Chapter Eighty One
Collins sucked in a quick breath...
Hours of it...with Jasmine Leclaire.
It wasn't a taxi waiting for them. It was a chauffeured Mercedes with plush leather seats. Very comfortable, but Jasmine couldn't relax.
Since the law demanded they wear seat belts Collins wasn't about to pounce, yet she half wished he would because she was so painfully tense and she needed her doubts and fears obliterated.
Arrow signs to the airport kept flashing at Jasmine on their way to Randwick, relentlessly reminding her that Collins would be heading there in just a few more hours...and possibly reminding him of the convenience of his hotel room, raising questions about the wisdom of going with her to her apartment, getting further involved with a woman he'd deliberately shunned for most of the wedding.
What if the impulse to pursue the desire they shared waned before they reached her place? How strong was it on his side? If he stayed with her for the rest of the night...if it was as incredibly wonderful as last time...would he come back for more of what they felt together...again and again and again? Or was that a hopeless pipedream on her part?
He was holding her hand, his thumb moving restlessly over her knuckles, back and forth, back and forth. A fine tension held them both silent. A huge wave of relief washed through Jasmine when the car finally diverted from the route to the airport and headed past Centennial Park to where she'd been living since landing her current job five years ago. Almost home now. Her fear that Collins might change his mind about spending the night with her began to ease.
The urge to babble something that might be of interest to him raised feverish streams of thought. The company she worked for, Wavelength Promotions, had its offices at Botany, only a ten-minute drive from her apartment. She could be telling Collins this, relating her own experience with computer graphic designs, the presentations she made to clients.
It was the normal thing to do. Yet his hard words—I don't want to know —held her tongue-tied. Perhaps he was right and only the feeling between them was important. Just...let it be.
The car arrived at her address. Collins spoke to the chauffeur, making arrangements for a car to pick him up here at 6:00 am. giving his mobile phone number for a cross-check with the hire company.
Jasmine wasn't quick enough to memorise the numbers. Not that it would do any good, she told herself. It was up to Collins to make any future contact. Meanwhile, she now knew precisely how long he would stay with her this time. Six o'clock...sunrise...
She desperately wanted to make a lasting impression on him, something more meaningful than whatever affairs he'd had with other women. Though her mind was helplessly foggy on how to accomplish that, especially when communication between them was overwhelmingly physical. Even as Collins followed her up the central staircase of the apartment block to her door on the first floor, his footsteps behind her made her heart beat faster and her legs feel tremulous.
Lucky that she hid a spare door key in the artificial aspidistra that dressed up a corner of the lobby serving the two apartments on her floor. She'd left her handbag at her parents' home at Lane Cove.
Having untaped the key from the back of one of the plastic leaves, she quickly shoved it into the door lock and opened the way for Collins to enter her private space.
'Not the safest place in the world to keep a key,' he dryly commented.
'Green tape,' she explained. 'Unless you know where to look it's not easily found.'
'You let me know.'
'You're flying out, Collins,' she reminded him. 'I don't see you as a danger to me or mine.'
He frowned at her as he stepped past into the small living room. 'Don't be too free with your trust, Jasmine. You're at risk...a woman like you living alone in the city.'
Having extracted the key from the lock, she closed the door and pointedly slotted home the safety chain. 'A woman like me lakes care of herself,' she lilted, turning to him with a smile. 'But thank you for your concern, Collins.'
It wasn't just sex. He cared about her feelings, cared about her safety.
The secret hope she nursed— that he might come to love her—danced a lively quickstep.
Collins thought her self-assurance vastly misplaced. Didn't she realize how sexy and desirable she was? Any red-blooded man would feel attracted, excited, simply by the sight of her. She had everything that incited lust, a body that curved so provocatively a guy would have to be dead not to want to touch it, a face that fascinated with its feminine mystique, and hair...
That red rose had been teasing him all night. He wanted to pluck it out, rake his fingers through the cluster of curls, scattering the pins that confined them, and wind whole skeins of her long silky hair around his hands, revelling in the feel of it and binding her to him in an inescapable hold.
She pushed away from the door in a skittish rush. 'Let me introduce you to my fish.'
Fish! What she needed was a big brute of a dog— a Doberman pinscher or a German shepherd—trained to go for the jugular of anyone who threatened her peace of mind.
'Why fish?' he demanded. 'Why not a dog? Leonard told me your sister's got a dog.'
She had hurried straight past him. The question made her pause, glance back, and he was struck again by the seductive line of her neck and shoulder...soft, bare, vulnerable, asking to be kissed.
'We're not allowed dogs in this building.'
The body corporate wielding rules and regulations. Collins grimaced at the imposed constraints. Not many freedoms left in city living. But at least they now had the freedom of complete privacy. He moved to close in on Jasmine , determined on soothing the nervous agitation which had suddenly seized her once the door to the outside world had been shut.
Her head snapped forward and she gestured to the fishbowl in front of her. ' The gold one is Rhett, and the red-gold one is Scarlet.' she said in a breathless flurry.
He spanned her waist with his hands-—intensely satisfying—and smiled at her choice of names. 'Are they destined to have an unhappy end as in Gone With the Wind?'
'No. They...'
He licked her earlobe. nibbled on it. She wore an enticing musky perfume thai sharply stirred his senses. He tasted her skin...
