“I’m going to kiss you,” he said, his hands gripping her back as his mouth came closer and closer to hers.
“Okay…” Any other words were cut off by his lips on hers, brushing with a lightness that made her tremble.
Then he increased the pressure, and her thoughts scattered like marbles. Excitement. Desire. Confusion. All colliding in a powerful burst of emotion, so that she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him back.
Their lips slid together, hot and moist and anxious, while Jack’s hands guided her hips against his, grinding them together.
Oh, yes. This was it. This was kismet.
This felt like everything she’d been waiting for, a surging of heat and excitement, as his tongue dipped into her mouth. He tasted like wine, smelled like aftershave, his chin chafing hers. There was no goof, no incorrect tiltage of head or nose, no awkwardness. There was only hot, thrusting tongue and more emotion, more tenderness, more questing than she could have ever expected on a first date.
They stood there, mouth against mouth, locked in passion, striving, reaching, yearning fully for that connection, that magic, that fantastical moment of anticipation, of understanding that this was special, this was going farther.
Until someone bumped Jack’s back, sending them stumbling backward. Jamie connected with the glass window of a kitschy T-shirt and souvenir shop, her head giving a resounding smack.
It didn’t hurt, but Jack pulled her quickly forward, his voice full of alarm. “Are you okay? Let me see.”
He dug around through her thick curls searching for damage while she tried to shake off the sexual haze she had been drowning in.
Jack had taken her to red-hot and raring to go in a heartbeat. She hadn’t reacted that intensely since…ever.
“I’m okay,” she said with a breathless laugh, enjoying the feel of his fingers gliding across her head. “I think my hair protected me.”
Jack dropped his hands. “Good.”
A man nudged past them and said in annoyance, “Get a room and get out of my way.”
Jamie looked at Jack in shock and giggled. Jack’s lip twitched.
“I’m sorry,” he said with a grin that clearly showed he wasn’t sorry.
“Sorry for kissing me?” If he said yes, she was going to collapse on the sidewalk in a puddle of disappointment.
“No.”
Before she could turn a triumphant cartwheel, he spoke in a sexy, low voice that made her rethink her stance on collapsing.
He said, “I’m not sorry for kissing you. I’m sorry I got interrupted.”
Oh, mama.
She was still against the window, and he was in front of her, large and damn good looking, very much a man. His leg was tucked between hers, and his broad chest was inches from her own.
He hesitated. “Do you…do you want to go somewhere private?”
The word came out on a ragged groan that set Jamie’s heart thumping like Indian drums. Of course she did. That was a no-brainer.
But whether she should was another story altogether.
She thought for exactly one-point-one seconds. “Okay.”
Maybe it was insane, maybe she would regret it, but right here, right now, with the thousands of neon lights flashing behind his head, Jamie wanted Jack in a way that she had never felt.
There was a knowledge deep down inside that come whatever of Beckwith’s prediction, this much was true. That she was meant to meet Jack, and that she would share a powerful connection with him.
That he would touch her soul.
In a sense, he already had.
He’d made her rethink her future, made her think that not everything was concrete, that she needed to be open to all possibilities.
That she needed to be open to Jack. Literally.
Dang, she felt herself blushing on the sidewalk. She was a total hussy and couldn’t even regret it.
“Thank you,” Jack muttered, straightening up in relief. “Yours or mine?”
Jamie felt a little faint and wondered if she had knocked her head harder than she had thought. She wasn’t an impulsive woman, yet here she was going home with a man after three hours of conversation. “I have two roommates.”
“Oh, hell, that won’t work.” He lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles, the feel of his lips on her skin sending a rush of heat to her abdomen.
“My place, then.” He smiled and tugged her off of the wall.
She couldn’t think of a single thing to say, just let him draw her against him. Even as his body felt hard and comforting and arousing, doubts crept in. She swallowed, fear rising up into her throat. She didn’t do this. She didn’t go home with men she had just met.
She didn’t have casual sex, didn’t have a wild bone in her body.
Jack’s face grew puzzled. “Do you know, Jamie The Klutz, that I have the strangest feeling that I’ve been waiting to meet you? That you were supposed to collide into me and my spaghetti.”
Before she could respond, he shook his head and grinned. “Damn, that sounds crazy.”
A group of preteens was walking by, jostling each other. The one closest to Jamie lost his balance and dumped half of his soft drink on their entwined hands. Jamie jumped at the sudden cold liquid splashing her.
“Sorry,” the kid mumbled, his friends laughing.
Jack took his shirttail and wiped her hand dry, dipping between her fingers with the fabric. “Maybe I am crazy and that was meant to be a cold shower of sorts.”
“I don’t think you’re crazy.” Jamie touched his bottom lip with her finger, heart pounding. “I know exactly what you mean.”
Fear disappeared.
For while Jamie didn’t believe in casual sex, she believed in fate.
“Let’s go, Jack.”
And his response was to turn around, raise his hand, and yell, “Taxi!”
Chapter 4
Jack didn’t know what the hell was the matter with him. He had just dragged Jamie off to his apartment in some caveman imitation. Or worse. Like a horny teenager.
But he hadn’t been able to stop himself. They had spent three hours in the restaurant, talking and laughing, and just enjoying each other’s company. They had a lot in common and more still not in common, but it didn’t matter. Being with her just felt right.
And his attraction had grown steadily every second, until he had been walking side by side with her, his hand on her smooth back, when the urge to kiss her had been overwhelming.
He hadn’t even told her his last name, for God’s sake.
Yet they were stepping out of the cab in front of his building in TriBeCa, and he was going to see this compulsion through to the end. He had been suffering through a twenty-four-hour hard-on because of this woman, and if the way she jumped out of the cab was any indication, she had been suffering something similar.