“That’s nice.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
Trish waited her out, until Cali relented and met her questioning stare. “Okay, what?”
“You seem a little tense this week, is all.”
Cali immediately ducked, pretending to search for something under her chair to try to give herself a moment. Oh, hell. She was losing it. Slipping at work, when so much hung in the balance. Who else had noticed? Had word gotten back to Amanda?
“I see you flipping out—just chill. It’s not like you’re wearing a billboard or something, but I work more closely with you than anyone else.” Trish grinned as Cali dared a glance her way. “And I’m very sensitive to romantic strife.”
Straightening in her seat, Cali pulled it together. “We’re not serious enough to have romantic strife. I’m totally fine.”
Trish eyed her with a delicately arched brow. “Really?”
Cali swallowed, sat back in her chair, knowing full well the plastic smile she’d forced to her lips wouldn’t do a thing to hide the melancholy she felt inside. “Really.”
“Okay, I can see you don’t want to talk about it. But you know I’m around, whenever, if you need me.”
She nodded. “Thanks, I appreciate it.”
“Just don’t forget it.” Trish turned on her heel and left.
The office door swung shut and the stiff smile fell from her lips. She’d been tense. Distracted. To the point that a co-worker had identified it. This was exactly what she’d been trying to avoid for the past few years. Letting a relationship interfere with her career. So Trish hadn’t been criticizing her work as much as noting a change in her temperament? Still it was just a matter of time before it got in the way. And she and Jake weren’t even fighting.
There wasn’t enough emotion involved to fight, she thought with a stab of heartache.
Her mind drifted back to Jake, so quickly picking up where she’d left off before Trish had reminded her she was still in a meeting.
He’d taken her against the wall immediately inside her apartment. Her silk blouse hanging from her wrists like a sensual bind, lace panties pushed to the floor, skirt bunched at her waist. They hadn’t gotten any further than that. Hadn’t been able to. It had been erotic. Explosive and intense. But even as he’d taken her to new heights of pleasure she’d felt the void between them growing. A distance that hadn’t been there even the first night in the bar.
Against the wall.
So much the same.
Entirely different.
He’d shut her out. Kept his mind intent on the choreography of seduction, enslaving her with his touch while his heart remained disengaged. He wasn’t the same man who’d looked at her with his soul in his eyes, given her a taste of something she’d never dreamt to have. And, after years of being numb to the needs of her heart, suddenly the organ she’d previously refused to acknowledge felt hollow and deprived.
Her sense of loss didn’t make sense.
She’d told Jake she could live with it. She should be relieved. The fact that Trish had been aware of her tension at all should be reason alone to embrace an emotional retreat.
So why did she feel she couldn’t?
It was after twelve, and moonlight streamed in through the window, casting Cali’s rumpled form in blue and silver hues. A sheen of sweat coated his skin, his heart slammed against his ribs, and the blood was rushing so fast past his ears the sound was nearly deafening.
After tonight’s sexual Olympics he’d had to carry Cali back to her bed, and it had taken everything he had to force himself to crawl back out of it. It wasn’t any half hopeful look fading from her eyes that made his exit difficult—that had stopped days ago. It was out-and-out muscle fatigue.
The sex had been insane.
Cali let him take her beyond all boundaries, giving her body completely. It had been hot. And yet, no matter how far he pushed her, how long he held back, how explosive the release when he finally gave in to it, satisfaction remained elusive.
Something was off.
He was irritated. Dissatisfied. Uncomfortable in his own skin. He wanted to believe it was the waning of the relationship, that he’d tired of the time he spent with Cali. Except it wasn’t true. He couldn’t seem to stay away from the one woman he was trying to let go—even now when she’d begun to make it easier for him. Adding distance of her own. Shielding her emotions more effectively.
But still, every night….
The conference was coming up in a few days. He’d end it then. No more excuses or extensions. And when he got back, life would be back to normal. He’d have gotten her out of his head and from under his skin.
He’d be able to breathe again without feeling the ties of commitment binding his chest.
Cali let out a quiet moan, her hand sweeping blindly over the empty sheets beside her.
Looking for him.
His jaw clenched as a tiny frown marred her lovely face. He should go.
Only looking down at her, curled slightly into herself, the moonlit contours of her body visible beneath the sheet, he just wanted to feel her against him again. His jaw set. He just wanted her again.
He climbed back into bed. Not to spend the night.
Jake aligned himself front to back with her. Warm breath and a soft sigh feathered over his arm where he’d wrapped it around her, tucking her into the contours of his hardening body.
“Once more,” he whispered into the mass of curls at the nape of her neck. “I need you again.”
“Mmmm.” Her back arched, her bottom pressing into him as she reached one sleep heavy hand over her shoulder to sift into his hair.
His eyes closed as he drew in her scent. Feminine sweetness. Cali.
Sliding into her from behind, he buried himself in that soft, sweet place.
Yes.
This was where he wanted to be.
Maybe if he went slow enough, lingered, he’d lose himself—find that elusive bit of peace that seemed to always be there, hovering at the fringe of his consciousness, but still just out of reach. He was as close to it as he’d been in weeks, so deep inside her. Listening to her quiet mewls, feeling the beat of her heart beneath the palm of his hand. He could almost reach it. So close…. So close….
“Jake,” she whispered, just this side of half asleep.
Just until the conference.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“ARE you packed?” Cali called from the kitchen, uncorking a bottle of Pinot Grigio at the counter. Her hands trembled as she poured two glasses.
Jake stood by the bank of windows, looking out over the lakefront below. There was a brooding quality to him she couldn’t miss and her belly tensed, bracing for something she’d sensed coming for days—something she didn’t want to face but knew couldn’t be ignored any longer. This was it. The end.
“Pretty much. A few suits, shirts and ties.”
Crossing the room, she handed him a glass of wine and took a steadying sip of her own. The vintage, a crisp, light selection, one of her favorites, tasted bitter on her tongue. “So, when are you going to be back?”
“Thursday,” he answered, without elaboration.
No talk of calls or plans, because there wouldn’t be any. Just a weighty silence, full of meaning.
“Cali, I care about you.”
She nodded, her fist tightening around the stem of her glass.
With a bracing breath, he met her eyes. Soulful, intense, unwavering. “But being with you it’s just too easy to fall into the kind of pattern I want to avoid. I don’t want a commitment. I don’t want the heavy emotion. I don’t want the need—”
“I get it, Jake. I do. I care about you too.” More than she wanted to. More than she ever should have. Her chest tightened, her eyes stinging with tears she wouldn’t shed. Why did this hurt? She’d lost the man who’d swept her away weeks ago. And yet a part of her had continued to hope. But she knew better now. She understood. This was for the best. For both of them. “It was a fling. It was f
un.” Her chest constricted as she forced the stubborn words past her lips. “But it wasn’t going to last forever.”
“Good talk, Jake.” A colleague clapped him heartily on the shoulder as another stopped to shake hands on his way out of the conference hall.
Jake returned greetings, discussed techniques and practices, caught up with old friends, but all the while Cali remained, ever-present, in the back of his mind.
He couldn’t stop thinking about her. About their goodbye and that last kiss she’d pressed against his lips. The way his fists had clenched as he’d forced his hands to still rather than pull her against him.
She was supposed to be out of his head by now.
Maybe it was the sex he was missing. Though there were more than enough willing women lurking around the hotel lobby and bar, casting inviting looks. But he wasn’t interested in the slightest. He didn’t want to buy them a drink. Didn’t want to waste a few hours on idle conversation. Or try to forget for a few minutes in their arms. Nothing interested him. No one.
He wondered if Cali had been able to figure a workaround on the pricing delay that had cropped up before he left. Wondered if she’d been pushing herself too hard, staying up all night to resolve the problem. Staying too late at the office alone. Taking cabs in the middle of the night. His gut tightened as his fingers wrapped around the phone in his pocket.
He just wanted to know she was okay. A fling didn’t necessitate a complete lack of feelings. Of course he cared about her. He had from the start. Which was why he was leaving her alone.
He was being an idiot. Still, he stared down at the phone, debating a moment longer, before shoving it back into his pocket and heading to the table where his partner was talking to another group of surgeons.
Cali was exhausted. At the office, she’d been a dynamo. Pushing everyone around her, demanding progress, inciting action. She’d been going full throttle, trying to keep her attention on the task at hand rather than on the persistent ache inside her. But when the building was locked up for the night, and she was forced to go home, sleep would not come. All she could do was stare at the ceiling, blinking eyes she refused to let cry, fighting the pain she’d been too stupid to avoid.
Four days had passed since Jake had returned from the conference. She’d seen him once, hailing a cab just as she’d arrived—nearly called and run over before catching herself at the last minute.
Breaking things off was the right thing to do. She’d needed to refocus on her career. Stop investing so much energy and emotion in a relationship that wasn’t going anywhere. So she kept telling herself the same things, time and again. It was for the best. It was time to let go. Only the hollow sensation deep inside her wasn’t lessening. She missed his body, missed the way he made her feel. She missed more than that, but thinking about exactly how much she’d lost hurt more than she could bear.
Fatigue pressed heavy on her shoulders as she pushed with her hip through the revolving lobby doors. She was suddenly so tired it was all she could do not to rest her forehead against the glass. Maybe her mind would stop spinning and she’d finally sleep tonight.
There she was, mere yards ahead of him. Fine—now he’d seen her. He’d been telling himself for days the reason he couldn’t get her out of his head was that he hadn’t seen her yet. But as he’d stepped out of the Snappy Store and caught a glimpse of her heading into their building, half a block away, no sense of closure had come to him. He didn’t want to stand where he was and wait for her to catch the elevator without him. Didn’t feel relieved or released or anything but an impossible to ignore urge to go to her. Talk to her. Make sure she was okay.
Fists balled at his sides, he willed his feet to stay where they were, but every muscle in his body began to rebel against the rationale of his mind.
Crossing the lobby, Cali cursed the gorgeous three-inch heels she’d put on that morning, thinking they were comfortable. They were sprint distance shoes—showy—not suited for the long haul. At the end of the road, with the elevators off to the next alcove, each step sent a stab of pain from her toes to her calf.
Only a few more steps and she’d be able to shut down. Relax.
She pushed the up button just as a familiar, baritone voice called her name, starting a chain reaction of awareness surging through her body.
No. Not now. Not when her every reserve was exhausted.
Jake. Dressed in a charcoal suit, white shirt, and slate tie. His trench coat flared behind him as he strode across the open lobby. He looked harder, more impenetrable than she’d ever seen him, his flinty gaze steady on her as his steps ate up the distance between them.
Her nails dug into her palms as a warm tide of longing washed through her veins. “Welcome back, Jake.”
“Thanks.” He stopped beside her, leaning one shoulder against the wall, his hands stuffed deep in his trouser pockets. Casual. Polite. Easy, damn him. “So, I’m guessing these are the spy hours you were talking about, huh?”
Answering with a weak smile and a nod, she stared straight ahead. She couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t let him see what his presence alone did to her.
“How’ve you been?” So very adult. Polite.
“Busy,” she answered evasively. “You know.”
“Sure.” Jake let out a long breath beside her, and when he spoke again irritation edged his words. “Thought I would have seen you before this. You’ve been working late a lot.”
Had he been looking? No. He hadn’t phoned, and for heaven’s sake the man lived on the other side of her wall. If he’d wanted to see her, he would have.
The elevator doors opened and she glanced at the small space within, then gazed longingly at the stairwell opposite where they stood. She could walk up. Avoid that brief confinement with Jake altogether.
What were seventeen floors, anyway?
Who was she kidding? The cruel shoes wouldn’t make it to the second landing, and, more to the point, Jake wasn’t the kind of man to let her march off like that if he had something to say. Or hobble off, as the case may be.
The image was too pathetic, and she sighed with resignation as she stepped into the waiting car. It was seventeen floors. What could happen?
“Did you do anything this weekend?” he asked, watching her from the corner.
“Just worked, really.” She’d passed on making plans with Trish. Turned down a date from one of the accounting guys. Just given herself over to the job for as many hours as it would take her.
“Of course. Get far enough ahead to feel like you aren’t behind yet?”
She laughed at that, almost turned to look at him, before quickly turning back to stare at the passing floors illuminate and dim, the smile dying on her lips.
“That laugh. You don’t know how good it is to hear it after….” A low hiss of strained breath filled the silence, followed by a rough curse that had her head snapping around in alarm.
“Jake?” Peering up into the deep blue eyes that searched her soul, she noted a weariness. Something almost haunted just beneath the surface. “Are you okay?”
Jake pulled back, as though shocked by the question. Stunned that he’d revealed anything at all. His looked away, but only for a second, before he was back in control.
The elevator chimed and the doors slid open. Cali dragged her gaze from the man she simply wanted to hold. Turned to the hall and forced her feet to move.
It’s for the best. She could let—
“I miss you.”
She froze in place. Closed her eyes—shook her head the slightest degree. She couldn’t breathe. Didn’t want to dare hope.
“I thought it would go away, this thing between us. But I’m watching you walk down this hall without me…and I don’t want to let you go.”
He was beside her now, not touching, but close enough for the heat of his body to warm her, his breath to tease her hair. “Cali.”
Tension arced between them, the air almost vibrating with it. Another inch and there’d be contact, and then
it would be too late. Her arms would be around his neck, her body hot against his. She wouldn’t be able to resist. Wouldn’t want to—
His arms closed around her, his lips descending in a brutal crush. She opened, groaning at the taste of him in her mouth. The tight grip of his hands in her clothes. So good. So right. She needed more.
He gathered her tightly into his embrace. Lifting her feet from the ground, he walked them, mouths fused, tongues sliding over and around each other, down the hall. She registered the door to his apartment as they moved past and then stopped at hers.
Distance.
Insurance that he’d be able to leave.
Nothing had changed. Not really. Because even though he’d missed her…he hadn’t wanted to.
Like her, he simply couldn’t resist. Eyes closed, she savored the strength of the body against hers—the warmth and scent. She wanted this. Needed it. Had tried going without and nothing about it felt right. So she would have a part of him, but not all—less than she wanted, but more than she’d hoped for. It was physical rather than emotional, and if she could remember that—keep a part of her heart guarded because of it—she could live with it…if he could.
“Jake,” she breathed against his lips, her fingers clenched in the fabric of his shirt, her body melting in a slow glide against the contours of his frame. “Is this really what you want?”
He stopped, chest heaving, muscles bunched. He wanted her more than his next breath. How could she even ask when just exactly how much he wanted her was stabbing her in the belly.
But sex wasn’t what she meant.
Did he even know what he wanted? All he knew was that nothing made sense and everything felt off. His skin didn’t fit. He couldn’t breathe right. The rhythm of his existence was out of sync. But, standing so close to Cali, he felt the pull of a gravitational slide bringing him ever closer. He stared into her eyes. Down to her kiss-swollen lips as she whispered his name. Saw her sitting there at the Jazz House that very first night; snapping her chopsticks at him, laughing, as they dined on her floor; falling asleep with her lips pressed at the center of his chest.