bare-bottomed beneath her dress, but she would not bare her heart to him. ‘What is it you want? Do you get a kick out of really making someone fall for you, make sure that they’re really head over heels and then the second they’re yours you dump them?’
Actually, yes, Jack thought, but decided it was better not to voice it.
Because it was different this time.
‘This is different.’ He settled for that.
‘Yes, it is,’ Nina said. ‘You don’t have to pretend this is going somewhere—neither of us do.’
‘I didn’t just come here for sex!’
‘Oh, so you didn’t bring condoms …’ Nina smirked when he didn’t reply. ‘Not to worry!’ She stood over him and kissed him again and his hands held her hips and then slid down to the hem and up her bare legs.
How could this not be enough? Jack reasoned. She matched him sexually and for the first time there was a woman not asking him to change, or where this was leading.
She dropped to her knees then pulled down his scrubs. Her head moved down with the intention to get him out of her office in the space of two minutes and Jack was actually offended. He had never turned down a blow job, had never thought he would, but as he pulled up her head and kissed her, he was, in fact, thoroughly offended.
This was different, his mouth insisted as he wrestled her to the floor.
This was so different, because his mouth was all over her and she was fighting him again. Not the sex, not the attraction, not the passion—she was trying to pretend it was just sex they were having as he was wrestling for her heart.
And she would not give it.
She kissed him back and when he reached into his scrubs for his wallet, again she smirked.
‘Told you!’
‘Damn it, Nina.’ He was getting cross and with women he never did. He just moved happily on when things got too much.
‘Shall I help you?’
He pushed her hand off.
He wasn’t just angry, he was jealous, but that didn’t quite fit, but her sexuality, her detachment, her oh, a quick orgasm will do, so let’s get it over with was really starting to get to him.
He prised open her legs with his knees and still she kissed him as he stabbed inside her, and she would not give in to him. It was the strangest of fights and as she lay there beneath him he stopped kissing her and lifted onto his elbows and just watched her face. And she decided that she would just give a little bit …
‘You’re coming out with me.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘you are. I’m taking you away this weekend …’ he was moving inside her ‘… and we’re—’
‘We can’t.’
‘We are.’
‘I’ve got Blake.’
God, at every turn she blocked him.
‘Sunday night.’ Still he moved deep within her.
‘I’m busy.’
‘I want more of you, Nina.’ He was moving too slowly and she wanted him rapid, wanted him near the end, because any more of this and she’d be crying. Any more of this and she’d be sobbing his name and begging for every piece of him.
So she writhed and moaned and said, ‘I’m coming …’ And she lay there faking it just to finish him.
‘Liar.’
He pushed in slower, harder and watched as the tears sprang in her eyes and the colour mounted on her face, as her hips started to lift. ‘Please stop.’ They both knew she wasn’t talking about the sex.
‘I want you, Nina.’
‘You’ve got me.’
‘I want more of you,’ he insisted, and now he moved faster.
And she gave in to her body then, her legs wrapping around him, her arms pulling him in and her mouth claiming his now because if she didn’t kiss him hard then she’d tell him she was crazy for him, that she wanted every second of this man. She captured his mouth so he would silence her and then he just exploded.
He moved so fast she couldn’t breathe and his moan when he came had her shouting his name when she should not have. It was Jack finishing just as she started and he relished every pulse till she faded.
And afterwards he looked down at her, looked right into her eyes, that smile on his face that said I told you so and the crush she’d had on him since first they’d met was at dangerous levels now.
Nina didn’t really trust anyone and only a fool would trust Jack Carter with their heart and Nina certainly wasn’t a fool—she’d seen and experienced far too much of life.
He was dizzy when he climbed off and lay there for a minute. It was Nina who had a very clear head.
She was not going to let him know how she felt about him; she looked over to where he lay with his eyes closed and decided that she’d save that piece for herself, because he was going to hurt her.
She knew it.
In two days or two weeks he would be out of here, and the only way she could carry on working alongside him was if he didn’t know he had her heart. There was a very small part of her that pondered, that allowed herself to think, what if? Except it wasn’t just about the two of them—Nina came with rather more baggage than most.
‘Thank you for a lovely break.’ She smiled at him and kissed him. ‘And now I really do have to work …’
She really did.
But Nina stopped for a cry a little bit later, because more than anything in the world she wanted her brother and sister, but she’d have also liked a little time to herself, to have said yes to Jack and be going away for a weekend, to just warm herself in the full spotlight of being Jack Carter’s lover.
For however long it might last.
NINA HATED GOING to court.
No, Nina hated going to court.
She dressed in her one court outfit and took more care than usual with her hair. Not that it mattered, because it got flattened by her hat as she battled the freezing rain, and when she arrived there and changed from her boots into her shoes, she was reminded again why she hated it so.
There was a ton of work to do back in her office; there were clients she really needed to see, but instead she spent most of the day hanging around court and drinking way too much coffee. When her computer battery died Nina gave up trying to work and read out-of-date magazines, and joy of joys, there was that Christmas one with the Carters on the cover.
She read the article with new eyes now.
Tried not to compare her life to his.
They were lovely people and so was their home.
Anna Carter was a gracious host, she read, who happily showed the reporter around.
Was she jealous as she glimpsed the sumptuous home Jack had grown up in? Or was she just bitter when she read about this close-knit family? How Jack Senior loved nothing more than a round of golf with his sons and that, yes, Anna couldn’t wait until one of her sons gave her grandchildren, which was, she confided, the only thing missing in her very blessed life.
She shouldn’t be jealous, Nina reasoned. That wasn’t what she was about. She didn’t want those sorts of things and, after