by Leah Ashton
Pretend you’re out with your girlfriends. Relax.
But no matter how hard she tried, or how much effort she applied to focusing on the music, the tension would not flow from her body. And she certainly couldn’t switch off her awareness of him.
She tried, so hard, to remember that she was supposed to like this. That she’d spent more weekends than she could ever remember out dancing, and that it made her feel good.
If she’d danced with quite possibly thousands of strangers over the years, why not dance with Jake? Same difference, right?
And, slowly, eventually and remarkably something changed.
She realised her smile wasn’t forced. She could feel the beat as it reverberated through her body. Her movements became loose and easy and as natural as breathing.
It was all about the music, and dancing and fun.
And she forgot that she shouldn’t be looking at Jake.
At first her gaze was sensibly trained at a button on his shirt, but it wasn’t long before the crowded floor became even more crowded, and she was pushed close enough to him that she was forced to look up.
Her redirected attention again started somewhere safe: the skin exposed by the two buttons she’d recommended he leave undone.
It was nice, innocent skin at the base of his neck.
Unfortunately, she knew exactly how he’d look if he unbuttoned another button. Or five. Or all of them.
She’d done so well with limiting how often she’d allowed herself to remember exactly how amazing Jake had looked without his shirt that day in the change room. To, oh, no more than several dozen times.
At seventeen he’d had a very nice chest, she’d thought. At thirty, it had broadened, and gained all sorts of lovely muscles and dips courtesy of all his mountain-related activities, she assumed. And it felt gorgeous, too, firm and solid and strong. But she’d only felt it against her cheek when he’d held her. How would it feel beneath her fingers?
With an effort, she halted that traitorous train of thought. She needed to look somewhere else. Immediately.
So she did. This time she chose his chin. It was a nice chin, with sharp, well-defined lines. Pleasingly cleft-free, too. And was that just the slightest hint of a five o’clock shadow?
Yes. She believed it was.
Unfortunately chins were not particularly interesting, and all too soon her gaze crept up, just a little bit further.
To his mouth.
Now she knew this wasn’t a good place to look, but she found herself quite compelled to do so. And besides, Ella told herself, it was just a mouth. Everyone had one. As long as it stayed well away from her, it wasn’t doing anyone any harm.
So she took her time exploring its shape as they danced—trying to study him objectively, as if his mouth belonged to no one in particular, and certainly not to Jake.
As she did so she noticed other facts in her periphery. The most surprising being that Jake wasn’t that bad a dancer.
He wouldn’t go as far as to say he was good, but for a bona fide computer geek, he was hardly embarrassing himself. Far, far from it.
So that was one thing she noticed as she focused on his mouth.
Another thing she noticed, this one not so much surprising, but more troubling, was that there was a lot of touching happening around them. The music had mellowed, and with it the mass of dancers had naturally metamorphosed into a collection of twosomes.
Just out of the corner of her left eye, Ella could see a man’s strong hand on the small of a woman’s back. So chaste, and yet—so not at all. Then, to her right, a woman’s hand curled behind a man’s neck, her red-tipped fingers lightly caressing his skin, then reaching up to tangle in his hair as she pulled him down for a...
Jake really did have an amazing mouth. Without an ounce of femininity he managed to have lips that looked firm and strong but still utterly kissable. And when he smiled, when those lips kicked up into something sexy and cheeky and smart, well. Quite simply he was near impossible to resist.
Too late she realised he was smiling. Smiling at her. And she had at some point inexplicably moved closer. Or maybe he’d moved closer to her. Either way, they were no longer dancing, and instead were kind of swaying on the spot, side to side, and maybe towards each other...
What do you want, Ella?
No. She couldn’t allow herself to want this.
She needed to take a step backwards, literally and figuratively, and it was hard—so hard—to make herself do so.
But she managed, at least the physical bit, and when the action bumped her into another dancer the subsequent jumble of apologies did an excellent job of diluting the tension.
Or at least she thought it did.
She made it off the dance floor, for once uncaring what anyone thought. Right now she just needed to be gone. Away.
But when she made it past the bar, through the front door of the restaurant and into the softly lit empty staircase that would lead her outside, Ella didn’t feel calm at all.
The reason for this became obvious when she heard a deep voice behind her.
‘I guess you’re going, then?’
She didn’t bother to slow down or look over her shoulder. ‘Uh-huh.’
What else could she do? What had been about to happen on the dance floor?
She didn’t want to think about it.
With a hand on the railing, she skipped down the stairs as quickly as possible. The theme of the restaurant was followed throughout the entire building, with even these lowly stairs as lush and rich as the restaurant itself, with deep plum carpets and damask wallpaper in shades of gold. Not that she felt much like admiring her surroundings at the moment. At this moment, she just wanted to get out, into a cab, and go home. Right now.
‘Ella,’ Jake said, much more forcefully this time, strong enough for her to pause at the landing and turn to face him.
‘What?’ she asked as he came to a stop before her.
But he didn’t stop. Instead, he came closer, as close as they’d been on the dance floor.
And then, when her shoulders bumped against the wallpaper, even closer again. Close enough that his height and width seemed to surround her, overwhelm her.
His closeness made her traitorous body react in all the wrong ways: her belly flooded with warmth, her breath hitched, her hands itched to reach and touch him—anywhere—and bring him even closer.
No. That was crazy. This was crazy.
She didn’t want any of this. After today she was meant to never see Jake again.
And she’d been glad. Relieved about that. Hadn’t she?
But feeling this, wanting this, was not good at all.
‘Jake...’ she started, but the touch of his hand on her cheek silenced her. His fingers slid down slowly, the lightest touch at her temple, her cheek, her jaw, and then, finally, beneath her chin, tilting her mouth upwards. Up towards his.
She swallowed, trying desperately to capture just one lucid, sensible sentence from within a brain that suddenly felt as light and fluffy and insubstantial as fairy floss.
But she found nothing. Maybe she didn’t really want to.
‘I’ll tell you what I wanted,’ he said, his voice like velvet. ‘And what I want.’
Ella finally let her gaze rise up to meet his—intense, and intimate and hotter than anything she’d ever experienced.
‘This,’ he said.
Now she expected him to kiss her. Something hard and fast and full of thirteen years of missed opportunities, mistakes and regret.
But that wasn’t what she received. Instead he lowered his head ever so slowly.
She had the strangest sense that she was about to fall into the heat she saw in his eyes, into the sensations that zipped about her body, and perhaps even into somewhere further. Somewhere deep inside her that for far too long she’d ignored.
And while it was scary and confusing and complicated, the absolute last thing it felt was wrong.
So when his lips finally t
ouched hers, she let herself go.
This was not the kiss of a fumbling, unsure teenager. Oh, no. This Jake was all grown up.
His lips were firm and sure, but not demanding—yet.
He teased her with kisses that were brief, almost chaste, teasing her until she leant into him, until her hands crept up to his shoulders, one remaining to trace the shape and strength of his back, and the other travelling up and into his hair.
But not for a moment did Ella think he was giving her control. This was his kiss; of that she had no doubt. He was, however, giving her time.
Which was all very nice of him, but completely unnecessary.
Her fingers tightened as she tugged him closer, just as his tongue brushed her bottom lip. She shuddered at that unbelievable sensation, and the next thing she knew their kisses were open, voracious and delicious. Their tongues tangled as their sighs, even their breathing, became near indistinguishable as his or hers.
Then he finally touched her, with hands that made her skin burn and the thin fabric of her dress seem an impossibly unfair barrier to the kind of closeness she suddenly desperately wanted.
Skin to skin.
As his fingers traced the curve of her hips, the dip of her waist, and then, ever so slowly, crept higher—but nowhere near high enough—that want became a need.
‘Ella,’ he said, so close she felt as well as heard him speak. That was all he said, but she knew exactly what he meant.
This was crazy.
She kissed him again, telling him with lips and tongue and teeth how good this felt, how every touch of his hands, every touch of his mouth triggered a rush of sensation that was like nothing else she’d ever experienced.
This was insane.
But then, one moment she was all but wrapped around him, the next he was stepping away, turning his back.
Ella swallowed a whimper. A whimper?
Since when did Ella Cartwright whimper?
As she processed that unexpected, and previously undiscovered, reaction, her surroundings slowly came back into focus.
They were standing in the landing of a staircase. A public staircase.
‘I thought I heard someone,’ Jake said.
Oh, God.
Ella focused firmly on the straps of her stilettos and, belatedly, she blushed fiercely.
She hugged herself, keeping her eyes trained determinedly downwards.
How had she just let this happen?
‘Hey, don’t stress. No one’s here. I must have imagined it,’ Jake said.
Ella sank back against the wall in relief.
What if someone from the media had seen them?
Jake had turned back to face her, still so, so close.
Incredibly her gaze wanted so badly to drift downwards to his mouth. But that was not going to happen again. It couldn’t.
‘Ella, I—’
‘Wow, I’m exhausted,’ she said, telling herself she had no interest in hearing whatever Jake was about to say.
Ella managed a serviceable fake yawn. ‘I’m going to go find a taxi.’
She didn’t give him a chance to reply, and instead just stepped neatly past him.
As fast as she could, she hurried down the steps, the thud of her heels on the thick carpet almost matching the rapid thud of her heart.
That kiss had been too much. Too good, too perfect, too right.
She couldn’t do this with Jake. She just couldn’t.
What if she fell for him again?
Oh, who was she kidding? She had a horrible feeling that it wasn’t even a ‘what if’ in this equation. It was a ‘when’.
Outside, the cool air was like a slap to her face. She took a deep breath and arranged her features into something bland and neutral. Up the street she saw the lights of a taxi, and she stuck out a hand to flag it down.
Jake appeared beside her, but she offered him barely a glance. When the taxi pulled to a stop, she yanked open the door, and, with it as a barrier between them, finally forced herself to look at him.
He did not look impressed.
‘Ella, what is this? Why are you running away?’
She bristled. ‘What, Jake? You don’t like it when it’s someone else doing the running?’
He went absolutely still.
She continued in clipped and cold syllables. ‘That was a kiss that was thirteen years too late, don’t you think?’
‘Ella, I—’
‘Goodbye, Jake,’ she said, sliding onto the taxi’s vinyl seat.
And with that she closed the door, probably with far more force than was necessary.
Jake immediately rested his hands on the roof of the car, leaning forward so his face and shoulders filled the window.
‘Ella, stop.’
‘Is he with you?’ the driver asked over his shoulder.
But Ella kept her eyes trained steadfastly forward, pretending she couldn’t see Jake just inches away through the glass.
‘No,’ she said, her throat suddenly tight. ‘Not at all.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE next day Jake knocked—politely—on Ella’s door. Just a couple of sharp raps of his knuckles on the solid wooden surface. Very civilised for eight on a Saturday morning.
Then he waited.
When no sound was forthcoming, besides the muffled sound of music playing, he tried again. A bit longer this time. The raps a little more—clear.
When this was also unsuccessful, he went with a steady, slow, ponderous knock that he was pretty sure would irritate a bear out of hibernation.
With this, he had success.
The scrape and click of a door unlocking and a chain being unhooked was preceded by soft thuds and thumps and a croaky sounding: ‘Who is it?’
He didn’t bother to answer. When she finally pulled open the door, he meant to give her a lecture about opening her door to strangers, but the words got all jammed up in his throat.
She stood in the doorway, one hand still propped against the open door, in a pale pink singlet and purple polka dotted boxer shorts. And that was it.
He wasn’t exactly sure what he expected her to be wearing, but it wasn’t this. It wasn’t shorts that revealed miles of bare golden skin and a threadbare singlet that left very little to the imagination.
With her hair scraped off her face in a loose, looped-up ponytail and her face make-up free, she was beautiful.
How could he have ever, ever thought she was anything else?
He swallowed, and tried to remember where he’d left his ability to speak.
Ella pushed the door fully open and crossed her arms in front of herself. And then, as if only just realising what her top revealed, she slid her arms just a little bit higher, to hide the curves of her breasts. A blush pinkened her cheeks.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ she demanded, anger obvious in every tense line of her body. ‘How do you know where I live? And—hang on—how did you even get in? This is a secure building.’
He shrugged. ‘You’re listed in the phone book—it wasn’t hard. And you may want to have a word to your neighbour. She recognised me from that article in the Herald this week, and when I said I knew you she was happy to let me in.’
‘Humpphh,’ she muttered indistinctly, then reached for the door, obviously about to slam it in his face. This slamming-of-doors-in-his-face thing was rapidly getting old.
As he wasn’t the type of guy to shove his way into a woman’s house he figured he’d better start talking. Quickly.
‘I haven’t answered your question,’ he said, ‘about why I’m here.’
She paused mid swing. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘So tell me.’
She gave a little yawn, as if he were the most terribly boring thing she’d ever seen. But was that the slightest flicker of interest in her gaze?
She could lie to herself all she wanted, but he wasn’t about to.
He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her last night. About that kiss.
That mad, intense,
unexpected kiss.
And also, about what she’d said. You don’t like it when it’s someone else doing the running.
‘Something’s been bothering me,’ he said.
Ella raised her eyebrows. He could pretty much read her mind: What’s bothering me right now is that you’re standing on my doorstep at eight on a Saturday morning.
‘You’ve lived in Sydney for, what, nine years?’
‘Eight,’ she corrected, looking an adorable mix of sleepy, angry and confused.
‘And you’ve never been up to the mountains.’
She sighed, and reached again for the door. ‘Trust me, I don’t stay up at night distressed by that gaping hole in my life. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I—’
‘Oh, come on, Ella. That’s a bit hypocritical, isn’t it?’
Her arm stilled. ‘Pardon me?’
‘I haven’t been harbouring a desperate need for a makeover, but I gave that a go.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘And you were such a conscientious pupil.’
Jake grinned. ‘Not at first, I’ll admit. But you were right, last night. This whole image rebranding thing, it’s been good for me.’
He had the pleasure of watching Ella’s jaw drop.
‘So I’d like to do something for you. Take you up to the mountains.’
‘I’ve heard about your place. I get that it’s beautiful, and peaceful, but it’s not my thing.’ Then she paused. ‘And more to the point, I was paid to be your image consultant. There is no favour to be returned.’
For the first time since he’d arrived, he registered the music playing inside Ella’s apartment.
‘You were asleep when I got here, right?’ he asked.
She nodded, looking a little thrown by the change of subject. ‘Yes. Why?’
‘Then why is there music on?’
‘Oh, I don’t like silence,’ she said, very matter of fact, and then added another nonchalant little yawn. ‘Are we done? I’d like to go back to bed.’
The pairing of the concepts of bed and Ella scrambled his thoughts momentarily, and he wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly.
‘You don’t like silence?’
The concept floored him. He personally couldn’t get enough of the stuff.
