Читать книгу Misbehaving Under the Mistletoe - Heidi Rice - Страница 11

‘WHAT did you call me?’ At Jace’s gruff chuckle, Cassie stiffened and rose to see the teasing grin on his face.

Had she just said that out loud?

‘It sounded like candy man,’ he added.

‘Did it?’ She hedged, pressing her palms to the heat in her cheeks.

He laughed. ‘Interesting,’ he murmured, the smile more than a little smug. ‘What does it mean?’

She climbed off his lap, adjusted her clothing, struggling to think straight while noticing the impressive bulge in his trousers. She smoothed the tunic down. ‘It means, that was …’ She halted, her face flushing. How did you thank a guy for giving you the most incredible orgasm of your life? She’d never come that quickly before, or with such intensity. And certainly not with a man she hadn’t been in a relationship with. ‘It means, that was amazing. So thanks,’ she said, opting for honesty while her endorphins were still high on the afterglow.

He stretched out his arms across the back of the sofa. ‘The pleasure’s all mine.’

‘I’m sorry, you didn’t …’ Her gaze snagged on his obvious state of arousal, and she wondered if she should offer to do something for him in return. It seemed only fair. ‘Would you like me …?’

He tucked a finger under her chin, lifted her gaze to his. ‘It’s okay, Cassie. I’m not fifteen any more. I can wait.’ He placed a quick kiss on her nose, before standing up. ‘In fact, unfortunately, we’re both going to have to wait, we’re already fashionably late.’

‘Late? Late for what?’

Instead of answering, he took her hands in his, and hauled her off the sofa. ‘If you want to go do whatever it is girls do while they hog the bathroom, go ahead.’ He placed his hand on her bottom and gave her a proprietary pat. ‘It’s that way.’

‘Yes, but … where are we going?’ she asked, trying to maintain a little sanity. Why had the invitation turned the afterglow into a giddy rush of pleasure?

He settled his hands on her shoulders, swept her hair back and kissed her neck. ‘The Blue Tower. With me. This evening.’

When had she agreed to that? ‘But I …’ She trailed off, unable to concentrate on anything but his lips nuzzling the sensitive skin under her ear—and the darts of sensation shivering down her spine.

The doorbell buzzed and he nipped her ear lobe. ‘That’ll be your clothes. Don’t take too long—we don’t want to be too fashionable.’ So saying, he strode out of the room.

Locating her bag under the coffee table, Cassie dashed off to the bathroom he’d indicated. She knew when she was being railroaded. But right now she didn’t care. She needed time to think.

Once inside the lavish marble bathroom, she flung her bag on the vanity and studied herself in the mirror that covered one wall.

She hardly recognised herself.

Her hair sprung out in all directions, the unruly curls spilling out of the topknot she’d swept it up in that morning. Her cheeks were flushed a vivid red, her lips puffy and swollen, and her pupils so dilated her blue eyes were almost black. She touched her fingertips to the raw spot beneath her bottom lip. And she had whisker burn on her chin.

She looked like a woman who had been well and truly satisfied. She huffed out a breath. Probably because she had been. But she needed to take stock and think clearly now.

Or at least try to think clearly with her brain still addled from the endorphin rush and her core still throbbing from Jace Ryan’s exceptionally skilled caresses.

Unwrapping a bar of the fragrant vanilla soap in a basket on the vanity, she washed her hands and face, then doused her cheeks in cold water. After patting herself dry with one of the hotel’s monogrammed towels and finger-combing her hair, she examined her face again. She still looked dazed and dishevelled, but at least the colour in her cheeks had subsided from a vivid magenta to a pale rose. And her pupils had shrunk enough so she didn’t look as if she were on crack.

Okay, so what had happened out there? She simply wasn’t that into sex. Not that she was frigid or anything. She liked sex well enough. The sensible, comforting, predictable kind with a man she knew well and cared about and respected. Even if it later turned out he didn’t deserve it. A line formed on her brow in the mirror. However, she did not do the hot, wild, knock-you-for-six kind of sex with a man who was a virtual stranger.

But there was no denying she’d done just that with Jace Ryan.

One minute they’d been talking, then they’d been kissing and then she’d been begging him to bring her to the most earth-shattering orgasm of her life. Another line appeared on her brow. And he had.

How had he known just how to touch her, and where? How had he known so instinctively just what she needed when she didn’t know herself? She’d only had two serious boyfriends in her life. Two men whom she’d become sexually intimate with before she’d leapt into Jace Ryan’s car this afternoon. She’d known both of them for weeks, months even, before she’d ever considered taking things to the next stage. But even after forming proper committed relationships with them, even after convincing herself she was in love with them, neither of them had ever been able to make her lose her mind as Jace had with a simple touch. In fact, Lance and David, her college boyfriend, had both complained at one time or another that she thought too much during sex, that she wasn’t spontaneous enough.

She swallowed heavily, her throat dry. She hadn’t merely been spontaneous on Jace’s sofa. She’d come close to spontaneously combusting.

And she hadn’t been thinking either. In fact, she’d been doing the opposite. Jace had offered to get her coat cleaned, and, less than an hour after walking into his hotel suite, she’d been straddling his thighs and writhing under his touch like a woman possessed. What had happened to her smart, safe, sensible, measured approach to sex and intimacy?

Opening her bag on the vanity, she rummaged for her phone. Unlocking the keypad, she scrolled down to Nessa’s name.

What she needed now was some expert advice. Until Nessa had finally admitted that their old school friend Terrence was the love of her life, she’d had an enviably straightforward attitude to men and sex. Nessa knew how to handle a candy man, because, to hear Nessa tell it, she’d had more than her fair share of them.

There was little doubt that Jace Ryan was a candy man. But now she’d identified him, Cassie didn’t have a clue what to do with him. Should she do what her hormones were begging her to do? Go out with him this evening so they could finish what they’d started later tonight? Or should she do what her head was telling her and run a mile? Not just from him but from the wild woman who had inhabited her body?

Nessa owed her, she thought as she pressed Dial and listened to the phone ring. It was Nessa’s fault she was in this ridiculous situation. If she had kept her advice to herself, Cassie would never have had that moment of recklessness and accepted Jace’s invitation in the first place—and ended up having an out-of-body experience on his sofa.

‘It’s Ness. What’s up?’ Her friend’s familiar greeting had the tension in Cassie’s shoulders easing.

‘Ness, it’s me,’ she whispered into the phone. ‘I’m in trouble.’

‘What kind of trouble?’ Nessa replied, her voice instantly direct and focused, reminding Cassie why Nessa was the perfect person to turn to in a crisis.

‘Do you remember Jacob Ryan? From school?’

There was a slight pause on the line, then Nessa gave an appreciative purr. ‘Oh, yeah. Jace the Ace. That boy’s tight white buns looked so fine in black jeans, they occupy a real special place in my school memories. Why?’

‘I met him. Tonight. I’m in his bathroom at The Chesterton. And we just had … well, not exactly sex, but nearly sex on his sofa.’

‘Define nearly sex?’ Nessa said, apparently completely unfazed by Cassie’s confession.

‘I had an orgasm. A really amazing orgasm,’ Cassie blurted out, not quite comfortable discussing the mechanics. ‘But he didn’t.’

‘That’s not nearly sex, honey.’ Nessa’s deep, satisfied laugh echoed down the phone line. ‘So little Cassie finally found herself a candy man. I always knew that boy looked fine for a reason.’

‘Don’t you dare mention that stupid candy-man thing again. I’m in trouble. And you’ve got to get me out of it.’

‘Sounds like good trouble to me.’

‘He’s asked me to go out with him. Tonight,’ Cassie continued, deciding to ignore Nessa’s observation. ‘To some do at the Blue Tower.’ Her lips pursed. Some do that she knew nothing about, because he’d been deliberately cagey with details. ‘On the understanding that when we get back, we’ll take this further.’ She swallowed as her stomach did a back flip. ‘A lot further.’

‘And you don’t want to go further?’ Nessa asked.

‘It’s not that I don’t want to.’ She did want to—the warm, liquid pull in the pit of her tummy was pretty incriminating on that score. ‘I just don’t know if I should. I’ve never had a one-night stand before. And what if he wants more than a one-night stand? I’m not ready for another relationship. Especially not with a guy who—’

‘Cass, stop right there. You’re overthinking this thing. The question is, did he give you a good time?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘But nothing,’ Nessa interrupted. ‘You had a good time. Next question. Is he pressuring you to do the same for him? ’Cos you shouldn’t feel beholden.’

Did she feel pressured? Beholden? He’d bulldozed her into agreeing to go to the trendy restaurant, but he’d seemed remarkably relaxed about the sex part of the equation. Even though he’d been fully erect, he hadn’t insisted she do anything about it. Her stomach somersaulted at the thought of that long, thick ridge stretching the loose pleats in his trousers. The truth was, if he had insisted, he wouldn’t have had to insist very hard.

‘No, I guess not.’

‘Fine. So what exactly is the problem here? He’s given you an amazing orgasm, there’s the promise of more and he isn’t making you do a thing you don’t want to.’

‘You don’t understand. The problem’s not him. It’s me. I don’t know what got into me. One minute he was kissing me and the next I was … I lost control. It was like I couldn’t stop myself. And it happened so fast. I’ve never felt like that before. It was scary.’

Nessa’s low chuckle didn’t do a thing to calm Cassie’s nerves. ‘Welcome to the club.’

‘What club?’

‘The Really Amazing Sex Club. It’s way past time you got your membership.’

‘But how can it have been really amazing when he’s a stranger?’

‘Because sometimes it’s just about the sex,’ Nessa said bluntly. ‘You’ve got the urge, he’s got the urge. You’re both young, free and single and the chemistry’s hot. Sometimes it doesn’t have to be about anything more than that.’

The loud rap on the door had Cassie juggling the phone.

‘Cassie, your time’s up.’ She heard his low voice through the door and it set off a whole new set of tingles.

‘That’s him now,’ she hissed into the phone. ‘Just a sec,’ she shouted back. ‘I’m doing my make-up.’

‘I’ve got your clothes.’

She whipped the phone behind her back as the door opened. He’d changed out of his suit into a black sweater with a crew neck and dark blue jeans, his tall, broad-shouldered frame filling the doorway. He’d also shaved. Without the five o’clock shadow the line of his jaw looked clean and sharp and the dimple in his cheek more pronounced. His damp hair swept back from his forehead, and the dark waves glistened in the overhead light as he placed her folded coat on the vanity unit with a small bag bearing the logo of an exclusive boutique. ‘Your coat. The boots are outside. They couldn’t launder the leggings in time so I ordered a replacement.’ His smile widened as his gaze inched down her bare legs. ‘The car will be here in five.’

‘Wait,’ she said as he turned to leave. ‘How dressy is this do? And whose do is it? Will they mind if I come? I haven’t been invited.’

A sensual smile spread across his lips that had her fingers tightening on the phone. ‘I’m inviting you.’ Reaching forward, he brushed his thumb across her chin, pressed a quick, sizzling kiss to her lips. She breathed in the clean scent of soap and the spicy hint of aftershave as he raised his head and the pull in her tummy became a yank. ‘And you’re dressy enough.’

She released the breath as he walked out of the room. Only once the door had closed did she realise he hadn’t answered a single one of her questions.

She heard the crackle of Nessa’s voice, lifted the phone to her ear.

‘I think I just agreed to go,’ she murmured, terror and excitement churning in her gut.

Nessa gave a jubilant whoop. ‘Don’t sound so worried, honey. All you’ve got to do now is relax, enjoy, flirt your heart out and let your candy man introduce you to all the club’s member benefits.’

After bidding Nessa goodbye, Cassie disconnected the phone and shoved it back in her bag.

She dug her emergency make-up out, and counted to ten to stop herself from hyperventilating as she took the top off her liquid eyeliner.

Relax. Enjoy. Flirt. She could do that. How hard could it be?

But as she hastily lined her bottom lid with black kohl her fingers were trembling so hard, she nearly poked her eye out.