Flash

  “Are we going to play the guessing game again?”

  She glared at him. “Don’t push me on this.”

  “Why not? Someone else is already pushing you pretty damn hard.”

  The soft, lethal edge on his words startled her. She measured him through half-lowered lashes. So much for Mr. Tall, Dark, and Reassuring, she thought. Mr. Tall, Dark, and Dangerous had just materialized in his place.

  She released the doorknob and straightened her shoulders. “I’ve got to think about this.”

  “You do that.” Jasper moved toward her. “Think about the fact that someone knows your secret. Think about all the possibilities.”

  She had to fight the instinct to step back when he came to a halt directly in front of her. “I will.”

  “Think about the fact that I’m involved in this, too.”

  “I know you’re involved.” She tried to keep her voice steady, but it was not easy. He was so close, almost on top of her. “And I realize it’s my fault.”

  “That’s right.” He captured her face between his big hands. “I’m in this because of you. Correct me if I’m wrong, but at the moment I seem to be the only ally you’ve got.”

  “Well, yes, in a manner of speaking, I guess you could say that.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.” He looked into her eyes. “I thought we agreed we’d form a united front.”

  “That was in regard to business, for heaven’s sake. It hardly applies to this mess.”

  “You’re wrong. It does apply to this mess.”

  She reached up to catch hold of his wrists. “I told you, I need to think.”

  “You’d better do your thinking in a hurry because we both know you’re not going to pay off a blackmailer.”

  The icy reality of his words struck her like cold winter rain. He was right. She could not, would not pay blackmail.

  “Just give me a little time to sort out a few things,” she whispered.

  “What’s the problem here, Olivia? Don’t you trust me? Your uncle did.”

  She’d had enough of feeling cornered. “Stop pressuring me, damn it. I told you, I’ve got to think about this before I make any decisions.”

  Lightning crackled in his eyes. “While you’re at it, think about this.”

  Before she realized his intent, his mouth was on hers, hard, demanding, and very, very hungry. Her nerves, already inflamed by an unholy brew of adrenaline, fury, and desperation, exploded on contact.

  Desire flooded her veins.

  She managed to tear her mouth free for an instant.

  “Jasper. This is so crazy.”

  “Tell me about it. No, on second thought, don’t say a damn word.” He took off her glasses and set them on the tiny bedside table.

  Then he covered her mouth again and tightened his hold on her.

  She gave a small, half-choked exclamation, put her arms around his neck, and flung herself headfirst into the kiss.

  Jasper made a hoarse, half-strangled, extremely urgent sound and fell back onto the bed. He pulled her down on top of him. She sprawled across his chest and thighs. He caught her legs between his own.

  She was shocked by the fierceness of his erection. She could feel the shape and size of him beneath the fabric of his trousers.

  His fingers were at the nape of her neck. He found the zipper of her dress and dragged it the length of her spine all the way to where it ended at the small of her back. He slid his hand inside the opening. His palm was warm and heavy on her bare skin.

  “You have a great back,” he muttered. “A really terrific back.”

  She raised her head and looked down at him. “You’re not going to break this off if it suddenly starts to rain in here tonight the way it did on my balcony, are you?”

  His eyes gleamed with wicked amusement. “I don’t think I could end it if an entire tsunami came through that porthole.”

  “Good.” Relieved, she went to work on his shirt.

  It took her a while to bare his chest, but once she had accomplished the task she could see that it had been well worth the effort.

  “Nice.” She splayed her fingers across his flat belly and bent her head to kiss his shoulder. He felt warm and powerful and utterly male beneath her hands. “Very, very nice.”

  “My turn.”

  He rolled her over onto her back and peeled down the black and silver gown. The front clasp of her black lace bra came apart in his hands. He looked down at her breasts with an expression of stark wonder. Then he cupped her in his fingers and took a nipple very gently between his teeth.

  A luscious, liquid heat pooled in her lower body. A deep, tight urgency assailed her. Olivia closed her eyes as the exquisite sensations sizzled through her. Nothing had ever felt like this, she thought. Nothing. But all Jasper had done was kiss one breast. She would surely shatter into a gazillion stars if he did anything else.

  She put a hand over her mouth to muffle a tiny shriek.

  Jasper paused. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes.” She could barely get the single word out between her lips. She reached up and clutched at him. Sank her fingers into his shoulders. “Yes.”

  “Glad to hear it.” His laugh was low and husky, more of a groan. He eased her dress off and hurled it out of the way. “You had me worried there for a minute. I told you, my timing isn’t always the greatest when it comes to this kind of thing.”

  “You took me by surprise, that’s all.” She sounded breathless. She could not help it. She was breathless. “It’s been so long. I’m a little tense, I guess. I mean, I’ve been busy. You know how it is.”

  “Yeah.” He slid his warm hand slowly down over her stomach. “I know. You’ve been too busy, and I don’t get out much. We’re a real pair, aren’t we?”

  She blushed, and then she giggled. Giggled. She never giggled. Olivia was mortified.

  By the time she had recovered, Jasper had his hand inside the waistband of her black lace panties. She shivered when she felt his gently probing finger. The bubbling laughter dissolved in a heartbeat. Excitement flared in its place. She knew she was already soaking wet.

  “This,” Jasper said in reverent tones, “is the most amazing thing that’s happened to me in a very long time.”

  Olivia buried her face against his shoulder. He stroked her until she was so desperate that she began to nip gently at the muscle in his arm.

  Jasper rolled to the side for a moment. When he rolled back he had his pants off. Her mouth went dry as she watched him sheath himself in a condom.

  “Oh, my.” She could not think of anything else to say.

  “Thank you.” Jasper’s eyes gleamed as he watched her stare at his erection. “It would have been a little disconcerting if you had started to giggle again.”

  “This,” she said, wrapping her fingers around him, “is no laughing matter.”

  He gave a muffled exclamation and came down on top of her. Before she could even begin to orient her senses or prepare herself, he was easing slowly, deliberately, completely into her.

  The rhythm of her breathing altered abruptly as her body adjusted to the indescribable tension. She felt stretched, taut, full to the bursting point.

  When he was buried deep inside her, Jasper paused. He held himself unmoving. There was a sheen of dampness on his forehead. Olivia tentatively flexed her hands and realized that his shoulders were also slick with perspiration. He said nothing, but she knew that he was as riveted as she was by the moment.

  He started to move, slowly, at first, much too slowly. She could feel something within her trying to snap free. She dug her nails into his sleek back.

  “Faster,” she urged.

  “It feels good this way.”

  She tried to force the pace. “Hurry.”

  “Shush.” He braced himself on his elbows and brushed his mouth lightly across her parted lips. “Cabin walls and doors are thin on a ship.”

  She raked his back with her nails.

  His teeth flashe
d in the shadows. “I get the point.”

  He changed the depth of his strokes, but he refused to quicken them. The unpredictability of his movements made her wild. She wanted to scream. She squeezed every muscle in her body, struggling to get control of the situation. A shudder went through Jasper.

  “You’re going to make me crazy,” he said against her throat.

  “What do you think you’re doing to me?”

  Jasper’s shoulder grew slicker beneath her hands. His whole body was hot and wonderfully heavy. She squeezed her eyes shut as the tension of his maddeningly slow, incredibly deep thrusts built. She was almost afraid to breathe for fear the magic would go away and leave her hanging in midair.

  But she realized very quickly that she had underestimated the magician. Just when she thought she could not stand the sensual torment another instant, Jasper reached down to find the tightly swollen bud. He pressed it up and back.

  Olivia did scream then. All thought of thin cabin walls and the possibility that someone might be walking past outside in the corridor was forgotten in the flash fire of her release.

  Jasper sealed her mouth with his, trapping her cries in his own throat.

  She returned the favor when he surged against her one last time, every muscle rigid.

  “You were wrong,” Olivia said a short while later.

  Jasper watched the moonlight through the porthole. He felt drowsy and deeply satiated. All he wanted to do at that moment was drift off to sleep with Olivia’s derriere nestled against his groin.

  He yawned. “What was I wrong about?”

  “Your timing is actually very, very good when it comes to this kind of thing.” She breathed deeply. “Fantastic, in fact.”

  Jasper smiled into the darkness.

  He opened one eye when he felt Olivia edge out from under his arm. “Where are you going?”

  “It’s four-thirty.” She sat up on the side of the rumpled bed and reached for her glasses. “I want to take a quick shower and change my clothes before I go back to work.”

  He opened the other eye. He had been right. She really did have a great back. He liked the elegant way her spine connected to the curve of her buttocks.

  “You didn’t get any rest,” he said.

  She went to the small closet to take down some clothes. “I told you, I’ll crash when I get home today.”

  He folded his hands behind his head. “When are we going to talk about the blackmail problem?”

  She whirled quickly to face him, gripping her fresh clothing in front of her like a shield. “You don’t give up, do you?”

  “I’ll admit this is the best thing that’s happened to me in a very long time.” Satisfaction rippled through him again as he breathed in the scents of the bed. “But it did not bring on total amnesia. We’ve still got a problem.”

  “I told you, I need to think about things.” She stepped through the narrow door of the tiny bath. “I’ll call you.”

  The door closed firmly behind her nicely curved rear. The sound of the shower cut off further conversation.

  “Oh, no, you don’t, lady,” Jasper said very softly.

  He got to his feet and crossed the room. He opened the door of the bath and stood in the entrance. Steamy vapor swirled around him.

  He could see the outline of Olivia’s body behind the white curtain. He forced himself to concentrate on more important things.

  “I will call you,” he said.

  “What?” She stuck her head around the curtain. Her hair was bundled up in a makeshift turban fashioned from a towel. “I didn’t hear you.”

  “I said, I’ll give you a call. Tomorrow.” He propped one shoulder against the door and admired the way the towel turban enhanced her regal cheekbones. “There’s no use talking to you today. You’re running on adrenaline and caffeine.”

  She blinked. “Your point?”

  “My point,” he said with grave precision, “is that there’s no way that you can think clearly and logically about something as serious as blackmail and extortion until you get some rest. Go home after we dock. Get a good night’s sleep tonight.”

  She smiled a little too brightly. “That’s exactly what I plan to do.”

  “Then we’ll talk.” He straightened away from the door frame and walked back into the bedroom.

  “Jasper—”

  He pretended that he could not hear her over the noise of the running water.

  Olivia emerged from the bath a few minutes later. She said nothing as she dressed in a flurry of activity.

  When she was finished she flung open the door.

  “Bye,” she said with brittle good cheer.

  And then she was gone.

  When the cabin door closed behind her, Jasper made use of the facilities. He caught sight of his own face in the steamy mirror and grimaced at the stubble. His razor was in his cabin, together with the change of clothes he had brought with him.

  He glanced at his watch. It was barely five A.M. He could probably make it back to his own room without arousing any curiosity. If he did run into a fellow passenger, he could always claim that he had partied all night and had never made it to bed.

  He put on the wrinkled white tuxedo shirt and black trousers, grabbed his jacket and tie, and headed for the door.

  He saw Andy Andrews as soon as he stepped out into the hall.

  Damn. This was no coincidence. The reporter had obviously staked out Olivia’s cabin.

  “Morning, Sloan.” Andy gave Jasper an ingenuous smile. “Didn’t know you were such an early riser. Early morning conference with your new business partner?”

  Jasper walked deliberately toward him along the narrow hall. “If I see one word of this in your column, I will personally feed you to a shredder, Andrews.”

  “Hey, I cover regional business issues.” Andy put up his hands, palms out. “I’m no gossip columnist.”

  “The hell you aren’t.” Jasper kept moving forward, taking up most of the room in the narrow hall.

  At the last instant, Andy hastily flattened himself against the wall in order to get out of Jasper’s path.

  16

  “You’re sure this is what you want to do?” Al asked. “I’m sure.” Jasper opened another drawer in his desk and began removing the items stored there. He stacked them neatly in the carton on the floor.

  It was Sunday morning. Al Okamoto had reluctantly agreed to meet him here today to finalize the sale of Sloan & Associates.

  It felt strange to be cleaning out his own office after all these years. But it was the right move. He knew it with that same, inexplicable sense of certainty he relied on when it came to making all his business decisions.

  “You and your stepbrother built Sloan & Associates from nothing.” Al shoved his hands into the pockets of his trousers. “How can you just walk away from it like this?”

  “It’s time, Al.” Jasper placed his collection of expensive pens into the box. “I’ve got a new company. I’m ready for the change.”

  Al watched him with troubled eyes. “Maybe it was a mistake to send you off on vacation.”

  Jasper smiled briefly. “The vacation had nothing to do with it.”

  “You’re certain that you want to go through with this deal?”

  “I’m certain.”

  Jasper glanced around the office that had served him well for over a decade. It was on the thirtieth floor of a downtown highrise. The windows gave a sweeping view of Elliott Bay and the Olympics.

  His new offices down the street were considerably less plush, he thought. The decor was more utilitarian. The view was not nearly so panoramic. But he already felt more at home in Glow’s executive suite than he ever had here at Sloan & Associates. He did not know how to explain that to Al. He could not even explain it to himself.

  Jasper knew that everyone assumed he had a strong sentimental attachment to Sloan & Associates, not only because he had helped found it, but because of its connection to his stepbrother. As far as he was concerned,
however, Fletcher was a specter who haunted the offices of the firm that he had once brought to the brink of scandal and ruin.

  In the year following Fletcher’s death, Jasper had been forced to fight hard, not only to salvage Sloan & Associates, but to conceal Fletcher’s embezzlement and fraud. He had won the battle, but he had never successfully exorcised Fletcher’s ghost.

  Jasper glanced at his watch. It was nine o’clock. He figured he’d give Olivia another hour or two to catch up on her sleep, and then he’d show up on her doorstep. He did not intend to call ahead to warn her that he was on his way. She might decide not to be at home.

  “I’ve got the papers in my office,” Al said.

  Jasper closed the drawer he had just emptied. “Let’s get them signed. I’ve got a lot to do today.”

  “Whatever you say.” Al studied him for a moment, dark eyes filled with concern. “What happens if you decide you don’t like the daily grind of running a company like Glow? How can you be sure you won’t miss the adrenaline of the venture capital game?”

  “There’s plenty of risk involved in keeping a company like Glow profitable.” Jasper thought about how Olivia had shuddered in his arms. He smiled. “Don’t worry, I’ll find some way to get my daily dose of excitement.”

  Al gave him an odd look. “Funny you should mention that. I was wondering how to bring up the issue of your continuing dose of excitement.”

  Jasper peered into the back of a drawer to make certain it was empty. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Don’t get me wrong. I, for one, am happy to see that you’re developing a social life, but I’ve got to admit it came as something of a surprise.”

  “Damn it, Al—”

  Al cleared his throat. “I take it you haven’t seen the special edition of Hard Currency?”

  Jasper went very still. “Hard Currency usually gets faxed to the office on Mondays and Thursdays.”

  “This edition is dated yesterday.” Al handed him the single-page newsletter.

  Jasper frowned. “Saturday?”

  “Yeah. Fresh off the boat, you might say. Looks like Andy Andrews went straight back to his office after he left the Private Island and whipped it out. It was in the fax machine when I got here this morning. Every exec in the Northwest who goes into his office this weekend will see it.”