Off Limits / Ruled. Anne Marsh
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‘Jack...’
Her lips purse as I approach; her eyes flick to me in that way she has. How is it possible for one person to imbue a simple gesture with a measure of cold disdain even when there’s the hint of a smile somewhere in that symmetrical face of hers?
I hand her a glass of champagne and she takes it, her fingers briefly wrapping over mine. Immediately my mind puts them elsewhere on my body.
‘You remember Wolf DuChamp?’ she says. ‘He manages our accounts in New York.’
I remember his stupid name, but not the man himself. Nothing memorable about blond, pretty-boy looks and that air of Ivy League he seems to wear like a coat.
‘Sure.’ I extend my hand, knowing I have to meet the convention even when my body is singularly focussed on Gemma.
‘Good to see you again, sir.’
Gemma’s lips quiver. I hate being called ‘sir’ and she knows it. Out of nowhere I have an image of her saying it to me, bent at the knees, her eyes moving up my body to meet mine as her lips clamp down on my length. Okay, maybe in some circumstances I could make an exception...
What the hell am I thinking? These fantasies are one thing, but screwing Gemma cannot happen.
Cannot happen. Might as well get that tattoo added to my collection.
‘I was just explaining the software overhaul we’re looking at to Gem.’
Is he trying to piss me off? First of all by removing the very nice image I was enjoying by talking about software. And then by referring to Gemma as ‘Gem’—as though they’re best buddies who paint their nails together.
‘I’ll summarise it for you later,’ she says, sensing my impatience though I suspect not the reason for it.
‘It’ll make a huge difference to our operations,’ Wolf pushes.
‘Gem’ angles her body a bit, turning away from me, giving me a chance to escape.
‘I’ll look into the feasibility. The problem is going to be short-term. We’ll need to make sure the systems are protected during the transfer of data. You handle some of our most sensitive work—a data breach would be unacceptable.’
‘I’ve thought of that, too,’ Wolf carries on—and I am dismissed, it would appear.
Across the room a platinum blonde with a sensational rack and legs that go on forever is trying to catch my eye.
I want Gemma, but I can’t have her. And I’m not one to wallow in self-pity. There’s plenty of fish in the sea.
I have two rules when it comes to the women I fuck.
No commitment.
No redheads.
Commitment was for Lucy.
And Lucy was a redhead.
I freeze. A vision of Lucy is in front of me, a scowl of disapproval on her face. I messed around a fair bit before we met, but nothing like this. I’ve taken it to a whole new level and I don’t care. Except for that scowl. Even in death I don’t want to upset Lucy.
What did you expect, Luce? You left me a pretty big void to fill.
Don’t blame me, I hear her snap back. Your life. Your choice.
Yeah, right.
My eyes wander of their own accord back to Gemma. She’s got her head bent now, and Wolf’s fingers are typing something into his cell phone. She nods and smiles, then presses a hand to his forearm. My stomach rolls on a surge of emotion I don’t much care for.
I stalk towards the blonde as though she is the only woman in the room.
‘I’m Jack Grant.’
Her lips are painted a bright red. She purrs. ‘I know who you are.’
‘Then you have the advantage.’
Her lips part. ‘From what I hear, telling you my name wouldn’t serve much purpose. You won’t remember it tomorrow, right?’
I laugh, appreciating her honesty. ‘No...’ I lean forward so that my lips are only a whisper from her ear. My breath flutters her hair and I see a fine trail of goose bumps run across her skin. ‘But you’ll remember me for the rest of your life.’
Her laugh is husky. She’s everything I would usually find sexy, but in that moment she’s just passably acceptable. If I’m honest, I’m bored. It’s a phone-it-in flirt. A What the heck? situation.
‘We’ll see...’
‘Can I get you a drink?’
‘I can share yours,’ she murmurs, her eyes dropping to my champagne flute.
I didn’t even realise I was still holding it. I extend it to her on autopilot, watching as her lips shape over the glass and she tilts it back. The liquid is honey-gold. She passes the glass to me and I take a sip.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ she says, with a throaty laugh in the rushed words.
I nod, reaching down and putting a hand in the small of her back. Gemma and Lucy are both in my head now—a fascinating occurrence. A new occurrence. Are they ganging up on me? Would they even like each other?
Lucy was so soft and sweet. She looked at me like I was her saviour and I suppose I was. I ripped her out of her old life, away from a boyfriend who used her as a punching bag, and I made all her dreams come true.
But fate is a bastard of a thing, and it only had bad news in store for Lucy. For a while she managed to jump tracks and sit on a different train, and then—bam. It took her. You can’t outrun destiny, can you?
Gemma is nothing like her. Her personality isn’t so much hard edges as a single hard face. She is smart—smarter than me by a mile—and focussed in a way that is completely familiar to me. She is also sexy. I don’t know how I know that, but I do. She acts so damned cold around me—as though she’s never so much as heard of an orgasm, much less experienced one. It makes me want her more. Want to show her for the liar she is. To make her orgasm again and again until ‘cold’ is a very distant memory.
‘Jack.’
She catches me as I’m about to leave the room. Her eyes briefly meet the blonde’s. There is nothing beyond a polite acknowledgement of her existence. That iciness is there. I want to push Gemma backwards against the wall and kiss the hell out of her. Right here.
‘You’re scheduled to speak in twenty minutes.’
Whoops. Even for me that’s a bit of a slip. I don’t usually let anything get in the way of business—even my sex life.
‘We’ll be back by then.’
Blondie surprises us both. Her meaning is unmistakable.
Shit. I can’t remember the last time I had a quickie in the car. Is she seriously suggesting it?
Gemma shifts her attention to her phone. She runs that iPhone as though she designed the thing. Her fingers fly over the screen like it’s a part of her. Her complacency pisses me off.
‘Okay. The talk can be brief. Just an outline of what the foundation is hoping to achieve, thanking the commercial partners, yada-yada-yada.’
‘Yada-yada-yada?’ I grin slowly, my eyes linking with hers, daring her to forget the coldness and complacency.
She looks at Blondie and her smile is perfunctory. ‘Have fun.’
* * *
Of course Jack nails the speech. Not so much as a hair on his head looks out of place. The tuxedo is immaculate. The white shirt crisp. The bow tie in place as though glued. He speaks eloquently about the foundation and he also speaks with humour, so the crowd laughs.
I don’t.