“Who are you?” he demanded About the Author Title Page CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN CHAPTER TWELVE CHAPTER THIRTEEN CHAPTER FOURTEEN CHAPTER FIFTEEN CHAPTER SIXTEEN CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Copyright

“Who are you?” he demanded

The urge to hit him in the face with it was strong. “I’m Beth Delaney,” she shot at him. It gave Beth savage satisfaction to see he hadn’t completely forgotten her. “I came looking for Jamie.”

His chin jutted. A muscle in his cheek flinched.

“He once said he would come to me when he could. He never did. Last night I had the chance to look him up. But Jamie was gone. I only found Jim Neilson.”

His mouth thinned into a grim line.

“Now it’s time for Beth Delaney to go, too,” she said with bleak finality. “There’s nothing left of what there once was.”

She turned away. There was nothing to hold her here. No doubt Jim Neilson would only feel intense relief at seeing her go, a ghost from the past he didn’t want to remember.

“Wait.”

The snapped command fell like a whiplash across her shoulders.

EMMA DARCY

nearly became an actress, until her fiancé declared he preferred to attend the theater with her. She became a wife and mother. Later, she took up oil painting—unsuccessfully, she remarks. Then she tried architecture, designing the family home in New South Wales, Australia. Next came romance writing—“the hardest and most challenging of all the activities,” she confesses.

Craving Jamie

Emma Darcy

www.millsandboon.co.uk

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

CHAPTER ONE

SHE wore yellow.

It was the colour that first drew Jim Neilson’s eye. A daffodil amongst black orchids, he thought whimsically. Women in the arty crowd always seemed to wear black—leather, satin, silk, slinky knits—dressed up with gold chains or exotic costume jewellery. It was like a uniform that said, “I fit in. I belong to this smart, classy world.” The gallery was full of them, come to see or be seen at the preview of Paul Howard’s exhibition.

Jim wore black, too—silk shirt, designer jeans, casual leather jacket, Italian shoes. He quite enjoyed the illusion of fitting in, even while knowing he didn’t and never would. The sense of apartness never left him, no matter how high he climbed on the various ladders he’d chosen. In this milieu he had a well-earned reputation as an art collector. His opinion was respected, his favour sought. But that didn’t make him fit. It simply meant he had money to spend.

The woman in yellow intrigued him. She obviously didn’t mind standing out, being different. Not many people could wear that particular colour successfully. It either sallowed the skin or was too dominant, washing out the person. On her, it looked stunning. Just a simple linen suit with clean, classic lines.

She carried herself like a model, tall, slim, shoulders straight to maximise the striking curves of her figure, a long neck to support the thick fall of silky caramel hair that dropped to below her shoulders. Her face had an appealing, natural look, the golden tan of her smooth skin shining with vitality rather than matted with make-up. Bright eyes, a lush mouth and a straight, aristocratic nose.

Quite a honey, Jim thought, sexual interest aroused. His love-life—if it could be called that—could do with a boost. His interest in Alysha had waned even before she flew off for the fashion shows in Europe. He wanted someone new. A woman who excited him.

There were several women here who would jump at the chance of a tumble in bed with Jim Neilson. They didn’t care about the person he was inside, though. Just fancied him. Or what he could offer. He was bored with shallow relationships. He craved something more. A bit of mystery? The spur of a hunt instead of a lay-down gift?

The woman in yellow looked like a bright splash of spring in this crowd of sophisticates. Fresh. Tantalising. Whoever she was, she seemed to be alone, no one closely tagging her. She didn’t speak to anyone, either. His curiosity was more and more piqued as he watched her.

She wasn’t interested in the paintings. Her gaze only skimmed them, no pause for any lengthy assessment of their value or attraction to her personally. She looked at the men in each group she passed, scanning them closely as though anxious not to miss a face. The women were ignored, apparently inconsequential to her.

“Another glass of champagne, Jim?”

Claud Meyer at his elbow, oiling his way to a sale. The owner of the fashionable Woollhara gallery was always an assiduous host to good clients. This cocktail-hour preview would probably result in enough purchases to ensure the exhibition’s success for both artist and entrepreneur. Claud was a good businessman. Jim respected that while seeing straight through the tactics being used.

“Why not? Thank you,” he said, setting his empty glass on the silver tray Claud held and picking up a full one. “Quite a turnout tonight.”

“Popular artist,” was the knowing reply. “See anything you like?”

“Yes.” He nodded towards her. “The woman in yellow.”

Claud’s surprise was quickly swallowed into a good-humoured chuckle. “I meant the landscapes on show.”

“The guy has talent, but there’s nothing that hits me in the eye and says, ‘Buy me!’”

“He’ll be a good investment,” came the swift persuasion.

“Who is she?”

Claud followed the line of his gaze then looked back, puzzled. “Are you kidding me?”

“You must know who she is, Claud. This preview is by invitation only.”

He frowned. “I’ve never seen her before in my life. She didn’t have an invitation. I let her in because she said she was meeting you.”

Jim’s curiosity took a mega-leap. “How very enterprising of her,” he mused.

“I assumed since you came alone...”

“She was my date?”

Claud shifted uneasily, not enjoying being wrong-footed. “If she lied...”

“No. Let her be, Claud. She will be meeting me.” Jim eyed the gallery owner with a sardonic twinkle. “If she likes one of these landscapes, I might even buy it. Who knows what could eventuate?”

Recognising there was no profit in engaging Jim Neilson in further conversation, Claud smiled and said, “In that case, I hope she pleases both of us.”

“Mind if I take another glass of champagne?”

“Help yourself.”

Claud moved on, doing the rounds of prospective customers. Jim concentrated his attention on the woman in yellow. Had she tossed off his name simply as a ploy to get into the gallery, or was it her intent to meet him? For what purpose? It was an intriguing question.

Was she a gold-digger on the hunt? Ever since he’d been listed as one of the most eligible bachelors in Australia—without his permission—he’d been the target of quite a few novel approaches.

His revulsion to the idea she’d come here on the make was strong. He didn’t want her to be like that. Yet she was sizing up the men in the gallery. And dismissing them, one by one.

Cynicism soured his mind as he continued to observe her meticulous assessment of the male half of the company. If he was her mark, he was in the mood to string her along for a while before delivering a comeuppance she wouldn’t forget in a hurry. He despised freeloaders. He’d worked damned hard to get where he was. A pretty face and a beguiling body bought nothing from him. Except space in his bed if he really felt enticed to take what was offered.

She came through the archway that linked the two rooms on the first floor of the gallery. Jim tensed as her gaze swung towards him. Any second now, the moment of truth. He waited, a savage challenge brooding in his mind, his eyes simmering with dark intent.

She found him, her eyes widening as he stared straight at her. A questioning? An expectation of some response from him? Almost as if he should recognise her. Well, she was bound to disappointment if she thought that old line would work on him. He’d never seen her before in his life.

If there was one thing Jim prided himself on, it was total recall, people, places, figures. It was his one great talent, the means by which he had climbed to the pinnacle he now occupied, the hottest financier in town. The woman in yellow was not, and never had been, part of his world.

Her expression changed. It was as though she had mentally stepped back from her first reaction. She studied him with an intensity he found oddly discomforting. He could feel her trying to burrow under his skin to see the man inside. It was a cool, steady, calculating look, the kind an astute man might give in sizing up someone he was dealing with, not even a hint of sexuality in it.

It provoked Jim into moving, taking the initiative from her. She wanted to meet him? Fine! She would meet him on his terms.

He had a compelling urge to reduce her to simply another woman, a woman responding to him as a man. He wanted to strip off her deceptive cloak of spring, unmask both her body and mind. He wanted her flesh in his hands, naked of any illusion, grinding her into compliance to his will.

Deliberately he slid his eyes over the lush fullness of her breasts, his mouth curving into a smile of male appreciation. Her short skirt gave him a good view of her legs, too, long and lissome in silk stockings. He imagined them wound around him in submission. He would give her one hell of a serve for tricking him.

No one fooled Jim Neilson for long.

He was too wise in the ways of the world.

The yellow had been nothing but a spotlight. An impact colour. It would give him a lot of satisfaction ... taking it off her.

CHAPTER TWO

HEAT flooded through Beth. She hadn’t anticipated this—this sizing her up as a bed-worthy woman. He must have interpreted her staring at him as a come-on. Her stomach squirmed. Her mind whirled into a chaos of embarrassment.

To find him scrutinising her had been a heart-thumping shock. At first she’d thought... But he hadn’t recognised her. Not so much as a glimmer of anything familiar to him. Then somehow, she hadn’t been able to tear her eyes away. The pull was too strong to resist, to look for something left of the boy she had known.

Jamie, Jamie, her mind called to him, willing him to hear, to see, to remember. She had believed so strongly the bond between them would never be broken. Yet he hadn’t come to her as he vowed he would.

Where did it go, the feeling they’d shared? What forces had severed it for him? She didn’t understand. Never would. It had been too real to her. Even though she had been little more than a child when they’d parted, the certainty had been deep and abiding that they were meant to be together.

Eight years they had known each other, their understanding growing, deepening, a love that was more than love though they had never acknowledged it in words. It went beyond words. An intermingling of spirits or an intuitive communion of minds.

But there was nothing now. Nothing coming back from him except the kind of interest a man took in a woman he found attractive. Or were his instincts picking up something else, undefined yet tantalising enough to want to dig deeper?

He moved, coming straight at her, and she found it impossible to look away or turn aside. Her feet seemed rooted to the floor. Her pulse was drumming in her ears. Her mind couldn’t come to grips with what she should do.

He was no longer the Jamie who had lived in her memory. Far from it. Fifteen years and an entirely different range of experience separated them from the childhood they’d shared in the valley. The last time she’d seen him in the flesh he was fifteen, she thirteen. And he was so different now. Not even the photographs had prepared her for this much difference.

His eyes locked onto hers, hard and compelling, sizzling with sexual signals. In some weird way it both frightened and excited her. No escape from a direct confrontation. He was not going to let her go easily. She was his quarry at the moment, and his concentration on her was like a magnetic force.

She could sense the dangerous, ruthless edge to him, the steely will of a survivor, a mind constantly watchful, determined on knowing, sifting, acting. It completely unnerved her. Yet she should have realised it had to be there in him to get where he was.

All the clippings Aunty Em had sent from newspapers and business magazines, reporting on the spectacular rise of Jim Neilson in financial circles, the man with the Supercray computer mind, the analytical genius, always one step ahead of market trends... It had surely been implicit in those columns if she’d been objective enough to read between the lines.

He was always referred to as Jim. Never Jamie. Never any mention of his earlier life. It was Aunty Em’s opinion he had comprehensively blocked that out, and he wouldn’t welcome any reminder of the past. It was behind him. Dead and deeply buried. If he’d wanted to reconnect with Beth or any of the Delaney family, he’d had more than enough years—and money—to do so.

She had accepted that long ago, yet she’d still been drawn to take this chance of having a look at the man he had become. More than look, if she was ruthlessly honest with herself. The need to know, finally and conclusively, had to be laid to rest.

Suddenly challenged with meeting him face to face, she frantically fretted over what to say. He might hate her for bringing his valley life back to him. Might also put all sorts of false interpretations on her coming here to see him, now that he was regarded as someone worth knowing. She inwardly recoiled from such an outcome. Let it go, her mind screamed, even as he spoke and forced her to meet the immediate present.

“Can I offer you a glass of champagne?”

Her throat was dry. “Yes. Thank you,” she managed to say huskily. He was so close to her. Couldn’t he see Beth in her eyes?

He smiled as he handed the glass to her, a winning smile designed to charm a woman he was meeting for the first time. “You have the advantage over me.”

His voice had deepened since he was fifteen. His tone was low, sexy, seductive. It had a mesmerising effect on her. She didn’t catch his meaning. “Pardon?”

“You know who I am,” he stated, his eyes subtly challenging her to deny it.

“Yes,” she admitted. Stupid to pretend otherwise. Her smile was wry. “I know many things about you. But that’s not really knowing you, is it?”

He laughed. It was a dark sound. Her skin prickled, instinct warning her to beware. This was not Jamie. This was very much a predatory male on the prowl.

“Media reports on me are usually slanted to suit the journalist,” he said mockingly. “Much better to do your own personal research.”

Blatant suggestiveness. Beth tried to push aside the disturbing physical element to satisfy some of her curiosity about him. “Do you ever let anyone into your private world?”

“I’ve just opened my door to you. Would you like to progress to, shall we say, a more intimate level?”

The sexual magnetism he was projecting took her breath away. Almost everything about him took her breath away. He was a head taller than she was, and she was above average height. His once slight and wiry physique was now solid with hard muscle, exuding masculinity.

His face no longer had a lean and hungry look. It was filled out in a strikingly handsome way, strong and firm, aggressively male, the brilliant intelligence in his dark eyes adding a dynamic quality that made it difficult to look away from him. His thick black hair was closely cropped, like a shiny helmet, emphasising a sleek animal appeal that was highlighted by his black leather jacket.

Beth found herself wondering whether his expertise as a lover would live up to the pulse-quickening promise of his looks. He was arrogantly confident of his attraction. No doubt he had every reason to be. But what did he deliver when it came to intimacy?

She sipped the champagne, giving her heart time to calm down while she considered how best to handle what was happening. It was totally outside any scenario she had imagined.

“Come now, don’t go shy on me,” he chided. “I much prefer spontaneity to calculation.”

Hard cynicism behind his surface amusement. The impulse to probe a little spurred her to ask, “Do you make a habit of picking up women on a whim?”

“No. I tend to be very selective. Consider yourself an exception to the rule.”

The hope that wouldn’t be stifled kicked through her heart. “Why make an exception of me?” Did he feel something? A faint thread of familiarity teasing his mind?

“I was bored with women in black. Your yellow suit caught my eye. Then you caught my eye. Are you going to tell me your name?”

She shook her head, knowing it would bring an abrupt end to this strangely piquant encounter. To tell him would shame her. If he didn’t feel it...

“What point is there in remaining a mystery woman?” His eyes narrowed. “Are you married?”

“No.”

“Attached?”

“No.”

She thought of Gerald and felt only relief that she had ended their relationship. She’d found his academic world too constricting in the end, and Gerald too full of himself and his life to see anything else. Besides, meeting Jim Neilson was an object lesson to her. Even if nothing came of it, the sheer physical stimulation he generated showed her what she’d been missing out on. Next time she wouldn’t settle for anything less. If there was a next time.

Her left hand was suddenly grasped and lifted, strong, purposeful fingers running over hers, feeling for indentations. Her skin seemed to spring alive under the cursory touch. She quelled the impulse to snatch her hand away, a silly overreaction.

“Satisfied?” she asked, realising he’d been checking for rings and ring marks.

His eyes blazed into hers. “No. We’ve a long way to go before I’m satisfied, golden girl. Come and have dinner with me.”

He didn’t wait for a response. He set off, weaving through the crowd, pulling her after him, her hand firmly wrapped in his. Without staging a public scene, Beth had little option but to follow, her mind whirling over his arrogant assumption she would fall in with his wishes, her heart fluttering at the thought of being alone with him. A flash came to her of Jamie pulling her after him up the bush track to the old quarry, saying she was safe with him. He’d look after her.

But this wasn’t Jamie.

Confusion roared through her in turbulent waves. She felt she was being tugged in all sorts of directions—memories, needs that had never been answered, dreams that were suddenly all awry and permeating everything, an acute awareness of the strength of the hand, the strength of the man who was making her follow him, his powerful aura of decision, action, command holding her more captive than the fingers clamped around her wrist.

They reached the steps leading to the entrance of the gallery. Jim Neilson paused to hand his glass to the attendant who’d let Beth in. “Nice showing,” he said. “Mind taking care of these for us?”

“My pleasure, Mr. Neilson,” came the obliging reply, the attendant swiftly relieving Beth of her glass, as well. “See anything you like?” A hopeful inquiry.

“Another time.” The dismissal discouraged further conversation.

Jim Neilson was already on the move again, sweeping Beth down the steps to the door. He hustled her out to the dark, tree-lined street, then adjusted his pace to a side-by-side stroll, his hand still firmly possessing hers. They were effectively alone together.

Beth struggled with a sense of disbelief. She and Jamie after all these years. Except he didn’t know who she was. Didn’t care. It was crazy to go along with this virtual abduction. There was not the slightest possibility of reviving their old relationship. He was different. He made her feel different. She should ask him to let her go.

She glanced at their hands, feeling the physical link tingling up to her brain and down to her toes. What did he want satisfied? Maybe he did feel something.

Beth was acutely conscious of never having felt satisfied herself. The bond with Jamie had spoiled any chance of a sense of rightness with anyone else. She’d tried with Gerald, tried to fool herself it was good enough. Had Jim Neilson found satisfaction with the women there must have been in his life?

He certainly wouldn’t have been celibate all these years. What would it be like to feel all of him touching all of her? It was madness to be even thinking about it. Yet she wanted to know. This was the man Jamie had become. Long, powerful legs. Her gaze travelled to the broad shoulders that needed no padding to make them look as though he could easily heft her over one of them and carry her off.

Her heart skipped into a faster beat. Effectively he was doing that right now. She lifted her gaze to his face, wishing she could read his mind. The shadows of the night frustrated her. She could trace Jamie in his profile, the resolute set of his mouth and the determined jut of his chin. He’d been a fighter, never lacking the courage to stand up for himself, a proud boy, driven through the crucible of his grandfather’s cruel meanness. What else had he survived to forge the dominance he’d achieved in his present world?

So much she wanted to know.

“Where are you taking me?” Her voice came out thin and wispy, reflecting her feeling that she was caught in two time frames, lost and treading uncertain ground.

A brief glance, a glitter in his eyes that ignited the sense of danger. Madness to feel so drawn to him in a situation that reeked of potential damage. To both of them. This meeting couldn’t lead to any fruitful future. Their paths would inevitably diverge.

“My car is parked a couple of blocks away,” he answered. “It’s not far to walk.”

His car. Part of his new life. “What make is it?” she asked, still riding the temptation to learn more about him.

A sardonic smile. “Didn’t your research pick that up?”

She frowned, jolted by the cynical tone in his voice. Her admission of knowing who he was must have prompted an assumption she knew more than she did. Research suggested he thought she was a journalist. Or worse, a gold-digger out to latch onto a wealthy meal ticket.

Should she correct him? But what could she say? How to explain her interest without revealing the truth?

The irony was, her so-called research consisted of a few articles and a couple of mentions in social columns, including an abbreviated guest list for tonight’s exhibition. It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. Having dinner with him would tell her much more. He’d set this ball rolling. She didn’t want to stop it. Not yet.

“It’s a Porsche.” Another glittering glance. “Satisfied?”

A sexy sports model, sleek, powerful, capable of devouring whatever road he chose to take, driving past everyone else. Probably black, too. “It fits,” she said, more to herself than to him.

“I’m glad you’re not disappointed,” he said dryly.

She was, deep down. Disappointed he hadn’t recognised her, though she couldn’t really have expected it on a superficial level. Even at thirteen, her hair had only slightly yellowed from the snowy white it had been through most of her childhood. It was almost brown now. She’d done a lot of growing up since Jamie had last seen her. A late bloomer, her mother had often said.

Having seen recent photographs of him, it was easier for her to identify the boy in the man, despite the changes. Still, when he had looked into her eyes... Surely they were the same, almond-shaped and deeply lidded, their amber irises quite an unusual and distinctive colour.

Golden girl. The name he’d given her brought a wry smile. He’d once said she was the only gold in his life. Why hadn’t the bond between them lasted?

She shook her head. Obviously it had meant more to her than to him. As Aunty Em said, he’d had the means to come to her if he’d wanted to. He’d picked her up tonight by chance, a stranger, to relieve his boredom. Or was it more than that? Did he feel the underlying tug of another time and place, an attraction he was pursuing beyond any rational thought?

She moved her fingers over the knuckles of his, wishing she was a clairvoyant who could see the future through the power of touch. His skin was warm, despite the coolness of the September evening. How did he transmit the electric vibrancy that was racing through her?

They turned a corner. Another narrow, tree-lined street, terrace houses crowding the sidewalk, their porches trimmed with ornate iron-lace fences. An old area of Sydney, Woollhara. It was close to the city centre and the harbour, newly fashionable again, the houses expensively renovated to suit the taste of wealthy people. She’d walked around here this afternoon, casing the area, dithering over whether to attempt gate-crashing the private showing in the gallery or leave well enough alone.

Who’d have thought she’d be walking hand in hand with Jamie—Jim—a few hours later? A burst of light-headed laughter bubbled forth.

“What’s funny?” he asked.

She grinned at him, dizzy with her daring. “I can’t believe I’m with you like this.”

The flash of his eyes seared her with a sobering reminder this was no child’s play between them. They were into a very adult game here. A quiver ran down her thighs. Should she stop now?

He stopped. He took a key ring from his jacket and released her hand to unlock the passenger door of the car at the kerb beside them. The distinctive lines of the Porsche gave her heart and mind a jolt. This was real. A black Porsche, low, dark, threatening. The old warning shrieked through her mind—never get in a car with a stranger.

Jim Neilson swung the door open for her.

If she stepped into that space... Why was she suddenly seeing it as a black hole, infinitely dangerous? The tension of decision held her momentarily paralysed.

“Not turning coward on me, are you?” he softly mocked.

She looked wildly at him, hearing Jamie daring her to be as brave as he was, her heart pounding madly, fear fighting with the need to earn Jamie’s respect and admiration. Except this was Jim Neilson, and she was a stranger to him, so how could her compliance with his game earn respect or admiration?

“Believe this!” he said harshly, and in the next instant, before she could even draw breath, she was pinned to his chest, held imprisoned there by the unrelenting strength of an arm that denied her any attempt at resistance as he curled his other hand around her cheek and chin and forcibly tilted her face to the angle he wanted. His teeth flashed, white and wolfish. “An appetiser,” he promised.

Beth barely had time to gasp. His mouth covered hers, invading it with shocking swiftness, no pause for persuasive or seductive preliminaries. His tongue embroiled hers in an erotic tangle, darting provocatively, sweeping her palate with sensational effect, inciting a fiercely primitive response. It was as though he’d pressed some dormant trigger in her, exploding a deeply buried mine of sexuality that demanded satisfaction.

A torrent of feelings pumped through her—anger to have waited so long to experience this, frustration that he’d never come for her, never invited her to share in his new life, a fierce jealousy of the women he had given himself to, a seething desire to take all he offered, experience it to the hilt, make him remember her for the rest of his life, whether he wanted to or not.

She clawed her fingers up his leather jacket, thrust them through the thick mat of his hair, curled them around his skull, urging on the passionate plunder that could not be called a kiss. Not from him. Not from her. A kiss was an exchange of good feelings, warm feelings, a wish to give and take pleasure. This was the boiling blood of a battlefield, each of them striving to win concessions from the other.

She sensed his drive for submission from her. She wouldn’t give it. With sheer wanton provocation, she rubbed her lower body against his, feeding the frenzy of released feeling, exulting in the hard bulge of his erection, hating him for being so aroused by a woman he’d merely picked up. A nobody to him. Yet he could do this to her, with her, an intimacy that had no grounds for intimacy on his side. Just sheer animal lust, taking, uncaring of the object being taken.

It was obscene.

She wanted to kick him. She wanted to kill him. She wanted him to want her because she was Beth. Damn him! Damn him to hell for closing his door on her! Forgetting her!

“Feeling hungry?” he growled, his hands scooping her bottom and squeezing her into more aggressive contact, a blatant and unashamed pressure against her stomach.

“Yes,” she hissed, uncaring what he thought.

He swung her around and lowered her onto the passenger seat of the Porsche, lifting her legs in with a smooth economy of movement. “Then let’s get to the feast,” he said, his eyes challenging her appetite for it as he stood back and closed the door.

One night, she thought fiercely. One night to make up for what she had missed. One night to take all she might have had if circumstances had been different. She felt cheated, bereft, pumped up with wild and perilous purpose.

He sank onto the seat beside her, closed his door, started the engine with a roar. “Fasten your seat belt,” he rasped.

“You’re right,” she snapped, whipping the belt across her body and clicking it into place. Her eyes clashed with his in fiery challenge. “It could be a bumpy ride.”

He revved the motor, his foot playing with the accelerator as he assessed the glitter in her no-holds-barred gaze. “You pack one hell of a punch, golden girl,” he said, then turned his attention to getting the Porsche on the road.

They took off into the night.

The tension in the car jangled every nerve in Beth’s body.

She didn’t care.

She didn’t care where they went or what they did.

She was going to see this night through with Jim Neilson.

Then, maybe, she could bury Jamie once and for all.

CHAPTER THREE

“TAKE off your jacket.”

The casual command kicked another burst of adrenaline through Beth. She bit down on a blistering retort and gave him a veiled look that hid lethal thoughts.

He leaned indolently against the side wall of the private elevator he’d just activated, assessing her with hot, lustful eyes. They were zooming to the top level of some tall building at Circular Quay. Beth didn’t have to be told he wasn’t taking her to a restaurant. He wanted control. Absolute control.

She shifted her stance, relaxing against the wall facing him, her eyes simmering with the need to strip him naked. In every sense. “Take yours off,” she commanded.

A quirky little smile gave his mouth a more sensual curve as he pushed forward enough to shrug his shoulders out of the jacket and drag it off his arms. “Leather doesn’t turn you on?”

“I prefer the touch of human skin.”

“Then I’d better get rid of my shirt, too.”

The jacket was dropped on the floor. She watched his hands start on his shirt buttons, his fingers nimbly making short work of opening up the black silk, revealing a tantalising arrow of black hair zeroing down to his jeans.

“You’re lagging behind,” he taunted, his gaze fastened pointedly on her breasts.

Beth slid off the shoulder strap of her handbag and let it fall. She smiled as she thought of the sexy lingerie she was wearing, a gift from her younger sister Kate, along with the advice it was well past time for Beth to get herself a red-hot lover. Kate had not been enamoured with Gerald. No doubt she would think Jim Neilson fitted the bill.

His shoulders needed no padding. There was nothing weedy about his arms, either. His skin gleamed like polished bronze over tightly packed muscle. He had a torso that would draw admiring stares from both men and women. The thought of touching him, running her hands over his magnificently delineated chest, was so attractive, Beth told herself clawing would be more in order. She drew off her jacket, and defiantly matching his carelessness, tossed it on top of his clothes.

“Very saucy,” he commented, his gaze sizzling over the provocative swirl of black lace, cunningly designed to focus the eye on the flesh-coloured fabric stretching over her aureoles.

Beth felt her nipples tighten.

“Delectable.” The throaty murmur reflected his arousal as he suddenly crowded the space between them, taking her hands, lifting them above her head, pinning them to the wall with such swift action Beth was caught by surprise.

The elevator stopped.

The doors opened.

His eyes mocked her distraction. Nothing deterred him from bending his head to her upraised breasts, tugging her nipples to more distended prominence with his teeth, sucking on them with stomach-curling power, leaving the thin fabric of her bra hot and wet and totally transparent. It was so incredibly erotic, Beth held her breath and let it happen, fascinated by the movement of his mouth, enthralled by the sensations arcing from it.

She didn’t want him to stop, but he did, straightening and sliding her arms down the wall to her sides as he stared at the effect he’d had on her, smiling in satisfaction at the dark, hardened nubs. His eyes flicked to hers, black, brilliant, piercing in their intensity.

“Was the entree to your liking?”

Beth swallowed, collected her scattered wits and answered, “I hope the main course lives up to it.”

He laughed and bent to scoop up their clothes. “I wouldn’t rob you of the right setting.” He nodded to the opened passage out of the elevator. “Go ahead. Enter my private world. I’ll show you everything I have.”

Beth willed strength into her quivery legs and preceded him out of the elevator, straight-shouldered, maintaining an air of dignity despite her state of exposure, heart thundering in anticipation of his next move, mind set on holding her own throughout this encounter with Jim Neilson.

He switched on ceiling spotlights as she stepped from a tiled foyer to a carpeted living room. Her high heels sank into the thick, dove-grey pile. She paused to take off her shoes and drink in Jim Neilson’s habitat. It had the obvious luxury of spaciousness and the stark impact of almost characterless modernism.

The furnishings looked clinical—chrome, glass, black leather, a grey vertical blind blocking out the end wall, which was undoubtedly glass for what had to be a spectacular view from this high up. The chairs and sofas and tables were certainly functional, probably state-of-the-art in their styling, but they seemed more like showpieces than home pieces.

A disturbing Brett Whitely painting seemed to leap off the wall facing her, strident in its lines and colour. She was staring at it, feeling it was like some nightmare she wouldn’t like to live with, when she felt hands at her waist, the release of the button at the back of her skirt, the zipper drawn down. A gentle pull over her hips and the garment circled her feet.

For a moment, all she could think of was how much more exposed she was, the sexy lace panties reduced to little more than a G-string slicing between her buttocks, the garter belt holding up her stockings offering no better protection. Then warm palms slid down to cup the soft, naked roundness of her bottom, fingers splaying over it.

Her heart leapt into her mouth. She had to do something and do it fast. No way was she going to be Jim Neilson’s sexual victim. She wouldn’t let him think it, either. He was her chosen lover for the night.

She sucked in a deep breath and swung around, her fingers digging into the waistband of his jeans, her mouth homing in on his nipples as she ripped the stud apart and tore his zipper down. The art of surprise wasn’t all his, she thought savagely, feeling his stomach contract, his chest expand.

She tugged and licked at the relatively small protusions of flesh, exulting in his hardening reaction to the stimulation. She pushed his jeans and underpants down his loins, extracted the taut, hefty piston of his manhood, weighing it deliberately in her hand as she drew back to look at it, a mad boldness seizing her mind.

“The equipment is first class,” she mocked, rubbing her thumb over its moist tip, stroking her fingers along its full length before dismissing it, turning away to sashay to the blind at the end of the room. “I also like to take in every view,” she added silkily, finding the cords that operated the slats and yanking them to sweep the blind to the other side of the window.

A stunning panorama of the harbour gleamed at her, the huge coat hanger bridge looming beyond the busy ferry terminal at Circular Quay, the magnificent sails that roofed the Opera House curving brightly into the night sky, the massed foreshore lights of the northern suburbs winking like thousands of fireflies. The realisation hit her that she was standing in what had to be a million-dollar penthouse apartment. And the owner of such prime real estate was used to having whatever he wanted.

She heard the thud of shoes landing on the carpet, the swoosh of clothes being discarded, the soft pad of footsteps, the crackle of paper being torn. Paper? No, a packet of some sort. He probably carried condoms in his wallet. He’d be mad not to practise safe sex in a situation like this. She’d be mad, too.

She was probably certifiably insane as it was, but normal rules didn’t apply to this night. It was time out of time, and there was a fever in her blood that demanded a sense of completion, come what may.

Her skin prickled with anticipation. The next move was his. She adopted a relaxed stance and ignored his presence behind her, fixing her gaze on the harbour traffic far below. She didn’t care that he could view her naked backside at leisure. In some perverse way she enjoyed flaunting it at him. It excited her, thinking of him looking at her, planning what he would do next, sizzling with the need to reduce her to his plaything again.

Fingertips grazing over the backs of her knees. It was an act of will to remain absolutely still. The tantalising touch sliding up her thighs, muscles tensing. The suspenders of her garter belt unclipped, back and front, fingers trailing up the lacy leg edge of her panties, flesh crawling with sensitivity, belt removed and tossed away, a nail-thin caress up the curve of her spine, raising an uncontrollable, convulsive shiver, bra unfastened, thumbs hooking under the shoulder straps, drawing them down her arms, letting them fall, a soft, silky rolling down of her stockings, ankles and feet tantalisingly caressed as he lifted each one in turn.

It was the most erotic undressing Beth had ever experienced. It electrified both her body and her mind to an acute awareness.

She could feel his breath, sense his heat even before he positioned his body against hers, the hard roll of his erection sliding up towards the pit of her back, his arms encircling her waist, palms pushing up over her nipples and subjecting them to a teasing, rotating motion that had every muscle in her body clenching.

“You seem quite transfixed by the view.” The mocking murmur was close to her ear.

Beth fought to remain clear-headed over the turmoil he was wreaking in her body. “Do you enjoy it or is it simply a status symbol to you?” she asked, reaching back to draw her fingernails over the rock-hard muscles of his thighs, wishing she could dig under his skin.

“I like climbing mountains,” he answered. “Getting to the peak.”

The sexual allusion to what he was doing to her was not lost on Beth, yet she sensed he spoke the truth about himself. Jamie must have climbed a hundred mountains on his way to becoming this man. She wondered if he saw this apartment as a place where he was finally unassailable from ever being dragged down again.

He cupped her breasts, possessing them fully for a moment before sliding his hands over her stomach, burrowing under the flimsy lace that still covered her most private part.

“But valleys have their points of interest, too,” he said, and with an expertise that was shockingly exciting, he parted her hidden cleft to a more accessible opening and began a stroking that aroused almost unbearably exquisite sensations.

She felt like hot putty melting under his touch. Her legs started to tremble. Desperate to maintain some self-control, Beth clutched at another question that had flitted through her mind. “Why did you choose the Brett Whitely painting?”

It distracted him momentarily, giving her a breather from the sweet torture. “It’s a scream of the soul,” he answered darkly and resumed his tactile concentration on the valley as he expounded further. “It’s in every one of us, golden girl. You feel it, too... the scream for all that’s unattainable.’

Yes. It was the scream that had brought her here with him. But what did he dream of? What did he crave? What was he missing in his life, this brave, new world he had conquered?

“That’s why you’re here, wanting this,” he went on, his voice a drum in her ears.

No. She wanted more than this, she thought. The unattainable. And sadness for what could never be with the Jamie who was lost to her surged into her heart, drowning it, even as her flesh cried out for its intense excitement to be appeased.

The low beat of his voice continued. “No matter what we do, how we live, what we have, most of the time we hide from our souls, repress the truth, pretend...” His finger teasing the rim of her vagina, slowly working inwards, her muscles convulsing. “But deep inside, deep inside, golden girl...we scream.”

The last word was hissed, loaded with sexual innuendo, and it was true of her physically—she was screaming for the fill of his flesh to ease the need he had incited. Yet her mind was floating above it, listening to the man he was revealing and revelling more in that intimacy than the other.

“You were going to show me everything,” she reminded him.

His touch stilled. He withdrew it to remove her last piece of clothing. “Let me take you on a tour,” he said, grasping her hand, drawing her into stepping out of her panties.

She had to force her tremulous legs to work, to follow him. His stimulation had left her feeling liquified, uncoordinated, aching for far more than he had given. Yet to concede any weakness would feed his satisfaction at the cost of hers. Keep him guessing, keep him working at getting the subjugation to his will that he obviously wanted, keep digging for what she wanted.

“Now on the opposite wall to the Brett Whitely is an Arthur Boyd,” he instructed, smiling indulgently.

His nonchalant air was an act of will. A quick glance showed his arousal had in no way abated. It also gave Beth the reassurance he was sheathed with protection. No risk of any unwelcome consequences from this one-night stand. Which was all it could be for both of them.

Again the sadness weighed heavily.

A meeting... a farewell.

“Stand here for the best view,” he directed, positioning her behind one of the black leather sofas directly across the room from the painting.

It was a high-backed lounge. She automatically rested her hands on it, needing the support of some solidity. He moved to her rear, as before, talking over her shoulder.

“The subject matter looks so simple, but the more you study this painting, the more you see in it.”

The colours were mostly dark greens and blues, a night scene, a small house on the top of a hill, below it a miniature white cow, seemingly heading down to a lake. She saw nothing else in the huge, sombre sweep of landscape. A white crescent moon—no stars—formed a tiny white curve in the sky.

Isolation, she thought. The painting brooded with isolation, little objects starkly overwhelmed by their much larger environment.

“There are hidden depths to it,” he murmured, sliding a hand around her hip, over her stomach. “Keep looking, golden girl. I want you to see them....” He bent, his arm pulling her to him, a knee parting her legs, a swift, smooth guidance and he was inside her, plunging hard and fast. “And feel them,” he said with throbbing satisfaction.

Beth clutched the sofa, instinctively anchoring herself as she gasped, yet almost instantly she was enthralled with the incredible feeling of him invading the passage he’d already prepared, soothing the frustrated nerve ends and filling the empty ache with the solid insertion of his manhood—big, strong, pulsing with power. It was marvellous, mind-blowing, body-shattering.

“Concentrate on the lake,” he advised, rhythmically setting her on a sea of sensation. “The reflections...”

So strange to view the dark picture of isolation while feeling the most intimate joining between a man and a woman. The lake was still, not the slightest shimmer of movement in its reflections. Inside her the rushing flow and ebb of a tide that crashed and swirled and sucked, a storming of shores that welcomed the pounding, loved it, revelled in it.

She wanted to let it flow through her, an experience to be savoured to the full. But there was still the compulsion to turn the tide on him, to reach for his innermost core, the heart and mind of the man who had once been Jamie. She forced herself to concentrate, to catch him while his guard was down, believing he’d taken all initiative from her.

“Does this painting...” Her voice was little more than a husky croak. She swallowed hard. “Reflect what you feel?” She pushed the words out, determined to commune with him on more than a physical level.

He buried himself as deeply as he could in her, paused. “What do you imagine I feel?” A raw edge to his voice.

She drew on her knowledge of Jamie. Was he still inside the man she held in such intimate possession? “The white cow, a lonely outcast, a long, cold night... Did you have a need for me?”

“Hardly an outcast.” Harsh. A slow withdrawal as he made a sardonic point. “When one is wanted by so many. And so much...” He rammed home his full length and paused again. “Even by a woman who’s only read about me.”

But he was wrong about her, and he sensed it somehow. There was a wondering note in his tone. She seized on the hint of vulnerability, riding the moment as hard as he was riding her, mental against physical.

“I think you want a full moon.” She rushed the words out, fiercely gathering her thoughts against the active chaos he stirred. “But what is pictured...is a thin crescent...a partial...and it will never grow into anything else.” She closed her eyes, swept up in the maelstrom of feeling, fighting the tide to put the last critical question. “Is that what makes you scream?”

“A full moon for lovers? Dream on, golden girl,” he said derisively and drummed any coherent thought out of her mind with a wild vigour that smashed every last thread of control, both hers and his, climaxing with explosive force and leaving them panting in paroxysms of intense release.

Spent, shuddering in reaction, he wrapped her in his arms and clamped her against him, their naked bodies slick with heat and almost excruciatingly sensitive to touch.

“Is my skin hot enough for you?” he growled. “I wouldn’t want you to feel cold...or lonely.”

She didn’t speak. Her head was spinning, her body churning with the knowledge of how it felt to be taken so comprehensively, as though she was branded inside and out by his possession.

“Maybe we should move to another painting,” he taunted. “Or have you been shown as much as you want?”

She hesitated. He had seized and still held a dominating position. And was arrogantly confident of keeping it. If she stayed, undoubtedly she would be committing herself to a night of saturation sex. But knowledge came in many forms. And touch—as he had just shown her—could reach many places.

“I’m not satisfied yet,” she answered resolutely.

And probably never will be, came the hollow thought. But the night was still young. He wouldn’t back down from the challenge implicit in her words, not a man who had to climb mountains and stand on top of them. If she could only touch him beyond the physical. She had barely scratched the surface of the inner man.

Jim Neilson was well and truly in the ring right now.

Would Jamie emerge before it was over?

CHAPTER FOUR

BETH stood under the shower in the guest bathroom of Jim Neilson’s penthouse apartment, trying to soothe aching muscles and revive herself for the long day ahead. Her mind dredged up the consoling thought that it hadn’t been a totally fruitless night. At least she’d had the experience of a red-hot lover once in her lifetime. Though she suspected the memory would be soured by the failure of her real quest.

Heaving a deep sigh that expressed frustration and resignation, she turned off the taps. No point in looking back any more. The man she’d left asleep in his bed was so encased in self-made armour, he was not about to let anyone break it open. Her probing had been turned away again and again. If Jamie still existed somewhere, he was suppressed under so many layers he was unreachable.

Despondently she towelled herself dry, then sorted through the clothes she’d collected from the living room. Her yellow suit was hopelessly crumpled. Not that it mattered how she looked this morning. She was not about to meet anyone she knew. Once she was at her hotel, she would have plenty of time to change into a fresh outfit before Aunty Em collected her for their trip to the old farm.

Nevertheless, she didn’t feel comfortable in the clothes that had been stripped off her by Jim Neilson. She knew she would never wear them again. Needs must, until she could get to her luggage.

Grimacing at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, she reached for her handbag, took out a hairbrush and lipstick and proceeded to achieve a fairly respectable appearance. Having braced herself to get on with her life, she left the bathroom and headed down the hallway, hoping the private elevator would not present any problem in making a quick and quiet getaway.

Wrapped in her own purpose, she was several steps into the living room before the aroma of freshly brewed coffee registered. Her feet faltered as she frowned at the smell. It had to mean...

“Good morning.”

Her heart lurched. Her head jerked around to face the source of the unexpected and unwelcome greeting. He stood by the huge picture window she had unveiled last night, a steaming mug of coffee in his hand. Although a black silk robe covered him from shoulder to knee, it did not diminish the impact of powerful virility. Instead it increased his sexual appeal, the belt loosely looped, ready to fall open with a finger flick, the deep V neckline showing an inviting expanse of raw masculinity.

Beth felt her throat drying up. There wasn’t one inch of his body she wasn’t intimately acquainted with, and it was a magnificent male body. But in the end, it was just a body, she fiercely reminded herself.

He showed no surprise that she was dressed. He waved casually to the long glass table between the sofas where he’d set down a tray—coffee, milk, sugar, biscuits. “I’d hate you to go without some sustenance,” he said with one of his quirky smiles.

“Why?” she asked bluntly, ignoring the tug of physical attraction.

He shrugged. “Perhaps I want to show you I can be civilised.”

“You’ve shown me all your sides. I don’t need to be shown any more.”

He raised a mocking eyebrow. “Giving up?”

Her smile was wry. “I know when I’m beaten.”

“Perhaps not.” There was a curious expression in his eyes. “Give me your name.”

She shook her head. “It’s irrelevant. This is goodbye.”

He frowned. “What if I don’t want it to be goodbye?”

“It is, anyway.”

“It was great sex,” he reminded her with wicked appeal.

“Yes,” she conceded flatly. Through ultimately soul-destroying, she added, crushing the wistful thought that it might have been different if he’d opened the doors she’d knocked on.

“What more do you want?” he dressed, looking for a response he could work on.

The doors to Jamie were locked. Beth had come to the conclusion that Jim Neilson had thrown away the keys and that what she wanted was irretrievable. Not even the greatest sex in the world could make up for it. It only made the loss greater.

“I want to go now,” she said decisively. “I have other things to do.”

He turned to face her full on. She felt the unleashed blast of his formidable concentration as his eyes probed hers with all their brilliant and magnetic intensity. “Not once have you used my name,” he said with slow deliberation. “Now you’re going without telling me yours. Did you intend all along for us to be ships passing in the night?”

She shrugged, dismissing the point as of no real importance. “It was always a possibility.”

He nodded consideringly. “You turned last night into a contest.”

“Did I?” She paused, her eyes mocking his view of what had happened between them. “Or did you?” She threw the question at him.

His mouth twisted. “Why do I have the feeling there is more to this encounter than you’re letting on?”

“Why worry?” she asked him flippantly. “You won the contest. You didn’t let me get to you. You stayed on top.”

“If you go, I lose,” he stated with a certainty that puzzled her.

“I’m sure you can generate great sex with any amount of women,” she said sceptically.

“No. It was the mental fight. Something... quite different.” He hesitated, seemingly feeling his way along uncharted territory. “I think I’ve been looking for someone like you for a very long time.”

The sickening irony of those words cut deep. “No, you haven’t,” she retorted with blistering certainty.

“Shouldn’t I be the judge of that?”

“If you’d been really looking, you’d have found me long before this.”

His eyes narrowed on the burning derision in hers. “Perhaps I’ve been blind.”

“No.” The bitterness of total defeat poured into words before she could stop them. “You’ve been too busy being Jim Neilson. I think you’ll never be anyone else but Jim Neilson now. So I’m leaving, because I didn’t come for Jim Neilson and I don’t belong in Jim Neilson’s life. Is that enough recognition of your name for you?”

“For whom did you come?” he asked her, homing in instantly on the one significant point.

She sighed, wrung out by this futile confrontation. She looked at him with dull, weary eyes, seeing the aggressive vitality of the conqueror determined on climbing another mountain. But her mountain had been climbed, and she was returning to the valley he’d put behind him.

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