LITMIR.BIZ

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laugh escaped her. “Well, if you promise.”

      Traffic being much lighter on this side of the city, they reached his eight-month-old Mission Bay home in less time than he’d anticipated. Pressing an electronic key, he drove the car through the security gates. About fifty meters up the drive he pushed another button to raise the garage door before driving in. It shut behind them, enclosing them in a dry haven lit with a strong white bulb. The sound of rain on hard surfaces was muted to a soft lullaby, lending an unexpected intimacy to the air.

      “Don’t you think garages should have bleary yellow lights?” Taylor stretched out to pop her door open.

      He let her lighten the mood, giving her space. For now. “You think something’s wrong with my ambience?” Stepping out, he found her standing beside her door like some sort of disheveled fairy wrapped in tartan.

      She wrinkled her nose at him. “When I’m no longer in danger of turning into an icicle, I’ll tell you.”

      Biting back his first real smile for a year, he led her out of the garage, through the converted basement which he used as a gym, and up to the first floor of his home. “Bathroom’s upstairs on the right.” He pointed to the stairs leading up from the living room. “There should be fresh towels on the rails. I think the cleaning service came today. I’ll find you a robe and throw it through.”

      “Don’t peek.” She started to struggle up the stairs, trying not to trip on the blanket she refused to release, an empress giving an order to a lowly servant.

      Shaking his head at her impudence, he dropped his keys on a table in the living area and walked into his study.

      Ignoring the blinking message light on his phone, he placed a call to the Auckland Police Station. As usual, Detective Cole McKenna was pulling the graveyard shift. After Jackson explained the matter to one of the few men he trusted implicitly, Cole swore creatively under his breath.

      “Your lady doesn’t want to press charges?”

      Jackson thought about Taylor’s attempts to brush off the entire incident. “I’d like to take care of it without pulling her into something messy.”

      “Yeah, that’s what I figured. I need a diversion from paperwork anyway. Let’s see—Donald Carson, Project Director at Dracena Medical.” He tapped some keys. “Got him. I think 3:00 a.m. sounds like a good time for a visit.”

      Jackson itched to face Carson himself but he’d made a promise and if he saw the man, he’d surely break it. “Thanks.”

      “I’ll swing by your place and drop off your Taylor’s purse when I’m heading off shift, just after six.”

      Yes, Jackson thought, she was his. “I don’t want Taylor to start thinking I’m about to get arrested so leave the black and white at the station,” he joked, trying not to let his frustration at being unable to act himself seep into his tone.

      Cole chuckled, seeing through him. “Lady must be something special if you’re trying to behave.”

      They hung up on that note. His tension easing now that he’d done something about the man who’d dared to hurt Taylor, he quickly played back his messages. All four were from very smart people, including his mother, wanting something.

      The demanding note in his mother’s voice wasn’t unusual. A rising star when she’d inconveniently fallen pregnant with Jackson to Anthony Santorini, her husband at the time, Liz Carlyle had had neither the time nor the inclination to raise her son. She’d saved that for his half brother Carlton, born almost ten years later.

      As for Anthony, the celebrated director’s paternal instincts had finally kicked in nine years after Jackson’s birth, when he’d sired Mario closely followed by Valetta, with wife number three.

      However, now that Jackson was a success, both Liz and Anthony preferred to forget that the closest they’d ever come to parenting him was writing checks for boarding schools and nannies. Neither had any compunction against using family ties to solicit his help. Frowning, he noted the details of the messages before erasing them. He’d take care of their requests later.

      After he took care of Taylor.

      Heading upstairs, he passed the closed door of his admittedly huge bathroom and entered his bedroom, knowing he had an unused robe someplace. Except when he reached the closet, he picked out his favorite.

      The instant she shut the bathroom door, Taylor dropped the blanket and started removing her damp clothes, pausing only to place her cell phone in a safe spot. Clipped to the waistband of her pants, it hadn’t disappeared with Donald. The small change in her pockets clinked as she dropped her pants to the floor—forgotten from an earlier purchase, the money would have been just enough for the bus.

      She noted the sunken spa to the left but headed straight toward the shower. Encased in glass, it had an enormous amount of space, the fixtures steel and glass. Obviously, it had been custom-built for someone much bigger than her.

      Immediately, her brain bombarded her with images of Jackson’s muscled bulk in the shower, his arms bulging with strength as he did things to her in the watery enclosure that were surely not anatomically possible.

      “Even if they were, you’re such a coward that you’d run a mile if he tried.”

      With a self-mocking laugh that was tinged with a trace of disappointment, she stripped and stood in the centre of the cubicle, under the three showerheads. The spray hit her so high that she was in danger of drowning. She reached up and tried to tilt them down but they wouldn’t budge. Giving up, she stood shivering on the tiles outside. Jackson’s firm knock came a minute later. Cracking open the door, she peeked around it.

      “You should be getting warmed up. I told you I’d throw it in.” He scowled, all male annoyance and faintly menacing good looks.

      And yet she trusted him. He had a rock-solid integrity that defied her to put him in the same unflattering category as the rest of his sex. A thought nudged at the back of her mind but she pushed it aside. Her stepfather’s attempt at wresting custody of Nick from her was her problem and despite his kindness, Jackson wouldn’t want to know about it. After all, she’d just been his temporary secretary.

      She grabbed the robe, hiding behind the door. “Wait.” Snuggling into the garment, which smelt reassuringly of Jackson and devoured her entire body, she tugged the door fully open. “I need you to set the showerheads lower. I feel like I’m standing under Niagara Falls.”

      Shaking his head, he walked into the humid room. “They’re electronic.” He showed her a control panel on the outside wall of the shower. “See?”

      Taylor flicked her gaze up from her appreciative view of his backside. The man was muscled everywhere. She couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to run her hands all over that beautiful golden skin. “How was I supposed to know your house was gadgety?” Grateful that she sounded normal, she made a face at him. “Okay, fix them anyway now that you’re here.”

      Giving her one of his rare but extremely lethal grins, he did as ordered. “Enough, shortie?”

      Nurtured by the warmth of that smile, something woke in her heart, something that wasn’t lust. Used to protecting herself from emotions that promised joy but could just as well lead to incredible suffering, she tried to ignore it. “Thanks, Mr. Mobster.” She could barely wait to luxuriate in the heat. “I need to thaw now. Shoo.”

      He left with another grin that seared her nerves. Disgusted at both her physical and unexpected emotional susceptibility to a man so far out of her reach, she shucked off the robe and stepped into the shower.

      Jackson stood outside the bathroom, trying to relearn to breathe. It wasn’t easy when erotic visions of Taylor in black lace dominated his thoughts. His lovely guest had apparently started stripping at the door and not stopped ’til she’d reached the shower. Ignoring the trail of feminine clothes, ending in a pair of black lace panties, had been a forced lesson in self-control.

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