All Work and No Play (22 page)

Jane gasped. She hadn’t quite known how much she craved him there, until he was touching her. The water lapped against her along with his fingers; it was all hot, liquid pleasure as he parted her.

‘Jonny,’ she whimpered. She leant back on his thighs, bent up at the knee, and spread her legs wider for him. Quickly, more quickly than she’d thought possible, he was sending tremors through her body. He slid a finger of his other hand inside her, touching her inside and out with long, sensuous movements, and Jane, transported just like that from cosy intimacy to desperate sexual need, moaned and lifted her hips even closer to him.

‘We’re more than just friends, Jane,’ Jonny said. The words floated in the steamy air of the bathroom and Jane
tried to focus on them, but the exquisite sensations he was producing made it difficult for her to think of anything but his hands, his body, him.

Not stopping his movements, he leaned forward and fastened his mouth onto one of her nipples, already super-sensitive from his ministrations with the bath foam.

That was it. Her climax burst from her, her hips bucking right out of the water. The waves, the hot foamy water around her, Jonny’s arms and legs and his mouth and his fingers, it all became far, far too good. She yelled and thrashed and spilt water all over and heard him chuckle in male satisfaction.

He pulled her to him, wrapped his arms and legs tightly around her as she quivered with the aftershocks of pleasure. With a wet hand, he smoothed her damp hair back from her face.

‘Much more than friends,’ he murmured in her ear.

She felt boneless against him. Jonny repositioned them and lifted her out of the tub to set her on her feet. He took a thick towel from the rail and wrapped her in it. The material was soft and rough at once on her over-sensitised skin; when he rubbed it against her breasts and between her legs she shuddered again.

‘I want you,’ she told him, and pulled a towel off the rail to dry him, too. His glorious, golden body, all muscle
and sinew and sculpted bone. His beautiful, masculine face, intent on every curve and swell of her own body.

‘Inside me,’ she added, though it wasn’t really necessary; from his expression and from his blatant arousal, she was sure he knew exactly what she meant.

‘Yes. Bed. Now.’ He grabbed her hand and they ran from the bathroom and fell on the bed and they were kissing each other, lips and tongues frantic, limbs tangled, their damp skin clinging.

‘I want to be on top,’ she panted, and Jonny rolled onto his back. Quickly, breathless, Jane straddled him and reached over to her bedside table for a condom.

‘Do you want it slow or fast?’ he asked her, and the question was so damn sexy that she yanked the drawer open with a jerk that shook the table, tipping the phone and a half-empty glass of water onto the floor. The glass hit the carpet with a thunk, the phone fell off its receiver and buzzed a dial tone.

She didn’t care. Jane fished inside the drawer until she came up with a condom, which she held up in triumph to show to Jonny. He laughed as she ripped the packet open with her teeth, and then gasped when she stroked the latex down on him.

Jane positioned herself above him, feeling the head of his erection at her entrance. She wanted to push down
hard, impale herself on him, feel him all the way through her body, and she was about to do it when she paused.

Slow or fast? They’d already done it fast. Slow would be more of an adventure.

So she lowered herself just a little bit, just enough to take the tip of him inside her. The tip of him where she knew he was most sensitive, where she’d let her tongue and lips linger. She squeezed her muscles around him and he gasped.

And then, a hair’s breadth at a time, down onto him. So, so slowly feeling herself part around him, accept him, surround him. Until she was all the way down, resting against his body, the full length of him buried inside her. She circled her hips, savouring his hardness and the way his body rubbed against her, creating sweet friction on her thighs and on her clitoris. And then she stayed still.

‘Slow,’ she said.

He was smiling at her. ‘You’re incredible,’ he said.

‘I never thought I was very good at sex.’ Deliberate circles, squeezing him deep within her.

‘You are.’

She decided it was time to slide up on him again, feel the long, hard extent of him, and then take him all back in. Slowly. Good, and even better because Jonny was
looking her straight in the eyes, half a smile of happiness on his face.

Being in control was incredible. Like flying, like whooping out in joy, like coming up with the best idea in the history of advertising, except right now she could share this. It wasn’t just her victory. It was something they were building together.

Because she was in control, but Jonny was definitely in this with her. He put his fingers on her again. Jane leaned back, tilting her crotch up towards his clever hand, her hands balanced on his thighs. But she couldn’t stay still; her hips, following a rhythm of their own, moved restlessly back and forth, and she felt her muscles contracting with every movement of his hand. And ripples began to course through her body, again much, much sooner than she would have expected.

This time, as her orgasm possessed her, she fell forward, her hands planted on Jonny’s chest, and thrust herself down on him hard. He filled her, he kissed her, and she cried out into his mouth.

She couldn’t tell how long it lasted after that. It was a timeless, endless expanse of pleasure. Her control was gone, shattered by wave after wave of ecstasy sweeping through her. She felt his hands on her hips, lifting her and grinding her body against him; she felt him moving inside her, bringing her to even greater heights. She
heard her voice, panting out incoherent pleas for more, and Jonny was everything and everywhere.

At some point he rolled over on top of her, his whole body bearing down on her, his hands holding hers above her head as he thrust still slowly into her, making it last, and yet another orgasm seized her, or maybe the last one hadn’t ended, and she wrapped her legs around his waist and hung on for dear life.

And then he was holding her face in his hands and holding her eyes with his own, so intense yet so gentle, and he said, simply, ‘Jane,’ and even though she felt him pulse inside her, felt his body shudder against her, mostly she saw his orgasm in his eyes.

His eyelids opening slightly, his pupils dilating, the blue of his irises becoming even more electric. As if he was looking even deeper into her, and giving her something even more of himself.

Then he collapsed onto her, and she hugged him, feeling their heartbeats pounding together.

‘Wow,’ Jonny said into the pillow.

She nodded, unable to speak.

He rolled over and pulled her to his side, tucking her under his arm. She curled up against him. How had she ever been scared about being naked with Jonny? It was the best, most natural feeling in the world.

She kissed the side of his face and closed her eyes.

‘Am I still a geek?’ he whispered.

‘You’re you,’ she answered, and rode along on a cloud of bliss into sleep.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

H
ER
pillow was warm and firm, and was rising and falling with a soft whooshing sound.

Jane opened her eyes to a close-up view of Jonny’s chest. From here, with her cheek pressed to the hollow of his shoulder, it was a landscape of swells and dips, muscles and nipples, and just about the best thing she’d ever opened her eyes to in the morning.

She twisted her head and looked at his face. He was propped up on a pillow, gazing down at her.

‘How long have you been awake?’ she asked.

‘A while.’ He twisted his fingers in her hair and brushed it back. ‘I like watching you sleep.’

She quickly touched her mouth, afraid she’d drooled on him or something.

‘You didn’t leave a wet patch and I wouldn’t care if
you did,’ he told her. ‘You didn’t snore or kick me, either, before you ask.’

The thought had crossed her mind. Jane stretched and yawned. Jonny’s chest was surprisingly comfortable, considering it was a lot harder than the pillow she was used to. He tilted her chin up and kissed her.

She was just about to relax into the kiss when she remembered she hadn’t even brushed her teeth before falling asleep last night. ‘Morning breath,’ she said, putting her fingers over her lips.

He took her hand away from her mouth. ‘You don’t have to be perfect, Jane. Being here with you is everything I want. Morning breath and all.’

This time when he kissed her, she did relax. The man really did know how to kiss: gentle, and yet with enough passion so that she could remember their frantic, carnal kisses of the night before.

Desire rose in her, lazy but insistent, and she made a needy sound in the back of her throat as he rolled them both over and covered her with his warm, heavy body. She wrapped her arms and legs around him and loved how wonderful his skin felt against hers. And how his morning erection was pressed into her thigh.

Her eyes flew open, for the first time appreciating the daylight streaming into the room. Morning. It was morning, and she hadn’t set an alarm last night.

‘What time is it?’ she gasped.

Jonny looked over at the clock. ‘Just past ten.’

Instinct made her tense, and Jonny shifted his weight so he wasn’t pressing her down. ‘Is that a problem?’ he asked.

She struggled to sit up—not easy, because her muscles were tired from what she’d got up to last night, and her body wasn’t eager to be hauled away from Jonny. ‘I usually get into work for eight. But I can have flexitime if I want.’

‘But you’ve never taken it before.’

‘It’s fine.’ She ran her fingers through her hair, trying to put it into some semblance of order. ‘I’ve got the big meeting with Giovanni Franco and his team, but that’s not until after lunch. Besides, if anybody needs to get in touch with me, they can always ring—oh.’

She spotted the empty space where her phone had been, and remembered it had been on the floor, off the hook, since she’d knocked it off in her search for birth control.

‘They can ring my mobile,’ she corrected herself.

‘So you can spend more time here in bed with me,’ Jonny said, and wrapped his arm around her bare waist.

She melted. She couldn’t help it. It was as if her body had an automatic ‘plaster yourself all over Jonny’ button
and he’d just pushed it. She lay back in his arms and let him curl her up into his warmth.

She expected him to kiss her again, but instead he caressed her face. His hands were big and masculine, yet sensitive, and a mere touch of her cheek made her close her eyes in pleasure for a moment. When she opened them again, he was gazing intently into her eyes.

‘You remember last night when I said I was through pretending to be your boyfriend?’ he said.

She thought back. She’d been a little distracted by all his glorious nakedness and all the orgasms and such, but she did remember him saying something like that.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘It was a stupid thing to do anyway. And it bothered you. I’m sorry.’

‘The reason I’m not going to pretend any more is because I intend to be your boyfriend for real. I’m not going to fool around and say that I’m your friend who you happen to be having sex with. Because I don’t feel like that, Jane. I love you.’

Her heart and stomach and mind leapt, and her body actually startled in his arms, with a feeling that was nearly joy, nearly fulfilment, nearly like flying.

And then, just as quickly, she fell back to earth. Her heart thumped painfully, her stomach sank so that she felt as if she might be sick.

‘We can take it slowly,’ he was saying to her. ‘I know
you’ve just finished with an engagement and I’m living up north for the next little while at least, until I make sure the hotel isn’t in trouble any more. But I love you, Jane, and I’ve loved you for years, and I’m tired of trying to hide it.’

Oh … he’d never hidden it.

She stared, frozen, into his eyes and she knew that he had been looking at her this way from the very first moment she’d seen him again. The warmth wasn’t just friendship, not merely the way Jonny was. It was because he loved her.

It was like the photographs of his parents on his mother’s wall. Something open, honest, and true. Something with expectations of for ever.

And Jonny was watching her, wanting her to say something back to him.

‘I—’
I don’t know how to give you for ever.

She bit her lip, and swallowed.

‘I’m sorry, Jonny, can we talk about this later?’ she said. ‘I just remembered I never finished the slides for my presentation this afternoon.’

‘Slides,’ he said.

‘Yes. I was working on them when you—when we talked online.’ She slipped out of his arms and sat up. Her robe was in the wardrobe, across the room. Her underwear drawer was closer. As quickly as she could, she
bolted out of bed and to her chest of drawers, and got a pair of knickers and a bra on. She felt Jonny’s eyes on her the entire time.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked her.

‘Fine,’ she said, crossing to her wardrobe, then winced as she realised the word she’d used. ‘I mean, I’m a little stressed out about work. I don’t usually—’

‘Go in late. I know. But I thought you agreed you deserved some time off every now and then.’

‘I do.’ She pulled out a suit and a blouse, without checking to see if they matched, and began to put them on. She hadn’t showered, but, right at this moment, getting covered up seemed more important than getting clean.

‘And I had a wonderful time last night, Jonny. It’s just that I’m not only late, but I’m unprepared. So I need to go in and get it sorted out.’

She glanced at him, sitting up in her bed. His feelings about her were naked on his face. So were sadness and disappointment.

Her stomach twisted and she felt even more sick.

‘I’m sorry, Jonny, I know you want to talk, but let’s talk later, okay?’ She escaped into the bathroom before she could hear what he had to say.

But the bathroom wasn’t any escape. The floor was littered with her clothes, and his; the bath was still full
of water, now cold and flat; the whole room was full of drunken memories of their touching, their kissing, their laughing.