Page 14 of His Best Mistake

For a moment he didn’t move, just looked down at her, his face taut, the desire blazing ferociously in his eyes, and then he began to move, pulling out of her slowly dragging against a million tiny nerve endings, and then plunging back in, dissolving her mind and destroying any semblance of control because he had all of it and she had none.

All she could do as he began to pound into her harder and faster was clutch at his shoulders, gasping with every thrust and lifting her hips to meet him because, God, he was going so deep she could feel him everywhere.

And now the delirious pleasure was building again. The tightness coiling inside her was growing stronger and the storm of pleasure was coming closer and closer until it was there and she shattered, crying out and shuddering as he thrust into her one last time and groaned, pumping hard and deep within her and collapsing on top of her, leaving her wrecked, wasted and wondering how on earth she’d ever imagined once would be enough.

*

So much for just the once, thought Jack grimly, staring up into the darkness as Stella slept beside him. For the last few hours they hadn’t been able to keep their hands off each other. She’d been insatiable; he’d been desperate. In hindsight that shouldn’t have come as a surprise. It had been a long time for him, and the things Stella could do with her hands and her mouth…

God.

Even now, when he ought to be as wiped out as she was, he could feel himself hardening as snapshots of what they’d done together flashed through his mind.

But he wouldn’t wake her again and he wouldn’t ha

ve her again because in the absence of heat and desire and X-rated action, regret and guilt were beginning to seep in. How the hell could he have let things go this far? he wondered, his stomach suddenly churning. If anyone ever found out what he’d done, he’d be crucified. Where had his self-control gone? His integrity? And what about that line he’d vowed he wouldn’t cross? All obliterated by lust he should have been able to resist.

And now he wished he had. God, he wished he had. The experience had been too intense. He’d never had a night like it. Never been so instinctively able to read a woman’s body. But then the only other body he’d ever tried to read had been his wife’s. Having met as teenagers he and Mia had spent hours learning how to please each other, and it had always been lovely, but now he’d slept with Stella he realised that it could be better than lovely. It could be spectacular, and dammit, he shouldn’t even be comparing them.

So where did all this leave him? he wondered, ruthlessly shutting out the past and focusing on the now. In trouble, that was where. He’d never had a one-night stand. He didn’t know what he’d been thinking in offering it. What if Stella woke up wanting more?

Well, that was just something he was going to have to handle, he told himself darkly. The mess he was currently in was nobody’s fault but his own. He was pretty sure that if he hadn’t pushed it, she’d have simply got that glass of water she’d been after earlier and gone straight back to bed. The awkwardness and discomfort of the morning after was therefore simply the price he was going to have to pay for weakening. He’d get through it. He’d survived worse.

Just then, the shriek of a siren pierced the dark, eerie silence and Jack sat bolt upright, adrenaline surging, every sense on high alert.

What the hell was that?

Heart pounding, he flung back the covers, leapt out of bed and stalked to the window. In the distance the lights of the Land Rover were flashing and the noise seemed to be coming from the same direction.

“What’s going on?” Stella muttered sleepily.

“Car alarm,” he said. “The Land Rover.”

“I thought nothing was working.”

“Something must have jogged the circuitry.”

“Another sheep?”

“Who knows?”

“Can you make it stop?”

“I can try. I’ll go and check it out.”

“Need any help?” she murmured, her voice muffled by the covers.

“I should be OK. You go back to sleep.”

*

At the crack of dawn some time later, Stella woke up in a deliciously achy haze, totally ready to continue where exhaustion had made her and Jack leave off seeing as how they’d already dispensed with the just-once thing, only to find that he and the Land Rover had gone.

Chapter Five

Oh, fuckety bollocksy crapety fuck.

A month had passed since Stella had been back home, and it had been a pleasingly busy one. On arriving at her lovely little house in Cricket St Thomas she’d unpacked and settled in, and had charged her phone and then tentatively checked her social media pages. As the sites had opened, she’d held her breath and braced herself for the worst, but thankfully the previously rabid interest in her seemed to have died down and everyone had moved on.

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