Can't Get Enough (20 page)

Then he turned and leaned against the sink, trying to hazily recollect where he kept the aspirin these
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days. His eyes fell on the two empty bottles of tequila on the kitchen
table, and he grimaced. Why on earth had he chosen such a lethal
poison?

His gaze tracked to the left and he found himself contemplating a mess
of saucepans on the stove. Frowning, he stared at the congealed food:
mash, sausages, onions. And then memory flooded back and he closed his
eyes in sheer self-defense.

Claire. She came over because…that bit he couldn't quite grasp. But he
remembered her being hurt, remembered touching her face…Hell, he'd hurt
her. The memory of overbalancing in the bathroom was vague, but he got
the gist of it.

Great. He was such an asshole.

Hard on the heels of this revelation came another: he'd cried. He'd cried like a baby, like a little boy who'd lost his puppy.

Like a man who'd never grieved for his dead twin.

His first impulse was to writhe with humiliation. Of all the people to
witness his self-indulgence, Claire Marsden was almost the worst he
could imagine. Perhaps only Mike Tyson rated higher. But the memory of
being held and soothed in her arms washed over him then, and he could
almost feel her empathy and calm as she waited him out.

Maybe she hadn't been such a bad choice, after all. It didn't escape
his attention that after a long time of not daring to say Robbie's name
out loud, he'd chosen to tell her about his brother the other day in
the elevator. And now he'd blubbered all over her….

But try as he might, he couldn't find a way to reconcile himself to
such a display of emotion and helplessness. Way too revealing. Way too
emasculating. And he never cried. Never. Not at Robbie's bedside. Not
at Robbie's graveside.

Yet all it took was a few gallons of tequila and Claire Marsden and he
was howling like a pro. In case he'd forgotten, his headache stepped
things up a notch and he groaned. Before anything else, aspirin was
required. In large, industrial doses.

He headed to the far cabinet, but the feel of something soft and mushy
underfoot stopped him in his tracks. A dozen suggestions flitted across
his mind, none of them pretty, before he steeled himself to glance
down.

Mashed potato? He laughed with relief, and then sobered suddenly as the last jigsaw puzzle piece of memory slotted into place.

Claire Marsden , sans bra, sans attitude, all hot, wanton woman, on his
kitchen sink. It was enough to make parts of him salute with respect.

How in hell had that happened?

And—more importantly—why had it stopped? Because it had been good. Very
good. Even his tequila-soaked memory of it was good, very good. He'd
been determined to keep his distance after their
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last intimate encounter, sure that he'd made the right decision. But,
for some reason, he'd abandoned his game plan and succumbed again. It
was becoming something of a habit, in fact. A scary, addictive habit.
An accusation leaped to mind out of the blue.
You're drunk.

Only Claire Marsden could be responsible for the inflection he was
recalling so vividly. And, indeed, he had been drunk. Really, stinking,
rotten, putrid drunk. That probably explained his lack of impulse
control. And the dismal quality of his memory of the whole thing. He
cursed himself—at least if he wasn't able to repeat the experience in
reality, he should be able to repeat it in the privacy of his own mind.
His own messed-up, confused mind.

He downed a couple of aspirin and visited the kitchen faucet for one
last monumental watering before staggering back to his bedroom.
Throwing himself on the bed, he slung a protective arm across his eyes
and began regretting the last twenty-four hours in earnest.

He'd been feeling…well, he'd been
feeling,
bottom line. So he'd tried to drown it in a tequila bath. Or vat, more likely, given the way his head was throbbing.

Hell, when was the aspirin going to kick in? He groaned a little, just to compound his self-inflicted misery.

His eyes felt gritty, dry.
That would be from all the crying, you big girl,
he told himself in disgust. Why had he bawled in front of Claire? His
toes curled at the very idea of revealing himself so completely to a
woman who had already judged him and found him wanting, and he groaned
out loud again. If he was given the moment all over again, he might
actually choose Mike Tyson to witness his breakdown over Claire—that's
how much he regretted it.

Hard to regret the
other part of her visit, however. He'd wanted to touch her and taste
her again so badly. She'd been the elusive star of his erotic dreams.
And now the faint memory of the press of her body against his teased at
him. She'd been up for it. He could still feel her hands gripping his
shoulders, pulling him closer.

How had they leaped from mutual antagonism to mutual lust in the space
it took a drunken man to traverse his kitchen? And why did it keep
happening? First in the elevator, then the near miss with the stapler
and now this. When was he going to learn to stop playing with fire?

Even now, lying here hungover and messed up, he only had to think of
her to send blood rushing south of the border. It was as though he had
no control over his own carnal desires where Claire was concerned. He
didn't want to want her, every logical, rational brain cell argued that
she represented nothing but trouble. Yet his penis had very definite
views on the subject. He lifted his head and glared at the offending
organ.

"Down, boy. You have no idea what you're asking for."

One thing was for sure—Claire had regretted what had happened between
them almost instantly. If he closed his eyes, he could actually relive
her pulling her blouse closed across her bared breasts. He tried to
freeze-frame it on that bit of the memory, but it inevitably tipped
over into revealing the hurt and disappointment on her face as she
gathered herself together and headed for the door. And she was already
pissed at him for not calling her after their last encounter….
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More bad behavior such as this, and he'd be on every feminist hit list
in the country—and he could guarantee that Claire would never even
glance his way again. And that was a good thing, a really good thing.
Wasn't it?

CLAIRE STEPPED OUTof the shower, toweling her body roughly. It was
useless, however. No matter what she did, anything that touched her
skin reminded her of Jack's hands on her body. And it wasn't as if she
needed prompting to remember her ill-fated visit to Jack's home. For
starters, she had a huge, shiny black eye to mark the occasion. And
whisker rash on her neck from where he had…Well, it didn't really
matter what he'd done. It was more that she wished it all undone.
Please. She dropped the towel abruptly, padding out into the living
room. For a moment she simply stood there, aware that her back and most
of her legs were still wet. And that if she looked down, she'd see her
nipples were erect.

Damn Jack Brook!

And damn herself. She'd had a long, uninterrupted, sleepless night to
consider just how delusional she'd become over the past few days. She'd
come to the only sane conclusion: she'd put her hand into the wolf's
mouth, and he'd tried to bite it off. Twice. She shouldn't be surprised
that the wolf had acted according to instinct—that was what wolves did,
after all. But she had to wonder why she was traipsing around offering
herself up at every possible opportunity like an almost-out-of-date
platter of hors d'oeuvres.

That bit she hadn't been able to work out. She didn't know what was
going on inside her convoluted, messed-up mind at the moment. If
someone had asked her what she thought of her life and herself a few
days ago, she would have been able to say confidently that she was
happy, satisfied, settled. But today, at this moment, standing naked in
her apartment, she would respond very differently. Now she felt like
every certainty in her life was up for grabs. Hell, she wondered if she
even wanted to keep doing
Welcome Home.
But she couldn't for the life of her work out if that was because it
seemed now to be inextricably entwined with Jack, or because Morgan had
taken all of the glow and shine out of it for her. Or perhaps it was
both…

She also wasn't talking to her father, and probably wouldn't be for the near future. Truly, her life sucked.

She tugged her swimsuit crop top on, grimacing as the lycra clung to
her damp skin. This was her second-last weekend before the triathlon
final, and she had to focus. She hadn't trained for all these months
for nothing. She wanted to win. Jack and her messed-up feelings for him
didn't matter. Her father and the fact that he'd probably removed her
number from his Rolodex didn't matter. What she needed was some
punishing exercise, and that flashy memory-wiping thing Will Smith and
Tommy Lee Jones used in
Men in Black.
Then she could forget all the nice things she'd learned about Jack over
the past few days and consign the memory of his hands on her skin to
the dustbin of time. Nice idea. Shame about the reality.

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10

HE HAD TO APOLOGIZE. Somehow Jack had to stand in front of Claire and
apologize for crying on her then nearly molesting her. It was a
conclusion that was waiting for him, fully formed and unavoidable, when
he woke up for the second time that Saturday morning.

It wasn't going to be easy. Or pretty. But it had to be done.

He managed to push the consideration to the back of his mind during the
rest of the day, what with nursing the mother of all hangovers and then
catching up on all the work he'd let slide while he had his meltdown.
By the time night was falling, he'd come up with a raft of reasons for
putting it off, any time it swam to the front of his consciousness. For
starters, he didn't have her phone number. And, really, that sort of
thing should be handled face-to-face.

By midmorning on Sunday he admitted to himself that he wasn't going to
call her. He didn't know what to say. He hadn't asked her to come over
to his place. He hadn't asked to be trapped in the elevator with her.
And she had something on him now. She'd seen him cry, for Pete's sake.
Even his mother hadn't seen him cry since he was seven—and that was
only because he broke his leg in two places jumping off the roof of the
shed.

And—deep, dark honesty here—he felt too raw to face her just yet. He
wasn't quite sure why he'd let rip with all his grief for Robbie the
other night, but he was still sorting through it all in the back of his
mind somewhere. Maybe when he understood what had happened he would
know why he'd confessed all to a woman he'd barely known a week ago,
but who now held sway over most of his subconscious. Damn her and her
silky breasts. And damn the raging hard-on that kept rearing its
persistent head whenever he so much as thought her name.

Then it was Monday, and he couldn't put off the apology any longer. He
rehearsed a couple of very rational, mature explanations in his head as
he showered. Somehow, every scenario kept sliding to the same
conclusion—Claire, sans clothing, assuring him that one night of
unbridled, no-strings-attached sex with him was the only recompense she
could possibly accept for his shabby behavior. Like magic, the die-hard
boner that had haunted him all weekend was back. Jack groaned out loud.
He had to get this woman out of his system. The way he was going, he'd
walk into her office to apologize and Mr. Stiffy would want to join in.
No, it was time to deal with his body's stupid fascination with Claire.
Reaching down between his legs, he very deliberately pictured a sexy
blond woman he'd dated a few months ago. She'd had small, high breasts
and long legs….

But try as he might, the only face and body he could summon up out of
his subconscious was Claire's. A couple of hot encounters, and he was
turning into a stalker. Great. Especially when the chances of actually
achieving any kind of satisfaction again on that front were extremely
slim. She and he were about as compatible as…as chilies and ice cream.

Clenching his eyes shut, he tried to imagine anyone else—Angelina Jolie
, Halle Berry , Naomi Campbell…but no dice. Claire Marsden remained
centre stage in his brain. With a despairing groan he surrendered
himself to the demands of his body, giving himself up to the heat of
the shower and his dangerous fantasies. Undressing Claire again in his
mind's eye, he watched her face transform with desire,
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reveling in the little hiccup in her breathing when he bit gently on
her nipples. He could almost feel the weight of her breasts in his
hands, and the smooth curve of her butt as he lifted her and plunged
into her wetness. He imagined the feel of her skin beneath his hands,
and the slick, tight heat of her wrapped around him…

Too quickly he shuddered out his release, then sagged against the tiled shower wall.

"That's it," he told his rebellious body. "Now leave me alone." In a
feeble attempt to ease his way into an apology, he decided to go to the
trouble of dressing well. The iron was dragged out of its dusty
hidey-hole, and he even toyed with the idea—briefly, just briefly—of
wearing the tie she'd given him. But a man had his principles, after
all. Now he stood in front of his bathroom mirror and practiced a
smile. The man smiling back at him looked sick and insincere.

Great. He couldn't even fool himself.

He had planned on going straight to her office to apologize the moment
he got into work, kind of like swallowing his medicine really fast and
pretending he couldn't taste it. But he found himself diverting instead
to the foyer coffee shop. A good dose of caffeine, and then he'd be
ready. And he was not avoiding the situation. Not at all.

But somehow, when he got in the elevator he found himself punching the
button for his floor, not hers. He'd just check his e-mails, and make
sure there were no urgent phone calls. And then he'd do it. Definitely.