Scandal In The Spotlight: The Couple Behind the Headlines / Redemption of a Hollywood Starlet / The Price of Fame

‘You took your time.’

Jack’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. Was that what was annoying her? The fact that he hadn’t come looking for her the minute coffee had been served? Was she really that high maintenance? ‘I got waylaid by someone wanting to invest in one of my funds.’

‘Oh.’ Her gaze jerked to his and he saw something flash in her eyes. Something that looked a little like relief and Jack inexplicably felt like grinning. Imogen might be hard work at times, but he had no doubt she’d be worth it.

‘And you didn’t exactly make it easy by hiding out here.’

‘I wasn’t hiding.’ She sniffed. ‘I was merely taking a little time out to think.’

‘About what?’

‘Things.’

‘Where I was being one of them?’

She flushed. ‘Possibly.’

‘And what conclusion did you draw?’ he asked, intrigued because whatever it was she’d been thinking about it was highly likely to be the cause of her frostiness.

‘It occurred to me you might have been … how shall I put it … otherwise engaged.’

‘What?’

‘Oh, nothing,’ she said with an airy wave of her hand. ‘It’s irrelevant now anyway. Have you had a pleasant evening?’

His smile tightened a little at the thought of the ordeal he’d had to endure so far this evening and still was. Pleasant was not the word he’d have used. ‘Not particularly.’

‘Oh?’ She raised her eyebrows and regarded him coolly. ‘From where I was sitting it looked like you were having a whale of a time.’

‘Believe me, I wasn’t.’

‘The blonde virtually sitting in your lap certainly looked as if she was enjoying herself.’

Jack frowned. What on earth was she talking about? What blonde? There hadn’t been a blonde.

Unless she meant Jessica.

Jack went still as the memory of his mother’s overblown behaviour at dinner flew into his head. She did mean Jessica.

As realisation dawned he felt like laughing because if he wasn’t mistaken Imogen was jealous. It wasn’t an emotion he’d ever experienced himself, of course—that weird tightening of his body when she’d told him she’d once gone out with Max had been nothing but surprise—but he could recognise it in others.

‘Ah, the blonde,’ he said, feeling the tension ease from his shoulders as he leaned forwards and, unable to resist any longer, wrapped his hand around her ankle and slid it up her bare calf.

With a sharp gasp Imogen snatched her legs away and clutched the edges of the lower half of her dress together.

‘Don’t think you’re going to get out of this by virtually sitting in my lap,’ she said tartly, although, with her breath catching the way it was, it didn’t come out as tartly as he imagined she’d have liked.

‘I’m not trying to get out of anything,’ he said, grinning. ‘But I can see how it must have looked.’

‘Really? I’m surprised you could see anything at all what with that cleavage constantly being shoved in your line of sight.’

‘Jessica can be a little over-demonstrative at times.’

‘A little over-demonstrative?’ said Imogen. ‘Hah. I’ve never seen anyone so tactile. Honestly, it was appalling. All that pawing and leaning over you. I’m surprised she didn’t have a wardrobe malfunction.’

Jack’s grin widened as he watched her eyes flash and colour rise in her cheeks. ‘Yes, well, I don’t think it was quite as bad as that, but she’s always been on the tactile side. It’s part of her whole “dahhhling” persona. It drives me insane but, seeing as she’s the one who wangled me the space at her table, it seemed rude to cause a scene.’

Imogen scowled. ‘Do the two of you have history?’

‘You could say that.’

She harrumphed. ‘And a future?’

‘Unfortunately, that, too.’

‘Well, then, don’t let me keep you.’

‘You aren’t,’ he said, sitting back, stretching his legs out and crossing them at the ankles as he looked at her. ‘My mother’s currently strutting her stuff on the dance-floor with her latest boyfriend and I doubt she could care less what I’m up to.’

For a moment Imogen thought she must have misheard. That, despite being so cross with him she’d been so caught up in white-hot jealousy, so thrown off balance by the searing jolt of electricity that had shot up her leg when his hand had caressed it, that she’d completely lost the plot.

Either that or he was joking.

But Jack didn’t look as if he was joking. Far from it. His expression was one of faint distaste and the blue of his eyes looked strangely flat.

In the long seconds of silence that stretched between them, all she could do was stare at him in astonishment while he looked unwaveringly back. The strains of music coming from the ballroom and the distant buzz of conversation barely registered as the realisation that he was one hundred per cent serious dawned.

‘Your mother?’ she said once she’d regained the power of speech.

Jack grimaced, his eyes dark and unfathomable. ‘I’m afraid so.’

‘That was your mother?’

‘So she claims.’

‘But she can’t be.’ She thought of her own mother, who was in her fifties and favoured tweed. Her mother, who was happiest on her knees in a flowerbed, trowel in hand, and wouldn’t be seen dead with a neckline that plunged to her navel or a hemline that skirted her buttocks, let alone shaking her groove on the dance floor.

Jack let out a deep sigh. ‘That’s what I’ve wished for many times over the years, but she is, and unfortunately there isn’t a thing I can do about it.’

So many questions raced around her head that she didn’t know where to start. ‘But how …?’

‘Oh, the usual way, I should imagine.’

‘I mean she looks about twenty-one.’

‘I’ll tell her you said so. She’ll be delighted.’

‘How old was she when she had you?’

‘Sixteen.’

‘Crikey.’ She paused. ‘And how old are you?’

‘Thirty-three.’

Imogen did the calculation, then blew out a breath. Jack’s mother might not be twenty-one, but she was spectacularly, and no doubt expensively, well preserved. ‘Goodness.’

His eyes glittered. ‘Quite.’

She blinked. ‘Well, I must say, I’m speechless.’ And more relieved than she could possibly have imagined.

‘Good, because I don’t particularly want to talk about my mother.’

That was a pity because she did. She really ought to have given in and searched him on the Internet, because she’d bet her entire shoe collection that it would all be there. ‘No?’

‘No.’

‘But—’ There was so much more she wanted to know. Who was his father? Who’d brought him up? What had his childhood been like? How did he feel about having a mother who behaved like that?

‘I said no.’

And presumably just in case she was thinking of pressing the point, which she was, Jack sprang to his feet and, taking hold of her elbows, pulled her out of the chair and up into his arms. Barely before she could work out what was happening he was winding her arms around his neck, then hauling her tight against him and lowering his head to capture her mouth with his.

The minute their lips melded and tongues met, Imogen was lost. As ways of shutting her up went, she thought a second before her brain addled, this one was pretty effective. No doubt exactly as he’d intended, all traces of her idiotic jealousy and every drop of curiosity about his mother vanished in a wave of lust.

‘That dinner was agony,’ she mumbled when Jack broke for breath.

‘I’m sorry you got the wrong impression about Jessica,’ he muttered, trailing a series of hot kisses along her jaw.

Imogen shivered. ‘It wasn’t just that.’

He lifted his head to shoot her a quizzical glance before turning his attention to her ear lobe. ‘What else was it?’ he muttered.

‘I kept thinking about that broom cupboard.’

She felt his mouth curve into a slight smile against her skin. ‘You, too?’

Biting her lip to stop herself from whimpering, Imogen whispered, ‘How did you know about it?’

‘What?’

‘How did you know it was there?’

‘Sign on the door.’

‘Oh,’ she said on a shuddery sigh, her head falling back to allow him better access to her neck. ‘How did you know it would be unlocked?’

‘I didn’t. Just got lucky.’ He paused. Lifted his head and stared down at her, his brows drawing together in a faint frown. ‘That’s what you were thinking about? The extent of my knowledge of the whereabouts of hotel broom cupboards?’

‘A bit,’ Imogen said, bringing her head back up and fervently hoping he wasn’t going to ask her why, because having to explain would certainly kill the moment. So she gave him what she hoped was a mind-boggling smile and deliberately seductively said, ‘What about you?’

Which, judging by the glint that appeared in his eyes, worked beautifully. ‘Nothing so complicated,’ he murmured. ‘I simply kept wondering what might have happened if I hadn’t stopped.’

Imogen’s heart tripped at the heady realisation that they were as muh at the mercy of this as they were of each other and that just maybe he wasn’t completely out of her league. ‘Oh.’

‘Want to know what I came up with?’

Watching his eyes darken, she nodded, and then he was leaning forwards, pressing her into the back of the chair and murmuring into her ear.

As what he told her filtered into her brain, Imogen’s temperature shot so high she went dizzy. All she could think about was dragging him off and demanding he fulfil every one of the exotic scenarios he suggested.

‘So what do you think?’

Think? She could barely breathe. ‘Is some of that even anatomically possible?’ she managed shakily.

‘I have no idea. But we could have a hell of a lot of fun finding out.’

‘Well, as you know,’ she said gravely, ‘I’m all for fun.’

‘I was hoping you might say that.’ He stared down at her and the desire and need she saw in his eyes nearly brought her to her knees. ‘Are you done here?’

Definitely, yes. She nodded. ‘All done.’

‘Then let’s go.’

CHAPTER NINE

GOING anywhere, however, when her bones had melted and her body had turned to one great quivering mass of need, was easier said than done, and by the time they reached the huge glass-and-steel building that housed Jack’s flat, Imogen was a mess.

After discarding the idea of booking a room at the hotel as way too risky and her house as way too far, they’d walked the five hundred metres or so to his. And even that had been agony.

She was so hot and itchy with desire, so dazed by the knowledge her fantasies were about to become reality that she didn’t think she could stand it, and if it hadn’t been for the threat of a lurking photographer she’d have given in to temptation, dragged Jack into a shadowy doorway and begged him to take her right then and there.

Jack, however, didn’t seem to be having nearly such a problem with self-control. He might have kissed her as if his life depended on it back in that conservatory, and he might want her equally badly, but he clearly wasn’t reduced to watery knees and dissolving bones by the experience.

While she’d been tottering around, swooning and losing her breath all over the place, there’d been nothing trembly or quivery about the way he’d marched her here. Nothing clumsy about his steps as he strode across the marble floor towards the lift. And nothing shaky about his fingers as they punched a series of numbers into the keypad.

Jack was eerily calm, as if he was used to doing this kind of thing all the time. Which he might well be, Imogen realised with a pang of envy that she quickly squashed. But so what if he was? It wasn’t as if she wanted him for ever. She just wanted one night of guaranteed great sex. Maybe two. Starting, with any luck, right now, because, as he’d pointed out earlier, their business needed finishing and what with the desire zooming around inside her she was more than ready to help.

The doors to the lift swished open and Imogen brushed past him, stepped in and leaned against one mirrored side. She gripped the rail in order to prevent herself from slithering to the floor and shivered as he stepped in after her and instantly took up more than his fair share of air.

The minute the doors closed behind him, the air that was left turned electric, heavy and hot. Jack leaned against the opposite side of the lift and stared at her, his eyes dark and intense, his face tight with desire, and Imogen trembled. A muscle pounded in his jaw, and as he curled his fingers around the rail she saw that his knuckles were white and she couldn’t help thinking that perhaps he wasn’t as cool as she’d thought.

‘Come here,’ he said hoarsely.

Hmm. Definitely not cool. She gripped harder on the rail, her heart hammering so wildly she thought it might be about to break free. ‘What if someone else wants to get in?’

‘Private lift. It stops at my floor only.’

‘Convenient.’

‘For getting to the penthouse, extremely.’

‘And for seducing unsuspecting innocents?’

His jaw clenched with tightly controlled effort. ‘Are you the unsuspecting innocent in this scenario?’

‘Could be,’ she said, although in reality she was neither unsuspecting nor innocent.

‘And I’m the seducer?’

‘So I’ve heard.’ She paused, then added with a slow smile, ‘So I’m hoping.’

‘Then why do I suddenly get the feeling that the roles are reversed?’ he said, tilting his head and staring at her as if he wanted to look into her soul.

At the suddenly serious expression on his face, Imogen’s heart skipped a beat and her mouth went dry. He had to be joking. Had to be. Because he couldn’t possibly think he was in any danger from her, could he? That was ridiculous. This was the legendary Jack Taylor. The man who left a trail of broken hearts wherever he went while his own remained completely untouched.

Of course he was joking, she told herself, because while she didn’t mind the idea of being the seducer at all, there was no way he was an unsuspecting innocent. Which was a good thing because the last thing she wanted was for either of them to be unsuspecting or innocent about this. This was simply about sex. Hot passionate sex.

And speaking of which …

‘I can’t imagine,’ she said, her pulse racing and her blood roaring in her ears as she let desire take over and gave him her most smouldering smile. ‘But if you feel like that,’ she added, sliding the zip at the side of her dress down and feeling the silk slither over her skin to fall in a black shimmering pool on the floor, ‘then you come here.’

How on earth had he ever thought Imogen was nothing more than a vacuous frothy socialite? Jack wondered, utterly stunned by the sight of her. She was gorgeous. Intriguing. Wholly unpredictable. And total dynamite.

And how had he ever thought that not seeing her again was a good idea? He must have been out of his tiny little mind. Because right now, with the four mirrored walls of the lift giving him every view of her he could possibly want, Jack thought he’d never seen anything so magnificent.

She was standing there wearing nothing but the strapless bra that barely contained her breasts, the tiniest excuse for knickers he’d ever come across, those black sky-high heels and a seductive smile, and he was about to collapse with need.

So much for fooling himself he was in some sort of control over this, that he was somehow in charge. For a while he’d actually thought he had it nailed. After all, it might have taken a Herculean effort, but he’d done a pretty good job of holding it together on the way here.

Now, however, with all that soft creamy skin encased in black lacy underwear on display and with Imogen smouldering at him, he was so riddled with desire and so wary of what might happen when his control snapped he didn’t dare move.

With an impatient little sigh, she arched an eyebrow and cocked a hip, and his vision blurred. ‘Well?’ she said softly.

What the hell? Who cared who was in charge anyway? This had been going on way too long and he’d had enough.

‘In agony, actually,’ he muttered, prising his fingers off the rail, lunging forwards to close the distance between them and slamming his mouth down on hers.

Oh, thank God for that, thought Imogen, closing her eyes and winding her arms round his neck as she kissed him back as hungrily as he was kissing her. For a moment she thought he’d been about to pass out and she’d had the stomach-curdling feeling that he’d been horrified by what she’d done and, even worse, by what he’d seen.

But to her relief and delight that didn’t seem to be the case. Not judging by the hot insistence of his mouth and the rock-hard length of his erection pressing against her pelvis.

His hands spanned her waist, holding her tight against him as his tongue and lips ravaged hers. Her ears popped and she wasn’t sure if it was from the lift zooming them up to the penthouse or the effect of his kiss. Either way her mind was being well and truly blown.

As Jack slid his hands round to her back, down over her bottom and pulled her hips even tighter to his Imogen writhed against him, rubbing herself up and down his hardness in a desperate attempt to assuage the ache that was throbbing between her legs.

The sound of the lift door swishing open dimly penetrated the fog of desire in her head and she felt his hands slip lower, curving round her upper thighs. He pressed her back against the wall of the lift for support and, pulling her legs up, wrapped them around his waist. Breaking off the kiss and breathing heavily, he took her weight and turned.

Imogen could feel the thundering of his heart against her chest and it made every muscle quiver, every nerve ending sizzle. As he carried her out of the lift she caught a glimpse of the image of the two of them so intimately entwined, Jack fully clothed, herself practically naked, reflected a thousand times over, and it turned her on even more.

And then he was striding with her across the hardwood floor of the apartment, making a beeline for what she sincerely hoped was the bedroom. Clinging on for dear life, Imogen tightened her legs around his waist and buried her head in his neck. She could feel the tension gripping his powerful frame as he stopped to kick off his shoes and then remove hers, she could feel his pulse hammering beneath her cheek and she couldn’t resist. As Jack strode through a doorway she nipped the skin covering his pulse with her teeth then soothed it with her tongue, relishing the salty taste of him and the growl that rumbled low in his throat.

He stopped, and she slowly disentangled herself, taking care to brush him with every part of her body before standing on the jelly that seemed to have replaced her legs.

Jack let out a harsh breath and she didn’t think it was from the exertion of carrying her from the lift to the bedroom. She took a tiny step back and the backs of her knees hit the edge of the bed. His eyes roamed over her and she watched him swallow hard then shove his hands through his hair as if to stop himself from reaching for her, as if reaching for her might lead to things getting out of control way too fast.

‘I appear to be at something of a material disadvantage,’ she said, achingly aware of how little she had on.

‘If you felt like balancing things up a little,’ he said, his voice hoarse, ‘I’d have no objection.’

‘Now there’s an idea,’ Imogen murmured, smiling a little and letting her gaze wander all over him as she wondered where to start.

Jack’s jaw clenched and his hands curled into fists at his sides. ‘You carry on looking at me like that and there won’t be a whole lot of foreplay.’

‘Fine by me. The way I see it we’ve indulged in more than enough foreplay already.’ So much so that the minute he touched any one of her erogenous zones she’d probably splinter right then and there. And, besides, they had all night, didn’t they?

Jack’s eyes blazed. ‘You forget I have a reputation to live up to.’

‘I haven’t forgotten,’ she said with a shiver. ‘But if it would help, I could try not looking at you.’

‘It would.’

So Imogen closed her eyes and, as every one of her remaining senses switched to high alert, lifted her hands to his chest. She felt him tense, heard his breath catch. Her fingers brushing over the thick cotton of his dress shirt, she undid the studs, taking her time, dropping them one by one into the pocket of his trousers and revelling in every sound and every movement he made.

As she slipped her hands beneath his shirt, and finally, finally laid them on his skin, he shook violently. Groaned.

‘This isn’t helping.’

His voice grated across her senses and she shivered. ‘So stop me,’ she murmured.

‘I can’t.’

Feeling a surge of power, she moved her hands up and outwards, her fingers brushing over the smattering of hair that covered his chest, over his nipples and up over his shoulders. His muscles contracted beneath her touch and when she shrugged off his shirt and jacket and let them drop to the floor she felt a shudder rip through him.

She let her hands drift down, over the defined, taut muscles of his abdomen, and had a sudden desperate urge to find out what he tasted like. While her fingers worked at the button of his trousers and slid down the zip, she leaned forwards, pressed her open mouth against the skin of his chest and touched her tongue to him.

And then it was as if her body had a will of its own and she couldn’t have controlled it even if she’d wanted to. As she dropped a series of tiny wet kisses across his chest, she pushed his trousers and shorts down. Her fingers curled around his hard length and caressed, and she heard him exhale a long shuddery breath.

‘Enough,’ he muttered hoarsely, wrapping a hand around her wrist and putting a halt to her strokes. ‘Open your eyes.’

Imogen wasn’t sure she had the strength. She’d gone all weak and languid, as if desire had melted every cell in her body. Every drop of her focus had headed south, zooming in on the feel of him in her hand. All she could think of was being flat on her back with Jack looming over her and the weight of his body pinning her to the bed. Of that hard, silken length pushing up inside her, filling her, driving her mindless with pleasure, and the anticipation was almost too great to bear.

Where she found the effort she had no idea, but when she did finally manage to open her eyes the sight that met them made her breath stick in her throat and her head go dizzy. Her gaze drifted over him hungrily. Tanned, lean and powerful, his body was mouth-watering, and she wanted to touch everywhere.

‘Better?’ she breathed.

‘Infinitely worse.’

And then he caught her by the waist and twisted round and back, falling onto the bed and taking her with him so that she lay sprawled all over him.

Imogen didn’t have time to worry about how undignified that nifty move must have made her look, because one of Jack’s arms whipped round her bottom, the other planted itself on the back of her neck, bringing her head down. His mouth met hers and her mind went blank.

As their tongues tangled the hand on her bottom slid slowly up her spine and then back down, creating shivering ripples of delight over every inch of skin it moved.

He unclipped her bra and, when she eased herself off him a little, pulled it from her and threw it to join his clothes. Her nipples brushed against his chest and it was electric. Hearing Jack’s sharp intake of breath at the contact, she did it again and again until she couldn’t stand it any more and crushed her chest to his.

Feeling as though a bonfire had sprung into flame in the pit of her stomach, Imogen shifted on top of him so that his erection pressed against her hot, aching centre. And then couldn’t stop herself grinding against him and moaning with frustration at the thin lace of her knickers that was the only thing separating them.

As the heat coiled deep within her suddenly burst apart and powered through her it all became too much. No more barriers, she thought frantically as she jerked herself up and tried to twist round.