He slowly put down his empty mug. ‘Do you think I was drunk last night?’ he asked slowly.
Stacy gave a harsh laugh. ‘I don’t think it at all, I know it. You were absolutely stoned when you arrived here, or I would have called a taxi and had you taken to your hotel.’
‘I wasn’t drunk, Stacy,’ he told her softly. ‘I’d been on the plane for hours, gone to a premiere it turned out I needn’t have attended, and spent two hours at a party that bored the pants off me. I have to admit I had a couple of drinks there, but—’
‘A couple!’ she snorted her disbelief. ‘More like a couple of dozen! You arrived on my doorstep at three o’clock in the morning, then talked incoherently for several minutes before going unconscious.’
Jake came to stand in front of her, his firm muscular thighs on a level with her eyes. ‘I wasn’t drunk, Stacy,’ he repeated steadily. ‘I was exhausted. I’d taken a couple of pills to keep me awake and the whisky on top seemed to put me in a coma. I could feel the effects of it on the way over here, but I had to see you. And I don’t think I was talking incoherently at all. I seem to remember I told you I love you.’
Colour flared into her otherwise pale cheeks. ‘The ramblings of a drunken man don’t mean a lot to me.’
‘I wasn’t drunk, damn you!’ His fingers bit into the soft flesh at the top of her arms as he pulled her to her feet. He held her immobile against the stirring of his thighs, his head bent on a level with her own. ‘I love you, Stacy. I love you!’ He shook her roughly.
She took a deep breath. ‘And when did you make this startling discovery?’ She had to scorn him or she would simply have melted against the urgency of his body, not caring what he felt for her as long as he made love to her. She closed her eyes against the total maleness of him, fighting the betrayal of her own body.
‘It wasn’t startling at all,’ he contradicted gently. ‘I’ve known for a very long time.’
She couldn’t believe him, she wouldn’t believe him. He was playing some new game with her—and she wasn’t going to play. ‘Really?’ she said disinterestedly.
‘What the hell is the matter with you?’ he rasped angrily, shaking her once again. ‘What’s happened to you?’
She wrenched away from him. He was what had happened to her, him and the love she felt towards him, the love that was slowly destroying her. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me, I just don’t understand your reasons for being here.’
‘Don’t understand … Haven’t I just been telling you?’ Jake sounded exasperated. ‘Or do you have men making those sort of declarations every day, so that it means nothing to you if one more fool does it? Oh hell!’ he ran a hand roughly through his dark hair. ‘I didn’t come here with the intention of throwing out those sort of insults.’
Stacy hadn’t flinched at his barb, expecting it as a mouse expects torment from a cat. ‘Why did you come here?’ she asked dully.
‘To tell you I love you!’ He searched her cold hard features, shaking his head dazedly. ‘It doesn’t seem to mean much to you.’
She could have told him that nothing seemed to mean much to her lately, nothing seemed to break through the numbness and depression she felt. She loved this man and he said he loved her, and yet she knew there could never be any happiness for them together. Apart from him she was barely alive, but if she accepted the little he was prepared to give she would be subjecting herself to a living hell. This man had no trust in any woman, and it would destroy her in the end.
‘I’m flattered, of course—’
‘Flattered!’ he cut in angrily. ‘I don’t want you to be flattered, for God’s sake! I want to know how you feel about me.’
‘I feel nothing for you,’ she lied.
His face darkened with anger. ‘I wouldn’t say the way you tremble against me was nothing,’ he snapped.
Stacy sighed. ‘I’ll admit to a certain amount of physical attraction.’
‘You’ll admit to a damn sight more than that!’ he said grimly, making a threatening move towards her.
‘No!’ She backed away. ‘Please, remember where you are. I have three flatmates, any one of whom could come out here at any moment.’
‘But they won’t,’ he said with a certainty that surprised her. ‘Not if they have any sense. I wouldn’t like them to be embarrassed.’
Stacy fought against him as he pulled her effortlessly into his arms, trying to evade his searching mouth but knowing the temptation to feel the full possession of this man, just once to be wholly his.
His mouth was gentle on hers, his hands beneath her sweater as he strained her against the hard throbbing of his thighs. ‘Kiss me, Stacy. I need you to,’ he groaned.
She couldn’t resist his pleadings, and her mouth flowered beneath his as she felt him deepen the kiss. They lay side by side on the sofa, Jake’s shirt completely unbuttoned, Stacy’s sweater pushed up so that their naked torsoes moulded together. She hadn’t been able to say no as he had kissed and caressed her, and she wished now that they were completely alone in the flat so that their consummation could be complete.
‘Your body is beautiful,’ Jake groaned against one rosy nipple, smoothing her skin with trembling passion. ‘I want to love you,’ he rasped. ‘All of you.’
‘I know, I know,’ she moaned her own pleasure. ‘Oh, Jake, why did you have to leave me?’
‘You left me,’ his mouth teased her breasts to full pulsating life. ‘I asked you to stay, I almost begged you.’