Chapter 7
7
Jess slept badly, despite her exhaustion, trying like mad to put the thought of what had happened with Xander out of her mind until the morning.
She failed spectacularly, of course. He was all she could think about.
He’d made her feel like the most important, fascinating, sexy woman on earth for those few short hours and she knew she wanted that feeling back, so desperately. She could almost taste the tang of need like a physical reaction in her taste buds.
The fact he’d seemed to genuinely find her a turn-on had helped something begin to shift in her head. It wasn’t as though she suddenly felt like throwing off all her clothes and running around in the nude, but his gentle attentions and the stream of compliments had made her start to think about her body in a different way.
Rolling out of bed, she walked over to the cheval mirror in the corner and stood naked in front of it. For the first time in a very long time, she looked at herself – really looked – studying the places he’d mentioned he liked so much, running her fingers over the dips and swells of her figure and tracing the lines of the muscles that delineated her body.
She was surprised by how different she felt this morning, after finally allowing herself to release the brakes on her self-control and discovering that the earth hadn’t crashed in around her ears. It was as if she’d uncovered something new and secret and hidden about herself, after all these years.
Something that Xander had seen all along.
After showering, she dressed quickly, her body humming with a strange excitement.
She needed to see Xander, if for no other reason than to prove to herself he was real, and she hadn’t just dreamt it all.
He was in his studio, stripped to the waist and engrossed in what he was painting on a large canvas. There was a dark smudge of paint on his left cheek, as if he’d absentmindedly swiped at his face with dirty hands like a child would.
There was something so pure and human about that, something that made her chest contract with acute sadness for him. He was alone in the world and carrying around such a heavy load of pain and anger it made her want to cry. No wonder he couldn’t settle down if he’d never known what it felt like to be loved. She so desperately wanted to show him how it could feel, but she was terrified she wasn’t strong enough or bright enough or alive enough to get through to him.
Was she brave enough to at least give it a try?
She still hadn’t figured out what she was going to write about him for the magazine. That really ought to be her top priority, not working out how to get him back into her bed, but she couldn’t think about that right now, not when Xander was standing in front of her looking like all her best birthdays rolled into one.
Her heart raged in her chest as she realised this was her opportunity to ask for what she really wanted. To make love to him. Feel him move inside her. Breathe in the clean scent of his skin and slide against him, over and over again until they were breathless. Something she’d been aching for all night.
No, strike that, since the first moment she set eyes on him at his studio in London.
As she walked towards him, he looked round at her and gave her a tentative smile as if he wasn’t sure how he should act around her today. ‘Good morning,’ he said, his voice low and sweet.
Without saying a word, she put out a shaking hand and pressed it against the rock-hard muscles of his chest and felt his sharp intake of breath. Encouraged that he hadn’t slapped her hand away, she took a step closer to him and forced herself to look up into his face.
He stared down at her with an open, questioning look in his eyes. Summoning all her courage, she pushed up on her tiptoes and leant in towards him, her lips tingling in readiness for the feel of his mouth against hers.
His breath was coming out in shortened gasps and she felt it whisper against her skin for a moment before their lips connected.
A low, almost animal sound came from deep within his chest as she slipped her tongue against the ridge of his teeth. Opening his mouth against her tentative invasion, he flexed his tongue against hers and she tasted the sweetness of him, her body reacting immediately to a desperate need to be enfolded in his arms and held close.
He let her take control as she slid her fingers into his hair and drew him even closer. Leaning into him, she felt the solid ridge of his body press against her from pelvis to chest.
He wanted her, she noted with a breathless sort of glee – she could feel it in the tension of his muscles and, more to the point, in the hard bulge at the front of his trousers.
With shaking hands, she fumbled with his belt, her clumsy fingers making slow work of unbuckling it.
She didn’t allow herself to stop to think about what she was doing. She couldn’t. If she let anything other than her determination to feel him inside her flit through her head, she’d stall and the moment would be lost forever. And that meant never being able to have what she so badly wanted.
To indulge her fantasies for once in her life.
To let go of her anxiety and just take what she wanted.
And she wanted this. So much it hurt.
The buckle finally came apart and she unpopped the button on the front of his trousers and slid her hand inside them, under his underwear, until she found his hard cock. She drew away and looked up into his face.
His eyes were hazy with a need she felt sure must be reflected in her own.
‘Don’t stop,’ he growled, his voice so low she could barely make out the words.
Wrapping her hand around the length of him, she moved her fingers from base to tip, catching the velvety soft head with her thumb and feeling the slickness of his arousal coat her fingertips.
‘Fuck, Jess, that feels so good.’ His fingers wound into her hair, pulling her mouth towards him and kissing her so thoroughly she thought she might die from the pleasure of it.
His hands skimmed beneath the hem of her dress and slid up her thighs, his fingers tugging at the elastic of her knickers so hard she felt it ping and give as the seam ripped and the scrap of material fell to the floor.
‘Oops, sorry,’ Xander said against her mouth, not sounding in the least bit sincere.
She giggled as he kissed across her cheek and gently tickled the sensitive whorl of her ear with his tongue, but soon stopped as she felt his fingers find the slick heat between her legs.
Pressing against his hand, she felt the beginnings of an orgasm stir deep in her pelvis and the need to have the hard length of him inside her grew even more intense. She’d been picturing this situation in her head all night and now the possibility it might actually happen had arisen, she could barely wait. She felt greedy for it.
‘Xander…’
‘Yeah,’ he groaned, as if sensing she was about to cut their encounter short and readying himself to be a gentleman about it.
‘Do you still want me hard and fast against the wall?’ she asked, forcing herself to look him directly in the eye. If this was the last chance she was going to get to test out just how brazen she could push herself to be, she wanted to go all the way.
‘Fuck, yeah,’ he breathed in relief, reaching a hand round to grab his wallet out of the back pocket of his trousers. Releasing his hold on her, he located a condom before dropping the wallet onto the floor next to them.
He didn’t move his gaze away from hers as he waited for her to step back so he could strip off his clothes.
She’d never seen anyone get undressed so fast.
He stood there naked in front of her, the heat of his body radiating outwards, warming her skin with its fiery intensity. Taking a deep breath, she allowed her gaze to travel down the magnificence of him, taking in every beautiful dip and curve.
Her gaze returned to his and locked for a moment as he checked with her silently that she really wanted this.
‘Yes,’ she said, and he gave her a smile of such unadulterated pleasure she nearly came on the spot.
He took a moment to sort out the condom, before returning his gaze to hers, his eyebrow raised in a seductive challenge.
‘You ready for me, Jess?’
‘As I’ll ever be,’ she replied, suddenly horrendously shy about what was about to happen. But before she had time to dwell on it, he put a hand on each of her upper arms and walked her backwards until her shoulders hit the wall. His mouth came down on hers immediately and she was lost in an electric storm of need, her body throbbing with want, want, want.
His body enveloped hers, pressing into her with a power she’d never experienced before. She knew she was wanted because she could feel it in him.
His hands raked up under her skirt again, bunching it up around her waist, exposing her to his exploring fingers. He moved them against her, then inside her until she thought she’d go crazy with it, bringing his mouth hard down onto hers at the same time, the dual stimulation sending her senses into overdrive.
She was so on the edge it wasn’t funny.
‘Now, Xander, I want…’ she gasped.
He waited a moment for her to continue, then stilled his movement until she looked back into his eyes. ‘Tell me what you want, Jess.’
‘I want you. Your cock. Inside me.’ The words left her lips as though they’d been primed and were just waiting for the opportunity to finally be said. It was easy, so easy now she’d given herself permission not to care about anything other than what was happening between them in that moment.
He didn’t need anything more from her. Sliding a hand down the inside of her thigh, he hooked his wrist under her leg and drew it up against his waist. The rigid tip of his erection penetrated her slick pussy and she gasped with pleasure as he slowly slid inside her.
They began to move together, Xander pressing her hard into the wall to support them both as he thrust, filling her completely and hitting a sweet spot over and over as their bodies crashed together. They kissed hard, their mouths swollen and hungry as their tongues delved, tasting each other. Grasping the buttoned-down front of her dress, Xander pulled it apart hard, ripping the delicate buttons away from the material so they pinged and bounced across the room. The material gaped at the front, exposing her breasts, encased in the lacy bra she’d chosen to wear on a whim that morning and she didn’t even think to react as he pushed aside the cups to expose the hard peaks of her nipples to his searching fingers.
Jess thought she might go crazy from the pulsing heat between her legs and the gentle rasp of Xander’s touch on her exposed nipples. But she wasn’t there yet, it wasn’t quite enough.
‘Xander… I need… I need.’
Seeming to sense her frustration he dipped his hand between their bodies, sliding the pad of his fingertip against her clitoris, mimicking the movement of his thrusts inside her.
Gripping the bulk of his shoulders for support, Jess closed her eyes and allowed the delicious friction to build and intensify, sending waves of exquisite pleasure radiating out from deep within the centre of her, teetering on the edge of an orgasm for utterly crazed moments, before finally breaking into a rush of the most intense pleasure she’d ever experienced. A low guttural moan grew from the base of her throat and vibrated in the air around them as she totally lost control.
It only took Xander a couple more thrusts before he joined her in her electric ecstasy, pounding into her hard as he came, his breath hot and fast on her neck as he surged into her.
They remained like that for a while, both gasping for breath as they came back down to earth.
Finally able to relax her fingers enough to release her grip of his shoulders, Jess put her palms against his chest and pushed gently until he dipped and slid out of her. He took a step away so she could put both feet back on the ground.
They stood and looked at each other for a beat, their breathing still low and rough from their exertions, before they pulled themselves together.
Xander disposed of the condom while she readjusted her clothes, trying in vain to close the top of her dress where it now gaped open after his callous treatment of it.
‘You owe me a dress,’ she said, raising a mock-stern eyebrow.
He laughed. ‘I think it looks better like that.’ He ran a hand over her hair, smoothing it against her head. ‘Let’s lie down before we fall down,’ he said, cocking a suggestive eyebrow. Taking her hand, he led her out of the studio and into his room.
He flopped down onto the bed, pulling her down next to him, his naked body gleaming in the soft, late morning light.
She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the magnificent strength of him as he lay stretched out next to her. Her gaze raked him from head to toe, only snagging momentarily on the deep V where his hips joined his body, and lower…
He raised a questioning eyebrow as their gazes met again and she tried in vain to quell the rush of heat that travelled up her neck to burn her cheeks.
‘Like what you see, Jess?’
‘Absolutely,’ she said, brazening it out. ‘I can barely believe I’ve just “made it” with the third sexiest man in England,’ she said, giving him a wide grin.
‘Now do you believe the hype?’ Xander joked, one discerning eyebrow raised. He nodded down to where the source of her most recent pleasure lay nestled against his thigh.
‘Well, I guess there is some truth to those rumours.’
‘You’re very kind.’ He chuckled, giving her such a sexy, playful, look she wanted to lock him up and keep him all for herself forever.
* * *
Later, they lay together, limbs wrapped around each other, drowsy and sated in the growing heat of the morning.
Xander shifted onto his side, propping himself up onto one elbow. ‘Why don’t you stay on a while longer? It seems a shame to cut things short now when there’s so much fun still to be had.’ He raised a provocative eyebrow. ‘I’m going to need something fun to do after a gruelling day of being all artistic.’
‘Something fun to do?’
‘Okay, someone fun to do.’ He grinned.
Her heart hammed hard against her chest as she realised he was actually serious. ‘I don’t know, Xander, won’t you need to concentrate on your work?’
‘Not in the evenings.’
Where had this sudden panicky feeling come from? She’d been alright brazening this out when she thought it would be a one-off and she’d be back home the following day, before she had chance to get too attached.
‘I don’t think I can. Pamela, the editor at the magazine I work for, is expecting me back at work tomorrow.’
‘Can’t you tell them you’re ill or something? I’m sure she can cope without you for one more week.’
There was a weird rushing in her head that was making it hard for her to concentrate. ‘I can’t do that. What if she finds out I’m lying? I’ll lose my job.’
‘How would she find out if you’re stuck in Italy, unable to travel? It’s not as if she’s going to jump on a plane with a cold compress and a bowl of chicken soup.’
Her heart was beating so fast she felt sure he must be able to see it pulsing against her chest. ‘I don’t feel comfortable with lying, Xander.’
‘Don’t you think you deserve some fun? Why are you so hard on yourself? It’s like you don’t believe you deserve to be happy or something.’
She sighed, rubbing a hand over her face. ‘I don’t know why; I’ve always been like that. I have a highly developed guilty conscience, and I get over-anxious about things sometimes. My mum always made me feel like it’d be the end of the world if I did anything to show her up and I guess it’s just stuck around in my psyche. She expected perfection and I failed to deliver.’
He gave her a puzzled frown.
‘I know, it’s weird. Not something most people can understand.’
‘Well, I think it’s about time you came and joined me on the dark side.’
She laughed and shook her head. ‘Why are you so intent on corrupting me?’
‘Because it’s fun to see you coming to pieces.’ He ran a finger from the deep hollow in the base of her neck, down between her partly exposed breasts to where her belly button lay hidden beneath the cotton of her dress. ‘Especially when I’m the one that gets to make you come.’
She put her hand over his, stopping him from continuing his path.
He closed his eyes and took a breath. ‘Look, I’m not going to pressure you into this. If you don’t want to stay, that’s fine, but you should consider exploring more of your wild side. You never know what you might get out of it.’ He rolled away from her and got up, pulling on a pair of trousers. God, he looked sexy, half dressed like that with his hair all mussed and falling over his eyes.
Dishevelled and dangerous.
She suddenly wanted to stay here. Very much.
‘I have to go and speak to my agent about the arrangements for the exhibition. Come and find me if you change your mind.’
He gave her one last heated look before turning and leaving the room, pulling the door closed behind him.
The ensuing silence of the room filled her head until she thought she’d go crazy with it.
The thought of never seeing him again left her feeling empty. Totally and utterly empty. He was right, she should allow herself to do something completely out of character for once. She was sick and tired of worrying about doing the right thing all the time. After all, Pamela said she needed to live a little if she was going to become a better writer.
Returning to her bedroom she retrieved her mobile phone from the nightstand, readying herself to put on her most ill-sounding voice and called through to the magazine.
‘Pamela Bradley.’
Just the sound of her editor’s voice made her stomach twitch with nerves.
‘Hi, Pamela, it’s Jess.’
‘Jess, are you on your way back?’
She took a deep, steadying breath. ‘Er, actually, I think I’ve picked up that flu that was going around the office before I left for Italy.’ She gave a fake cough, willing Pam to believe her. She was so nervous about lying, her palms were sweaty and her body felt hot and tingly. She’d never played hooky in her life, and it made her really uncomfortable to lie like this but the draw of spending a little more time with Xander fortified her.
‘I can work on the story from my bed,’ she rushed on into Pam’s silence, feeling her cheeks flame as guilt swept through her. ‘I only need a few more days to get it nailed down then I’ll email it over. You’re going to love it, Pam. He’s such an interesting subject to write about,’ she said, inordinately relieved Pamela couldn’t see how red her face was.
‘Liar, liar, pants on fire’ couldn’t have been more appropriate at that moment.
There was a long pause, then a sigh. ‘Okay, Jess, but make sure you hit your deadline. I need this piece in on time otherwise you’re going to find yourself right at the top of the redundancy recommendation list.’
Jess swallowed hard. ‘Okay, Pam, I’ll get it to you on time, I promise.’
She cut the call and put her phone carefully back onto the nightstand, feeling something she hadn’t felt since childhood.
Naughty.
The thought of doing something so against the rules she lived by would have given her the heebie-jeebies before she met Xander, but now she’d crossed the line she was amazed by how enlightened she felt. How alive. As if her sluggish blood had woken up and decided to have a drag race around her body.
She guessed it was something to do with endorphins, this crazy recklessness, some mad chemical reaction. It was certainly like a drug – this throbbing, screaming urge to break out of her normal, dull existence.
Suddenly there was a world of possibility out there. She wasn’t sensible, dependable, unremarkable Jess when she was with Xander, she was exciting, stimulating, wild.
She was out of breath when she returned to his studio, and he opened the door with an expectant smile.
‘I don’t have anything planned for the next week,’ she gasped. ‘So, I’m all yours.’
He grinned. ‘All mine. I like the sound of that.’