A Lover's Secret (8 page)

“Okay, you know how I said that there were certain things in
life I had never gotten to do, because I had immersed myself so deeply in
school?”

“Yes.”

“Well…”

“Jess, for God’s sake, what is going on? What do you need to
tell me?”

“I’ve… never been with a man.”

She snapped her head to meet his eyes. He blinked and
nodded, prompting her to continue.

“It’s not that I’m not ready or that I’m saving myself for
marriage, although I think at one point I was…I just, well, I haven’t gotten
around to it.”

To this, he laughed and then he took her by the hand, with
his gentle, skimming touch, and her body tingled from head to toe. “Well,
then,” he said, “This might be the ultimate adventure for us both. If it’s
right.”

He led her across the rooftop terrace, back through the
French doors, which he closed behind them. Then, simply by swiping his hand
along a touch screen panel, he drew the curtains and dimmed the lights. With
the press of his fingertip, a series of flameless candles blinked to life.

The air was perfumed with lemon and hints of ginger. She
felt her skin buzzing and she felt an opening, deep in the center of her, a
feeling she had never known before.

“Jess,” he said, low. “Do you know what I would love to do
for you right now?”

Her breath caught.

“I’d love to give you something. Something to help you know
you can trust me.”

She watched him, her lips parted slightly.

“I’d love to give you a simple massage,” he said, “Nothing
that will push you too far. Nothing that will make you do anything that you
would ever regret.” His lashes swept downward, and then he lifted his chin and
looked her straight in the eye. “I feel as though you’ve opened up to me, and I
want to prove to you that I deserve your trust.”

She nodded, holding his gaze.

 “Do you trust me?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered, her voice resonant and sure.

He took a single step backward. “I’m going to warm some
oils. Just undress for me, in the bedroom. Wrap yourself in a sheet, if you
like, and then lie back, on the bed, on your stomach, and try to relax. Your
only purpose is to be in the moment. To enjoy it. To capture each lovely,
fleeting sensation against your skin. Then to let it go and open yourself up to
receive the next.”

She did as she was told and when he returned to the room,
she allowed her eyes to flutter shut. She felt the warmth of his body, low,
near her feet, and he pushed on her heels and her soles, hard for a moment,
then whisper light, and then he moved to each toe, caressing the shaft and then
pressing hard on the pad.

She longed to feel his mouth on her skin, but he used only
his fingertips, spreading the warm, fragrant oil along her body, gently
slathering her, and then grinding into her muscles with his broad, strong
hands. He pressed on her calves and massaged the backs of her thighs, hard,
until she ached with anticipation.

After a time, he whispered, “Lie on your back,” and so she
turned and bared herself to him. She met his eyes then, and she could see his
desire. His breath came in bursts, and his chest heaved, in and out. He stared
into her eyes for a time, and then he sat back and kneaded the front of her
thigh muscles, pulling and massaging all the way to the top and then moving toward
her flat stomach. He squeezed at her waist, one hand on each side, and he bowed
his head low, so she could feel his breath hot on her navel. She closed her
eyes then and imagined herself floating on a vessel, on the open sea, rocking
back and forth on waves of pleasure. There was a desire in her now so fierce,
it was nearly torturous. How she longed to feel him inside her. To feel a man,
to feel Jake, inside her at last.

His hands were against her skin, everywhere. Sliding with
the oil, pushing against her. Sliding against her bare thighs. Faster and
faster. From out of nowhere, she felt an intense, primal building, and then a
magnificent crescendo. The intensity of the sensation shocked her, and she
cried out. Then a release. A relaxation so profound. She felt his breath
against her neck, a pinch against her earlobes and then there was only
slipping, ebbing, falling into drowsy depths.

***

Jake

Wow. He had never brought a woman to completion with a
simple thigh massage. Jess
was
going to be fun. He laughed to himself
and turned on his side to face her, to witness her breath moving in and out
while she slept.

For years, he had imagined going to bed with Jess Madigan.
He had dreamed of sharing what he’d always considered the ultimate intimate
moment with someone. But the moments he and Jess had just shared on the
balcony, the moments of conversation, where she had spilled her fears and her
secrets and her dreams—this had been far more intimate.

And now, following this, his desire for her was deeper than
anything he had ever imagined. How badly he had wanted to enter her, to feel
her encapsulating him, shielding him.

She was everything he had hoped, all these years. Yet she
was
more.
Kind. Open. Generous. Willing.

He gulped. She was too much, in fact. The last thing she
needed was a man like him. Especially now.

Maybe he should fly home. Right now. Nip all this. It would
circumvent Elizabeth from coming to find him. His heart began to race. Jess’s
peaceful face. Her full, pouty lips. That curtain of raven-black hair. How he
longed to slide his hand inside it. How he wanted to devour her. To slide
inside her and stay.

But he would have to settle on taking her away. For a brief
moment in time. He would take her on an experience she wouldn’t forget. That’s
all the next few days would be. His gift to her: A quick reminder of what life
was about, just as he had done for others. It didn’t have to be more than that.
It didn’t need to destroy either one of them.

But even as he thought it, he knew it wasn’t true.

Jess

Jess’s eyes blinked open and her head felt scrubbed clean.
She breathed deeply through her nose. She had never felt so content, so
blissful, so…completely disoriented. The air smelled of orange oil, of mandarin
and lime and other flavors besides. And she had no clothes on. Not a stitch.

Had it been a dream? That massage. Jake’s hands pushing up
and against her, her muscles taut, and then…She smiled and turned her head.
There he was, next to her. So close, she could smell him, that intimate scent.
It
was
peppery. Just as she’d remembered. He was sleeping on his side,
his hands near his face, as though he had drifted off while looking at her. A
sense of fullness bloomed in her chest. They were going to go somewhere today.
On an adventure that…what had he said? An adventure so magnificent it would
change the way she thought about herself. Her heart pounded and she felt her
face grow hot. How quickly life could change. She lay there for a time, simply
watching his chest rise and fall.

A soft rap at the door. How long had they slept? Was it
housekeeping already? She rose and went in search of a robe, catching her nude
reflection in the mirror. Her body, tiny but tight. Her breasts large and
pendulous. Her legs lean but muscular. She snagged a bathrobe from the hall
closet and wrapped it around herself, lifting the lapel high around her neck
and sniffing. Fresh, like cotton dried on a line.

The knock came again, a bit louder now, and Jake began to
stir. Jess cinched the robe tight at her waist and scurried, faster, to the
door. She would tell this person to go away, oh so politely, and then she would
wake Jake with a massage of her own and she would see where that would take
her. Never had she felt so free. So desirable, so desired. She laughed to
herself. Something truly
had
become unleashed, unzipped, she thought,
feeling the plush cotton of the bathrobe against her tender skin.

She cracked the door, expecting a woman with a loaded cart
and a pile of towels. Instead, she came face to face with a magnificent set of
breasts in an ice blue tank top. They belonged to the most perfect woman she
had ever seen. Lean and tall, a long neck, her perfect head tilted slightly
back. She had a wide, full mouth and quick, darting eyes, large and blue, and
hair that tumbled over her shoulders in thick, honey blonde waves. She moved
her eyes up and down the entire length of Jess’s body and then she flashed a
smile, showing a line of perfectly straight, white teeth.

“Hello. Is this Jake Lassiter’s room?” Her tone was honey
sweet with a tinge of…what? Disappointment?

Jess wasn’t sure what to say, so she crossed her arms and
said nothing, and her skin prickled with vulnerability, from her head to her
toes. This had to be the woman Monica and Andrew had told her about. From
People
magazine
. From
60 Minutes.

“It’s okay, honey. He’s expecting me,” the woman said.

“Are you…are you sure?” Jess stammered.
What was this?
Did Jake and this woman have some kind of understanding?
She had read about
this happening. She had seen these love triangles in her Psych rotation from
time to time. Was everything Jake said to her, last night…was it all just a
line?

“Oh, he’s most definitely expecting me.” The woman drew her
lips back in a tight line. She had clearly made her own assumptions about what
Jess was doing there, naked but for the hotel-issued robe. Was Jess just one of
many naked robed women she’d seen? Was this just how things worked for them?
Was this just part of living fast and free?

“Is Jake still sleeping?” the woman was asking.

“I… I think so.”

“Well, by no means are you to wake him. Come and sit with me
until he wakes up.”

“Pardon?”

The stranger sat and patted the cushion next to her on the
sofa. “I slept at the airport last night, so forgive me if I drift off.”

Jess imagined, then, Jake waking and padding out of the
bedroom, naked, sidling himself on the arm of the sofa and leaning his face
toward this perfect woman, kissing her hello. To think, just a few moments
before, Jess had planned to seduce him.

She looked at the floor, embarrassed by the thoughts and
images and fantasies that had been running unbridled through her mind. The
woman closed her eyes for a moment. Then she flicked her eyes toward where Jess
was still standing, clinching her bathrobe closed.

“So, do you know this Andrew character?” she asked.

Jess was silent, her mind racing to formulate a response.
This
Andrew character?
 

“This…Andrew Madigan,” Elizabeth prompted. “The guy who got
married.”

“Yes, I know him.”

“Well, did he have a good time at his little party?”

“I guess so. Yes I think so.”

“That’s good. Mission accomplished I guess, then.” She
inhaled fully and closed her eyes once more, leaning her head against the back
of the couch.

So that’s, in truth, what Jake had come here for. The stupid
bachelor party. She had been an afterthought.

The woman popped her eyes open again. “Were you…uh… one of
the wedding guests?” She wore a disdainful smile. Jess wanted to tell her that
she had it all wrong. That she wasn’t that kind of person at all. The kind of
person who would spend the night with someone she barely knew. But here she
was, standing in nothing but a robe in Jake Lassiter’s penthouse suite.

She wondered if Jake had also spent some time with Kelly’s
sister after the wedding. She wondered how often, in a single day, Jake got
what he wanted. She wondered how she could have possibly been so gullible to
think that Jake had singled her out.

“Do you not talk…or what’s your deal?” the woman was saying.
“I mean, yes, I know it’s awkward, you just spending the night with Jake and
then here I show up before you’re even dressed, and I apologize for that. It’s
just….he made me a promise, and I’m holding him to it.”

Of course she was.

Jess made a move to back away, to return to the bedroom. To
get dressed. What she wanted to do was to run. Straight out the door, never
looking back.

“Really. Don’t wake him,” the woman repeated. “Please.”

Jess wanted to die. She wanted the floor to open and suck
her in. This was exactly what Grandma had warned her about. This was how it
went with the rich and famous in L.A. They just jumped in and out of bed with
one another. Supermodels. Everyone. And now here Jess was…unleashed—unzipped,
in more ways than one.

Jess gulped.

“Listen,” the woman said, “I can tell I’m making you
uncomfortable. So, just tell me, has Jake… told you anything?”

Come to think of it, Jess thought, he hadn’t said more than
a dozen words all night. Jess shook her head tentatively.
Told her what?

“Okay then. When he wakes, I just need to chat with him for
a little while, and I’ll need to do it here, in the room. Alone. So, when he
finally rouses, just let him know that Elizabeth is here.” She enunciated her
name very clearly, as through Jess were a young child. “And then, when it’s
time, you’ll just need to find somewhere else to be. Okay? Just for, say,
twenty minutes. Thirty minutes, tops.”

Elizabeth stood and made her way to the door, still
clutching her bag. “Now, again, please don’t wake him. He’ll be angry if you
do.”

Angry? Evidently, this Elizabeth character knew a side of
Jake that she did not. Which Jake was real?

“But don’t forget. Tell him Eliz-a-beth is here. He’ll know
what to do.” Then she winked at Jess and turned, sashaying toward the elevator.

***

How could she have been so stupid? So gullible? Her chest
constricted; her fists made tight balls. How could she have let herself get
talked into coming here? Now she would need to explain to Grandma and to Monica
where she had spent the night. Everyone would make a federal case of it. When
Grandma realized that Jess wasn’t just out for her morning run, she would get
worried and then she would probably call Monica and Andrew and Kelly, and they
might even call the police. She should have left a note or something. For God’s
sake, she was twenty-six years old. But that didn’t mean her grandmother
wouldn’t report her missing. She had never done anything like this before.

Oh, what had she done? She wanted to wake him. To pounce on
him. To throw herself on him and to demand an explanation. Instead, she
scrambled back to the bedroom, clutching tight at the top of her robe. Seeing
him there, the lump under the blankets, she felt a flutter of desire deep
inside, which triggered another wave of anger toward him—and toward herself.
What had she been thinking? She moved quickly, snapping up her stretch pants.
Her bra. Her breath caught. She had let him see all of her....

“Hey beautiful.” His voice was gravely, filled with sleep.
“What are you doing? Don’t get dressed. Not yet. Come in here, next to me. It’s
warm.”

Her heart beat in her face, in her chest and in her head.
“Somebody named Elizabeth came by,” she burst out. “She says you’ll know what
to do.”

“She came by
here?”

“Yep.”

“Shit.”

That’s all he had to say?

He pressed his palms to his eyes. “She’s early.”

“Is she now?” Jess yanked her shirt from the floor.
How
could she have been so stupid? So trusting?

“Where are you going, Jess?”

“To leave you with…Elizabeth.”

“Oh, no. No. No. It’s not what you think.” He sat now, his
eyes darting around the room, following her every move.

“And what do I think?”

“Actually, I don’t know. I don’t believe in jumping to
conclusions.”

“Oh, I forgot how wise you are,” Jess sputtered. “Is that in
your little book?”

“Yes, it is, as a matter of fact. So why don’t you tell me
what you think?”

“Well, to start with, I think she’s insanely beautiful.”

“That she is,” he said, smiling. Like this was all a game.

“
And
I think you let me spend the night with you when
she spent the night in the airport, coming to find you.”

“That’s probably true, too.” He nodded. “But she and I.
We’re not together.”

“Right.”

“We’re not.”

“Who is she then?”

He sighed and raked his hands through his hair. When he
didn’t respond, Jess opened the closet door wide and stood behind it, so she
could get dressed without him looking on.

“We’re….colleagues.”

“Sure you are.”

“We
are
. In a manner of speaking.”

“Okay, does she live with you?”

“As a matter of fact, we do share an address. But, again,
not what you think.” His voice was muffled, strained. “We do need to have a few
minutes, I suppose, Elizabeth and myself. We’ll take care of some important
business and then you and I can start our little adventure.”

She peered around the closet door.

“She said you need to be alone to do your
business
.”

“Yes. That is true.”

“So, if it’s just business, why can’t I stay?”

Jake cleared his throat. “Well, for one, because…because you
need to trust me.”

“Jake. I’ve never trusted a man in my life, remember? I
think it was one of the many things I told you last night.”

“Okay, I know. But you can trust
me,
and I am going
to take you on the trip of a lifetime, starting this afternoon. After my
meeting with Elizabeth.”

The closet door slammed shut.

“Listen, just slow down, Jess. It’s really nothing. It’ll be
taken care of in twenty minutes.”

He stood now, fully nude, and approached her. She tried not
to look at him, but he was so beautiful. Those herculean shoulders, that
smoothly muscled chest, those tanned, well-defined abs. “Just, why don’t you go
home and get your things,” he said. “Pack your bags. Get your passport. By the
time you get back, Elizabeth and I will be…finished with what we need to do,
and she’ll be gone. Trust me.”

“I told you I don’t have a passport.”

“Right, right. Just…get what you need to get. Just, you
know… for a while. A weekend maybe. That’s probably all I can be away.”

“Unless Elizabeth tells you otherwise?”

“You really need to stop, Jess.”

“Well, what am I supposed to think?

“I don’t know. But I do know one thing,” he said, looking to
her and holding her gaze.

“What’s that?”

“I know that last night was the best night I’ve spent with a
woman.”

Okay now he was going to make fun of her? Mock her? She
rolled her eyes.

His hands clapped down on her shoulders. “I’m not kidding,
Jess. What we shared. What you shared with me. I can’t let you go and not come
back. I’m going to have the driver take you and then wait for you. While you
pack.”

“No. Don’t.”

He continued as though he hadn’t heard. “And when you get
back, Jess, I’m all yours. All of me.” He flashed his most smoldering smile.
“Trust me.”

***

Elizabeth

Judging by his text message, Jake was not so very pleased
with her sudden appearance.

“Come up. Let’s get this over with.”

She was just doing her job. At some level, he had to
understand that. But facing him, back in his suite, it was pretty clear that he
wished she didn’t do it so well.

 “I’m leaving again. With her,” Jake announced curtly when
she arrived.

“Seriously? You can’t come home for awhile?”

“Nope.”

“We never should have chosen you for this project, Jake.”
Elizabeth tapped her fingers against the side of her leg. “We should have
known.”

He shrugged. “Maybe you should have.”

“But it’s too late to pull you off now.”

He was silent.

“So do you plan to tell her? This woman you’re traveling
with,” Elizabeth asked. “That would probably help your situation, if anything
were to go wrong.”