Page 219 of Under Her Skin

He was waitingin the shadow of the alleyway when Jules Gachet walked out of the restaurant. With one hand, he clamped down on the other man’s shoulder and pulled him backwards. Max slammed the smaller man against the brick wall of the building, getting in his face, and was gratified to see a flicker of fear in hiseyes.

‘Get your homo arms off of me,’ Jules puffed himself up, a sneer on his face, Max smiledgrimly.

‘Oh, so you’ve done your homework, Gachet? Good. Then you know who you’re dealing with.’ Max searched the other man’s face. ‘You enjoy hurting women,Gachet?’

The other man chuckled darkly. ‘Where’d you get thatidea?’

Max looked at him in disgust. ‘I won’t wait forever, Gachet. Draw up the papers to transfer Jess’s inheritance to her by the end of theweek.’

Jules nodded once and walked towards his car. Max watched him as he opened the door and then turned,smirking.

‘Shame about Camilla…,’ his smile widened, ‘…tell Jess to take extra care, won’tyou?’

Jess openedthe door to the cabin and flew into his arms. Theo, laughing, picked her up and twirled her around joyfully. He pressed his lips to hers. ‘It’s been a very long week, MissWood.’

Jess kissed him, her hands on his face. ‘Agreed, way too long. Come inside and say helloproperly.’

She opened a bottle of wine she’d bought at the Farmer’s Market as she cooked pasta for them and Theo filled her in on his week. When he brought up the idea of the charity again, she smiled athim.

‘I’ve been thinking about that too. I have a proposal for you, something I’ve been thinking about allweek.’

Theo nodded. ‘Goon.’

She sippedher wine before speaking. ‘We rushed into everything so fast, you and I. We’re living together, you want me to go into business with you and as for sex… I’ve done things with you, I never imagined I would. But I don’t know your mom’s name. I don’t know why you went into property. Hell, I don’t know your shirt size. The minutiae of a person’s life – surely these are the things we need to know about each other. You don’t know that I can play the piano or that I once went on a date with a man who swore he could ‘make me a moviestar’.

She pulled a face at that and he laughed. ‘Second date?’ Theo raised his eyebrows inamusement.

‘God no. But do you see what I mean? Your generosity in giving me a home, offering me a huge promotion in terms of my career – don’t think I’m not grateful because I am. But all I want is you. If you want me to run this charity, I will, but I don’t want any special favors just because we sleep together. I’ll take them if we mean something more thanthat.’

Theo chewed his lip, pondering her words and frowned. ‘Jess, surely you know by now… you are the love of my life. Hands down. If what you want to is to know me, then I’ll tell you everything you want toknow.’

She nodded. ‘So I propose… we start over. Now, today. We tell each other everything, we get to know the other as well as possibly could. You are the only person in the world I trust implicitly. I hope I’m right to doso.’

She waited, willing him to tell her about Kelly, about that wound in his past. When he was silent, she felt a little pull in her chest but brushed it aside. There wastime.

She leaned over to kiss him and he pulled her into hisarms.

‘Anything you want, you just have to ask,’ he murmured as he kissed her. She kissed him back, melting at his touch then as she pulled back, she gave him a wickedgrin.

‘Maybe… we should just go to first base, you know if we’re startingover.’

Theo chuckled. ‘Yeah, good luck with that.’ He slid his hands under her t-shirt, stroking her belly, cupping her breasts and shegrinned.

‘I missed your hands.’ She kissed him. Theo smiled lazily ather.

‘Oh yeah? Let me show you what they can do.’ He slipped his fingers into the back of her jeans and stroked her buttocks. Shesighed.

‘Yeah, that’s the stuff.’ She kissed hisneck.

Theo grinned. ‘You know what else they cando?’

He cradled her in his arms and rolled her onto the floor. She giggled. He undid her jeans and pulled themoff.

‘I’m quite sure this goes against our new rule.’ But she wriggled with pleasure. Theo shook his head, a mock serious expression on hisface.

‘No, no. We’re just making out, that’s all like you said. But I should tell you since we last did this,’ he kissed her, ‘Times have changed. There’s a new definition of ‘makingout’.’

‘Is there…. oh lordy…’ She gasped as his mouth found her sex, his tongue curling around her clit and lashing against the deep cleft of her. Theo looked up ather.