Hers For One Night Only?

‘And now look at us.’

So nice was that kiss that he did it again.

‘You smell fantastic.’ She was glad, to be honest, to have only him on her mind. He smelt as expensive as he looked and he tasted divine. She would never take this dress to the dry cleaner’s, she thought as his scent wrapped around them, and his mouth was at her neck and under her hair. He was dragging in the last breaths of the perfume she had squirted on before going out and soaking in the scent of the salon’s rich shampoo and the warm fragrance of woman.

‘So do you,’ he said.

‘You taste fantastic,’ Bridgette said. She was the one going back for more now.

‘You too.’

And he liked the weight of responsibility that cloaked him as he pressed her against the bonnet and his hands inched down to a silver hem. He could feel her soft thighs and wanted to lift her dress, but he wanted to know if her legs too were freckled, so he ended the kiss. He wanted more for her than that, more for himself than that.

Just tonight, Dominic assured himself as she did the same.

‘What?’ He caught her looking at him as they headed for his home, and grinned.

‘Nothing.’ She smiled back.

‘Go on, say what you’re thinking.’

‘Okay.’ So she did. ‘You don’t look like a paediatrician.’

‘What is a paediatrician supposed to look like?’

‘I don’t know,’ Bridgette admitted. ‘Okay, you don’t seem like a paediatrician.’ She couldn’t really explain it, but he laughed.

They laughed.

And when she told him that she imagined him more a cosmetic surgeon, with some exclusive private practice, his laugh turned wry. ‘You’re mistaking me for my father.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Bridgette said.

And he pulled her towards him, because it was easier than thinking, easier than admitting he wasn’t so sure of her verdict, that lately he seemed to be turning more and more into his father, the man he respected least.

It was three o’clock and she felt as if they were both trying to escape morning.

There wasn’t a frantic kiss through the front door—instead the energy that swirled was more patient.

It was a gorgeous energy that waited as he made her coffee and she went to the bathroom and he had the computer on when she returned. They did actually watch it together.

‘I showed this to Jasmine—’ there were tears rolling down her face, but from laughter ‘—and she didn’t think it was funny.’

And he was laughing too, more than he ever had. He hadn’t had a night like this in ages—in fact, he couldn’t recall one ever.

Okay, she would try to remember the details, how he didn’t cringe when she pretended his desk was a piano; instead he sang.

It was the most complicated thing to explain—that she could sing to him, that, worse, he could take the mug that was the microphone and do the same to her!

‘We should be ashamed of ourselves.’ She admired their reflection in the computer as they took a photo.

‘Very ashamed,’ he agreed.

She thought he was like this, Dominic realised, that this was how his usual one-night stands went. Didn’t she understand that this was as rare for him as it was for her? He hadn’t been like this even with Arabella.

He didn’t just want anyone tonight; he wanted her.

It was an acute want that tired now of being patient and so too did hers. As their mouths met on time and together, he kissed her to the back of the sofa. It felt so seamless, so right, because not for a second did Bridgette think, Now he’s going to kiss me. One moment they were laughing and the next they were kissing. It was a transition that was as simple as that.

It was his mouth and his taste and the slide of his tongue.

It was her mouth and a kiss that didn’t taste of plastic, that tasted of her tongue, and he kissed her and she curled into it. She loved the feel of his mouth and the roam of his hands and the way her body was craving his—it was a kiss that was potent, everything a kiss could be, distilled into one delicious dose.

He took off her dress, because he wanted to see her, not the woman in silver, and his eyes roamed. They roamed as he took off her bra and he answered his earlier question because her freckles stopped only where her bikini would be. There were two unfreckled triangles that wanted his mouth, but he talked to her as well and what she didn’t know was how rare that was.

He left control behind and was out of his mind.

He wanted her in France, he told her as he licked her nipple.

Topless and naked on the beach beside him, and new freckles on her breasts. She closed her eyes and she could smell the sun oil, could feel the heat from the sun that shone in France and the coolness of his tongue on sunburnt nipples. He pressed her into the couch and she pressed back to him.

She was lying down and could feel him hard against her and she didn’t think twice, just slid his zipper down.

She could hear her own moan as she held him and he lifted his head.

‘We’re not going to make it to the bedroom, are we?’

‘Not a hope,’ she admitted.

Was this what it was like?

To be free.

To be irresponsible.

More, please, she wanted to sob, because she wanted to live on the edge for ever, never wanted this night to end.

She wanted this man who took off his trousers and kept condoms in his wallet, and it didn’t offend her—she already knew what he was like, after all.

‘Bastard.’ She grinned.

And he knew her too.

‘Sorry,’ he said. In their own language he apologised for the cad that he was and told her that he wasn’t being one tonight.

This was different.

So different that he sat her up.