Awaken to Pleasure - By Nalini Singh Page 0,6

let her lighten the mood, giving her space. For now. "You think something's wrong with my ambience?" Stepping out, he found her standing beside her door like some sort of disheveled fairy wrapped in tartan.

She wrinkled her nose at him. "When I'm no longer in danger of turning into an icicle, I'll tell you."

Biting back his first real smile for a year, he led her out of the garage, through the converted basement which he used as a gym, and up to the first floor of his home. "Bathroom's upstairs on the right." He pointed to the stairs leading up from the living room. "There should be fresh towels on the rails. I think the cleaning service came today. I'll find you a robe and throw it through."

"Don't peek." She started to struggle up the stairs, trying not to trip on the blanket she refused to release, an empress giving an order to a lowly servant.

Shaking his head at her impudence, he dropped his keys on a table in the living area and walked into his study.

Ignoring the blinking message light on his phone, he placed a call to the Auckland Police Station. As usual, Detective Cole McKenna was pulling the graveyard shift. AfterJacksonexplained the matter to one of the few men he trusted implicitly, Cole swore creatively under his breath.

"Your lady doesn't want to press charges?"

Jacksonthought aboutTaylor's attempts to brush off the entire incident. "I'd like to take care of it without pulling her into something messy."

"Yeah, that's what I figured. I need a diversion from paperwork anyway. Let's see - Donald Carson, Project Director atDracena Medical." He tapped some keys. "Got him. I think3:00 a.m.sounds like a good time for a visit."

Jacksonitched to face Carson himself but he'd made a promise and if he saw the man, he'd surely break it. "Thanks."

"I'll swing by your place and drop off yourTaylor's purse when I'm heading off shift, just after six."

Yes,Jacksonthought, she was his . "I don't want Taylor to start thinking I'm about to get arrested so leave the black and white at the station," he joked, trying not to let his frustration at being unable to act himself seep into his tone.

Cole chuckled, seeing through him. "Lady must be something special if you're trying to behave."

They hung up on that note. His tension easing now that he'd done something about the man who'd dared to hurtTaylor, he quickly played back his messages. All four were from very smart people, including his mother, wanting something.

The demanding note in his mother's voice wasn't unusual. A rising star when she'd inconveniently fallen pregnant with Jackson to AnthonySantorini , her husband at the time, Liz Carlyle had had neither the time nor the inclination to raise her son. She'd saved that for his half brotherCarlton, born almost ten years later.

As for Anthony, the celebrated director's paternal instincts had finally kicked in nine years afterJackson's birth, when he'd sired Mario closely followed by Valetta, with wife number three.

However, now thatJacksonwas a success, both Liz and Anthony preferred to forget that the closest they'd ever come to parenting him was writing checks for boarding schools and nannies. Neither had any compunction against using family ties to solicit his help. Frowning, he noted the details of the messages before erasing them. He'd take care of their requests later.

After he took care ofTaylor.

Heading upstairs, he passed the closed door of his admittedly huge bathroom and entered his bedroom, knowing he had an unused robe someplace. Except when he reached the closet, he picked out his favorite.

The instant she shut the bathroom door,Taylordropped the blanket and started removing her damp clothes, pausing only to place her cell phone in a safe spot. Clipped to the waistband of her pants, it hadn't disappeared with Donald. The small change in her pockets clinked as she dropped her pants to the floor - forgotten from an earlier purchase, the money would have been just enough for the bus.

She noted the sunken spa to the left but headed straight toward the shower. Encased in glass, it had an enormous amount of space, the fixtures steel and glass. Obviously, it had been custom-built for someone much bigger than her.

Immediately, her brain bombarded her with images of Jackson's muscled bulk in the shower, his arms bulging with strength as he did things to her in the watery enclosure that were surely not anatomically possible.

"Even if they were, you're such a coward that you'd run a mile if he tried."

With