by Lucy King
So maybe the evidence had been there all along. Maybe she’d simply blocked out what she hadn’t wanted to admit. She was good at doing that. It had been the main way she’d survived her narcissistic parents’ constant rowing and excruciating making up and it was what got her through the more traumatic trials she attended for work. And if that was the case then perhaps some of what had happened had been her fault, which wasn’t an entirely palatable scenario.
When it came to the opposite sex and romance, feelings were her trouble, she reflected, watching Jack as he abruptly turned round to head downhill thereby dashing her pretty limp hopes of a reprieve. Or rather, the lack of deep feelings. She fell in love too quickly. Ever an optimist, in constant search of what she so desperately wanted, she tended to wipe bad past experiences from her memory. Every man she met was possible husband material. Every new relationship had the potential to be It, even though the evidence was rarely there to back it up.
Well, that would change from now on, she thought darkly. Each relationship she embarked on failed because thanks to the emotional neglect she’d been told she’d suffered as a child she just didn’t have the depth of feeling or the requisite skills to keep it going. So for the time being she was done with it all. She could fancy Jack all she liked; nothing would ever have come of it even if he hadn’t been Cora’s brother who hated her.
She’d just have to put the whole kiss-that-wasn’t-a-kiss thing firmly out of her mind. Denial was the thing. This evening needn’t be awkward. She would be the host with the most. Resilience and sheer bloody-mindedness would get her through the hours of stilted conversation that loomed until the weather improved and Jack could leave. And really, how hard could it be?
*
Any good the icy cold might have done in dousing the heat and desire rocketing around inside him evaporated the minute Jack stomped through the door and laid eyes on Stella again.
The fire had been lit. Candles adorned virtually every available surface. A bowl of crisps sat on the coffee table, a bottle of wine and two glasses next to it. Stella herself was sitting on a sofa, flicking through a magazine, looking as relaxed and unfazed by earlier events as he wasn’t.
Which was excellent. He was all for denial. Anything to get through this sojourn in the Highlands unscathed. Which he would, of course, because his success at work depended on unassailable self-discipline, and his was legendary. Usually. Whatever. He’d deliver his apology and as long as Stella stayed away from that sodding kitchen counter, from him, he wouldn’t think about kissing her and everything would be absolutely fine.
“Power cut?” he asked, frowning slightly as he tried and failed not to notice that she’d taken her sweater off, which left her wearing a white T-shirt top thing that was tight and low-cut and clung to her curves.
“The house is off-grid,” she said, idly turning another page. “There’s a petrol generator but I generally only turn it on to run the washing machine.”
“That must be frustrating.” He certainly found it so. The flickering candlelight and the glowing fire, not to mention the drinks and nibbles, lent the room a cosiness and intimacy that his irritatingly shaky self-control really did not need.
“Depends on your point of view. No internet access has been a bonus. How was your walk?”
“Revelatory.”
She glanced up from her magazine, finally, and her eyebrows lifted. “Oh?”
Jack shoved his hands first through his hair, then into his pockets and cleared his throat. He wasn’t often in the wrong. It was an unnerving place to be. “I’d like to apologise.”
“For what exactly?”
“Jumping to conclusions.”
“I see,” she said with a slight nod.
“Upon reflection I realise I’ve misjudged you. I’ve considered what you said and I now believe that you didn’t know Brad was engaged. That you were an innocent party in everything that happened.”
The silence that followed that seemed to throb and as he kept his gaze fixed to hers he felt the tension inside him wind a fraction tighter.
“Why?”
Jack frowned and sat down in the faded armchair opposite her. “What do you mean, why?”
“Why the volte-face? What made you change your mind?”
“You may have had some valid points.”
“May have had?”
“Did have.”
“That’s better.”
“It also occurred to me that the logic does seem pretty bloody irrefutable.”
“I see,” she said. “A shame you didn’t find it quite so bloody irrefutable before barging in here and tossing around wholly inaccurate and extremely unfair accusations.”
“I am aware of that,” said Jack, shifting a bit to ease the stab of shame. “I should have considered both sides to the story.”
“Why didn’t you?” It was a good question. And one which there was no way in hell he was going to answer with the truth. Not the whole truth, at any rate. He wasn’t even sure he knew what the whole truth was. “My only excuse,” he said instead, deciding to go with what he did know, “is that I care about my sister and was perhaps too quick to rush to her defence.”
“I’ll say,” said Stella with a sniff.
“I can only apologise.”
“You could also promise to pass on to her what I said because she ought to know the truth.”
He nodded. “I could do that.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Do you think she’ll believe you?”
“I’ll do my best.” And he would, because the sooner Cora realised what a bastard her ex was the sooner she’d get over him.
“Then I accept your apology. Would you like a glass of wine?”
“A truce?”
She gave him the slightest of smiles. “Possibly.”
“I’ll pour.”
*
Three hours later, Stella lay on her bed and stared up at the ceiling, her body hot and buzzing and her nerves at breaking point. The evening had been absolutely excruciating, an exercise in self-control and restraint like no other.
Convincing herself that it would be a piece of cake remaining calm and in control was all very well when Jack was halfway up a hill, quite another when he’d been standing right in front of her scowling down at her and looking all wild and windswept and irresistible as he admitted he’d been wrong and apologised. How she’d managed to refrain from acting on instinct and launching herself at him she had no idea.
Neither of them had mentioned the almost kiss, of course, and that should have been enough, but had it? No. Not for her at least. The more they didn’t talk about it the more she thought about it.
For a while they’d discussed the wine, trips to France, Scotland and elsewhere, and she’d been achingly aware of his large frame filling the chair, his long legs stretched out in front of him and his brooding expression as he gazed at the fire. When that conversation had dried up she’d removed herself to whip up a quick ham and cheese omelette. It had given her something safe to do with her hands, and she’d figured that since they had to eat at some point then that was as good a time as any.
Sure, the conversation over dinner, which had largely revolved around the not very exciting topic of the ingredients and the effort involved in going to get them given the remoteness of the cottage, hadn’t exactly been scintillating, but boring was good. Boring was safe.
Other than the state of Jack’s ribs – which he’d assured her were fine – she didn’t need to know anything about him. She already knew enough to turn the purely physical attraction into something a bit more: the loyalty he showed towards his sister by turning up here in the first place… The mile-wide protective streak he clearly had… The unexpected confession that he’d been wrong… These were qualities she very much appreciated in a man, so any more of that sort of thing and before she knew it she’d be imagining him sitting next to her in a candlelit restaurant, leaning in close and nuzzling
her neck as they clinked champagne flutes.
As it was the physical attraction was bad enough. She’d been strangely fixated on his hands while he’d been eating and when his knee had touched hers beneath the table she’d jumped. His proximity as he’d stood beside her drying up had done strange things to her equilibrium. At one particularly nerve-shattering point his fingers had brushed hers when she’d been handing him a plate and she’d very nearly dropped it.
It was a good thing she’d suggested an early night. The sooner this was all over the better. Nothing could ever happen between her and Jack anyway even if on the billion to one chance it did become likely.
Nevertheless, she thought, slipping beneath the duvet and switching off the light, the sounds of him moving around next door switching her senses to high alert, she got the sinking feeling it was going to be a very long night.
Chapter Four
At midnight, Jack was downstairs in the kitchen, pouring himself a large glass of whisky, wired and on edge and ready to hit something hard, very possibly the bottle. He hadn’t been able to sleep. He’d been too frustrated. About everything. In particular the woman upstairs he’d spent the last couple of hours failing to ignore.
He didn’t know why he’d bothered trying in the first place when he was so acutely aware of her. He’d heard her moving around in her room and his thoughts, already vaguely dancing around her as they had been pretty much the entire bloody afternoon, had suddenly been consumed with wondering what she was doing.
He’d imagined her peeling her clothes off and sliding between the covers and chose to believe that she wore nothing because hey, this was his fantasy and he could have her wearing – and doing – whatever he wanted.
Visions had cascaded into his head, then, of him joining her and what would happen after that, and his pulse had spiked and his blood had heated and within seconds a burst of scorchingly intense desire had made him as hard as stone. As a result, sleep had been an impossibility.
What the hell was it about her? he wondered, gritting his teeth and pressing his white-knuckled fists into the polished wooden worktop. He couldn’t understand it. Why was she, of all people, so irresistible? Yes, she was attractive, but she wasn’t the most beautiful woman he’d ever met. Given the reason he was here in the first place and the impossibility of any involvement that that would imply, she shouldn’t even be on his radar. Was it the temptation of forbidden fruit? The unexpectedness and unpredictability of the circumstances in which he found himself affecting his judgement? Simply the time of year? Or had he, in fact, contrary to what he’d believed, actually hit his head when he’d crashed the car?
Or was it that, for the first time in years, she’d shaken him out of the fog he’d been stumbling around in for so long and made him feel alive?
Whatever it was, the fact that he wanted Stella so badly but couldn’t have her wasn’t just ironic, it was also deeply unjust. Hadn’t he suffered enough already? Didn’t he deserve some kind of relief from the icy numbness that lived inside him? If he was being brutally honest, he was sick to his bones of being alone. He missed the warmth of a body lying next to him. He missed the mindless pleasure and sweet oblivion of sex. Four years was a long time for anyone.
Stella wanted him. He’d seen the signs of attraction in the way her eyes darkened and her breathing hitched whenever she stared at his mouth. God knew he wanted her. He could go and knock on her door right now, head on in and lose himself in her and, most importantly, no one would ever need know.
The minute that thought entered his head it took root and Jack’s pulse thundered. His blood roared in his ears. With hands that were oddly shaking he pushed away the whisky and stepped back from the counter. He had no idea where he was planning to go or what he was planning to do since fantasy was one thing, reality quite another, but he turned anyway and –
God.
There she was.
As if he’d bloody conjured her up.
She was standing in the doorway, staring at him wide-eyed, looking tousled and flushed, wearing a thick white robe over checked pyjamas, a combination that shouldn’t have been sexy in the slightest but very much was.
And as the desire pounding through him turned heavy and intoxicating and beyond insistent, rational thought disintegrated, and any lingering scruples Jack might have had about the wisdom of enticing Stella into his bed, any concerns about the possible consequences of doing such a thing, went clean out of his head.
*
She didn’t know how long she’d been there. It could have been a second; it could have been five minutes. All she knew was that she’d lain upstairs in the dark with her thoughts spinning and sleep a distant dream. She’d needed to do something to alleviate the restlessness so she’d come downstairs for a glass of water.
Suddenly, though, it seemed she could be in for a whole lot more than that.
Jack had lit a candle and put it on the worktop just beside him, the soft flickering light illuminating him, and a moment ago the view she’d had of him had been…well, the only word she could find to describe it was magnificent. His bare back was broad, his shoulders, wide and muscled. His buttocks encased in nothing more than black cotton shorts were firm, and his legs, long and powerful.
Where he got those muscles when his job was presumably largely desk-bound was a mystery, but one she wasn’t up to solving because while that view had been impressive, the sight that now met her eyes was downright mind-blowing. She didn’t know where to look. There was just too much of him. She wanted to look everywhere. So she did. She couldn’t help herself. She let her gaze roam all over him, taking in the expanse of his chest, the ridged eight-pack of his abdomen, the smattering of hair, thicker higher up, then thinning as it arrowed down to his – oh God – his very aroused crotch.
Her mouth went dry and her breath caught because despite the dimness of the light she could see the outline of it, and suddenly she wanted to touch, wanted to taste. Her heartbeat sped up and her fingers tingled and –
Oh, dear God. She’d assumed that the attraction was one-sided but clearly it wasn’t. His glittering gaze was roaming over her in much the same way as hers had over him and she instinctively knew that he was considering ravaging her, which was an idea that was way more thrilling than it ought to be.
“Jack,” she managed, trying to defuse the sizzling tension although her throat was as dry as dust and her voice so scratchy that it lacked the cool neutral tone she’d been aiming for. “What are you doing down here?”
He lifted his gaze and the heat she could see burning there nearly wiped out her knees. “Couldn’t sleep,” he said thickly.
Stella swallowed and pulled her shoulders back in an effort to strengthen her spine but all that did was draw his attention to the region of her breasts, which instantly tightened and tingled beneath the oddly abrasive fabric of her pyjamas. “Neither could I.”
“Difficult day.”
“Are you feeling all right?” she asked, dimly aware that not that long ago he’d been in an accident and that was surely something to focus on.
“Not particularly.”
“Your ribs?”
“No.”
The glint in his eye was almost predatory and she could suddenly see why he had the professional reputation he did. It made her shiver. It made her think that she should probably be getting the hell out of here while she still could because there were great big neon danger signs flashing in her head.
“OK, then,” she said, swallowing hard in an effort to pull herself together. “Right. Well. I’ll just get a glass of water and then leave you to…whatever it was you were doing.”
Vaguely wondering why she wasn’t heading for the bathroom where there was an equally good glass and an equally good supply of water, Stella made herself walk towards him, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other, on the sink, the tap, the glass, on what she was supposed to be doing and not on the electricity that was zinging through her and the man who was causing it
.
“Do you want to know what I was doing?” he asked, his voice low, his eyes tracking her every move in a way that was utterly focused and very determined.
No. She absolutely did not want to know what he was doing in her kitchen at midnight, virtually naked and looking at her like that. “What?” she murmured, as if her mouth had a mind of its own, as if this was all happening without the consent of her common sense, which alarmingly it did seem to be because she knew she was flirting with disaster but she just couldn’t seem to help it.
“I was thinking about you and all the things I’d like to do to you,” he said as she came to a standstill, not a respectable, safe foot away but right next to him.
“What things?”
“Good things.”
He lifted a hand and touched her cheek and it felt like a shower of sparks was detonating beneath her skin. She caught her breath, utterly at a loss to understand how a mere touch could have that effect, but then he ran his fingers down her face, spread them over the delicate skin of her throat, lingering a while over the wildly fluttering pulse at the base of her neck before sliding them back to her nape and drawing her forwards until their bodies were touching lightly. It was taking all of her willpower not to press more closely.
“Impossible,” she breathed, the protest fatalistically weak.
“Not impossible.”
“Only this afternoon you thought I was the Whore of Babylon.”
“I’ve apologised for that.”
“Your sister.”
“Not here.”
“Why me?”
“God knows. Why me?”
“I haven’t a clue.”
“Just once, Stella,” he murmured, drawing closer, turning her slightly and pressing her a bit more tightly against him, so she could feel every rock-hard inch of him. This time she didn’t even try to resist because her willpower – pathetic lump of uselessness that it was – appeared to have been eroded by the need and longing now swirling through her. “Just once.”
Just once?
She stared up at his mouth, so tantalisingly close, and she wanted to kiss him with a hunger that took her breath away. She was beginning to burn up. Her body felt like it was on fire. Her veins seemed to be oozing with molasses, the desire was so thick and sluggish and hot.
