Kitabı oku: «Santa Baby: 5 Sexy Reads For Cold Winter Nights», sayfa 6

CHAPTER EIGHT

A day out around the London sights and now dinner for two in his suite. Like a proper couple. It was as if this was a mini-break and they had a real life somewhere to go back to. She let her mind follow that fantasy for a while as they shared a bottle of wine and talked. She had thought limiting this to a fling would somehow automatically pitch them at that level and make it entirely about sex. She hadn’t expected talking and getting to know him. This time around she found herself liking him way beyond those parameters, and dangerous though she knew it was, she couldn’t help finding signs in his own behaviour that he felt the same. The way he’d spoiled her by ordering half the restaurant for breakfast, the way he’d listened to her plans for her jewellery business as if they hadn’t already been to bed and he still had to jump through those hoops.

And now he refilled their glasses and she stood up to follow him over to the velvet sofa and the crackling fire in the grate, anticipation knotting in her stomach at the thought of being intimate with him again.

And then his mobile rang. She watched as he checked the screen, literally saw the change in his face, and when she ran it through her mind later on she recognised it as the instant when the real world kicked back in.

He took the call, phone pressed to his ear, subconsciously or not, his shoulder was now tilted in her direction as he turned away and took a few paces away. She could pick up the gist of the call just from picking up the odd word from his side, she could hear him discussing departure times, transfers, social plans. It didn’t take a genius to know what the call was about.

‘My mother,’ he said, when he’d hung up. His expression was thoughtful and his focus was not there in the room.

‘Is everything OK?’ she asked, although any fool could see it wasn’t.

He shook his head lightly as if to clear it.

‘She’s just stressing because I’ve been delayed. My father’s had a couple of bad days apparently.’

She gave him a questioning look.

‘It’s not been easy for her,’ he said. ‘He’s needed a lot of extra support. Especially at first when he first had the stroke, but the rehab has been slow and he gets so frustrated at the time it takes to make progress.’

Sympathy twisted in her chest.

‘It must be very tough. I can remember when my Gran was ill. It was awful.’

Tom’s mind spiralled back eighteen months. He toyed with the phone absently, thinking that he should check in with reception for any messages, call the airline. She was watching him, leaning against the back of the velvet sofa, her glass of wine in her hand and giving him her full attention.

‘It was a tough time. At first there was just this awful shock, and the worry that he might not pull through it. I had to be strong for my mother, she was beside herself. Then once we knew he was going to be OK there was this time where you hope things will get back to normal. I knew the reality of it of course because of my work, I knew it could take time, months of physio, that kind of thing. And he’s done really well. He’s been able to get back to work, on and off, reduced hours of course.’

‘That must be a relief.’

He nodded.

‘It is. But it did bring it home to me that he’s not getting any younger. He looks his age now, which he never did before. And he gets tired very quickly.’

The constant undertone of worry for his parents, resurrected by the phone call, now gnawed at him. He felt guilty because he hadn’t made it to Barbados, and this guilt which he’d managed to crush whilst he’d been in Ella’s company, resurfaced at full strength. He hadn’t even called the airport yet today to check, he’d had to fob his mother off with yesterday’s weather report. His sense of responsibility kicked back in at full force. What was he playing at here, indulging himself in a no-strings fling when his family needed him?

‘My mother wanted to know if there was any news on my flight.’ He made a move towards the door. ‘I need to call the airline and maybe reception will have an up to date weather report. I’ll be right back.’

How easy it had been to just let himself exist in this bubble the past few days. All the time, reality had been waiting just outside, ready to yank him back into its realm. He had family responsibilities, people relying on him. If he was fast enough he could still make Barbados in time for Christmas.

As he left the room Ella felt a surge of stupid disappointment, anger at herself for feeling insignificant. She might be an attractive distraction for a short while but that phone call represented the real world for Tom. Something she wasn’t a part of either back then or now.

Her heart flipped into hideous lurching freefall. And the worst of it was the humiliation because she was expecting this, had thought herself prepared for it. Of course he was going to be rebooking his flight the moment he was able to. For Pete’s sake, she was supposed to be pulling off realist here. What the hell was the disappointment about? Had she actually thought for one second he might have considered delaying his departure somehow, that he might have really been thinking of a way to factor her into his future plans? This was about sex, nothing more, she’d made that clear herself from the outset, how could she blame him for acting accordingly now?

This situation was playing out in exactly the same way as it would have done the first time around if she hadn’t cut it short back then. And she had no one to blame but herself for letting it happen. She should have stuck to her no-second-time rule.

Had it really felt like they were a proper couple in this room? The magic dissipated the second he disappeared and she gathered up her cardigan and closed the door on the luxury suite where she didn’t belong. Had she really been fantasising that she might? She went back to her own twin room, picked up the stack of leaflets in the hotel information file and forced herself to focus on planning the following day’s outing. Solo this time. Maybe a trip on the London Eye? Or she could go to Knightsbridge and drool without spending at the jewellery in Tiffany.

A swift double tap at the door and she crossed to open it. She took the leaflets with her in one hand, to let him see she was perfectly fine; she could do London tourist weekend perfectly well by herself, thank you very much.

‘The airport’s open,’ he said the moment she opened the door, and her heart felt like it sank to the pit of her stomach.

She caught her breath, made an enormous effort to arrange her face into a fine-with-me posture and stood aside to let him into the room.

‘What time’s your flight?’ she said. She tried hard to pull off couldn’t-care-less in her tone of voice.

‘Half past ten.’

They had an hour or so then realistically before he would have to get to the airport for check-in. She swallowed hard, forced herself to nod. There was no point trying to deny it to herself, it was way too late for that now. She was in too deep. The déjà vu feeling of disappointment and inevitability churned in her stomach. She recognised it from last time and knew that any conviction she’d walked easily away from him last time was just a delusion. The only person worth denying her feelings to now was him.

This was the end then. An end they both knew was coming, one that they’d been in agreement on right from the outset. She covered up her sadness by emphasising the practical and readied herself for his leaving in the only way she knew that worked. She began backing off.

‘You’ll be wanting to get packed then,’ she said brightly. That was good. That sounded like she was absolutely fine with this. She forced her gaze away from his and automatically took a couple of paces back. Distance, that was what was needed now. Get some distance in there now, before he did.

‘No, Ella, I won’t be wanting to pack,’ he said, his voice exasperated. ‘Unlike you I don’t take half a dozen bags with me just for a weekend. I’ll throw a few things in a case in the morning and I’ll be away.’

Her heart gave a sudden little half-skip.

‘The morning?’ she said.

He nodded.

‘Half past ten. Tomorrow morning.’

She drew in a sharp breath. He held her gaze steadily in his own. One last night together.

He pulled her towards him, lacing his fingers through hers. He hadn’t mentioned them, what would happen to them tomorrow, and why would he? They’d both known from the outset that this was a fling. Same rules as last time. And that meant tomorrow morning it would be over. Why should she expect him to mention it when she’d made her own point of view crystal clear from the very beginning? Yet she already felt the wrench deep in her stomach. She shoved it from her mind with all her might.

Live in the moment.

She’d repeated that mantra to herself so often over the years that you’d think it would have a bit of clout now when she really needed it.

***

It was not the mad crazy sex of the last couple of days, the hungry rush for each other. Not this time. Tom wanted to savour her, to try and imprint on his mind how it felt to be with her. No wild tearing off each other’s clothes, no half-dressed fuck because they were both too charged up to do anything but rush.

This time he kissed her slowly, slid his hands beneath her shirt across smooth skin, making the most of every moment. She pulled his sweatshirt up and over his head, threw it carelessly to one side, and then her hand found the button of his jeans and tugged until it came free. He pushed them down and away. Her fingertips played lightly over his erection, teasing, driving him crazy.

He breathed in the scent of her hair and her light floral perfume, slid his lips across the smooth skin of her neck, and then she raised her hand to the centre of his chest and pushed him gently backward until he reached the nearest bed. He sat down and watched as she stepped out of her jeans and threw her panties aside, then climbed onto the bed and walked on her knees until she reached him, his back against the velvet headboard. He reached for her, curling his arms around her waist and pulling her gently into his lap, finding her mouth with his. Her small hands cradled his face as she kissed him. He could pick up the faint hint of white wine on her tongue. She wriggled softly against him until she could slide her legs each side of him. Hotly aware that she was wearing no panties beneath the shirt, he felt her smile against his lips, leaving him under no illusion that she knew exactly what she was doing to him, while she ground her hips lightly against his raging erection. The sensation was unbelievable, maddening.

He groped for the buttons of her shirt with his fingers, tugging the garment roughly open until he could ease the soft weight of her breasts into the deep open vee of it. He leaned forward and took the tight peak of a nipple into his mouth, sucking lightly, grazing the hard tip gently with his teeth until she sighed and arched her back. Sliding his free hand lower, he found her swollen entrance with his fingertips and a rush of satisfaction at how wet she was, how ready for him. He stroked delicately, teasing her with his fingers until she squirmed against his hand.

Before he could lose all control, he curled his arms around her, turned her gently onto her back and kissed his way down the hollow between her breasts. Removing her shirt as he went, revealing her skin inch by inch to be kissed, he trailed his lips over her soft stomach then lower still, feeling her tense in anticipation as he reached the very core of her. He parted her softly with a single stroke of his tongue, then found the swollen nub and drew it into his mouth, sucking gently, feeling every jump and flutter of her muscles as she responded. He slid hands across the warm silk of her skin, wanting her to envelop every one of his senses. Her fingers clutched at his hair as she writhed beneath him and as he pushed her to the edge. He held her hard against his mouth so as to eke out every moment of pleasure.

A brief pause while he reached to the side table for a condom, and then she was moving back against him, circling his rigid erection with one hand and sliding the swollen oversensitised tip against her until a moan escaped his lips.

He found the smooth curve of her bottom with his hand, gripped her in readiness to turn her onto her back so he could fuck her before he lost all threads of control, and then she pre-empted him, moved above him, sliding onto his length, taking him inside her inch by silken inch to the hilt. The sensation was exquisite, taking over his every sense. She’d found a rhythm now, grinding slowly and deliberately against him. He yanked her roughly against him, wanting her skin against his now, wanting that closeness of touch. He found her mouth with his, felt her hard nipples graze his chest, her knees drawn up, all the better to take him in deeper. And still she kept up the delicious grind until he could stand it no longer and in one swift movement he turned her onto her back on the bed.

Tangling one hand in her hair now, he thrust harder, taking her rhythm and increasing the pace as she wrapped her long legs around his back and raised her hips from the bed, pushing himself ever harder into her until he could control it no more and she cried her own ecstasy softly into his hair as he reached the height of his pleasure.

Every second that ticked by was something to treasure.

Her breathing slowly evened, and her body relaxed against his as she melted into sleep. He didn’t move, even though he was too hot to sleep, revelling instead in the scent of her hair and her warm breath against his chest. He didn’t want to sleep, didn’t want to wake up and have just moments left with her. And there it hit him. What the hell was he doing, just accepting her unreasonable terms without question? He’d made that mistake five years ago and really, what did he have to lose by talking to her in the morning, maybe arranging a meeting when he made it back from Barbados?

CHAPTER NINE

‘It doesn’t need to stop here,’ he said.

He leaned up on one elbow, the pillow rucked up beneath his naked chest, dark hair tousled from the night they’d spent tangled together. Golden shards of morning sunlight slipped into the room through the chink in the silk curtains and her stomach churned miserably at the ticking away of minutes until he would be leaving. Part of her wished she’d just left while he slept, like last time. It had been infinitely easier than this.

Her heart gave a tiny leap and she forced it back down. To go along with this would have no better outcome, she’d just be delaying the loss for a few weeks. The moment he was back in the midst of his family with all that history, all that responsibility, she would lose her charm. She didn’t fit in with a family. She’d never been able to hold her own with her parents, so why the hell should she assume she’d do better on that front with him? Better to let him go now, no matter that it was a wrench. She’d managed it before and she could do it again.

She smiled.

‘Of course it does. It was always going to stop here. Just like it was always going to stop back in Devon. Don’t try to make it into something it isn’t.’

He sat up in bed next to her.

‘I’m not. I’m just asking. Why it has to come to a standstill at all.’

She sighed.

‘It is what it is, Tom.’

‘And what is that?’

He held her gaze, waited for her answer.

‘It’s a fling,’ she said, slowly, as if explaining to a toddler. ‘It’s down to circumstance. Five years ago you and I were a spur of the moment one-night stand. It was a fluke. Hotel room. Same place, different time. If you want to pin a name on it, I guess you could call it a holiday romance.’

‘And now?’

‘Basically the same thing. Same rules, same situation. Both of us are taking time out for a few days from our normal lives – you’re stuck here because of the weather and I’m on a shopping break. You and I have never existed in the real world, so what the hell makes you think we could?’

‘Fate is on our side.’

She rolled her eyes.

‘Will you stop going on about bloody fate? I control fate, not the other way around. It’s the only way to make sure I don’t get kicked in the arse by it.’ She sat up in bed herself now, as if warming to her subject. ‘Nothing that stands the test of time can be built on such a whim. Think about it. It makes sense really. Two random people brought together by a random situation, who barely even get to know each other beyond a couple of hours’ flirting. The chances of them having what it takes to go the distance are miniscule. The whole thing is built on physical attraction, on lust. It isn’t the foundation for anything long-lasting. You can’t possibly argue anything else. So what I’m saying is that this has been a fantastic couple of days. Just the way it was a fantastic night back then in Devon. But don’t pretend it can ever lead to anything more than that. We threw that possibility away at the outset because of the way we got together.’

He bunched fists together with sheer frustration at her smooth, determined, non-emotional bloody certainty.

‘You said the chances are miniscule and you might be right, but miniscule allows for the odd exception – right? We could buck the odds.’

He reached for her hand but she gently disentangled her fingers from his.

‘I know a hell of a lot about one-night stands and short-term flings,’ Ella said. ‘I know what I’m talking about.’

The horrified look on his face would have been funny in any other situation.

‘Not like that,’ she said quickly, shaking her head madly. ‘I’m not talking about me. I don’t actually make a habit of this. You’re…’

‘What?’

‘Well, you’re an exceptional case.’

‘How so?’

She looked him in the eye.

‘I have absolutely no idea. Maybe you’re just incredibly persuasive.’

‘So if you don’t make a habit of this kind of thing, what do you mean, you know about it?’

She took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling with its gleaming chandelier.

‘I wasn’t talking about me. I was talking about my parents.’

‘Your parents?’

She nodded.

‘I’m the result of a one-night stand,’ she said. ‘Some drunken fumble in a dark alleyway outside a nightclub, fuelled entirely by too much alcohol.’

She had no idea of the proper circumstances, had never been able to stomach asking her mother for more details. Just her mother’s drunken revelation of the fact itself had been too much information for a fifteen year old girl, without all the surrounding details. But that was how she imagined it had been. Seedy. Not driven by love, or even by proper attraction. Just beer-goggles and lust.

‘My mother went ahead with the pregnancy,’ she said. ‘Obviously.’

‘What about your father?’

‘They were both teenagers,’ she said. ‘I saw him on and off for the first few years. They weren’t together but he still seemed to make an effort. Maybe that was part of the problem.’ She looked down at her hands, thinking back. ‘In my head I built him up to be so perfect.’ A rueful smile touched the corner of her mouth. ‘When he stopped making that effort I made excuses for him. Told myself my mother made it impossible for him to be around. They didn’t exactly get on like a house on fire, if you get my drift.’

He smiled at her, but the expression on his face was troubled.

‘Anyway, when my mother moved in with Gordy a few years ago I was old enough to make my own choices and I tracked my father down again. I think I expected to be welcomed into his life with open arms. I thought he’d be so pleased to see me again.’

‘And how did it go?’

Her stomach churned with the remnants of the awful disappointment she’d felt that day. It was dull now, not sharp and all-consuming as it had been then.

‘He was so far from delighted it wasn’t even funny,’ she said. ‘He shut the front door behind him and talked to me on his doorstep, fobbing me off, talking his way out of it. And all the time I stood there I knew it was because he had a proper family behind that front door. He’d never told them about me, I was just a secret, something to be hidden, kept away from his new, perfect life.’

He touched her hand.

‘Ella, I’m sorry. That’s awful.’

She shook her head furiously.

‘Don’t apologise. Not for him. I am SO over him. He was a total arse. Why the hell would I want to get to know someone like that? But you understand now, why I walked away without saying goodbye back in Devon. That perfect night could never be the foundation for anything strong or long lasting. You see that, don’t you? You can’t build a lasting relationship on a one-night stand.’

‘But you’ve gone way beyond that. It’s you against the world and no compromise. You’ll end up going through life on your own because you’re never prepared to let anyone else in.’

‘Because I know I can rely on myself. I’m not about to let myself down or disappear out of my own life because I’m too much trouble, am I? What I’m trying to say is that I should never have revisited it. I should never have tracked him down but I did because I believed things could be better second time around. That everything was worth a second chance.’

She looked up at him.

‘That’s why I was reluctant to speak to you at first, when we bumped into each other again. Not because I didn’t want to, or because I regretted what happened between us, but because I didn’t want to ruin it. I loved it, every second of it. I didn’t want to take the risk of finding out that you weren’t all that after all.’ She forced a smile up at him. ‘As it turned out, you were.’

‘I don’t care about any of that. When I get back from Barbados, we can get together. Let me show you things can be different for us.’

She sat up in bed and looked into his eyes, saw the determined expression. When he got back from Barbados. There was the point, right there. Family first. She could never compete with that, not in the long-term.

Self-preservation won out and she leaned forward to kiss him softly on the mouth.

‘You need to get going, Tom. You’ll miss your flight.’

****

He was back in the lobby, but checking out this time. Taxi booked, under time pressure now. Had it really only been a couple of days since he’d stood here and she’d teased him for grouching about the snow?

He glanced around the lobby and there was no sign of her. No sign that the weekend had even happened. He should have expected this. She’d made her excuses, left him alone to pack and hadn’t reappeared since. Why was he even surprised? After all she’d made it pretty clear that she didn’t do goodbyes. This was the way she wanted it, clearly she was able to move forward without looking back. It was a trick he really needed to perfect for himself.

For a moment he wondered if part of the perfection of this was that he knew it wouldn’t last? Knew because she wouldn’t let it. Easy to put things on a pedestal when they weren’t subjected to the test of time and daily life. Maybe she was right to let this go – he wasn’t happy in his own life, how could he drag her into it and expect her to be happy too?

Then he turned to head for the revolving doors and there she was. Thick sweater, jeans and her hair in soft waves, still lightly damp from the shower. He crossed the lobby toward her, put his bags down next to her. He could pick up the warm citrus scent of the hotel shampoo.

‘I thought you were going to skip the goodbyes,’ he said.

‘Yeah well,’ she said, smiling. ‘I thought I’d try a different approach this time around.’

He opened his mouth to speak and she stopped it with three fingers.

‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Don’t ruin this by trying to make it into more than it can be. Let it be what it is. Let it be that perfect couple of days.’

‘That’s what you really want?’

Part of him wanted to shake her, talk at her until she gave in. Her infuriating insistence that this was nothing more than a fling. So entrenched in her own way of living that she had no room to consider anything else. No different from the last time. And yet she had changed since last time, hadn’t she? She’d gone through with the goodbye this time.

‘Maybe we’re destined to only ever meet by chance,’ he said instead. ‘Who knows, in five years we might run into each other in the street.’

She smiled into his eyes at that.

‘I’ll see you in five years then,’ she said.

And because his flight was on the brink of leaving, and his responsibilities were well overdue, and because she’d made it crystal clear how this was going to be, he turned and walked toward the waiting taxi.