Heartless Rebel (24 page)

 
          
And
that was the rub, wasn’t it? He wanted her now. He was with her
now
. No idea what tomorrow would bring.
No idea how much longer it would last. His heart wasn’t engaged.

 
          
But
hers was. Irrevocably. Painfully.

 
          
This
was why she’d always been
independent, why she’d been determined not to need a man. This aching in her
soul was the reason why. She felt so stupid, as naive as he’d once called her.
She’d wanted to believe in happy ever after, but she hadn’t wanted to risk her
heart for it. How could she have been so blind? Love was all about heartbreak,
whether you wanted it to be or not.

 
          
It
wasn’t containable or controllable. You couldn’t orchestrate happiness.

 
          
She
started to move toward him, but then she was cut off by a couple walking into
her path. She stepped back, found herself near the champagne fountain. She
started to move away again, but she heard Jack’s name and stopped.

 
          
Two
women stood together on the other side of the fountain, sipping champagne and
looking in Jack’s direction.

 
          
“Look
at Sherry trying to get his attention again,” one woman said. Long pink
fingernails wrapped around the slender flute she held. She was tanned, but Cara
didn’t imagine it came from a salon. No, this woman had probably gotten that
golden color in Saint-Tropez. On a yacht, of course.

 
          
“It
won’t do any good,” the other replied. “He has a new mistress.”

 
          
The
woman with the pink nails gaped at her companion. “You don’t mean that woman he
came with tonight, do you? She cannot possibly be Jack Wolfe’s new mistress.
She has no polish, no glamour! She’s as tall as a stick and not half as
appealing!”

 
          
“Bob
and I saw them at the opera. And I have it on good authority she’s staying in
his apartment. She’s been there since his brother’s wedding. American.” The
woman sniffed.

 
          
“I
simply cannot believe Jack has gone slumming!”

 
          
Cara
stiffened. She wanted to hear what else they had to say, but they moved away,
heads bent together. Then they burst out laughing. Cara felt the heat of a
blush—or was it anger?—prickling her skin beneath her dress. She didn’t belong
here. She had a sudden urge to go outside, into the night air, and feel the
coolness on her skin.

 
          
She
moved in the opposite direction of the two women, seeking an exit. Surely there
was a patio or a veranda—or whatever in the hell they called it around here.
She felt like everyone was staring at her. People moved out of her way, cast
glances at her, talked behind their hands or their glasses or whispered in each
other’s ears.

 
          
Talking
about
her
. About Jack Wolfe’s
mistress
.

 
          
She
was no prude. She didn’t care if the whole world knew she was having sex with
Jack. But that word
—mistress
—made it
sound as if she were paid to have sex with him. It dehumanized her, took away
her power in the relationship.

 
          
No,
the word took away the
relationship
.
She and Jack were no longer equals, adults who had a consenting sexual
relationship built on attraction and mutual respect for each other. It took
away the love she felt for him, cheapened her feelings.

 
          
She
hated the word, hated the way it made her feel.

 
          
“Cara.”

 
          
She
vaguely heard her name, but she didn’t stop.

 
          
“Cara!”
This time, a hand closed around her arm and brought her up short.

 
          
Jack
. His brows were drawn low over his
eyes as he studied her. “Where were you going?”

 
          
She
couldn’t take it any longer. Couldn’t stand the idea that he was everything to
her and she was nothing but a warm body to him.

 
          
“Where’s
Sherry?”

 
          
His
expression grew thunderous. “Where did you hear that name?”

 
          
She
tossed her hair over her shoulder. Jack took a step closer, crowded her toward
a screen set near an archway. Her pulse leaped as his fingers slid up her bare
arm.

 
          
“The
same place I heard someone say I was your new mistress,” she flung at him.

 
          
She
didn’t know how he managed it, but they were soon outside, in a garden, moving
away from the brightly lit house and into the darkness. Voices carried on the
night air, people laughing and talking and clinking glasses.

 
          
Jack
steered her between tall boxwoods, along a path, until they came to a row of
stone columns. Cara jerked away and turned, leaning against the stone, thankful
for the cold against her heated skin.

 
          
Jack
gave her no quarter. He pressed his body against hers, trapping her between the
stone and him. He gripped her hands, threaded his fingers with hers and raised
them above her head.

 
          
Her
breasts strained against the strapless sheath, her nipples aching with the need
to be touched.

 
          
No
.

 
          
“What’s
gotten into you?” he asked. “Sherry is someone I dated briefly, nothing more.
It’s you I need, Cara.”

 
          
His
lips dipped to the hollow of her throat, skimming her heated skin. She tilted
her head back, swallowed her pain and anger. Desire blossomed. Always, always
the desire.

 
          
“I
won’t be your mistress, Jack.”

 
          
He
leaned back to look down into her face. His silver eyes glittered in the
ambient light. The scent of roses surrounded them, cloying and sweet.

 
          
“You
already are,” he said softly.

 
          
Pain
stabbed into her, made her ache with the hot rush of it. “No,” she whispered,
her eyes filling with tears. She would not let them fall. It was ridiculous—
this
was ridiculous. Semantics, she told
herself. It’s only semantics.

 
          
But
it wasn’t. Not to her.

 
          
“I’m
not a
mistress
, Jack.”

 
          
His
lips nuzzled her skin again, trailed kisses along her jaw, nibbled her earlobe.
“Not a mistress, then. Definitely not a mistress.”

 
          
Then
his hot mouth was on hers, and she was opening beneath him, kissing him with
all the passion and hunger he always brought to life inside her.

 
          
And
yet it felt different this time. Sadder, somehow. As if she’d been stripped of
something vital to her understanding of what was between them. Because, as he
kissed her in the garden of someone else’s home, with those fancy people inside
that she knew looked down on her, she couldn’t summon up the idea that she
belonged here with him.

 
          
That
she belonged with him at all.

 
          
Jack
let go of her hands, and she couldn’t stop herself from twining them around his
neck. Her body arched against him as he splayed a hand over her buttock while
the other cupped her breast. He flexed his hips and she felt his hardness
pressing into her. Her inner core liquefied with need.

 
          
Her
body wanted him, her heart wanted him and her head wanted him. But her head
insisted she had to make a stand, no matter the consequences.

 
          
Jack’s
hand spanned her thigh, lifted her leg to wrap it around him as his fingers
slid beneath her hem.

 
          
“I
want to make you come,” he said.

 
          
“Jack,
I—”

 
          
Then
he was beneath the lace of her panties, his long fingers finding the sweet
center of her pleasure. Cara gasped as sensation rocked through her. She
gripped his shoulders, her back arching against the column, her body greedy for
the pleasure he could give her.

 
          
“You’re
so beautiful,” he said. “I love watching you like this. Come for me, Cara.”

 
          
She
wanted to tell him to stop, but she was incapable of speech. Incapable of
pushing him away when she loved him so much. She felt as if she wasn’t in
control of her own body, as if Jack owned it instead of her.

 
          
He
slid a finger inside her, and then another. She was close, so close, her body
tightening in upon itself almost painfully.

 
          
And
then she shattered like a thousand stars splintering apart in the heavens. Jack
caught her cries with his mouth, drank them greedily while she clung to him,
shuddering from the power of her release. In that single moment when she was
still suspended between bliss and reality, she prayed it would never end. That
she would never have to acknowledge the truth.

 
          
But
the moment didn’t last, of course. Reality came back to her in degrees. The
perfume of the roses, the chirping of crickets, the sound of a car somewhere.
Then there was the laughter and the sounds of forks hitting delicate china
plates that drifted from the house. Closer still, a woman laughed at something
a man said.

 
          
As
the reality of the night set in, Cara shoved against the broad shoulders of the
man she loved. He took away her reason, her sense. He made her want him, no
matter the consequences to her soul.

 
          
He
stepped back, his expression wary.

 
          
And
she suddenly knew that he’d done this in an effort to prove his mastery over
her. He hadn’t wanted to pleasure her because he loved her, because he couldn’t
get enough of her. He’d wanted to divert her from any conversation about them,
divert her from asking hard questions or wanting something he wasn’t ready—or
willing—to give.

 
          
Fury
and hurt roared through her. He’d made her into exactly what she’d sworn she
was not—a woman who clung to a man who didn’t love her because she couldn’t
face the alternative; because a life with him was preferable to a life without
him, no matter how constrained that life may be.

 
          
Mistress
.

 
          
This
had not been about equality; it had been about dominance. And she despised him
for it.

 
          
Cara
straightened her dress. She had no idea what her hair and makeup were like now.
No doubt she looked like a woman who’d been having sex in the garden during a
house party. Shame filled her to the brim, threatened to bubble over and turn
into angry tears.

 
          
“I
want to leave now,” she said.

 
          
“We’ve
only just arrived,” he replied. As if it made a difference. As if she cared.
“It would be rude to leave so soon.”

 
          
Cara
thrust her chin in the air. “You don’t find it rude to leave the party for a tryst
in the garden, but it’s rude to go home?” She shook her head angrily. “I’m
going, Jack. With or without you.”

 
          
He
took another step away, ran a hand through his hair. “Yes, of course. We’ll
go.” And then, because he had to be as sensitive to the currents whipping
between them as she was, “I’m sorry, Cara.”

 
          
“Sorry
for what?” she shot back. “For making me into your mistress or for making me
care for you? Or sorry for what just happened?”