Chapter Seven: Calling Out Your Name

Jack's house was very far from hers. He did not have a roommate, as she did, who often wandered around in her underwear. He lived in a house with a pool in the backyard, in an affluent neighborhood that could not be more worlds apart from where she lived.

He was cooking for her. Something about this was desperately adorable to Kate.

His furnishings were sparse and elegant. Everything had hard edges, modern design. It was beautiful as well as being cold.

There were some framed photographs in the bookshelves, in between thick volumes about medicine, art, philosophy. Jack, apparently, was a renaissance man.

Some of the pictures were of him with his family, a younger Claire, an older woman and a man who looked like Jack. Some were of his college days, and a few were of Jack with a blonde woman. Kate made a mental note to ask Jack about her and made her way back to his kitchen.

"Find anything interesting?" asked Jack. Kate smiled, realizing that he'd known she'd been snooping.

"Not particularly," she admitted. She watched as Jack fried vegetables on the stove. He was making her steak, wild rice, and stir fry. She would have been satisfied with pasta and sauce from a jar.

"Sit down," he requested, feeling her hover behind him. She slowly sat in a cushion covered stool.

"Who's the blonde?" she asked abruptly. Jack turned around to look at her in surprise, and seemed to search in her face for jealousy.

"Sarah."

"Sarah Who?" she asked in interest. Jack turned around again, resting against the counter.

"Sarah Shephard," he admitted. "We were married for three years five years ago."

"Oh."

Kate wondered if Jack wanted to ask her more, but found she didn't want to know. The fact that Jack had already suffered at least one major heartbreak was more than she wanted to know.

Later, when they sat down at his dining room table, Kate reflected that this was the first date that had felt like a real date.

"Our dates are usually less traditional," she stated.

"I like that you can be so up front about what you're thinking," he said.

"I just mean that there are always other people around," she explained. He nodded.

"Yeah, I know. I was hoping to get to know you a bit better," he explained. Kate's eyes widened in surprise, instantly mistaking his meaning.

"What?"

"I mean I don't even know your last name. Or why you left home, or anything about your family." Jack stopped. "Why do you look like that?"

"You want to get to know me better?" she repeated.

"What?"

Kate stood angrily, crumpling her napkin in her hand.

"We've barely even gone out yet," she protested. Jack realized what she was talking about and rose as well.

"I know that. I didn't mean... I just meant that we don't know each other that well yet. Calm down, if you don't want to do any of that yet it's fine with me," he said soothingly. She glared at him. It was an issue she hadn't had to face – Cooper, for all his flaws, was very strict with his clients about the boundaries of his girl's duties. She was caught between the fear that being with Jack would make her feel a whore, and the equally strong fear that physically being with him would cause her to feel even more deeply for him.

"I told you about my life. I told you were I was from, what I do," she argued.

"You told my little sister. And you told her because you couldn't get out of telling her. What are you hiding?" he demanded, his calm slowly ebbing away.

Kate rolled her eyes and turned to go, ignoring him when he called after her.

Jack watched her walk away from him, watched even as she disappeared from the room and all that was left were her footsteps, heading down the hall and toward the door. Mustering up his courage, he followed her at a run.

He called her name as he neared her, but she ignored him. Grasping her arm he turned her around in one, swift motion, and kissed her.

After a moment of shock Kate kissed back, pressing herself up against his hard body and wrapping her arms around him. She felt as if every sense was on fire when he wrapped his arms around her, pressed her up against a wall and cautiously began to explore her body with his hands.

He kissed her neck, and the scruffy hair on his face tickled her sensitive skin. His lips found her their way back to hers and they kissed passionately, already having gone too long without.

He pulled away, smiling gently at her. She stopped him as he made to kiss her again.

"My last name," she began, pausing for affect. "Is Austen."

Jack nodded as she became aware that his arms were still around her, that she was still pressed between him and a wall, that she was desiring him enough to let him take her right then and there.

"I really need to get out of here," she said. She half expected him to kiss her, half expected herself to let him, but his hands reluctantly left her body. She stayed in pressed up against him for a moment before sliding out, grabbing her coat off the rack and moving to the door Jack had opened for her.

"Call me," she entreated, smiling at his stunned reaction. He leaned down to kiss her once more. She hastily stepped out of the house.

Her cell phone rang as she walked to her car, but she ignored it. Knowing it was Cooper, and knowing she couldn't possibly let him in to ruin the moment.