Mr. (Not Quite) Perfect

by Jessica Hart

  ‘I might as well have been a pillar of your precious concrete for all the notice you took of me all evening!’

  Max uttered a strangled laugh and dragged a hand through his hair. ‘It wasn’t like that,’ he began.

  ‘Then why did you ignore me?’

  ‘Because I didn’t trust myself, all right?’ he shouted, goaded at last. ‘Because if I hadn’t ignored you, I wouldn’t have been able to keep my hands off you! I’d have kissed you again and again and I wouldn’t have been able to stop. I’d have dragged you down under the table and ripped that bloody dress off you so I could kiss you all over your body and to hell with my boss sitting there with his wife and the rest of the restaurant...’

  He broke off. His chest was heaving and he looked wild-eyed as he glared at Allegra. ‘So now you know. There, are you satisfied now?’

  ‘But...but...’ It was Allegra’s turn to gape.

  ‘Of course I wanted to touch you!’ Max said furiously. ‘I’ve wanted it ever since you opened the bathroom door. I haven’t been able to think about anything else all evening. I had to sit there, trying to talk to my boss, when all I could think about was how easy it would be to slide my hand under your dress, about how it would feel to unzip it, all the time knowing it would never happen! And you wanted me to do chit-chat as well?’

  He was glowering at her as if he hated her, but a treacherous warmth was stealing along Allegra’s veins, dissolving her own anger into something far more dangerous, while the spikiness in the atmosphere evaporated into quite a different kind of tension.

  He wanted her.

  Desire twisted sharp and sure in her belly. His hair was standing on end where he had raked his hand through it and he looked cross, rumpled, gorgeous. When had he become so...so...so hot? Why hadn’t she noticed?

  Allegra’s heart thudded in her throat and her mouth dried with a mixture of anticipation and apprehension. She had been sent once to try bungee jumping for an article and she had felt just like this when she’d stood on the edge of the bridge: terrified, thrilled, longing to be brave enough to jump but afraid that she would never have the courage.

  She had done it, though. She could do this too, if she really wanted to. Allegra moistened her lips.

  Max wanted her.

  She wanted him.

  Allegra’s mind was still busy calculating the risk when her mouth opened and she heard herself say, ‘How do you know?’

  Thrown, Max stared at her. ‘How do I know what?’

  ‘That it would never happen.’ Allegra watched, appalled, as her body took over, shifting towards him, reaching out for his hand, setting it on her knee, all without a single instruction from her brain.

  What was she doing? she thought in panic, but her hands seemed to have acquired a will of their own. Stop it, she told herself frantically, but the message wasn’t getting through, and now her legs were getting in on the act, quaking with pleasure at the warm weight of his hand.

  Max swallowed. ‘I’m not sure this is a good idea, Legs,’ he said in a constricted voice, but he didn’t seem to have any better control over his hands than she did. His fingers were curling over her knee, pressing through her sheer tights into the soft skin of her inner thigh, and she couldn’t prevent the shudder of response clenching at the base of her spine.

  ‘I’m not sure either,’ she admitted with difficulty. She willed her knees to press together and squeeze out his hand but they wouldn’t cooperate.

  ‘It could be that we’re just getting carried away by the pretence,’ Max said but he didn’t lift his hand. Instead his knuckles nudged aside the hem of her dress so that he could stroke higher inside her thigh.

  Allegra felt lust crawling deeper, digging in. It would take over completely if she didn’t regain control, but his skimming fingers were searing such delicious patterns on her skin she couldn’t think clearly.

  ‘Bound to be that,’ she agreed breathlessly. ‘And the whole article thing. It’s getting a bit out of hand. We’re spending too much time together.’

  ‘Yep,’ said Max, as his fingers played on the inside of her thigh, higher, higher, higher, until Allegra squirmed in her seat. ‘We should stop right now.’

  ‘We should,’ she managed.

  ‘Unless...’

  ‘Yes?’ Her breathing was too choppy to get anything else out.

  ‘Unless we get it out of our system,’ Max suggested. Had his voice always been that deep, that darkly delicious? ‘Just one night, and then we can forget all about it. What do you think?’

  Think? How could she be expected to think when his fingers were stroking so exquisitely that she couldn’t breathe properly and she was giddy with the dark pleasure of it? Oh, God, if his hand went any higher, she would come apart.

  If it didn’t, she would explode. Either way, they would end up with a horrible mess all over the taxi seat.

  Struggling to stop herself pressing down into his hand, she scrabbled for some words to put together. ‘I think...that’s...a good idea...’ she gasped and Max smiled, a wicked smile she hadn’t known he possessed.

  When he withdrew his hand, Allegra almost moaned in protest before she realised that the taxi had stopped in front of the house. Max paid the driver while she made it waveringly to the front door on legs that felt boneless.

  She was still fumbling with the keys as Max came up behind her. Wordlessly, he took them from her and opened the door.

  ‘After you,’ he said, but there was a telltale hitch in his voice that made Allegra feel obscurely better. So it wasn’t just her having trouble breathing.

  She didn’t want to put on the hall light, so she waited, trembling with anticipation, in the dark until Max had closed the door behind them. A muted orange glow from the street lights outside filtered through the glass pane above the door. It was enough to see him turn, see the gleam of his smile as he moved towards her, and then his hands were on her and at last—at last!—his mouth came down on hers, angling desperate and demanding.

  This time there was none of the piercing sweetness she had felt in the restaurant. Instead his kiss was hot and fierce, and Allegra felt need explode inside her, vaporising the last lingering remnants of rational thought. Her mind went dark and she kissed him back, wild with hunger, wanting his hands on her harder, hotter, harder.

  No, there was no sweetness now. It felt like more of a struggle as to who needed most, who could give most, who could take most. Allegra scrabbled for his tie, at the buttons on his shirt, while his hands pushed up her dress urgently and his mouth blazed a trail to her breast. The hunger rocketed through her, so powerful it thrilled and terrified her in equal measure, and when they broke apart the narrow hallway echoed with the rasp of their ragged breaths.

  Chest heaving, Max pressed their palms together and lifted their arms slowly above her head so that he could pin her against the wall.

  ‘We’re going to regret this,’ he said, even as he bent his head to kiss her throat, making every cell in her body jolt, turning her insides molten.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘It’s crazy.’ His lips drifted downward in a searing trail over her skin that left her breathing in tatters.

  ‘You’re right,’ she managed, sucking in a gasp as he explored the sensitive curve of her neck and shoulder and arching into the wicked pleasure of his mouth.

  When he released her wrists to jerk her closer, she whimpered with relief. Now she could tug his shirt free so that she could slide her palms over his firm, smooth back, letting herself notice how his muscles flexed beneath her touch. He was gloriously solid, wonderfully warm. She wanted to burrow into him, lose herself in him.

  ‘It’ll just spoil things,’ she said unevenly, holding onto the track of the conversation with difficulty.

  ‘It will. It’ll never be the same again,’ said Max, his v
oice low and ragged. ‘I’m never going to be able to forget how you taste,’ he warned her. ‘I’ll never forget how you feel, how soft you are.’

  ‘So...we should stop,’ she tried, even as she pressed him closer, revelling in the feel of how hard he was, how strong, how male. Her blood was thumping and thudding and throbbing with urgency and she wanted him so much that she couldn’t think about anything else.

  ‘We probably should,’ said Max, his hands sliding under her dress, his mouth hot on her skin. ‘But there’s a problem.’

  Allegra shuddered under his touch. ‘A...a problem?’

  ‘Yes.’ He lifted his head and brought his hands up to frame her face. ‘The problem is, I don’t want to stop, do you?’

  She ought to say yes. She ought to put a stop to this right now. Max was right. They would regret this in the morning. But how could she say stop when her body was arching towards his and her skin yearned for his touch and her blood was running wild and wanting him blotted out everything else?

  Her arms wrapped round his neck and she pulled him closer for a deep, wet kiss. ‘No,’ she murmured against his lips, ‘I don’t want to stop.’

  EIGHT

  Allegra surfaced slowly to an awareness of an unfamiliar weight lying across her waist. She blinked at a bedside table. Not hers. The arm thrown over her wasn’t hers either. A warm male body was pressed against her back, a face buried in her hair. Steady breath stirred the air against her shoulder and she quivered as memory came whooshing back.

  Max. Omigod, she had slept with Max!

  Now what was she going to do?

  Allegra lay very still. Max was sound asleep and she didn’t want to wake him until she had worked out how she was going to react.

  Could she pretend that she’d had too much to drink? But she had known exactly what she was doing, and Max knew it.

  Okay, so she’d be casual. Thank goodness we’ve got that out of our system, now we can move on: that kind of thing.

  Only being casual wasn’t going to be easy when she’d just had the best sex of her life. Her body was still buzzing pleasantly in the aftermath, and she flushed at the memory of the careening excitement, the heart-shaking pleasure that had left her languid and replete at last.

  It would be so much easier if the sex had been disappointing, or even average. If Max had been a pedestrian lover, as conventional and dull as his suits. Instead...Allegra’s blood tingled, remembering the shattering sureness of his hands, of his mouth...oh, God, his mouth... In spite of herself, her lips curved. Who would have thought that the crisp and efficient engineer was capable of that?

  How much more passion had Emma wanted?

  Allegra wished she hadn’t thought about Emma. She’d been on the verge of turning over and waking Max, but now she’d remembered reality. Last night hadn’t changed anything. Max would be going to Shofrar soon, and if he took anyone with him it wouldn’t be his sister’s frivolous, fashionable friend.

  And Libby! That was another complication. How would she feel if she knew Allegra had slept with her brother? But Allegra couldn’t keep a secret from her best friend. Allegra gnawed her bottom lip. She wished she could rewind the hours and go back to the night, to the darkness where nothing had mattered but touch and feel and taste, the glorious slide of flesh against flesh, the spiralling excitement, the splintering joy.

  What time was it anyway? Very cautiously, Allegra reached towards the phone on the bedside table. Sensing her movement in his sleep, Max mumbled a protest and tightened his arm about her, pulling her back against his hard body. It felt so good that Allegra’s heart contracted, but she made herself wriggle free and grope once more for the phone.

  Her fingers closed round it and she peered at the screen: 08:45. Holy smoke!

  ‘Max!’ She sat bolt upright in bed. ‘Max, wake up! It’s nearly nine o’clock!’

  ‘Wha...?’ Max struggled up, scowling at the abrupt awakening. His eyes were screwed up, his hair ruffled. Allegra wanted to take his face between her hands and kiss the grouchiness away. She wanted to push him down into the pillows and lose herself in his touch.

  Instead she leapt out of bed, out of temptation. ‘I’m going to be late!’ she said, scrabbling frantically for her clothes. She found a bra, a pair of tights... What the hell had happened to her dress?

  ‘Wait...’ The sleep was clearing from Max’s face and his expression changed as he watched Allegra pounce on the dress that lay in a puddle on the floor, where it had fallen last night. He had a vivid memory of unzipping it slowly, of listening to the enticing rustle as it slithered down over Allegra’s hips, of catching his breath at the sight of her in a black push-up bra and lacy thong.

  ‘Allegra, wait,’ he said again as memory after memory of the night before flashed through his mind like an erotic slide show.

  She turned, tousle-haired, wide-eyed, clutching her pile of clothes to her chest, forgetting that it was a little late for modesty. ‘Didn’t you hear what I said? It’s nearly nine!’

  ‘Nearly nine?’ This time it got through. He scrambled out of bed, stark naked. ‘Shit! I was supposed to be at work half an hour ago!’

  ‘You can have the shower first,’ she said. ‘You’re quicker than me.’

  Max hesitated, dragged a hand through his hair. He was never late for work, but he couldn’t leave it like that. He might not have thought ahead last night, but he knew the morning wasn’t supposed to be like this, and he found himself saying the words he never thought he would hear coming out of his mouth: ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘I know,’ said Allegra, not quite meeting his eyes, ‘but later.’

  Perhaps later was better, Max told himself as he showered and shaved as quickly as he could, which was pretty damn quickly. By the evening he might have had a chance to get a grip of himself. It would have been too hard to talk with Allegra’s scent still clogging his brain, with his heart still thundering with the memory of her sweetness, her warmth, her wicked, irresistible smile. She had turned him upside down, inside out.

  She had turned him wild.

  Max shrugged on his shirt, knotted his tie, dressed himself in his civilised suit, but underneath he still felt stripped bare. He’d been unprepared for the wildness of his need for her, for the way the feel of her set something free inside him.

  So free that he’d lost his mind, lost himself. Max set his jaw, remembering the foolishness he’d spouted, the incoherent words that had tumbled out of him as they’d moved together, up and up through swirling darkness towards the shattering light. He hadn’t known what he was saying, but now the words were out, how the hell was he going to put them back?

  * * *

  He was at the round table, filling out a visa form for Shofrar, when Allegra got home that night. The moment he heard the key in the door, every cell in his body seemed to leap in anticipation, but he had his expression well under control by the time she appeared in the doorway.

  There was a pause, then Allegra said, ‘Hi.’

  ‘You’re back late.’ Max hated the accusing note in his own voice. Anyone would think that he was keeping track of her, that he’d been sitting here, just waiting for her to come home.

  ‘I’ve been to the launch of a new jewellery collection.’ Allegra hesitated, then came into the room. She was wearing skinny leopard-print jeans, a tight T-shirt and a leather jacket, with chunky earrings and shiny boots. Her hair was pulled back in one of those messy twists that Max disliked. She looked funky, hip, a million miles from the elegant woman who’d taken his arm last night.

  From the woman who’d short-circuited every single one of his fuses last night.

  She unzipped her jacket and dropped her bag on the sofa. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked, perching on the arm so that she could take off her boots.

  ‘A visa application for Shofrar,’ said
Max.

  Allegra glanced up from her right boot. ‘Already?’

  ‘I saw Bob Laskovski again today. One of the project managers out there has been in a car accident. He’s okay, I think, but they’re bringing him back to hospital here. Bob wanted to know if I could go out earlier.’

  She stilled. ‘How much earlier?’

  ‘The end of next week.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Bob was asking about wedding dates,’ said Max, relieved to hear that he sounded so normal. ‘He was anxious to reassure me that I could come back in a month or so to sort stuff out, and that you could join me whenever you’re ready.’

  ‘I see,’ said Allegra. She bent her head and went back to fiddling with her boot. ‘Well...that’s good. You must be pleased.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Max. He should be delighted. This was exactly what he had wanted, after all. So why didn’t he feel pleased?

  He wished Allegra would look up. He wished she didn’t look so trendy. He wished they hadn’t started on this awful stilted conversation when they should be talking about the night before. ‘What about your article? Can we fit in the last tests by next week?’

  She pursed her lips, considering, apparently unbothered by the fact that he would be leaving so soon. ‘I’ve arranged with Darcy that you’ll go with her to the opening of the new Digby Fox exhibition on Tuesday evening,’ she said.

  ‘Who’s Digby Fox?’ he said, disgruntled.

  ‘Only the hottest ticket in the art world at the moment. He’s a really controversial artist but anyone who’s anyone will be there to look at his new installations.’

  ‘And Darcy wants to go to this?’ Max couldn’t hide his scepticism.

  ‘She wants to change her image and be taken more seriously. And Digby Fox is really interesting,’ she told him. ‘But that would be your last challenge. The costume ball isn’t for another month, you’ll be gutted to hear, so you’ll miss that.’