Reach for the Stars Page 8

  She kissed him back, wild with desire. He picked her up and somehow she wrapped her out-of-control limbs around his body of rock. He carried her from the kitchen to the foot of the stairs and set her on her unsteady feet. In a raging fire of kisses they brushed and bumped the wall on the narrow staircase as she led him upstairs. The door to the bedroom banged against the wall as she pushed it open in a hurry.

  Her eyes adjusted to the dark and she touched his face, smoothing over the hard contour of his jaw, feeling the prickle of stubble under her hands. In one impressive move, his hand slid up her back and he unclasped her bra and peeled it from her along with her top. His t-shirt went next, discarded on the floor. Breasts pressed to his chest, the contact of skin on skin gave her a pleasure rush. His fingers skimmed over her curves, smooth and feather-light one moment, deeply firm the next. Her nipples jutted, wanton with desire to be taken in his mouth.

  She gave a high-pitched squeal as he scooped her into his arms and laid her down on the bed beneath him, straddling her with strong legs and cupping her breasts in his hands.

  His lips touched her breast and swirls of dreamy Nick-induced sensation rippled through her, giving way to smouldering ecstasy, intensifying at her core. She responded instinctively when his mouth on her nipple triggered wild pleasure that spun through every atom of her body. His hand moved slowly down over her stomach, lower and lower until he was unbuttoning her jeans, undoing the zip, sliding beneath her underwear, gently caressing and teasing, slipping inside her, tormenting her body with white heat. She writhed and pressed her hand to his to stop his taunting fingers.

  ‘I need to see you.’ He reached to switch on the bedside lamp and soft light glowed in the room. He pulled her tight black skinny jeans down her legs turning them inside out as they went, throwing them across the room in his hurry to have her naked.

  ‘You too,’ she urged, unbuckling his belt and feeling the push of his erection encased in tight denim beneath her hand. He helped, stripping with ease. The irresistibility factor of totally naked Nick was off the charts. She pressed the palm of one hand to his thigh, crazed with desire for his hardness inside her.

  Pupils hotly dilated, his eyes gleamed. Light golden brown at the centre with dark rims, they burned into her heart.

  He kissed her mouth softly and emotion grew inside her, fragile like a shimmering, wobbly soap bubble. He’d got inside her head, and she’d revealed her feelings to him with unfamiliar openness. It was hard to think cool when he was so smoking hot. She’d rushed headlong towards a place that was purely physical fantasy, and he’d read her with an intuition that made her head spin and her heart soar.

  Breaking the kiss, Nick pulled away. ‘Wait,’ he rasped, fighting their impatience. ‘We need a condom.’

  ‘I haven’t got any.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  ‘How come? Don’t international playboys come equipped with protection?’ Her trepidation fluttered from her lips in a volley of snarky words that she couldn’t take back.

  ‘I thought you’d realized I’m not so much the playboy.’ His mouth twisted up in that signature smile. ‘And, no, I don’t carry condoms at all times.’ Her heart dipped like she was riding a roller coaster heading perpetually into a fall, and they untangled in a difficult pause. ‘Note to self, I need to fix that.’

  ‘Hang on a minute.’ Hope dawned. ‘I just remembered. I think I might have one.’

  ‘Yay.’ He rolled onto his side, head propped up with one elbow, a full-blown mockingly lazy smile on his face. ‘Where is it?’

  She rolled off the bed and scurried into the bathroom. Her kiss-stung lips and smudged eyeliner struck her as she opened the mirrored door of the bathroom cabinet.

  She realized that it wasn’t too late to stop, that something so physically and emotionally potent could have a potential downside – more hurt. But she was in an exhilarating danger zone, over-powered by her own desire to spend the night with him, and it was much too good to back out now.

  She rummaged in a fluster, lighting on the long-forgotten condom, a goody bag gift at Rosie’s hen night five years ago. She picked up the foil pack and returned to the bedroom.

  She slid her knickers down her thighs as she went, kicking them into a corner and crossing her fingers that in the dim light Nick hadn’t noticed that they were turquoise with little purple wide-eyed owls all over them. The day she bought them the checkout lady’s eyebrows had been judgmentally raised, the unspoken inference clearly that a woman of Layla’s advanced twenty-nine years should think twice about purchasing cute motif undies. Back then she hadn’t expected to be requiring sexy lingerie anytime soon. She winced. They’d been on a ‘buy one get one free’ deal, so she had two pairs of owl print undies in different colours.

  Who cared about the state of her underwear? Going by his erection, not Nick. Back in the bedroom, astonishingly, it hadn’t died. He lay on his back, and she straddled him, kissing him hotly. She took him in her hand and ran her fingers over him, tightening around his silkiness, marveling at the perfect contradiction of soft skin and hard man. Super-aroused, he groaned from deep in his throat. With the fumbling fingers of one hand she attempted to open the condom. He took it from her, opened it with ease, and unrolled it over his length turning his erection green.

  ‘What the blazes? That’s got to be the worst condom ever.’

  ‘It’s all we’ve got.’ She bit down on her lip. ‘I didn’t buy it, or anything. I …’

  ‘Another long story?’

  ‘Sort of. There was a hen party. And goody bags. And an assorted pack of rainbow condoms. We got one each.’

  ‘And you got green?’

  ‘Unlucky.’ Still biting her lip, she worked hard to contain her laughter. ‘I guess that’s why it never got used. I mean resembling an unripe banana has got to be the worst turn-off ever.’ She pulled a face, and stifled the burgeoning fit of the giggles. ‘It’s not exactly a good look.’

  Nick let out a rapturous groan and in one swift move rolled her under him so that he’d flipped her onto her back, and pinned her softly to the bed with his beautiful body. ‘Let’s put that to the test, shall we?’

  She inhaled the scent of his skin. He was breathtakingly intense. He’d tapped into her feelings and amazingly she trusted him. She twined her fingers into the hair at the back of his neck, drawing him close, and then relaxed her hold to smooth her hands over his perfectly-honed pecs. His tip pressed erotically, tantalizingly just outside of her, sending her crazy with need. The intoxicating heat of the moment whirled her emotions into a confusion of desire and delight. She was utterly, deeply, madly in lust. In Nick’s hands, every inch of her body was an erogenous zone, every second pleasure-filled.

  The temptation to do this crazy fast was immense. But she felt so real, he ached to take it slow and make it last, lock her in his hold, and just be. He tangled his fingers in her hair, which was cherry red in the low light.

  ‘Layla, you’re gorgeous.’ He rasped out the words. ‘But I’m not looking for a relationship. I’m not a forever guy.’

  He hesitated, struck by the need to know he couldn’t hurt her.

  ‘I don’t care about forever. I want now. I want a fling.’ Sexy mouth, voluptuous breasts, soft curves, silky skin, enticingly, guilelessly provocative, her breathless gasps drew him in. ‘Don’t overthink this,’ she whispered. Deep want burned in her dark eyes. ‘It’s a heat of the moment thing.’

  She couldn’t have made things any clearer. ‘Heat of the moment, I can deliver.’ Taking it slow, he trailed a hand the length of her thigh. She captivated him. When she wrapped herself around him, he closed out everything he didn’t know how to deal with, and focused on making her happy.

  Long and slow, he controlled his urge to thrust deep inside her. His eyes on hers, his hands cupped her face, and he kissed her, lingering, incapable of breaking apart for a single second. She let out a soft moan turning him on so much that finally, unable to hold back a micro-second longer, he en
tered her, moving with rhythmic strokes, decoding her responses by instinct like it was in his DNA to be deeply joined with her, body and mind, innately in tune. All his intended subtlety fell away in a fusion of passion.

  Deep in ecstatic oblivion he moved inside her, feeling her tight around him, wet, hot. Their bodies seared together like a work of art, living breathing melded metal, an insane moment of oneness. He took her higher and higher, and she moaned again, louder this time, more demanding, her responses echoing his, his body following hers. He rocked into her and she matched the rhythm, the motion intensifying everything he wanted her to feel. She shattered around him and his pleasure couldn’t have been any more intense. In virtually the same split second she took him with her, his climax awesome.

  His red hot energy far from extinguished, for a moment he lay, spine sinking into the soft bed, neck stretched against the pillows. Head turned away from her, he stared fixedly at a painting on the wall. A white house, on a cliff, under a mackerel sky, its combination of vibrant colours and subtler tones intrigued him. Overwhelming emotion strangled him. The only happiness he could bring a woman was physical, fleeting and shallow. That didn’t feel good any more. It felt so awful, it hurt.

  The memory of the lurid green condom jolted him out of his pain and he reacted speedily to dispose of the vile thing, swinging his legs off the bed and heading for the bathroom. When he returned Layla had slipped beneath the covers and drifted off to sleep. Uncertainty swamped him, tensing every limb. What now? Did he go in search of bed linen and make up the bed in the spare room? Would that be rude? Did it matter?

  It had been so long since he’d experienced anything close to Layla’s brand of blow-your-mind sex he didn’t know quite what to do. She was a first. Nothing – no one – like her had snuck past his barriers before. There was no precedent, so he switched out the light and slipped into bed beside her, his body sinking willingly into the softness. She gently moaned and hesitantly he reached out and gathered her in close, his chin resting on top of her silken hair. The warmth of her body next to his radiated through him. Stirring, she shifted slightly as she slept.

  ‘Sleep, Layla, sleep.’ Soft against his chest, her scent of sweetness, summer and sex filtered into his senses. Fighting sleep, holding her in his arms, he battled emotions that she’d thrown a spotlight on. Torn between wanting to go with the flow and needing to keep his distance, he felt buzzed, high on her energy, amazed that such fabulous fling material had materialized when he least expected it.

  Chapter Nine

  Last night has to have been the best take-me-I’m-yours moment of my life!

  Layla woke up early to the sound of birdsong. She came to, gliding slowly into consciousness, total recall spinning her mind back to the place she’d been just before she fell asleep. Wave after wave of sublime sensation had washed over her body until she’d felt like he’d drowned her in pleasure. The fact was she’d never experienced anything like last night before.

  The muddle of new emotions in her heart sank beneath a new complication – tangled limbs. Nick’s delectable body held hers in place, gently, strongly. His stubble spiked her skin, heightening her awareness of his firm, masculine form, every muscle defined and perfect. The rough hair of one leg grazed deliciously against her thigh. Wrapped in his arms, against the perfect cocoon of his body, she’d never felt so naked, so deeply exposed in every sense.

  ‘I need space.’ She voiced her thought in a barely there whisper.

  A blackbird chirruped. Slipping Houdini-like from Nick’s hold, she tweaked the corner of one curtain, careful not to disturb either the sleeping man or the songbird. Outside her window it perched in the tree which separated her yard from Maggie’s, and blasted the world with its call. The feast of colourful flowerpots below captured her attention. Somewhere amongst the petunias and geraniums there was an orange marigold and with it not just the buried past but her shining future.

  The sky blazed red in the growing light. That wasn’t good. Red sky in morning sailor’s warning. She felt bad for the holidaymakers. Most likely there’d be rain on the way.

  The house was silent apart from the soft sound of Nick’s breathing. She crept to the bathroom, taking care not to step on any creaky floorboards. It was no different from any other morning. Except it was. His sexy sexiness had fried her brain.

  After a quick shower, she scribbled a note on the back of a scrap of sample wallpaper. She slipped into the bedroom and placed the note in the dent her head had left on the pillow next to him. Closing the door carefully, so as not to wake him, she scooted off to her mother’s guest house to help with breakfast.

  Layla and her mum worked together like a well-oiled machine. She took orders and delivered pots of tea and coffee along with toast and smiles, whilst her mother rustled up full English breakfasts.

  There was barely a moment to talk as she fluttered around the room with plates of bacon and scrambled eggs, ensuring that everything ran like clockwork. The B&B had only reopened a month ago, following her mother’s accident. Reviews had been great, and she didn’t want anyone giving them a bad one, not if she could help it.

  After the last of the guests had set off for a day out, they cleared the tables in the dining room, bundling the tablecloths into a laundry bag and setting out fresh ones ready for the following day and the next round of breakfasts.

  ‘A little bird told me you’ve got company at the cottage.’

  Layla gulped, astonished that her mum would rather talk about Nick than the news that her dad and Jasmine were having a baby.

  ‘Isn’t he getting in the way? A man under your feet must be the last thing you need.’

  ‘No-o,’ she said, aiming to sound nonchalant, and feeling far from it. ‘Nick’s not a problem. Actually, he’s been quite helpful. He helped me shift furniture. And things.’

  Her mother frowned. ‘He’s not as nice as Alex. If the rumours are anything to go by, he’s a bit of a one.’

  ‘What are you saying, Mum?’ She walked to the French windows, and flung them open to let in some air. Acting casual she tore up a leftover slice of toast and tossed the bits into the garden for the birds.

  ‘I’m saying that he’s got a reputation for being a player, so be careful!’

  ‘Mother!’

  ‘You’ve had a bad experience with Joe.’ Shelly busied herself arranging salt and pepper pots, and adding sachets of calorie-free sweetener to the sugar bowls. ‘I don’t want some Hollywood Romeo taking advantage of you when you’re on the rebound.’

  ‘I’m a big girl. I can look out for myself.’ She held back from observing that in the twenty-first century mutual-advantage-taking was a thing. ‘I’m not on the rebound. I finished with Joe. It ended badly between us and I didn’t tell anyone. The point is he’s free. So nobody should feel bad about him marrying someone else.’

  ‘Oh Layla, sweetheart.’ Her mother folded her into a hug. ‘You should have said.’

  ‘I know that now.’

  If her mother was shocked, it didn’t show. Years of practice had fine-tuned her ability to mask her emotions.

  ‘I should have guessed. I had an inkling that something was wrong when I came round after the accident and heard that he’d gone to Australia without you. I didn’t want to pry. To be honest I felt responsible for him leaving and you having to stay behind.’

  ‘You’re not responsible for the choice Joe made. He is.’ It dawned on her how infernally inconsiderate he had been. He’d set off when she needed him most. She’d been protecting him all this time, and he didn’t deserve it. She’d also been protecting everyone else, and bottling up her feelings. ‘He wanted …’ She made air quotes and pulled a sarcastic face. ‘A temporary break until I could go out and join him, and I wasn’t up for that, so I ended it. Only he didn’t reply to my text, and I kept quiet about it.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Evidently the message got through.’

  ‘Would you like me to speak to his parents?’ Shelly unnecessarily moved a sweetener sac
het from one sugar bowl to another.

  Layla kissed her mum lightly on the cheek. ‘I’ll talk to them myself. The atmosphere last night at the Lobster Pot was terrible. I need to clear the air.’

  Shelly squeezed her hand. She glanced at her watch. ‘I have to do a cash and carry run. If I go now, I should be back in time to do the afternoon shift at the kiosk. Are you still okay to work this morning?’

  ‘Yes of course.’ Paranoia about her night with Nick kicked in. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

  ‘I don’t like monopolizing you. I know how important painting is to you.’ Shelly gave her daughter a pinched, apologetic smile. ‘If I wasn’t being so stubborn about rethinking the Kandy Shack, you’d have more time to do your own thing.’

  ‘I fit it in when I can.’ Following her mother into the kitchen, Layla waited while the older woman grabbed her phone and searched around for her car keys. Spotting them hidden behind a bowl of fruit, Layla passed them into her mother’s hands. ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘The question is how are you? Are you okay about Dad and Jasmine?’

  ‘It’s like the saying about waiting for a bus and then two come along.’

  ‘First Joe. Then Dad. It’s a lot to take in.’

  ‘And a baby on the way.’

  ‘Are you upset?’

  ‘I just hope someone nice comes along and it’ll be your turn next.’

  Layla gave an internal groan. The subject hop was intentional and typical. Instead of discussing Ralph’s announcement her mother had turned the conversation back to spotlighting Layla. A frivolous urge to reassure her mother that she had no intention of sitting about waiting for a husband to arrive overtook her.

  ‘Someone nice has come along. And the timing’s perfect. He’s exactly what I need. And do you want to know the best bit? He’s only for now.’

  Porthkara Bay looked grey. Clouds had closed in and the beach was mostly empty of tourists. The hard core surfers and a couple of dog walkers had it to themselves. She’d hardly surfed this summer. Until her dreamy night with Nick had given her a wake-up call she’d been allowing one thing after another to take over her life, because she’d given up trying to organize it any other way. Going with the flow was one thing, but letting things happen because she’d stopped caring was another. She’d been intending to do something about clearing the memory of Joe out of her cottage for months, but she hadn’t got any further than putting his stuff into big black bin-bags and picking up a few decorating samples from the DIY store so that she could make a start on redecorating her own place when she finished at Maggie’s.