Fire in the Wind by Alexandra Sellers Page B

seen.
    He was wearing dark pants and a cream shirt open at the neck and rolled up at the sleeves. His hair was ruffled and curling as though he had been running his hands through it, and when her glance moved farther she perceived the reason.
    A beautiful antique desk lighted by a soft yellow glow, as well as a long coffee table and the couch behind it, were strewn with business papers. It looked as though he had been working between the desk and the couch, which were several yards apart across the room. It seemed like an awful lot of paper for one man to be considering at once.
    "Hello," she said softly, dismayed by the caressing note she heard in her own voice. Jake turned his head and then his body, put down his glass and moved across the room toward her.
    "Hello," he responded when he reached her, just as softly, just as caressingly. He took her hands and gently pulled her into his arms. "Thank you for coming," he said. "I needed you." Then he bent his head and his mouth found hers.
    It was what she had been waiting for all day, without knowing it, ever since she had awakened from that dream of perfect communion. For the first few moments the touch of his lips filled her with perfect peace, with solace, soothed her after a day of turmoil. Then her heart started to beat in heavy, slow thuds, and a thin flame licked through her body, setting her alight. She lifted her arms up around his neck and felt his hands grip her back responsively.
    Her lips parted in unconscious invitation, and his seeking tongue came in with a teasing exploration that she felt down to her toes. Vanessa pulled her lips away from his to gasp in a breath, and then they were smiling into each other's eyes, and there was no tension, no pressure, nothing but the perfect communion of her dream.
    "Come and sit down," said Jake, releasing her to lead her over to a large stuffed chair. "Talk to me."
    "What shall I talk about?" she asked, smiling.
    Crossing the room to open the door of a drinks cabinet much like the one in the lounge many floors beneath them, he said, "Anything. Anything at all that will take my mind off my work. Mineral water and lime again, or would you prefer something stronger? Brandy, liqueur?"
    "Brandy would be nice," she said. "It will help me sleep." And then she could have kicked herself.
    "Will it?" was all he said, and he looked over his shoulder at her for only a moment, but the effect this had on her was profound. Suddenly there was more than just desire in the air between them—there was desire and the promise of fulfilment.
    "What have you been working on?" Vanessa asked abruptly, in the most matter-of-fact voice she could muster.
    "A reverse takeover bid, but I don't think it's going to come off this time."
    "What's a reverse takeover bid?"
    "It's what happens when I want to take over a company that's too big for me to buy out. I sell them my corporation first, and then with the money they pay me for it, I buy back controlling interest in the corporation that now includes the target company and my corporation."
    He handed her a thick carved glass that might have been Waterford crystal in which the brandy glowed with a dark fire. He cleared some papers from the corner of the couch nearest her, sank down onto it and, simultaneously taking a sip from his glass, slung his feet up into the middle of the document-strewn coffee table.
    "Goodness!" Vanessa exclaimed. "Does it work?" She was rather surprised that he would discuss such a plan with her so openly.
    "Oh, yes. In this case everyone concerned would agree to the thing beforehand. It doesn't depend on sleight-of-hand, just politicking and hard work." He threw back his head and rubbed his hand in his hair, making it stand even more violently on end. "Sometimes too much work. And that's how it seems to me tonight. Like too much work. What have you been doing today?"
    "Tonight, predictably, I was helping Tom entertain the buyers. This afternoon...." She took a sip of the brandy