And yet, somehow, she still wasn’t sure what her next step should be…and she hated herself for it.
But just because she was horribly afraid he was going to hate her, too, that was no excuse for ignoring the two-thousand-pound elephant in the room. She’d never been a coward and she wouldn’t start now, not when she had far too much respect for Jack to willfully hurt him.
“You mean so much to me,” she began in a soft voice as she twisted the napkin on her lap, “and last night was incredible.”
Her breakfast table was small enough that he could easily reach for her hand. “Being with you made it the best night of my life,” he told her, his voice gentle and sincere. “But that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten what you said about taking it one day, and one night, at a time. Or about keeping what’s between us just for us to know about.”
In her experience, men heard what they wanted to hear, regardless of what she actually said to them. She’d been pretty sure by now that Jack was different, but after what they’d just shared, what man wouldn’t have assumed she’d changed her mind about going slow and not mixing up business with pleasure if they could help it?
“I haven’t forgotten what you said, either, about wanting more than one night.” Even though he didn’t look at all angry with her, she felt terrible about taking what he’d offered when she herself had given him so little in return. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, why I—”
“There’s nothing wrong with you.” He tugged her onto his lap and said, “You make me happy. Happier than I’ve ever been.”
His sweet acceptance of her just the way she was made her heartbeat settle and the knot in her stomach uncoil. Framing his face in her hands, she told him the one thing she knew for sure.
“You make me happy, too.”
Chapter Fourteen
The next few days followed in a blur of meetings and promotional activities, while the nights were a dazzling rush of sweet and sinful lovemaking. Somehow, Jack managed to keep his promise to Mary, not only about keeping their relationship a secret but by holding back the one small but very meaningful word that was burning a hole inside of him.
Love, his mother had once told him, might not always be easy, but whatever struggles or pain that might come with it, true love was always worth it.
Jack had seen the truth of that in his parents’ marriage. Now he understood that for all these years he’d been waiting for Mary. She was his destiny. And whether or not she was ready to accept it yet, he was hers.
But just because they were meant to be together, he knew better than to think he could simply sit back and let things take their natural course. He wanted to give her everything—not just pleasure but romance, too. Apart from that first evening in the diner, he’d never taken her out on a date. And though they’d been extremely busy working on the campaign, that was a poor excuse.
Tonight, no matter what, he’d give her not only flowers but memories of more than passion and heat, too.
When Mary let him in that evening, she was so beautiful and she tasted so good that he nearly forgot his plans for the evening. Her eyes widened at the red poinsettia plant in the green-painted pot that he was holding out to her.
“You bought me flowers,” she said, slightly stunned.
They’d shared the ultimate intimacy, yet he found he was nervous as he held out the flowers. “I was going to get you roses, but when I saw this, I immediately thought of you.”
She took the pot from him and admired the large flowers. “When I was a little girl, there were hundreds of these plants all over town at Christmastime.” She lifted her gaze to his again, wonder in them as she asked, “How do you always know me so well?”
He prayed that she already knew the answer…even if he’d promised not to speak those words of love aloud until she was ready to hear them.
“I should find a good spot for this,” she said. But instead of moving into the living room, she simply put the pot down on the floor, then pulled him toward her and pushed the door closed behind him. Her lips found his, and then she was raining kisses from his mouth to his jaw, before nipping seductively at his earlobe. “I missed you today,” she told him between kisses. “So much.”
He’d made plans to give her romance, and Jack Sullivan always followed through on his plans…but how could he possibly keep his hands from roving down her curves?
“I don’t just want you for your body,” he told her as he tried to keep hold of the reins long enough to take her out for some long-overdue wooing. “I want to give you a romantic evening tonight.”
Her eyes flared with surprise and obvious pleasure at his intention, but when she lifted one leg and wrapped it around his thighs and kissed him again, Jack realized that for the next few minutes he had no choice but to completely give up the tenuous control he had over himself.
His hands dove into her hair as he crushed her mouth beneath his. Together they moved just far enough inside to sink down onto the soft rug in front of her Christmas tree. She pulled off his sweater and he untied the sash around the waist of her dress. His belt buckle opened at the same time silk slid from her shoulders. He got the clasp of her bra to come free just as she gave up on the final buttons of his shirt and yanked it open.
They rolled together on the rug with Mary on top, straddling his hips as she pressed hot kisses all across his chest. But moments later he was the one moving over her, his hands stroking her body so that she was crying out with pleasure. There was no rhythm to their lovemaking tonight, no plan, no goal as both of them followed their wild—and loving—instincts.
* * *
They were lying side by side on the rug, her hand in his, when he told her again, “I had plans for us tonight.” He was still trying to catch the breath she’d stolen from him.
Post-climax, her eyes were hazy but still filled with wickedness as she informed him, “So did I.”
He grinned back at her. “Clearly.” But when he was helping her back onto her feet, he couldn’t stop his eyebrows from going up in shock. “Ruining your dress wasn’t in my plans. Forgive me?”