Page 8 of His Best Mistake

For one frozen second Jack didn’t move a muscle either, but then his darkening gaze slowly dropped from hers to her mouth, where to her consternation it stayed, and in response she could feel her lips tingle.

And then, an all too vivid vision of him striding over to her and pulling her into an embrace slammed into her head, and, oh God, now she could practically feel his hands on her, the warmth of his breath on her skin, the heat of his mouth tormenting parts of her body that were suddenly burning up.

What the hell was this? she thought, a confused sort of panic surging up inside her at the lack of control she appeared to have over herself. He loathed her. She wasn’t all that keen on him. Yet she wanted to touch him. Kiss him. Do a whole lot more than just that, and she got the oddest feeling that he wanted the exact same thing, which was insane.

“This is all your word against his,” Jack said, his voice sounding strangely rough, and for a moment Stella didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. Word? What words? They seemed to be communicating on a different level entirely. But no. They weren’t. Of course they weren’t. They couldn’t be.

“I know,” she said, perversely relieved that he’d resumed the conversation since it was marginally easier to understand than the undercurrents that swirled between them.

“Do you have any proof of what you claim?”

“On my phone.”

“And where’s that?”

“At home in Somerset.” Where she’d deliberately left it to avoid the horrors of social media. Unfortunately.

“What bad luck,” he said, and for the briefest of moments she thought she caught the flicker of triumphant satisfaction on his face but she had to be mistaken because that made no sense either.

“You could just take my word for it.”

“Not a chance,” he said with contempt, and quite suddenly she’d had enough. Of Jack and his infuriatingly bull-headed arrogance. Of Brad and his pathetic spinelessness. Of the entire lousy, sodding male sex.

“You know, this attitude of yours is really pissing me off,” she said darkly, pushing herself off the counter and taking a step towards him as everything inside her, all the heat, the frustration and the lingering hurt, sort of coalesced into one white-hot ball of anger.

“I’m pissing you off?” he said, coolly lifting his eyebrows.

“Yes,” she said. “You, Jack. You said you wanted answers, but you don’t, do you? I mean, not really. You’re resisting the truth of what I’m saying with every breath you take, and it’s almost like you want to. Why would you choose to accept Brad’s word over mine when it’s so clear what sort of a man he is? Why is it so hard for you to believe me? And why come all this way if you never had any intention of doing so? Your sister deserves to know the truth and any idiot could see that I’m telling it, so what’s going on? Why the determination to think the very worst of me? What are you actually doing here?”

He didn’t say anything, just looked down at her, his dark eyes deep and unreadable, and it suddenly occurred to her that as she’d been firing all those accusations at him she’d carried on moving, taking a step with every breath, and now, having come to an abrupt halt, she was standing very close to him indeed.

So close, in fact, that she could feel the magnetic heat of his body. So close she could smell the deliciously intoxicating scent of him. So close that with one quick, sharp movement she could be kissing him. She could be rising up onto her tiptoes, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling herself against him and finding out if his mouth tasted as good at it looked.

As her gaze instinctively dropped to his lips, her mouth went dry and her pulse leapt. She could hear her heart thundering in her ears, a buzzing in her head, and she could feel the tension radiating from his entire body, his tightly leashed strength, and now he was uncrossing his arms and leaning forwards and putting his hands on her upper arms and, God, he wasn’t going to kiss her, was he?

What would she do if he did?

What would she do if he didn’t?

She burned where he touched her. Heat pooled between her legs and desire flooded every cell of her being. He bent his head closer and as her eyes fluttered closed, her lips parted and her tongue darted out to wet them, which she knew was a bad idea even as she was doing it although she just couldn’t help it.

But he didn’t kiss her. Of course he didn’t. Why would he?

Instead, he moved his head at the last minute, his lips skin-tinglingly close to her ear and said, in a low voice that turned the heat swirling around inside her to ice, “Get…the hell…out of my way.”

Chapter Three

Grabbing his coat, Jack stormed out of Stella’s house into the fading light of the afternoon, his gut churning and his head swimming.

He needed air.

Badly.

Because what the h

ell was the matter with him? Stella had asked what he was doing here, and right now, he didn’t have a clue. All he did know was that he was wound so tightly he was on the verge of snapping. So hard he hurt. She’d started walking towards him, making all those disturbingly uncomfortable points, her colour high, her eyes blazing and he’d just watched and listened, trapped against the bloody Aga and so transfixed that he couldn’t have retreated even if he’d wanted to.

The closer she’d come, the higher the lust had surged inside him, and then she’d looked at his mouth and licked her lips, the fury and indignation on her beautiful face morphing into something quite, quite different, and he’d been a nanosecond away from losing control and taking her up on her very obvious, very tempting invitation.

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