than you understand yours for me,’ she swept on. ‘Since we’re being brutally honest here, till yesterday I never even liked you, let alone fancied you. It was weird, the way I started having these wicked thoughts about you.’

‘What kind of wicked thoughts?’ he asked her.

Vivienne shook her head. ‘I...I’ve tried to work them out because they don’t make sense. All I know is that I want you to make love to me. Very much so.’

Jack did his best to stay cool. Despite dying to put her words to the test, he suspected that if he wanted any kind of relationship with Vivienne—as opposed to just a quickie—then he needed to show some sensitivity to her present, highly vulnerable state. If he rushed her into bed right at this moment—there was a king-sized one in the nearby master bedroom, he recalled—she might regret it afterwards. At the same time, the temptation to do just that was almost irresistible.

‘Hell, Vivienne, you shouldn’t say things like that.’

‘Why not? It’s true. Crazy, perhaps, but true.’

He didn’t like the ‘crazy’ bit.

‘Kiss me, Jack,’ she begged. ‘Please.’

Oh God, he thought as his groin twitched painfully. ‘If I kiss you, I won’t stop at kissing,’ he told her bluntly.

She didn’t say a word, just closed her eyes and parted her lips in the most provocative fashion.

Jack groaned, then pulled her back into his arms—hard—his head swooping down at the same time.

It was not a tender or loving kiss. It was rough and ravaging, his hands lifting to hold her face solidly captive so there was no escape from his merciless assault on her mouth.

Not that she tried to escape; Vivienne moaned her surrender the moment his lips crashed down on hers. Her body melted against his, the soft swell of her stomach pressing against his erection. This only inflamed Jack further, his teeth nipping and tugging at her lips until they felt swollen and hot. She gasped when he ran his tongue over their burning surfaces, moaning when at last his tongue darted deep into her mouth.

Jack’s gut tightened when her lips closed tightly around him, sucking him in even deeper. He immediately started imagining what it would be like when she did that to other parts of his body. Which she would at some stage, he was sure. Although a cool character on the surface, Vivienne was obviously a wildly passionate woman underneath. A woman who liked sex and needed it. The perfect candidate to become his lover. Or even girlfriend, if that was what she wanted. He didn’t much care, as long as he could have her in his bed on a regular basis.

When he tore his mouth away from hers, she moaned again, her green eyes glazed when they opened to stare dazedly up at him.

‘Don’t say a word,’ he bit out. ‘I’m not stopping altogether. Just till I get a couple of things straight.’

She didn’t say a word. He suspected she was almost beyond talking, a fact he found rather flattering.

‘I don’t want this to be just a one-night stand,’ he said. ‘Or should I say, a one-day stand. I like you, Vivienne. Very much so. I want more from you than that. Tell me now if this idea doesn’t appeal to you, then I won’t start making plans for afterwards. If you say you don’t like me enough to consider a relationship with me, then after this once, we’ll have to go our separate ways. Because once we cross this line, sweetheart, there will be no working together unless we’re sleeping together.’

Jack hoped Vivienne didn’t see his ultimatum as a form of sexual harassment, or even blackmail. He was just telling her as it was. He wasn’t her boss. Yet. But by God he wanted to be, especially in the bedroom.

Hot images danced in his head of her obeying his every command and demand; of her going down on him wherever and whenever he wanted; of her being tied naked to various pieces of furniture, totally at his mercy. All silly fantasies, he suspected. Because, as passionate as Vivienne seemed to be, she wasn’t the submissive type. Though who knew? Maybe she would enjoy being dominated in the bedroom.

His earlier fierce arousal, which had subsided somewhat with his talking, came back with a vengeance.

‘You don’t need to give me your answer right now,’ he ground out to a still silent but flushed Vivienne. ‘Afterwards will do.’ Unable to wait another second, Jack swept her up into his arms and headed for the master bedroom. When his sunglasses fell off the back of his head in the process, he didn’t bother to stop and pick them up.

CHAPTER TEN (#ud8887f14-a148-5fbf-8088-29c9a3d45c2b)

VIVIENNE’S HEAD WHIRLED with conflicting thoughts as she clamped her hands around Jack’s neck and burrowed her face into the base of his throat. What remained of her sense of decency demanded that she stop him right now. She liked Jack somewhat better than she had, but to have sex with him wasn’t right—surely?

But the voice of decency wasn’t nearly as powerful as the voice of desire. It obliterated and overwhelmed all objections with its promise of excitement and pleasure. Jack’s impassioned kiss had given her a taste of what was to come. Not just excitement and pleasure, but abandonment and satisfaction. The kind of abandonment which she’d always secretly craved. The kind of satisfaction which she’d never really enjoyed.

Somehow, Vivienne knew that in Jack’s arms she would become a different woman from the one who’d kept her virginity until she was twenty-one, and who’d remained a shy, timid lover in the years since that first, uninspiring initiation into sex. With Jack, she would be wild and wanton. Maybe even wicked. Already her lips were opening to kiss his neck. Though it wasn’t a kiss for long, more of a slow, sensual sucking at his skin, her heartbeat quickening at the sheer audacity of her action.

When he groaned and tipped his head to one side, her mouth clamped him more tightly, as if she were some rabid vampire.

This time he wrenched his head away before setting her down abruptly in the middle of a large room, which was devoid of all furniture except for a huge bed, which looked new, its striped red-and-white bedding totally at odds with the pale blue shag-pile carpet and faded floral wallpaper. The air in the room was a little musty but surprisingly warm, probably because the sliding glass doors which led out onto the east-facing balcony would have caught the morning sun. Jack left her to go over and open one of those doors before turning and shaking his head at her.