Which he did, with a speed that almost swept her off her feet. Pressed to another male body—a very different male body— Katherine struggled against the flood of excitement it stirred, a rebellious sense of pride insisting that she shouldn't surrender to it willy nilly.
"You didn't ask my permission," she said to him, her eyes defying his arrogance in assuming he could keep her waiting for hours and still do whatever he wanted with her.
"No, I didn't." He returned her challenge with blistering mockery. "You can reject me if you want to."
Katherine burned. From head to toe she burned with the need to be with him. But she was also very angry with him.
"How have you been?" she asked, moving to less contentious ground and being deliberately bland so he wouldn't know her whole body was a quiver from being in contact with his again.
"Very good. Work has been good" he answered, his chin tilting belligerently, his eyes blazing with self determination .
'That must give you a lot of satisfaction," She ran on, suddenly hating the fact that she'd had no part in it, hadn't been invited to take any part in it. Hating that he had forgotten about her so easily.
"Yes," he acknowledged, but the mockery was back, deriding this conversation, telling her it had no relevance. It goaded her into demanding some recognition of her as a person, not just the object of a desire he could pick up and put down as he liked.
"Why don't you ask me how I have been?" she said, knowing she sounded really stupid and a little bit desperate. She flinched inside.
"Because I don't want to know," he replied.
Ruthless truth.
Katherine averted her gaze from the intensely raw penetration of his and writhed through the shame of blushing like a schoolgirl.
"It's trivia, Katherine, and it won't change anything," he stated harshly.
"Well, my life might be trivia to you but it's not trivia to me," she flashed back at him, a fierce resentment surging at his dismissive attitude.
His eyes narrowed, weighing the strength of her attack and whether it was worth his while to make any concession to it.
"So what do you want to tell me?" he demanded."Give me the important highlights."
There were none. Things were going really well at work. She had a few little triumphs —but they were hardly huge highlights that would make her shine for him.
Her personal life was virtually a void. She wasn't about to admit that her little kissing experience with him had put her off other men.
"I bought two goldfish for my store" she tossed out, not caring about his definition of trivia.
He looked startled, then bemused. "Two goldfish," he repeated with mock gravity.
"Yes." She tilted her chin to a challenging angle. "And I bought a beautiful bowl for them to swim in."
His mouth burst into a wide, dazzling grin. Then he threw back his head and laughed, startling her with his wild amusement. He clasped her closer, whirling her around, his thighs driving them both across the dance floor in a flurry of steps that carved a path through the crowd of other dancers, out past the opened French doors and onto the veranda.
The cooler night air did nothing to lessen the heat Jensen Packard generated in her.
"That wasn't meant to be funny," she protested, feeling intensely vulnerable now that they weren't completely surrounded by people. He had danced her down to the far end of the veranda, away from the other guests who were grouped around the door or leaning against the wrought iron balustrade nearby.
His dark eyes twinkled amusement as he answered, "Only you would tell me about goldfish, Katherine." he said.
His chest heaved against her breasts and his slowly expelled breath tingled over her upturned face. "Only you...Kitty Kat" he repeated, his deep voice lowered to a caressing murmur.
Thinking of all the high flying women he probably met and dated. Katherine muttered, "Well, too bad I don't lead your kind of exciting life."
He shook his head as though she hadn't grasped his meaning. He seemed about to say more, stopped, grimaced, then flatly changed the topic.
"Where's Tim?" he asked. "I haven't seen him in a while."
"He's fine. He left with my mother. No need to stay for the reception" she said, then she added. "He is fine because he has me to take care of him. Don't ask about him like he got lost or something. You haven't seen him because you didn't want to"
Jensen grinned down at her like she had said something funny.
Fair warning...like last time...and if she had any sense she would walk away from him right now. She was mad at him. For not showing up for so long and then grabbing her from the party like he owned her. Just like before, he had no intention of involving himself in an ongoing relationship with her... Unless there was someone else with her. That was the only time he showed up...The only time he wanted her.
Yet even knowing this, Katherine could not quash the feelings he aroused.
"I think I should go say goodbye to Jon and Kate before I leave" she said in a flat tone, her lashes sweeping down to hide the emotional conflict of wanting far more than he was ever likely to give her, yet not wanting to turn away from him.
She stared at his bow tie sitting neatly at the base of his neck and wished she was a vampire, able to sink her teeth into his jugular vein and get into his bloodstream so powerfully he could never shake free of her.
Her heart was thumping with the need to hold him to her any way she could. Her hands curled, the urge to claw and dig in sweeping through her in a fierce wave, driving her nails into her palms to stop such primitive and futile action.
"Why do you need to leave?" he asked. "You just said Tim was with your mom"
"Because I want to. I don't have to explain why to you. It's none of your business" she snapped. Remembering the hours of torment she had already suffered on his account.