Craving Jamie. Emma Darcy
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I offer you a glass of champagne?”
Her throat was dry. “Yes. Thank you,” she managed to say huskily. He was so close to her. Couldn’t he see Beth in her eyes?
He smiled as he handed the glass to her, a winning smile designed to charm a woman he was meeting for the first time. “You have the advantage over me.”
His voice had deepened since he was fifteen. His tone was low, sexy, seductive. It had a mesmerising effect on her. She didn’t catch his meaning. “Pardon?”
“You know who I am,” he stated, his eyes subtly challenging her to deny it.
“Yes,” she admitted. Stupid to pretend otherwise. Her smile was wry. “I know many things about you. But that’s not really knowing you, is it?”
He laughed. It was a dark sound. Her skin prickled, instinct warning her to beware. This was not Jamie. This was very much a predatory male on the prowl.
“Media reports on me are usually slanted to suit the journalist,” he said mockingly. “Much better to do your own personal research.”
Blatant suggestiveness. Beth tried to push aside the disturbing physical element to satisfy some of her curiosity about him. “Do you ever let anyone into your private world?”
“I’ve just opened my door to you. Would you like to progress to, shall we say, a more intimate level?”
The sexual magnetism he was projecting took her breath away. Almost everything about him took her breath away. He was a head taller than she was, and she was above average height. His once slight and wiry physique was now solid with hard muscle, exuding masculinity.
His face no longer had a lean and hungry look. It was filled out in a strikingly handsome way, strong and firm, aggressively male, the brilliant intelligence in his dark eyes adding a dynamic quality that made it difficult to look away from him. His thick black hair was closely cropped, like a shiny helmet, emphasising a sleek animal appeal that was highlighted by his black leather jacket.
Beth found herself wondering whether his expertise as a lover would live up to the pulse-quickening promise of his looks. He was arrogantly confident of his attraction. No doubt he had every reason to be. But what did he deliver when it came to intimacy?
She sipped the champagne, giving her heart time to calm down while she considered how best to handle what was happening. It was totally outside any scenario she had imagined.
“Come now, don’t go shy on me,” he chided. “I much prefer spontaneity to calculation.”
Hard cynicism behind his surface amusement. The impulse to probe a little spurred her to ask, “Do you make a habit of picking up women on a whim?”
“No. I tend to be very selective. Consider yourself an exception to the rule.”
The hope that wouldn’t be stifled kicked through her heart. “Why make an exception of me?” Did he feel something? A faint thread of familiarity teasing his mind?
“I was bored with women in black. Your yellow suit caught my eye. Then you caught my eye. Are you going to tell me your name?”
She shook her head, knowing it would bring an abrupt end to this strangely piquant encounter. To tell him would shame her. If he didn’t feel it...
“What point is there in remaining a mystery woman?” His eyes narrowed. “Are you married?”
“No.”
“Attached?”
“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