His mouth felt dry.
“You’ll be wanting this,” she said.
He stared at her. Her voice had that same husky note to it that he had noticed in the car.
Note to self, he told himself, do not give Jessica Winton cognac ever again.
If he told her to just put the jacket down, she was going to know she was having an effect on him.
It seemed imperative that she not know that, that he maintain the balance of power.
He sauntered back to her, held out his hand for the jacket.
She placed it in his hand, and then moved in close to him.
“I can’t thank you enough for today,” she said. “It is the closest I’ve ever come to having a perfect day.”
He reflected on that. They hadn’t done anything very spectacular. He, on the other hand, had done spectacular things. He had experienced days that could be called perfect; skiing in St. Moritz, snorkeling off the Kona Coast, trekking in South America. He had been to the final game of the World Series, not once, but twice, and been on a photo safari in Mozambique.
And yet, looking at Jessica, it suddenly seemed as if she was correct. Everything else in his history paled in comparison to today.
She moved toward him. Her intent was obvious. She was going to kiss him. He presumed on the cheek, one of those nice thank you busses that his mother gave him after they had experienced a lovely outing.
He wasn’t quite sure what changed: the position of his cheek or her intent.
Because the sweetness of Jessica Winton’s lips missed his cheek entirely. And connected with his mouth.
For the first fragment of the first second, he might have had the power to move.
But then he was lost.
Her mouth was as sweet as a strawberry that had ripened under the sun. Her kiss transported him to the mountains from where she came. She had a taste to her, what he imagined the fine spray of water cascading over a rock would taste like.
He had deluded himself that he had some knowledge of what a perfect moment was.
Because it was not until the softness of her lips sought his that Jamie knew, fully, completely, unequivocally, exactly what perfect was.
He was in the thrall of something now. For a man who had always prided himself on self-control, he would chide himself—later—for how quickly his had dissolved.
Because suddenly it was just him and her.
The whole world was only him and only her.
There was no tony address in Central Park South telling him he’d arrived, there was no thrum of the city outside his window, there was no great job, holidays to plan for, new and heady successes to achieve.
It felt as if he had lived all of that for this single arrival.
Her.
Jessica’s mouth opened against his, soft, moist, beckoning him yet deeper into the enchantment that was her.
Far in the back of his brain, some rational part, called to him. Wrong time. Wrong place. Wrong woman.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
But the primal part of his brain was having none of it, crying, just as loudly.
Right. Right. Right.
He lifted his hands to the sides of her face, bracketed it, looked into her wide eyes for permission, which he found. He dropped his mouth over hers, explored the willing, beguiling sweetness with increasing urgency.
He let his hands move, he let them tangle in the silk of her hair, and he pulled her more closely to him.
It was her whimper of pure pleasure, discovery, someone who had never quite experienced this depth of passion before, that brought Jamie harshly to his senses. When she had told him about her fiancé, for one crazy moment in time he had wanted this. He had wanted to be the one to awaken this in her. That was why he hadn’t backed away from her invitation when he should have.
It was greedy and selfish and unconscionable. He had known this woman just a little over twenty-four hours. Of course sometimes, in his world, things progressed quickly.
But not in hers.
He yanked back from her and stepped away, watching her, utterly appalled with himself. She was not a woman from his world. She was not anything like any woman he had ever taken out before.
As he watched, he could see her breath was rising, moving too quickly in and out. Her eyes were wide. Her lips looked thoroughly kissed.
Both her eyes and those altogether too tempting lips begged for more.
“I’m sorry,” he managed to choke out.
“Sorry?” she whispered, as though he had insulted her.
“Yes, sorry,” he reiterated firmly. “I can’t imagine what I was thinking. That was completely inappropriate.”
She nodded, once, biting the lushness of that lower lip.
He was pretty sure, watching her work that lip, that his strength had never been tested quite like this before.
“Good night,” he said, his voice a rasp of pure need. He turned away from her before he broke and ran back to her, swept her up in his arms, finished what he had so foolishly started.
He managed to get in his bedroom and close the door. He leaned against it and shut his eyes.
But it didn’t matter that his eyes were shut. All he could see was her lips.
CHAPTER SEVEN
JESSICA FOUND HER way to her room in a daze. She realized she was humming “The Point of No Return” from the musical. But when she lay down in her bed, Daisy’s song replaced it inside her head. “Nothing is Impossible.”
She realized, mutinously, she did not care if Jamie thought that kiss was inappropriate. For her, it had been the perfect ending to an absolutely perfect day. She hoped she would dream of his lips on hers, and she did wake in the morning with a lovely sense of bliss.
She chose her outfit carefully from her purchases from Hennessey’s. Today would be all business and she dressed for that in the pencil line skirt, the white blouse, the flat shoes. But at the last moment, she undid a button
