by Hazel Osmond
She didn’t know if the ragged breathing she could hear was hers or Jack’s, although she wasn’t aware of breathing at all. And then Jack started to undo the buttons on her dress and she heard herself make a noise that sounded something like ‘Ahargh.’
She’d expected him to rip at her clothes, but she found the determination and skill he lavished on her buttons infinitely more sexy. She watched each one being slowly undone and then glanced up. He dropped the darkest of looks on her. A look that told her exactly how much he wanted her and what he was going to do to her. It made her reach her hand up, put it behind his neck and pull his mouth back down on to hers.
Jack had other ideas, though. He kissed her once on the lips and then moved down her neck, pushing aside the material of her dress. Through her bra he began to caress and suck and nibble her, his hand on the small of her back trapping her under his mouth.
She could barely stand up under such a battering of sensations and closed her eyes and just let him hold her together as he took her apart.
‘This underwear,’ Jack said softly, ‘worth every penny,’ and then he pulled her dress from her shoulders and pushed it down past her waist and hips. The material of his trousers felt rough against her thigh and she found his desire to get her naked while he was fully clothed turned her on even more.
Jack kicked her discarded dress to one side and reached round and undid her bra. Very slowly, as if he were stripteasing her with the removal of her own clothes, Jack drew the straps of her bra down her arms and then whisked the whole thing off her.
‘Oh, Ellie,’ he said with feeling, his eyes growing darker as he looked at her, and then she was on the floor flat on her back and Jack was straddling her on all fours. Ellie grabbed hold of his tie and pulled him down on to her. She didn’t care that she was panting away beneath him or that his fingers had found their way between her legs and now he would know exactly how excited he had made her. All she wanted was to catch that feeling that was still tantalisingly slipping away from her.
She felt him tug at her knickers and she lifted her hips to help him get them off. Then she closed her eyes and hung on to him, her arms round his neck, as she felt him start to touch her exactly where she needed to be touched. Of course Jack would be good at this, she should have known. She moved her hips slowly, trying to tap into the rhythm Jack was setting.
‘Don’t shut your eyes, Ellie,’ she heard him say, and as she opened them, she felt his fingers push into her. ‘That’s it, Ellie,’ he said softly, dropping little kisses on her neck, ‘just feel, nearly there.’
Ellie could barely remember her name, let alone feel. How did he know she was nearly there? Jack’s thumb continued to trail over the place where every nerve ending in her body now seemed to live and she pushed against him, wanting more.
Then she heard Jack’s voice again, distracting her from the delicious and maddening feelings he was stroking up.
‘I need a word, Ellie.’
Through the layers of impatience and heat building in her groin, Ellie wondered what he meant. Was it something about work? Was this really the best time for him to bring this up?
Wasn’t he the one who had told her off for always wanting to have the last word? Why was he demanding one from her now?
‘A word?’ she said in a weak voice, as the things he was doing with his hand made her arch her back. ‘What … like in Scrabble, Countdown … what?’
Jack laughed into her neck and followed it with a kiss. ‘No, just a word, a little word you will say to me if I start doing something to you that you really don’t like.’
Ellie knew then that she was out of her depth and should get out from under him and grab her clothes and run, but her body was too far gone.
‘Can’t I simply say no?’ she half said and half cried out.
She saw Jack shake his head. ‘That won’t work, Ellie. Sometimes you’ll be saying no when you really mean yes.’
The thought of that punched Ellie right between the legs, until that yearning, grasping feeling was unbearable. She had to reach that thing they were both chasing or she would die right here on Jack Wolfe’s floor. And then there it was rushing towards her.
She felt her body clench around Jack and, as she shuddered, the perfect word spun into her mind.
‘Barcelona!’ she cried out, and heard Jack laugh and felt his arms come round her and hold her until she lay still.
‘Barcelona it is, then,’ he said, kissing her on the cheek. ‘I’ll do my best to remember that.’ He got to his feet and started to take his clothes off and Ellie sat up groggily to watch him, bringing up her knees and folding her arms over her breasts. Neither of them spoke as Jack slowly unbuttoned his shirt, never taking his eyes from Ellie’s.
‘I feel like Gavin,’ Ellie said with a nervous laugh.
‘You don’t bloody look like him,’ Jack replied, raking her with a glance that made her toes clench. ‘Not that I can see much of you any more,’ he added pointedly, and Ellie found herself unfolding her arms, putting them behind her and leaning back. It felt right. Jack rewarded her with another gusset-soaking look and undid the last button on his shirt. He tugged it out of his trousers, pulled it open and shrugged it off.
Ellie was not quite able to cope, all at once, with the sight of that flesh and muscle again. When she did glance up at him from under her eyelashes, she felt very little and unprotected. Soon that chest was going to be pressed against her. She felt everything below her waist dissolve into heat again.
Jack unlaced his shoes and soon stood there barefoot. His eyes sought hers and he came over and knelt by her side.
‘You still with me? You look a bit … dazed.’
She thought that ‘concussed’ might have been a better description, but she simply said, ‘I’m fine, Jack.’
Before his name was out of her mouth, he had undone his belt and the top button of his trousers and pulled down the zip. Ellie watched his chest rise and fall and reached out to touch him. He was warm and solid, and she was about to bend forward and place a kiss on his skin when he stood up decisively and took off his trousers and pants.
Ellie had been hoping for some kind of gradual introduction to what was in Jack’s pants. She’d got a fair idea of what was in store when she’d come out of her faint and felt him hard against her hip, but now he was naked. With no clothes on. All skin.
Once she’d actually seen … him … she couldn’t escape from the fact that she was here, in this room, waiting for Jack Wolfe to have sex with her.
He knelt down again and she tried to stop time by looking into his eyes, but he got hold of her hand and pressed something into it. She felt the smooth, square shape of a wrapped condom and from there her gaze was drawn to Jack’s erection.
Right. So it wasn’t only Sam’s chest that now seemed puny in comparison. Jack had been right about the size of his tail. Before she could think it through properly, she had reached out and wrapped her hand round him. She heard Jack suck his breath in through his teeth and he gave a little lurch forward. Then she stroked him lightly and Jack groaned and put his hand on her shoulder to steady himself. Ellie continued to stroke him, simply staring down at him.
She heard Jack say urgently, ‘Ellie, for God’s sake, do something else with it. Stop looking at it with that worried expression. I haven’t killed anybody with it yet.’
Ellie continued to stroke and heard Jack’s urgent tone again. ‘I’m from Yorkshire, for Pete’s sake – everything’s bigger up there.’
‘Uh-huh,’ Ellie said. ‘Good joke, Jack. I wish I’d thought of it.’ And then she was running her hand more roughly over him. Such an intimate thing to do to Jack Wolfe.
His hold on her shoulder tightened. ‘Ellie,’ he gasped, ‘I am about to really embarrass both of us. Help me here. Please.’
Ellie looked up at Jack asking for help and knew then that everything was going to be all right. She didn’t care how rubbish she was probably going to be or how he’d guess she was comp
letely clueless. He needed her to do this. She let go of him and tore open the square, shiny packet and enjoyed the effect of what she did next on his eyes and his mouth. All that power in her hand.
Jack gathered her up to him and gave her a look filled with such hunger that it made her stomach flip. And then his mouth was covering hers and his tongue was inside her and she was on her back again. He kissed a line down her belly far enough to make her hips rise up to meet him and then he lifted his head and looked at her from under his dark brows. ‘Uh, you might want to open your legs at this point, Ellie,’ he said, and when she did, her heart ramming against her ribs, he was inside her in one fierce, quick movement that forced the air out of her lungs.
Somebody was making a whimpering noise and, as it wasn’t Jack, Ellie guessed it must be her.
She brought her legs up and Jack pushed deeper, sometimes slowly, sometimes fast, until Ellie wasn’t sure she could stand the anticipation any more. When Jack stopped supporting himself and brought his weight down on her, it made her feel completely possessed and that thought drove her to kiss him back with more passion, digging her nails into his shoulders.
She was already heading for sensory overload when he put his mouth close to her ear and started to growl obscenities at her in his roughest Yorkshire accent. They were filthy, filthy rude.
That was it. She was gone again and crying out something, but she never knew what. It certainly wasn’t ‘Barcelona’, because Jack kept right on thrusting into her until she felt him tense too and then groan deep down in his chest. A few more thrusts and he lay still, breathing into her hair.
Ellie lay under him, feeling his heart beating against her, and then very gently she reached up and ran her hand through his choppy black hair. It wasn’t wiry at all, just soft and thick.
Jack turned his head and looked at her. ‘Am I squashing you?’
‘A bit.’
‘Good,’ he said, and she felt his hand snake up her hip and start to caress her breast again.
CHAPTER 23
‘Hello, sleepy girl,’ Jack said, turning away slightly from the cooker and smiling at Ellie.
She stood in the doorway to the kitchen, blinking a little in the light. Behind her, he could see the duvet and pillows on the floor of the darkened sitting room.
Just for a second he wasn’t sure if she was sleepwalking, she looked so disorientated, and then he realised that she couldn’t be, unless she’d managed to sleep-dress as well. When he had left her under the duvet, she had definitely been naked.
She came a little further into the room and he heard her say, ‘Hi,’ and felt her gaze travel swiftly over what he was wearing: jeans, a dark-blue shirt, nothing on his feet. Then he saw her frown.
‘Something wrong?’ he said.
She shook her head and sat down on the nearest chair and Jack studied her a little longer before turning back to the cooker. He pushed the steaks in the frying pan around with a fork. They spat and fizzled in the oil.
‘They’re nearly ready. Well, if you like them rare. Do you like yours rare?’
‘Rare is fine.’
He turned back to look at her again. ‘I bet you thought I ate them raw?’ he said, and then laughed.
She just smiled wanly and Jack heard his laugh fade.
He thought about what might be wrong with her and went back to looking at the steaks. He cooked them a little longer and then, turning off the heat, lifted one out of the pan, letting the excess oil drip from it before putting it on a plate waiting on the work surface. He did the same with the other one and then brought them both over to the table.
Ellie wordlessly took the knife and fork he handed her.
Jack sat down and stared at his own steak, sitting in its puddle of pink juices, and was thinking about a suitably bland thing to say when Ellie cut in.
‘What time is it?’
‘Mr Wolfe?’ he said, raising an eyebrow and smiling.
Ellie expression was blank and he swallowed his smile and said, ‘About two.’
They sat in silence with the moonlight spilling across them, eating steak while everyone else slept.
Jack watched Ellie eat – decisive cuts and little bites – and he slowed down his own eating to keep pace with her. It took a great effort on his part. He was ravenous, always was after he’d had sex. If she hadn’t woken up, he had fully intended to eat both of the steaks.
‘Is it how you like it? Not overdone?’ he asked, and suddenly wanted to ask her those questions about the sex too.
She nodded, but there was no masking how miserable she seemed, as if he’d disappointed her or hurt her. He grimaced. He’d never had any complaints before. He was sure she had been enjoying herself. He’d been really careful to make sure she was. Perhaps he’d gone too fast, or too far.
Jack put the last piece of his steak into his mouth and laid down his knife and fork. The ‘clunk’ they made resonated around the kitchen.
‘Could I have a drink, please, Jack?’ Ellie asked, and he got up and fetched her some water.
When he sat back down, he put his finger out and wiped it through a smear of steak juice left on his plate. Ellie was still frowning, just sitting there sipping her water.
She was obviously having second thoughts about what they’d done. That frown said it all. Well, that might not be so bad; that could work in his favour. If she wanted to forget all about it, that could make it less complicated. He wouldn’t have to break it to her gently that it was only a fling, and she wouldn’t be tricky with him about it all when she came back from her holiday.
But he was in uncharted waters here: he’d never had to cope with having sex with anyone at work before.
No, that wasn’t true. He had in fact had sex at work before: that time in his Manchester office with a soft-drinks client. Bubbly, he remembered, like her products. But sex with a client wasn’t the same thing at all.
He checked on Ellie’s expression again. Still frowning. Shame she felt like that, though, a big shame.
Jack lifted his finger to his mouth and absentmindedly licked the juice from it. Still, at least Ellie wasn’t a blabber; there was no way she would spread this all over the agency; that was Rachel’s role in life. So perhaps it was for the best, this misery. They could both remember it as one mad night, a way to clear all the sexual tension that had been fizzing and crackling between them.
Bloody wonderful night, though.
Jack wiped his finger round his plate again. And bloody wonderful body. She definitely wasn’t a xylophone girl with the kind of ribs you could feel as you ran your hands over them. No, Ellie was soft and curvy and … what was the word? Jack lifted his finger to his mouth again. Yielding. Yeah, definitely yielding. And it looked like she didn’t have any underwear on under that dress now either. He popped his finger back in his mouth. Probably on to a loser asking her to stay a bit longer when she obviously wanted to get the hell out, but the thought of having her one more time was very, very tempting.
Jack sucked his finger deep into his mouth and then happened to look up. Ellie was watching him. Her eyes, focused on the finger in his mouth, were heavy with a look he recognised.
Lust. The realisation that she was feeling it too stirred his groin back into life, but before he could do anything, she gave a kind of half-gasp, half-sob and turned his guts to water.
‘Jack,’ she said, ‘I’d become so stale, so timid. Thank you.’
He was on her in seconds, lifting her on to the table and ripping her dress from her shoulders. Very soon he had his jeans down and he was inside her, his thighs straining against the table. He heard a clatter and a crash as they knocked a plate on to the floor; he felt the empty condom packet crinkle under his foot. Nothing mattered but getting as far inside Ellie as he could. She was warm and sexy and funny and right at this minute it didn’t matter that he should be running like hell in the other direction.
Jack saw her throw her head back, her curls like a mane around her shoulders and the moonlig
ht bathing her in silver. She looked wild and ethereal and he couldn’t stop himself. Bending forward slowly, he gave a low growl and bit her very, very softly on her neck.
CHAPTER 24
Jack stood on the pavement outside the agency, watching the traffic go by. A group of girls giggled past him. A young boy ran across the road and tripped on the kerb. Pigeons pecked in the gutter.
He put his hand into his pocket and felt for the slip of paper. Pulling it out, he read the phone number on it and remembered the look on the woman’s face when she had handed it to him earlier in the day. Hungry, promising. She was probably sitting in her chambers right now. Perhaps she was even waiting for his call. It was only round the corner; he could be there in no time. Perhaps she’d keep on her wig and wear nothing but her gown and he could chalk up another first: a judge. Or had he already had one of those?
Jack squinted up at the sky and pursed his lips, then rolled the slip of paper into a tight ball and put it back into his pocket.
What was he playing at? He should forget the mad weekend he’d had with Ellie and ring that judge. It was Monday now and everyone knew mad weekends ended when you dropped the girl back at her house on Sunday night.
It had been a fantastic weekend, though. No, more like mind-blowing. Jack grinned. Really surprising, very energetic, very erotic. Bit of a slow burner, Ellie. From dazed to downright dirty in forty-eight hours.
But it had to be just a weekend nonetheless. Monday was back to work, real life and on to pastures new.
He stood there a bit longer looking at the traffic.
But sometimes people had long weekends, didn’t they? Ones that included Monday. He put his hand out abruptly and a taxi veered towards the kerb. He would see if Ellie was in. If she wasn’t, he’d ring that judge.
