Chapter Eighty Five

They crashed onto his back, pushing and pulling, egging him into a fastseries of thrusts that she rolled around in an ecstasy of revelling in the hard heated fullness of him, loving every powerful stroke, arching herself to receive the utmost penetration, clamping around him, moaning with the intense satisfaction of it.

It goaded him into pleasuring her as long as he could, exulting in her response, feeling like a mountaineer scaling the highest heights andshe was drawing him there from peak to peak. His own screaming need demanded a lift in tempo and the last crescendo was his, raising them both to an exquisite cusp of delight before abandoning themselves tothe sweet free-fall into blissful peace, wrapped in a togetherness that seeped into his soul and happily resided there.

The rest of the night was spent in a sensual daze of touching, kissing, merging. Collins no longer felt any need for some ascendancy over what they shared. He was awash with all the seductive sensations of intense intimacy, letting it flow as either he or she fancied.

At times he fell his heart swell with the joy of it, his mind float with the wonder of it, and all he ended up identifying was the undeniable fact that Jasmine Leclaire was the source of all these incredible feelings.

Whatever made her the woman she was appealed to him on unfathomable levels and he could not have enough of her.

She was his mate on every instinctive level. He knew it to the very marrow of his bones. Yet whether she would mesh with his working life was a question he shied from considering, not wanting this all too brief lime with her spoiled by any conflict of interests. It was easier simply to savour the perfection of their deeply mutual desire while it lasted.

In the end, she slipped from the contented languor of satiation into sleep, and still he took immense pleasure in looking at her, stroking her long silky hair, basking in the warmth of her soft breathing, lovingthe feel of her cuddled close to him. He didn't ask why was it so. It just was. He didn't know if it would always be like this with her. He cared only about now.

There was no place for her in his immediate future which was already mapped out in his mind. When it was time to go he didn't wake her, didn't want to talk, didn't want to say goodbye. Very carefully he slid his body out of contact with hers, watching her settle comfortably without him, though she heaved a sigh that seemed to waft around his heart, silently pleading for him to fill the emptiness again.

For several moments he stood by the bed, torn between the need to go and the desire to stay with her. But there was no choice. He had commitments to fulfil. Jasmine knew that. They were here because she hadn't wanted to wake alone in a hotel room—here in the place she called home...with her goldfish.

This last thought brought a smile and cased him out of her bedroom.

His clothes were still where he'd left them in the living room. Hers were, too. He nodded to the fish, mentally greeting them—Hi, Rhett!

Hi, Scarlet!—and grinned as they darted around the bowl to stare at him, their mouths working very energetically as though in a burst of fish chatter that undoubtedly had meaning if only he was a telepath ontheir wave length.

Good company, Jasmine had said, and he wondered if she made up conversations with them. Happy fish in their Feng Shui bowl. Happiness and harmony... it was what he'd felt with Jasmine Leclaire these past few hours, once his conflict over her power to drive him beyond control had ceased to matter.

As he picked up his clothes and dressed, he pondered the quandary she represented. She did have power over him, an addictive power that made him wary of establishing her in his life. A relationship meant constant ties, limitations to his freedom to be wherever he had to be to fulfil his contractual obligations. Would she drop everything to come with him, be with him?

Unlikely.

It was too much to ask anyway. Women had the right to their own lives, their own careers, and he'd seen what long separations did to relationships in the movie world. Better to leave Jasmine to her own work and friends and family.

He finished dressing and looked wryly at Rhett and Scarlet.

Jasmine couldn't pack goldfish in a suit case. This was her home and Collins knew he didn't belong here.

He turned to go.

On the floor in front of the armchair lay the dark red rose he'd taken from her hair. He remembered having tucked it into his breast pocket.

It must have tipped out when he'd tossed the coat on the chair.

He bent and picked it up, meaning to set it on the table by the fishbowl.

It was an artificial rose, perfect, reminding him of many things about Jasmine and how he'd felt with her. He twirled it around in his fingers, telling himself it was stupid to keep such a memento. Yet he still held her rose as he walked to the door, released the safety chain and let himself out. He had no idea what he'd do with it.

He just wanted it.

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