"Gia." Jax's voice sent me skidding into deeper turmoil. "We're going to sit down with your family tonight after the restaurant closes. I've got a lot of work to do, so I'll meet you there. A driver will be waiting for you after work and he'll stay with you until it's time to take you to the restaurant. He'll take care of loading up the things you'll bring to the penthouse to get you through 'til the weekend, when we can grab the rest. Let me-"

"Jax. Jesus. Will you slow down?" I slumped in my chair, feeling exhausted.

He was quiet for the length of a heartbeat. "It's taken two long years to get here."

"Yeah. Two years of nothing. Not a single word from you. And now, all of a sudden, you're bulldozing your way through my life and I'm feeling wrecked. Wiped out. I can't think. Can't figure out anything."

"What's to figure out?" he shot back, sounding annoyed, which only irritated me further.

I sat up, but lowered my voice, hating to have such a personal conversation at work but unable to hold back. I'd been simmering for hours and was finally boiling over. "What took you so d.a.m.ned long! Why now? Why are you fighting for me now?"

"Because you're finally fighting for me!" he snapped. "You were happy with the way things were in Vegas. You wanted that to go on, probably thought we'd do that for a year or two, see where things went. And that wasn't going to happen, Gia. We were living on borrowed time. Too much longer and someone would've caught on, and started hounding and exploiting you while I was thousands of miles away. I let us go on too long as it was."

"You could've talked to me about it!"

"What were you going to do? Leave UNLV? Move to Virginia with me? Were you ready for that then, when you're not now? I don't f.u.c.king think so."

"You never gave me the chance!"

"Bulls.h.i.t. You've had plenty of chances, Gia. I waited for you to decide what we had was worth fighting for. Not a day went by when I didn't hope you'd call or just show up. You never even left me an angry voice mail. You called a few times, sent a few emails, then nothing. You gave up."

"So it was some kind of test?" I snapped, incensed. "You broke my heart to test me?"

"Maybe. And don't think it doesn't p.i.s.s me off that I had to come back to you to get you to finally say you wanted more."

"You're an a.s.shole!"

"You're G.o.dd.a.m.ned right I am! I never claimed otherwise."

My eyes stung with hot tears and that was the last straw for me. I was at work. I wasn't going to break down at my desk, not when anyone could just walk by and see me crying. "I have to go."

I hung up. Lei had gone back into her office at some point, thank G.o.d. I stood for a minute, shaking with anger and hurting. I couldn't believe Jax was blaming me for the time we'd been apart.

Closing my eyes, I took deep breaths and forcibly put it all away. I locked up every emotion I felt and focused on the job at hand.

"f.u.c.k you, Jax," I whispered as I lowered into my chair.

Then I buried myself in work.

A black Mercedes waited for me at the curb after work. I knew it on sight because the driver who waited beside it had that coiled, dangerous look to him, despite the crispness of his black suit. His bearing screamed personal security and his eyes locked on me so fiercely, I felt it even through his mirrored shades.

Had Jax deliberately picked someone who'd intimidate me? Another scare tactic. Another test.

I'd been seeing a lot of new sides to Jackson Rutledge lately. Had I been in love with a mirage this whole time?

The driver gave a brisk nod in greeting and opened the back door. I slid inside and melted into the b.u.t.ter-soft leather seat. Closing my eyes, I longed for home. I wanted to sprawl across my bed and call my friend Lynn in Vegas. She'd been there when I first met Jax and through the weeks that followed. If anyone could help me put things into perspective, it was her.

The engine rumbled to life and the car pulled away from the curb. Knowing we were facing a slow drive due to rush-hour traffic in Manhattan, I went over the past several days in my head, gathering my thoughts so I would be at least partially coherent when I talked to Lynn. I didn't get far before I realized we were descending into an underground parking lot. Opening my eyes and sitting up, I recognized Jax's apartment complex.

"I thought I was going home," I said to the driver.

"I was told to bring you here."

I almost argued, but knew it wasn't the guy's fault. Jax was the one getting on my nerves. And if he wasn't smart enough to let me settle down some before seeing him, he'd get what was coming to him.

One of the valets opened the door for me and I climbed out. The driver led me to the elevator, punched in the penthouse code, then left me to take the ride up myself.

The elevator doors slid open on the penthouse floor, revealing Jax waiting for me in the private foyer. The sight of him hit me hard.

He'd shucked his suit jacket at some point and unb.u.t.toned his vest. His tie was loosened and the top b.u.t.ton of his dress shirt was undone, exposing the golden column of his throat. He'd rolled up his sleeves, displaying powerful, veined forearms.

He was dressed like a businessman, yet exuded the potent virility of a man in his prime. l.u.s.t shimmered on the edges of my anger and frustration.

"Put your palm on the pad," he ordered, jerking his chin toward the security panel beside his front door.

Clenching my teeth, I walked past him, my heels clicking across the marble. I slammed my hand against the gla.s.s and it beeped three times. "Gianna Rossi recognized and saved," a computerized female voice said as the front door swung open.

I stalked into his apartment, tense and ready to fight. I heard him shut the door behind me.

I waited for him to say something, but he just pa.s.sed me, his stride confident and s.e.xy as h.e.l.l. He carried himself like a man who liked to f.u.c.k and knew he did it well. That subtle s.e.xual arrogance had always turned me on. Mad as I was, I still wasn't immune.

Stopping at the metal-and-gla.s.s console in front of the wall of windows, he poured amber liquid from a crystal decanter into a squat tumbler. He took a drink, his back to me.

The silence stretched, weighting the room. I dropped my purse onto one of the black leather armchairs and crossed my arms, studying him, waiting for him. Still he stood there as if he was in the room alone.

Finally, I said, "I thought you had to work late."

"I need to," he said evenly.

"Then why are we here?"

He exhaled harshly. "What was it you said in Atlanta? Something about what we've got is worth dealing with all this c.r.a.p."

"Don't act like I've got any say or control over what's going here." I crossed my arms. "You're running your own show and I'm just getting dragged along for the ride."

Jax faced me then. "I fix problems, Gia. You know that."

"It's not just that! It's not just about Chad and my family. It's always been this way with us. You say when and how and where and how long. I have no input. No control."

His face tightened. He took a step toward me. "Is that what you think? Christ, Gia, you've got me by the b.a.l.l.s!"

"If that's true, that's not what I want. I want us to be a team, Jax. I don't want either of us to feel like we're at the mercy of the other."

He set his gla.s.s down on the coffee table as he pa.s.sed it on his way toward me. "I'm completely at your mercy," he said softly, his eyes so dark they appeared black. "All day I've been feeling like every step I take to get closer to you is only pushing you back. I can feel you pulling away from me...wanting distance. I can't stand it."

"And I've felt like I'm dealing with a stranger. I don't know who you are when you're like this. I can't help wondering if I ever really knew you. And if I didn't, who the h.e.l.l am I in love with?"

"Baby." He cupped my face in his hands and lowered his lips to mine. He brushed his mouth across mine, from one side to the other. Once, twice. Then his tongue licked across the seam, his breath warm and moist, his taste flavored by the liquor he'd been drinking.

I moaned and tilted my head, trying to deepen the kiss. One of his hands slid around to cup my nape, while the other moved downward to cup my hip. His touch was hot, sending goose b.u.mps racing across my skin. He squeezed gently and my b.r.e.a.s.t.s swelled, growing heavy and tender.

Inhaling deeply, I breathed him in. Felt my body stir in response, recognizing Jax as the one thing it desperately wanted and couldn't resist. I reached up and pushed my fingers into the thick silk of his dark hair, drawing him closer.

"You know me, Gia," he whispered against my lips. "You love me."

"Jax-" I pressed against him, leaning into all that hard, flexing muscle. "Have we made too many mistakes?"

"Probably." His mouth moved along my jaw and down my throat, suckling softly. "But there's something we've always gotten right."

His arm wrapped around my waist and he rolled his hips, grinding the rigid length of his erection against my belly. My s.e.x clenched, hungry for him.

"We can't stay in bed all the time," I pointed out, remembering the weekends in Vegas when we'd scarcely untangled ourselves from each other.

Jax scooped me up, cradling me as if I weighed nothing. "Two years apart and we're still in love. It's got to be easier when we're together."

"It's not working that way so far." Still, I kicked my shoes off.

He headed toward his bedroom. "Which is why I'm moving on to the part where I remind you why it's all worth it."

5.

AN HOUR BEFORE, I would've said the chances of Jax getting laid were nonexistent. Right at that moment, however, with his gorgeous face taut with l.u.s.t and his eyes soft with something far more tender, I wanted nothing more than to forget everything but the way he could make me feel. I wanted him to remind me of what we'd once had, what I'd clung so tightly to , what I hoped to have again.

He placed me on the bed and came over me, putting one knee on the comforter. He brushed a loose tendril of hair off my cheek, then his gaze drifted downward to where his other hand was gliding up my thigh and beneath the hem of my skirt.

"I want you naked," I told him.

His mouth, that wickedly s.e.xy mouth that could drive me insane, curved in a smug smile. "Do you, now?"

I stretched, knowing it would entice him. When he growled low in his throat, I returned a smug smile of my own.

Catching me behind the knee, he pushed my leg up and to the side, riding my skirt up and exposing my garters and matching panties.

He licked his lips. "Baby...I'm going to love watching you get ready for work every morning."

It struck me then that we would be sharing everyday moments like that moving forward, and I wanted them. I wanted the man I'd had so briefly. "You've still got too many clothes on."

Jax straightened and shrugged out of his vest, letting it drop to the floor. He yanked at the knot of his tie, then pulled the loosened silk down one side to fall to the carpet, as well. When he went to work on the b.u.t.tons of his shirt, I pushed up onto my elbows to watch.

A low hum of pleasure escaped me.

Jax paused, his brow lifting. There was a gleam in his eye that made my legs shift restlessly. The man knew he was hot as h.e.l.l, knew how much I liked looking at him.

"Don't stop," I told him.

"I love it when you look at me like that." He freed another b.u.t.ton.

I caught my lower lip between my teeth. He'd always been fit and leanly muscular, but he was harder now. More defined. Golden skin stretched over ridges and slabs of muscle. I wanted to run my fingertips over every inch of it...lick him like a favorite dessert...make him feel how much I loved him.

He shrugged off the shirt and I moved, rising up onto my knees to reach for him. He groaned when my hands smoothed over his shoulders then down his biceps, squeezing and caressing.

"How is it possible?" I wondered aloud. "You're more delicious than you were before, and you were a G.o.d back then."

"Baby." He sealed his mouth over mine and stole my breath, his tongue licking and gliding.

Greedy, my hands ran all over his chest and abs, tracing every plane and groove. "You're so hard," I breathed, wanting to feel all that warm, silk-covered marble pressed against me.

"The s.e.xual-frustration workout." He caught me by the wrist and pressed my hand against his straining erection, grinding into my palm. "Pushing my body to exhaustion because I couldn't have you, and the wet dreams were killing me."

I cupped him, stroking from root to tip. "Not always frustrated," I muttered, thinking of the women who'd had him, the women who'd had what was mine. "At least on two occasions."

Fisting my ponytail, he pulled my head back to look up at him. "Always," he said fiercely. "You've ruined me for other women, Gia."

"Good." I kissed his shoulder. "You're still dressed."

"You finish it." He tugged the band out of my hair, his fingers sifting through it. My eyelids grew heavy, my senses drugged by the s.e.xual hunger radiating off Jax. The feel of his fingertips kneading my scalp sent bliss radiating through me. Every word he spoke...every move he made...was designed to seduce me.

And it was working.

I fumbled with the hidden closure of his tailored slacks, pushing the halves aside to discover black boxer briefs. His c.o.c.k was so hard and ready, the wide crown peeking above the waistband. Shiny with prec.u.m, it beckoned me, inciting me to push the underwear down below his hips.

A soft, needy sound filled the air between us. Jax was gorgeous everywhere. Gorgeous, big, and hard. Standing there with his slacks undone, his c.o.c.k shamelessly exposed and mouthwateringly erect, his body ripped and powerful, he was the most erotic thing I'd ever seen.

I wanted him inside me.

He lowered the zipper of my skirt, then went to work on the b.u.t.tons of my blouse. All the while, his lips were at my throat, his tongue gliding along my fluttering pulse.

"I'm going to lick you up," he promised, his words a whisper of air against my damp skin.

I wrapped my hands around him, finding him hot and wet. He was so aroused he was dribbling prec.u.m in a steady stream. His virility was a potent aphrodisiac, making me as hot and wet as he was. My s.e.x was slick with wanting, tightening hungrily, aching to be filled with the thick shaft I was stroking so lovingly.

Lifting my fingers to my mouth, I tasted him, feeling as if I became intoxicated by his rich, heady flavor.

He watched me, cursing softly. His hands tightened on the silk of my blouse and b.u.t.tons popped off and rolled onto the floor.

"I wanted you naked," he muttered, grabbing me by the waist and flipping me around, folding me facedown over the edge of the bed. "Next time."

Shoving my loosened skirt up my hips, he exposed my a.s.s. He cupped the back of my knee in his hand and pushed my leg up onto the bed, opening me. Then his hands were on the twin curves of my b.u.t.tocks, squeezing them. His breath gusted hot and quick over my sensitive skin, his teeth sc.r.a.ping and gently biting.