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How easy would it have been for her to start tumbling into love with a man as overpowering as Jace Ryan last Christmas, with a lot less encouragement than really amazing sex and a few casual compliments? But luckily now she was much more pragmatic. He didn’t know anything about her or her past, so he couldn’t possibly know how much this night meant to her.
And she had no intention of letting him find out.
‘That’s very noble of you,’ she whispered cheekily, glad to have deflected his questioning so easily.
He gave the tie on her robe a slow tug, until it released, the flaps falling open. His rough palms brushed around her waist and cupped her bare bottom. ‘I thought so,’ he said, a mischievous gleam in his eyes as moisture flooded between her thighs.
He pushed the robe off her shoulders and she gave a soft gasp as it dropped to the floor. Then yelped as he lifted her into his arms.
‘Time for your next lesson,’ he said as he carried her into the bathroom. ‘Really amazing sex in a whirlpool tub.’
She clasped her arms round his neck and clung on, laughing while her senses stampeded into overdrive—the tight squeeze in her heart drowned out by the frantic beat of arousal and the loud splash as he dumped her into warm scented water.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘I ’M GOING to be stuck in London on business until New Year’s Day,’ Jace’s voice murmured in Cassie’s ear, his soap-slicked hands cupping her heavy breasts and lazily teasing the nipples with his thumbs. ‘Have you got any plans for the Christmas period?’
A little shocked by the renewed jolt of heat, and a lot more shocked by the casual enquiry, Cassie shifted in his lap, feeling the heavy arousal nestled between her legs, and her heart leapt into her throat.
After they’d soaped each other into a frenzy, he’d insisted she sit on the edge of the huge tub so he could take her into his mouth. She’d never felt anything so exquisite in her life before, the rough, expert play of his tongue on her sensitised clitoris quickly becoming more than she could bear. But when she’d come down from the intense high, the look of satisfaction on his face had made her feel ever so slightly vulnerable.
She was feeling a lot more vulnerable now.
‘Why do you ask?’ And why had her heart just rocketed into her throat at his question? He couldn’t be suggesting what she thought he was suggesting? Could he? That they should extend their one-night fling?
He rubbed his palms over the rigid peaks and chuckled when a moan slipped out. ‘Because I want more time to play with you while I’m here. One night isn’t going to be enough.’
There it was again, the smug tone of voice—and the bump of her heart in her throat.
‘The water’s getting cold,’ she said, levering herself out of his lap.
But before she could climb out, his large hands bracketed her hips, holding her in place. ‘Why didn’t you answer my question?’ he said as she glanced over her shoulder.
He didn’t look hurt or offended. Why would he? But even so she couldn’t quite bring herself to give him a straight answer. The desire to say yes to his suggestion was so powerful, she knew it had to be a bad idea.
She wasn’t the naive little twit she’d been for the first twenty-seven years of her life. She’d turned a corner in the last ten months and she would never go back to that. Believing all the empty promises her father had told her as a child, only to be left devastated when he never lived up to any of them. Or falling for David at art college, only to be told she wasn’t what he was looking for. Or, worst of all, accepting a proposal from a man who, during the whole three years he’d bunked at her flat while he was ‘between jobs’, she now suspected had never been faithful to her.
But while she knew she had finally learned her lesson with Lance—that men were about as reliable as the electrical appliances you bought from a door-to-door salesman—she wasn’t at all happy about the way her heart was leaping about in her chest. Just as it had done all those years ago when her father had rung up from Tokyo or Rome or San Francisco to tell her he’d definitely see her that
weekend … Or when Lance had got down on one knee on the tiny balcony of her flat on Valentine’s Day and asked her to marry him …
She wasn’t a sucker any more, but was she completely cured? And did she really want to put her new, cynical self to the test with a man like Jace? Especially at Christmas time, when losing your grip on reality was practically a requirement of the season?
Crossing her arms over her bare breasts, she wriggled out of his grip and stepped out of the tub.
‘Hey, come back here. You haven’t given me an answer,’ he said.
Grabbing a large fluffy white towel from the neatly folded pile on the vanity, she wrapped it round her dripping body.
‘Why don’t we talk about it later?’ she offered. ‘I’m not sure what I’m doing over the next week or so,’ she added, glad she sounded so blasé when she didn’t feel blasé. She secured the towel over her breasts and glanced back, fluttering her eyelashes for all she was worth. ‘And I thought you promised me more really amazing sex?’ she said, deciding that flirtation was the best defence.
She heard the splash as he followed her out of the tub. And gulped as she watched him in the mirror, her eyes devouring the sight of his naked body, glistening wet. His arm reached over her to grab another towel.
‘Are you trying to distract me?’ he murmured against her hair as she watched his reflection hook the towel around his waist.
‘Is it working?’ she asked, tilting her head to see the hot look on his face.
His hands circled her waist, tugged her back against his chest. ‘What do you think?’
