Her brain flashed back to their parting on that early morning three days ago, to the last time she’d been in his arms. He’d halted her before she reached for his bedroom door and drew her back into his embrace. She’d stared up at him, enraptured, when he cradled her jaw in his hands and lifted her mouth. Then he’d kissed her, and it’d been like the first time, as if he were claiming her all over again. She was leaving him after a night of challenge and passion. She should have been sated, her brain already ticking off the goals and details of her workday. Instead, he’d shrouded her in his spell all over again.
He lifted his head a hazy, delicious moment later, and Harper’s toes slowly started to uncurl.
“Have dinner with me tonight?” he’d asked, his low, fluid voice washing over her.
“Yes,” she’d replied without thought.
Later that afternoon, she’d received an unexpected call from Elizabeth. The call had come when she was packing up at the end of her workday, flushed with excitement and anticipation at the idea of dinner with Jacob . . . at the prospect of returning to his bedroom and whatever new decadent sexual challenge he’d propose.
“I’m glad I caught you,” Elizabeth said. “Jacob asked me to reach you. He sends his apologies, but he’s been called away unexpectedly. He won’t be able to have dinner tonight.”
“Oh . . . I see. I hope everything is all right?” She’d thought she’d heard a slight edge of anxiety to Elizabeth’s tone.
“Of course. Something required his direct attention, a minor emergency at his estate in Napa. It happens sometimes. Often, in truth. That he’s called away. He has so many different business concerns. So many interests.”
Harper blinked. Was it her imagination, or was Elizabeth trying to coyly pass on a message: You might have his attention for a short span of time, but don’t kid yourself into thinking it’s anything permanent. You’re one of a million things Jacob Latimer has to deal with every day. He has his concerns . . .
. . . and his interests.
Harper was one of his current interests. So might be any number of other women.
She cleared her throat. “I’m glad to hear it isn’t anything dire. Thank you for calling and delivering the message.”
Thank you for calling and breaking his date for him, Harper thought irritably three days later.
Forget it. Forget him.
He’d never called after Elizabeth had, so she had no idea when—or if—she was going to see him again. It pissed her off, that she cared one way or another. He’d set something alight inside her, awakened her body and her brain, until she was having trouble sleeping and concentrating. She kept reliving those moments on the yacht. She kept experiencing those minutes that she was held at his mercy by the positioner, when she’d been at the center of his fierce focus and demanding hunger. He’d set her on fire, and then left her to burn out of control.
Bastard.
Her phone rang, cutting off her bitter, frustrated train of thought.
“Harper McFadden,” she said into the receiver distractedly, lunging to grab a folder that was about to spill off her desk.
“Go to the ladies’ room.”
She froze in the action of leaning across the desk, the folder clutched in her hand.
“Jacob?” Her voice vibrated with shock.
“Yes.”
“What did you say?”
“Go to the ladies’ room. The one in the south hallway. Now.”
“But—”
“You told me you masturbated in here.”
Harper’s mouth fell open. Her skin roughened. Did that he mean he was in there? In the Gazette’s bathroom? Right at this very moment? It wasn’t just him saying something so illicit so unexpectedly in that fluid, hypnotizing voice of his that left her speechless. It was the way his bald statement immediately clicked her brain out of the mundane, everyday concerns of life and into a dizzying, dark, sexual reality. His voice—just his voice—took her to a different world.
“If you masturbated in here, that must mean you’re confident of relative privacy and that there’s no surveillance,” his voice continued quietly through the receiver.
“Jacob . . . are you here? In the newsroom?”
“Yes.”