Six Weeks, page 3
Katie narrowed her eyes at her husband. “Okay, so what do you know that we don’t?”
Mark put up his hand, palm facing out. “Nothing, I swear. Austen and I aren’t exactly confidantes. It’s just…”
His voice trailed away on a thoughtful note.
“It’s just what?” Katie nearly shouted. “Mark James Fisher, if you know something I don’t, I’m going to—”
“I’m telling, I’m telling!” Her husband laughed. “Quit yelling at me.”
“What do you know, Mark?” Jaya asked in a quiet voice.
Abruptly, he sobered and told her, “I don’t actually know anything, Jaya. I told you, me and Austen aren’t that close. I don’t think Austen and anyone are that close—except for you. I only know what kind of man Austen is. I’ve known him for years.”
“We all have,” Katie interjected. “Jaya and I have known Austen for a lot longer than you have.”
“You’re not men,” Mark countered. “You haven’t seen him from a man’s point of view. In a way, he’s a man’s man. Other men want to be like him. Successful, smart, always so damn cool and sure of himself. He really is a golden boy.”
“We all know that,” his wife said. “What about—?”
Jaya waved her off. She was starting to see the thread of Mark’s speech.
“He’s so sure of himself that he’s used to getting everything he wants, including women,” Mark went on. “After all, he has everything women want, on paper and in person. So what happens when he encounters someone who doesn’t want any part of what he has, who’s searching for something very different? He gets frustrated. Maybe he even becomes obsessed, slowly, over the years. Because, unlike any other woman he might have to deal with, this woman is a fixture in his life, and he can’t avoid her. The obsession gets fed every time he’s around her—and he’s around her a lot.”
So that was it? She was a challenge for Austen? That answer was a bit too glib to satisfy Jaya.
“You make me sound like some flighty bimbo,” Jaya told him. “Have you ever thought Austen isn’t the commitment-for-life type either? He’s never even been serious about a woman.”
“Except for Lisa,” Katie said, so softly that Jaya almost didn’t hear her.
The name startled her.
Jaya hadn’t thought about Lisa Wakeford in over a year.
A tall champagne blonde, Lisa had almost become Austen’s fiancée. Almost. Until Jaya had called him up devastated over a breakup. It happened to be on the same day he had made an appointment with a jeweller downtown to look at engagement rings. He’d cancelled the appointment and spent most of the night at Jaya’s apartment, polishing off a bottle of twenty-year-old special reserve.
He’d never proposed to Lisa.
“He could have made another appointment,” Jaya said, pushing her chin out. It wasn’t fair of Katie to use the story against her. “I begged him to.”
Well, maybe begged was an exaggeration.
“How did you beg him?” Katie asked. “On your knees?”
That sounded a little too close to what Jaya had been thinking about doing with Austen, not too long ago.
“He wishes,” Jaya muttered.
“Yes, he probably does,” Mark put in. “Maybe that’s what he needs to get over you.”
“Pimp,” she accused.
“Hey, I’m not trying to turn you out,” he protested. “I’m just trying to help a friend. Two friends. You’re both stuck in this weird loop that keeps bringing you back together, over and over again. Maybe, years ago, it was a cute joke—the siren and her steady shoulder to lean on—but now it’s kinda old. Kinda old and kinda pathetic.”
The words stabbed into her. She knew more people than Katie and Mark blamed her for Austen’s single state. She’d thought this was only a bitter, twisted faction of the King family but maybe it was larger than she’d thought. Maybe it included Austen himself.
If Austen blamed her for Lisa—and more—then it was only a matter of time before he ended up hating her.
That was the one thing she could never live with.
Chapter Three
For one reason or another, Jaya had visited Austen’s office many times. She knew the layout, she knew the clean expensive smell of the reception area, and she knew which legal secretary hated her guts.
Kristy Parker. She remembered the name because it reminded her of the shape the woman’s lips always made when Jaya showed up. Parker rhymed with pucker.
Kristy wasn’t seated at the desk in front of Austen’s office that day. Instead, it was a small slim brunette named Amelia. Already the day felt lucky.
“No, I’m not a client,” Jaya explained in response to the evitable question. Amelia might look less intimidating than Kristy, but she was just as protective of her boss’ time. It must be one of the first lessons legal secretaries learned in college—guard the lawyer from wasting billable hours.
She had to repeat her next sentence.
Amelia stared at her, making soft chicken noises. “But, but, but—”
“Adopted cousin,” a deep male voice clarified. A voice like black velvet—except this time it covered an iron fist. “What are you doing here, Jaya?”
For a moment, she had no idea why she was there.
Why am I here? “I wanted to talk to you,” Jaya blurted out. “About Lisa.” Why did I say that?
A dark shadow flickered in Austen’s blue eyes. “I think you’ve said enough about Lisa.”
Amelia stared up at them both, fascinated.
It was worse than Jaya could have predicted. She hadn’t even made it into his office and already she was making a mess of everything.
Austen appeared to only then notice his secretary’s interest.
He caught Jaya’s arm in his strong grip. “Come into my office. You’re not safe to leave prowling around the halls.”
“Who’s not safe?” Jaya demanded once he’d hauled her into his office and slammed the door behind them. “The male associates?”
Maybe everyone did think of her as a siren. Just because she dated with, well, enthusiasm.
Austen stared down at her. “I’m less concerned about the female associates, obviously.”
Jaya ran a hand through her hair. His unwavering regard was making her nervous.
“I don’t know where everyone gets the idea I’m such a heartbreaker,” she said.
“Don’t complain,” Austen told her. “Do you ever look at yourself?”
“Yes, I do.” Working in a theatre, it was impossible to avoid mirrors. “I’m…ordinary.”
Austen’s lips quirked. They were very expressive. Right now they conveyed scepticism.
“Maybe in a government census sense,” he said. “Skin, ordinary brown. Except it’s usually flushed or glowing, like you’ve just stepped out of the shower. Hair, ordinary black. Except it often looks tousled, as if someone were recently running his hands through it. Lips, ordinary red. Except they always look as though you’ve just been kissed. It makes me want to kiss them, hard enough to erase those other kisses.”
It was Jaya’s turn to stare. Was this Austen speaking these words? Had he been a handsome stranger she’d just met, she would have already been planning their first tryst.
But this was Austen. Her cousin. Her friend. With him, everything was for the long haul.
Didn’t he get that? Didn’t he get what he was doing by challenging their comfortable status quo?
“That silenced you,” Austen observed.
His remark goaded her into speech. “I didn’t know you thought about me like this,” she said.
“Obviously.” He paused for a beat then stepped closer to where she stood marooned in the centre of the room. “So what are we going to do about it?”
Jaya tilted her head to look up at him. “I don’t want you to keep feeling this way.”
He lifted his hand to her face and slid a finger along the rounded curve of her jaw. He watched that small action keenly as if committing it to memory.
“What way?” he asked in a quiet voice. “Frustrated? Possessive?”
Obsessed.
She didn’t say the word aloud, but it still hung there between them.
Austen moved his hand to her chin, forcing her to meet his intent gaze. “What are you going to do about it, kitten?”
“Me?” she croaked. “Why are your feelings my responsibility?”
He was stroking her neck in a distracting way.
“They’re not, of course,” Austen said, sounding eminently reasonable, “but if we don’t do something soon, we’ll only have one choice left.”
“One choice…?” she repeated.
He bared his teeth, but the result wasn’t a smile. It was a grimace. “To stop seeing each other and take pains in the future to never meet again.”
To never meet again…
“Oh!” All her hurt rose up in that swift exclamation.
Austen met her eyes. His were tender but watchful. “I don’t want that either,” he told her. “There is another option.”
Jaya swallowed before she could speak. “Yes, what is it?”
At her exact eye level, a muscle was clenching and unclenching in his jaw. “We grind this out,” he said. “I work you out of my system with your willing and enthusiastic help. We put it to bed, literally.”
He spoke in such a matter-of-fact tone, as if it were a solution he’d offered to dozens of satisfied clients in the past, with no ill aftereffects, yet his words caused the blood to beat hot in her veins.
With his hand still on her throat, she was sure he could feel her pulse racing. God only knew how he interpreted that tell-tale reaction.
Several seconds beat by before Jaya could respond.
“And afterwards?”
This time his smile was real—real and wry. “What do you want? For us to go back to how it was before I made these revelations?”
She nodded solemnly.
“Why?” he asked. “Because you’d like to be friends afterwards? Because you want to prove to yourself that you don’t always have to club and devour your prey?”
Jaya opened her mouth to protest, then quickly closed it again. He had accused her of practicing club-and-devour. But he wasn’t her prey. In fact, it felt like the exact opposite.
His hand tightened across the back of her neck, forcing her to look at him.
“Why, Jaya?”
He was too close. Too demanding. She shut her eyes to block him out.
Speaking with her eyes closed, she said, “Because I need you. I can’t imagine my life without you.”
She bit her lip on the rest of the words she’d meant to say.
Because I love you.
But he wouldn’t understand. He was bound to take that simple statement the wrong way.
Austen waited until she opened her eyes to speak. “You don’t have to contemplate life without me,” he said gruffly. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Too late, she realised that she’d made her choice.
* * * *
“Where do you usually go on a date?” Austen had asked.
Jaya had rhymed off a long list of bars and restaurants around the city, all cool and hip.
He’d suggested someplace totally different.
“Do you sleep with a man on the first date?” he’d also asked her.
“No, never!” she’d told him. Second date, well, that wasn’t what he’d asked.
To which he’d said, “You will this time.”
What had she gotten herself into?
It was an hour and a half drive to Niagara Falls—an hour the way Austen drove. Jaya didn’t mind the speed. It required him to concentrate on the road, giving them few opportunities for conversation. A few innocuous remarks now and then were enough to avoid a prolonged silence.
The rest of the journey Jaya filled with music from her phone, but her attention frequently wandered.
Once, Austen reached over to still her hand with his own. “Pick a song,” he said. “Please.”
She picked one at random, but it was a Jann Arden song, vibrating with emotion, and it made a lump form in her throat.
Austen reached to switch off the stereo halfway through the song.
“I guess you didn’t like my choice,” Jaya said with a shaky laugh.
He shot her a sideways glance. “I like your choice. Very much.”
It was clear he wasn’t talking about her musical taste.
She lapsed back into silence.
The close confines of Austen’s car heightened her already keen awareness of him. His hands lying lax on the steering wheel made her think about the strength of them. When he shifted gears, she noticed the confidence and firmness of his grip.
He could have held her like that the day before in his office but he’d shown restraint. Did he show too much restraint? None of that control was natural. It was the sort of thing he’d been learning from childhood. How to hide his emotions. How to bury them.
He was finally showing her the truth of his feelings for her. She’d spent many hours regretting his confession, even resenting him for making her a party to it, but how could she resent him being honest?
Out of the whole wide world, she was most honest with Austen. She wanted him to be same way with her.
The sky above the falls was a steely grey. The boardwalk was practically deserted with barely a fraction of the crowd the attraction drew on a fine day. Only a few diehard tourists strolled through the mist, stopping every few feet to snap photos.
Jaya chose a spot with a good view of the Canadian side of the attraction and leaned forward against the iron railing. Spray from the falls dewed her hair and face.
It was exactly as she remembered from childhood. The cool spray. The roar of the water. The dizzying view of the churning flow below. The tiny boat that took slicker-draped tourists close to the falls.
Austen spoke from just behind her. “Do you remember coming here?”
She nodded without speaking or turning.
“I used to think of this place as the quintessential family spot,” he told her. “I couldn’t believe it when I started coming here with my family, the Kings—and you. For a long time, you were my family first and only secondly the woman I wanted. It was more important to me to keep our family intact. Everything else, including my feelings for you, came second.”
His feelings for me. What a cute way of saying that he lusted after her.
“Then, all of a sudden,” he went on, “you came first and everything else was second. A distant second. The Kings, my job, Lisa. All of it.”
Jaya lowered her head. She hadn’t asked for that. She didn’t want to come first, before everything else. It was far too much pressure.
Despite what he’d said, she wasn’t special. She was ordinary. Truly.
Austen gave a short laugh. “I know you didn’t ask for this. If I were any other man, you would probably be running away right now. You’re good at running, just as I’m good at hiding. Only I’ve gotten tired of hiding—and I’m starting to suspect it doesn’t always work. It hasn’t with you.”
“Austen—”
He moved to brace his arms on either side of her, penning her within them. She could feel his breath on her neck. Then, his mouth.
His lips were hot, searing into her flesh.
She felt branded. She felt owned. This was possession, a kiss on the neck with the force of years of pent-up frustration behind it.
He moved his mouth up the side of her face and, with his hand pushed through her hair, he turned her face to his.
He kissed her mouth over and over again, softly at first, then with harsh hunger.
Jaya started to shiver all over. His kisses were like the water of the falls, many drops that built into an unstoppable torrent.
When he finally lifted his head, it was only to speak a few brusque words.
“Let’s get a room.”
* * * *
Niagara Falls was a tourist town. It had hotels of every type and calibre. Austen chose the most expensive. He had the looks, the car and the elite credit card to pull off the transaction without eliciting a single blink, even though they had no luggage and were dressed for a day of sightseeing.
The suite was definitely bridal. The sleek elegance of the furnishings did little to detract from the festive air provided by tall vases of fresh red roses.
“Where’s the champagne?” Jaya joked. Nerves made her giggly.
Austen stood in the middle of the room following her anxious pacing with keen eyes.
“I can order some,” he told her. “Do you need it?”
It took her a moment to comprehend his query.
He was asking her if she needed to alcohol in order to sleep with him.
Oh, Austen.
“No,” she said, shaking her head for emphasis. “I only need you to—”
Jaya broke off, afraid of what she was about to give away.
He walked up to her. “You only need me to…?”
Resting her palms on his chest, she glanced up into his face. It was so familiar and tender. Suddenly she knew this wouldn’t be awkward at all.
“I only need you to touch me.”
“Christ,” he muttered beneath his breath. An instant later, he was kissing her—and this time she was kissing him back.
He lifted her off her feet, his arms tight around her waist. She barely noticed. She was tasting him, sliding her tongue into his mouth to explore his strong white teeth, then deeper, past his teeth, to spar with his tongue.
Austen growled deep in his throat—in approval, she thought. He sucked on her tongue, drawing on it strongly. Then their roles were quickly reversed, and it was his tongue in her mouth and her sucking on him, not with his fierce hunger but with delicate finesse, teasing out the explicit kiss until they were both breathless.
When she drew away, Austen abruptly put her down. His skin was flushed above the collar.
Jaya wondered what he looked like below the collar.
Austen dragged his hand through his hair. “Where did you learn to kiss like that?” He immediately held up a peremptory hand. “No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
