by Jo Iles
Instead he’d walked into a stale room that reeked of booze and sex. And oh yes, Charlie had been there. Jack didn’t know how he really felt. What he did know was that he was walking around Hong Kong with a real mixed bag of emotions racing through his body, and he felt utterly clueless as to how to deal with them.
Part of him was angry with Charlie for having shagged someone who he perhaps prematurely was coming to regard as his girl. But was that Charlie’s fault? He’d denied all involvement with Jessie to his brother previously, and he felt sure Jessie wouldn’t have divulged anything about the two of them to her boss. From appearances, it simply looked as though Charlie had been led by his cock. Nothing new there, then.
So that left Jessie. He’d genuinely thought that she was into him, and the fact that she’d jumped into bed with Charlie had stung unexpectedly. What was it she’d said earlier? That she’d only done it to be agreeable. So, maybe she hadn’t exactly jumped into bed with his brother, but did so to be agreeable. That wasn’t exactly a worthy excuse. Having sex with someone to be agreeable sounded so detached and unemotional. It was ultimately a copout and it was a ridiculous thing to do. Thinking back on the morning, Jack had been surprised when he’d seen her. She was still beautiful, of course, but she’d looked tired, and not her usual radiant self. Jack hadn’t noticed any post-coital glow about her. Not the way she’d looked after being with him, he thought, reminiscing from his own experiences with her. He unconsciously smiled a wry smile to himself at the thought that she hadn’t enjoyed herself with Charlie.
‘Good, it serves her right,’ Jack muttered to himself as he stood staring across the harbour from Kowloon to the towers of Hong Kong Island.
Jack turned to go—and there she was. A vision in yellow, looking bright and summery with her shapely legs on show. She was back to being radiant again, Jack noticed, as he watched her lean elegantly on the barrier, looking at the same view he’d been enjoying seconds before, a mere twenty metres away from him. She hadn’t seen him—or if she had, she was doing a good acting job of pretending she hadn’t. Jack turned back to the view, pondering his next move as he studied her sideways from behind his sunglasses. He was in a city of eight million people and he couldn’t get away from her. If she wasn’t in his mind, then she was there in person.
Perhaps subconsciously he’d chosen to come to a famous tourist attraction in the hope of seeing her. Jack didn’t think so though. For one, he’d thought Jessie would have hibernated in her room today, licking her wounds, and for another, he always came to this spot to think when he was in Hong Kong. This was more his city than hers and he could go anywhere he damn well pleased, he thought as he felt a surge of anger and passion rise inside of him. She was supposed to be feeling remorse for the hurt she’d caused him; not gallivanting around the city as though she didn’t have a care in the world, Jack thought bitterly, as a gust of wind fluttered her hair and dress to make her look even more picture perfect.
Who was he kidding? He couldn’t take his eyes off her. He was hooked. He wasn’t happy with her right then and there, but she had a hold on him that had weakened his self-control. If Jessie saw him then, walked up to him and kissed him, he knew he’d be powerless to stop her or his body from responding. Jack knew he should just walk away. He knew he should be on his own and brood. It wasn’t natural for him to feel so influenced by a woman.
‘You’re bloody magnetic, do you know that?’ Jack shouted across the distance towards her. He was reluctant to close the gap between them. That would seem too much like a concession on his part. But he found he could shout at her quite easily. Jessie’s head snapped back as she recognised his voice and turned to face him.
They stood frozen for a moment. Still twenty metres or so apart. Jack leaning on the railing with his head towards her, and Jessie just standing there, looking a little lost. Jack wondered what would happen next, and he felt pretty sure Jessie was thinking the same. The scene could have stayed that way for some time if a group of tourists hadn’t stood in the space between them and started taking numerous photographs. This was crunch time, Jack thought to himself. They couldn’t see each other clearly now, so walk away, or she’d have to come to him. He wasn’t going to budge, he thought stubbornly to himself. No way was he going after her.
After a minute, there was still no Jessie standing by his side. Through the tourist group he saw a flash of yellow dress disappearing off into the distance. She’d fucking walked off on him. Jack fumed as he started marching after her without thinking. So much for standing his ground and not budging.
‘What the hell are you playing at?’ he said sharply, grabbing her arm and spinning her round to face him. He couldn’t see what her eyes were doing behind her sunglasses, but her mouth seemed genuinely surprised that he’d gone after her.
‘I’m testing your magnetism theory,’ she said when she’d composed her face. ‘Seems to be working,’ she added sarcastically.
‘Don’t you think we have things to talk about?’ Jack asked, still holding her arm. He was finding it impossible to read her, so he took off his own sunglasses, hoping she would do the same.
‘I don’t play games, Jack. I’m not going to chase you,’ she responded flatly, looking down at her arm where he was holding her.
‘Is that your idea of an apology?’ Jack said, slowly letting go of her arm.
‘An apology? Are you serious? It’s not like we’re in love or anything, Jack,’ she said, half-laughing. Jack was stunned. He couldn’t understand why she was being so unreasonable. Her tone stung him.
‘Don’t make me out to be the bad guy here, Jessie,’ Jack said firmly. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s me who hasn’t done anything wrong here. You’re fucking warped if you think what you did didn’t affect me.’
‘I’m sorry Jack, but I don’t get it. You guys have meaningless shags all the time. I told you it didn’t mean anything, and as far as I’m concerned that’s all that needs to be said on the matter.’
‘But Jessie, I’m not just some guy. This is me. I know we’re not together formally, but you must be able to understand that it irritates the hell out of me that you’ve been with my brother.’
‘I guess,’ Jessie replied sullenly.
‘You guess? Is that all you have to say?’
‘See ya, Jack,’ was her response as she turned and walked away.
Jack was left clutching his head, feeling incredulous. That was it. He didn’t get women. Just when he thought he was beginning to understand Jessie, she went and threw a total curveball at him. He thought he’d been very measured with her, when he could have quite easily blown a gasket. He thought he’d given her every chance to be conciliatory, and fully expected her to make amends. But no, it was like he didn’t know this woman.
He’d obviously misread the whole situation. Badly. She obviously didn’t feel the same way about him that he did about her. She obviously hadn’t felt the same chemistry he’d felt when he’d touched her arm. He laughed out loud as it dawned on him what a fool he’d been and what a fool he’d allowed himself to be. He’d been played.
Chapter 53
Jessie felt utterly disgusted with herself. She knew she was in the wrong, but instead of owning up to her mistake, she’d gone into attack mode and had refused to take any responsibility for her actions or for the fact that she’d hurt Jack. She knew she’d behaved like a child, but for some reason unbeknown to her she’d been unable to stop herself. Jessie felt like she’d acted so badly and taken things so far, that it was too late for her to make amends.
Maybe it was for the best. She didn’t deserve Jack before all this, and she certainly didn’t deserve him now, after today’s sorry performance.
‘Good work, Jessie, you’ve well and truly pushed him away now,’ she said to herself, as she came up for air in the deserted swimming pool. He was just so bloody reasonable. Why couldn’t he have gotten mad and shouted at her? Why did he have to be so nice? No, she definitely didn’t deserve him. He w
as way to good for her.
Not wanting to go back to her room, Jessie decided to stay on the rooftop and dry out in the late afternoon sun. It was still plenty warm enough, and although her white bikini was a size too small, there was no one there to observe. The hotel shop only seemed to stock teeny tiny sizes, which meant the bikini bottoms were just about decent but the top didn’t leave much to the imagination. Jessie reclined on a sun lounger, put her sunglasses on and her headphones in. She was in the mood for something loud and turned the volume up to the maximum.
Despite the loud music, she must have dozed off, because the next thing she heard was a clank somewhere close by and she felt the sensation of falling. It took her a moment to realise what had happened. The raised head part of her sun lounger had collapsed, and she was now lying flat on her back. But there was something else. Someone was there.
‘You don’t want to burn,’ Jack said as she yanked out one of her ear buds and stared up at him, surprised and suddenly all too aware that her bikini was a teeny tiny affair that left her boobs falling out of every available opening.
‘Huh,’ was all she managed to formulate, still stunned by Jack’s sudden appearance.
‘Turn over,’ Jack ordered as he grabbed Jessie’s bottle of sun lotion from the floor.
Jessie did as she was told. Truth be told, she was pleased to lie on her front and not have to worry about falling out of her top. Yes, Jack had seen it all before, but that didn’t mean she felt comfortable with him seeing it all again, seeing as they were having issues at the moment. However, rolling over presented a whole other problem. Here, boobs may have been hidden, but now her bum was there for the whole world to see. She’d thought her bikini bottoms were passable before, but now they felt woefully small as she fought the urge to rearrange the small piece of fabric covering her derrière.
Jack poured the cold lotion over Jessie’s back and began working it in. His touch was a little haphazard and rough at first, but after a minute he seemed to calm down and find a nice calming rhythm. Jessie forgot about the smallness of her bathing suit and now found herself fighting the urge to groan in pleasure as Jack’s fingers worked their magic across her back and shoulders. More than once she felt his fingers skim the sides of her breasts, which had the immediate effect of turning her libido on. Jessie’s mind started to wander back into the gutter as she imagined making love to him on the sun lounger, which only served to ramp up her libido even more. Now she had to fight to stay silent. When he undid her bikini top and she felt her boobs free underneath her, she had to ball her hands into fists to stop herself from begging him to take her then and there.
It was probably a good job he moved onto her legs when he did. Jessie tried her best to think nonsexual thoughts as Jack poured more sun lotion onto her calves. Yes, calves were good. Not sexy at all. Thank goodness she’d had a thorough shaving session in the shower that morning. At least she could be confident that her legs were nice and smooth.
But then came the thighs. Jack started off massaging the lotion into each thigh separately. Then he seemed to decide on a change of technique. He pulled Jessie’s legs apart and kneeled in the space between her legs. He then proceeded to stroke her inner thighs, up and down, with an increasing rapidity. With each repetition he got closer and closer to the top of her legs and to the point where legs turned into something else. His fingers began to skim the edge of her bikini bottoms. Jack didn’t seem to like that and he managed to lift and tuck her swimsuit, leaving it even higher, and thus leaving Jessie even more bare-buttocked than she had been already.
Jessie felt like she was nearly dying from the need to be touched down there. She could feel her nipples were hard and they ached to be sucked and caressed. She could feel a certain part of her anatomy starting to moisten as her body automatically responded to the anticipation of something more about to happen. Jessie had done her best, with her words at the harbourside earlier, to appear apathetic and disinterested in this man, but her body was well and truly betraying her now.
Jessie was on the edge, holding on for dear life as she willed Jack’s fingers to get closer to where she really wanted them to go. Each circling stroke of her inner thighs seemed to tease her a little more as she neared the point of no return.
And then he just stopped.
‘You know, we could have been epic,’ he whispered huskily into her ear, making her tingle from head to toe.
Jessie lay there, practically panting. Soaking wet. Horny beyond belief. She lifted her head groggily to see Jack’s back as he headed for the exit.
‘Bastard,’ she called out pathetically as she lay there, her body unwilling to respond to her brain’s demands to restore some decency to her appearance, lest anyone see her practically butt-naked state.
Chapter 54
Upon reflection, perhaps checking into the same hotel as Charlie and Jessie hadn’t been Jack’s wisest move that day. But he’d been tired after the flight and he’d regarded this hotel as being as good as any in which to take a nap while he figured out what it was he was going to do.
When he’d gotten back to the hotel after Jessie had walked away from him again, he’d felt unsettled and didn’t want to be in his room. He’d arranged to meet Sonia for dinner that night, but that wasn’t for some hours yet. He decided some exercise might be a good way to work out some of his frustration at the complete fail of a day he’d had. The quality hotel Charlie had picked didn’t have a gym, but it did have a pool. That would have to do. The concierge had assured him that the place was usually deserted and Jack felt confident that there would be no familiar faces there on a Saturday afternoon. His brother was no doubt out schmoozing with someone and he imagined Jessie to be holed up in her room.
The concierge had been right and wrong. The pool was deserted—aside from one person: Jessie. Jack didn’t know why he’d done it. His original plan had been to tempt her and ultimately hurt her when he walked away, but now he felt like with his massage act he’d only served to torture himself.
Lying there in the late afternoon sun, she’d looked amazing. She’d seemed to be asleep, with her head slightly resting to one side, and he’d stood watching her for several minutes. Jack had found that he couldn’t take his eyes off of her beautiful body, which looked golden in the sun’s hazy glow. He also hadn’t failed to notice that she was barely wearing her swimsuit, and it had been impossible for him not to focus on her full, heavy tits, which were overflowing from her bikini top for his private viewing.
That’s when he’d formulated his rather crappy plan. He’d turn her on and tease her. He’d wanted to make her beg to have him inside her and then he’d just up and leave, making sure she knew how amazing it could have been between them. His plan had been working fine until he’d gotten a little too involved in the massage. He’d found that massaging her toned back and shoulders had been a real turn on, not to mention the ample side boobs he could see pressing against the sun lounger, which he was literally dying to touch.
To stop himself from groping her he’d forced himself to move onto her legs, but that hadn’t helped much either. Jessie had beautiful legs and a cute bum, which he’d also found a real turn-on. When Jack had started working on her thighs, it didn’t take him long to notice that a small patch of moisture had formed in the gusset of her bikini bottoms. When he’d seen that, all he’d wanted to do was whip her bottoms off and lick her up. His original plan had been to make her beg, but he’d had to pry himself away from her and leave before he could make her do that simply because if he’d stayed a second longer it would have been him doing the begging.
So much for his swim. That woman was affecting his life and plans at every turn. Jack returned to his room, where he took a long cold shower and tried—unsuccessfully—to not think about the woman upstairs in the minuscule white bathing suit.
Chapter 55
It was Monday morning and Jessie had had a fitful night’s sleep of poor-quality rest. Thanks to Mr Davenport’s exploits from the previo
us afternoon by the pool, she was one het up and sexually frustrated lady. For lack of anything else to do, she’d gotten up early and beat the rush into the office in order to add some finishing touches to her report. Her plan was to get the documents submitted and then do some more sightseeing around the city for the rest of her stay. That was provided her boss would still let her do that, of course. He could, she realised, make her work until it was time to go home.
Jessie hadn’t thought much about Charlie since the last time she’d seen him. Her mind had been preoccupied with the other Davenport man in her life. Plus, every time she thought of Charlie now, she pictured him naked in her bed. That whole experience was not something she remembered with fondness, let alone something that she wanted to repeat this side of hell freezing over.
As Jessie finished her fifth and hopefully final edit of her report she felt butterflies suddenly wake up in the pit of her stomach. She’d been so focused on the task at hand that morning that she’d completely been able to bypass the inevitable awkwardness that she was bound to feel as soon as Charlie came into the office. For once, Jessie felt completely unsure as to how Charlie was going to react. As she forced herself to look back on the previous day, it dawned on her that it was more than a safe bet that Charlie would not be a happy camper. She had more or less told him to get lost in front of his brother. Knowing Charlie as she did, worst-case scenario was that he could very well have felt significantly slighted, bordering on humiliated. Best-case scenario was that he’d forgotten all about their hookup and had moved on to someone new. That was possible. Jessie hoped. Or maybe Sonia had had a change of heart and decided that Charlie wasn’t such a bad catch after all.
