Page 12 of His Best Mistake

Whatever it was, the fact that he wanted Stella so badly but couldn’t have her wasn’t just ironic, it was also deeply unjust. Hadn’t he suffered enough already? Didn’t he deserve some kind of relief from the icy numbness that lived inside him? If he was being brutally honest, he was sick to his bones of being alone. He missed the warmth of a body lying next to him. He missed the mindless pleasure and sweet oblivion of sex. Four years was a long time for anyone.

Stella wanted him. He’d seen the signs of attraction in the way her eyes darkened and her breathing hitched whenever she stared at his mouth. God knew he wanted her. He could go and knock on her door right now, head on in and lose himself in her and, most importantly, no one would ever need know.

The minute that thought entered his head it took root and Jack’s pulse thundered. His blood roared in his ears. With hands that were oddly shaking he pushed away the whisky and stepped back from the counter. He had no idea where he was planning to go or what he was planning to do since fantasy was one thing, reality quite another, but he turned anyway and –

God.

There she was.

As if he’d bloody conjured her up.

She was standing in the doorway, staring at him wide-eyed, looking tousled and flushed, wearing a thick white robe over checked pyjamas, a combination that shouldn’t have been sexy in the slightest but very much was.

And as the desire pounding through him turned heavy and intoxicating and beyond insistent, rational thought disintegrated, and any lingering scruples Jack might have had about the wisdom of enticing Stella into his bed, any concerns about the possible consequences of doing such a thing, went clean out of his head.

*

She didn’t know how long she’d been there. It could have been a second; it could have been five minutes. All she knew was that she’d lain upstairs in the dark with her thoughts spinning and sleep a distant dream. She’d needed to do something to alleviate the restlessness so she’d come downstairs for a glass of water.

Suddenly, though, it seemed she could be in for a whole lot more than that.

Jack had lit a candle and put it on the worktop just beside him, the soft flickering light illuminating him, and a moment ago the view she’d had of him had been…well, the only word she could find to describe it was magnificent. His bare back was broad, his shoulders, wide and muscled. His buttocks encased in nothing more than black cotton shorts were firm, and his legs, long and powerful.

Where he got those muscles when his job was presumably largely desk-bound was a mystery, but one she wasn’t up to solving because while that view had been impressive, the sight that now met her eyes was downright mind-blowing. She didn’t know where to look. There was just too much of him. She wanted to look everywhere. So she did. She couldn’t help herself. She let her gaze roam all over him, taking in the expanse of his chest, the ridged eight-pack of his abdomen, the smattering of hair, thicker higher up, then thinning as it arrowed down to his – oh God – his very aroused crotch.

Her mouth went dry and her breath caught because despite the dimness of the light she could see the outline of it, and suddenly she wanted to touch, wanted to taste. Her heartbeat sped up and her fingers tingled and –

Oh, dear God. She’d assumed that the attraction was one-sided but clearly it wasn’t. His glittering gaze was roaming over her in much the same way as hers had over him and she instinctively knew that he was considering ravaging her, which was an idea that was way more thrilling than it ought to be.

“Jack,” she managed, trying to defuse the sizzling tension although her throat was as dry as dust and her voice so scratchy that it lacked the cool neutral tone she’d been aiming for. “What are you doing down here?”

He lifted his gaze and the heat she could see burning there nearly wiped out her knees. “Couldn’t sleep,” he said thickly.

Stella swallowed and pulled her shoulders back in an effort to strengthen her spine but all that did was draw his attention to the region of her breasts, which instantly tightened and tingled beneath the oddly abrasive fabric of her pyjamas. “Neither could I.”

“Difficult day.”

“Are you feeling all right?” she asked, dimly aware that not that long ago he’d been in an accident and that was surely something to focus on.

“Not particularly.”

“Your ribs?”

“No.”

The glint in his eye was almost predatory and she could suddenly see why he had the professional reputation he did. It made her shiver. It made her think that she should probably be getting the hell out of here while she still could because there were great big neon danger signs flashing in her head.

“OK, then,” she said, swallowing hard in an effort to pull herself together. “Right. Well. I’ll just get a glass of water and then leave you to…whatever it was you were doing.”

Vaguely wondering why she wasn’t heading for the bathroom where there was an equally good glass and an equally good supply of water, Stella made herself walk towards him, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other, on the sink, the tap, the glass, on what she was supposed to be doing and not on the electricity that was zinging through her and the man who was causing it

.

“Do you want to know what I was doing?” he asked, his voice low, his eyes tracking her every move in a way that was utterly focused and very determined.

No. She absolutely did not want to know what he was doing in her kitchen at midnight, virtually naked and looking at her like that. “What?” she murmured, as if her mouth had a mind of its own, as if this was all happening without the consent of her common sense, which alarmingly it did seem to be because she knew she was flirting with disaster but she just couldn’t seem to help it.

“I was thinking about you and all the things I’d like to do to you,” he said as she came to a standstill, not a respectable, safe foot away but right next to him.

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