“That’s good. That suits me. The last thing I want is to get into something serious. My life’s complicated enough, believe me. But I haven’t had sex with a guy in a really, really, really, really long time. So you know what? Just promise me this will be good and I don’t care what happens next.”
He laughed and nodded, his hands undoing the buttons of her jacket slowly, teasingly. Her eyes followed the progress of his fingers, noting the one piece of jewellery he wore – a thick gold ring that had some kind of gem in the middle.
“What’s that?” She murmured, guessing it had a significance beyond the sartorial.
“A family heirloom,” he said simply, moving painstakingly slowly to the next button.
She stared up at him, swallowing visibly. “Can you possibly do that faster?”
He shook his head. “Nothing about this is going to be fast.”
She groaned. “Didn’t you hear what I said? It has been a really long time …”
“So you want to make up for lost time now?”
“Something like that.” She batted his hand aside and reached for her coat, pushing it off impatiently. She was wearing a black woollen dress beneath, and there was a gaudy reindeer badge fastened to the fabric near her breast. He arched a brow as he studied its amateur construction.
“Jordie made it,” she said with a shake of her head. “How well he knows me, huh?”
“It’s unique,” he murmured, running a finger over the antlers and then lower, to the soft swell of her breasts.
She gasped at the intimate contact. It was exquisite. Her nipples strained against the fabric of her dress, greedy for more. He met her eyes, only desire in them, then carefully reached behind the brooch to unpin it from her dress. He laid it gently on the side-table. With the kind of reverence that made her heart soar, for she understood what a sweet offering it was, even though the colours had bled outside of the lines and the backing was glued on wonky, so that the reindeer was in a state of permanent flight.
His hands dropped to her hips, holding her still.
And he looked at her. He looked at her as though he was committing the moment to his memory, locking it into the vaults of his mind.
She looked back. Unashamed in her appraisal of him.
“I don’t know your last name,” she said with a wobbly smile, knowing it didn’t matter. It was reckless and foolhardy, but he was right. Something about their meeting was fated, and damn it, she wanted him. She wanted him in the way she couldn’t put into words.
“Do you want to know it?”
She laughed. “I guess so.”
He nodded. “Later.”
Those alarm bells that would usually have rung in her head were mute, greedily waiting for the same satiation as the rest of her body. He reached around behind her dress, pulling at the zip, lowering it painstakingly slowly. It was a form of torture, but the best kind.
When the zipper reached the swell of her bottom, he held the fabric wide and dropped it to the ground. She stepped out of it, her mouth dry. Her leggings, socks, shoes, bra and vest were impediments she could have done without. The thought of wriggling out of the skin tight fabric in front of Mr Suave was suddenly mortifying.
“Um, why don’t you give me a minute. To, erm, you know …”
His eyes sparkled. How tempting it was to push aside her objection; to steamroll her vanity and insist on undressing her. He ached to unwrap her as his very own Christmas present. But he understood her need to control the situation. It was threatening to burst completely out of their hands, to flame wildly away from them. “I will give you two minutes,” he murmured with a wink.
Her heart flipped over.
She reached down and scooped up her dress, folding it over her arm as she ducked into the small, tiled bathroom. She undressed quickly, kicking off her shoes, slipping out of her shirt and bra, peeling her leggings off and then gasping when she saw the underpants she’d selected earlier that day. With several holes around the waist band and the white now stained grey from being run through too many loads of wash with denim, they were definitely not the last word in sexy. She stripped them off and stared at her body objectively in the mirror.
Her fingers ran over the tiny spider webbing that crossed her belly, feeling the slight crenulations with pride rather than shame. They were the only signs she bore that she’d carried a child within her body. The rest of her body had returned to its pre-pregnancy state almost instantly. She had, at the time, not appreciated the fact. But years later, she was grateful for the flatness of her stomach and the fullness of her breasts.
Especially with the sexiest man on earth waiting for her in her living room.
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“You can do this.” She pulled a face, ran her fingers through her hair and then, as an afterthought, sprayed a single squirt of perfume in the air. She walked through it, then wrenched the door inwards. He was across the room, staring at a photo of her, Jordan and Brent. It had been taken when Jodie had only been two – it was one of the few times they’d spent as a family.
“I got it printed recently,” she said quietly. “He’s been on and on about seeing his father and I thought …” The words died in her mouth as the look of searing possession on Ra’if’s face held her immobile. She could barely breathe. It was as though a weight was pressing down on her chest, pushing all air and sensation from her body.