One Night Only

Ash, perhaps interpreting her silence as a change of heart, stepped back half a pace, ending the delicious contact between them and leaving Essie more bereft than the dark turn of her thoughts had done.

‘I’m happy to walk you home...or put you in a cab.’ He shrugged as if it was no big deal but his stare darkened as he looked down at her, waiting. A stare of longing, one that matched the well of sizzling heat rising up inside her.

Don’t spoil what promises to be the best night of your life with your hang-ups.

Essie moved closer, her fingers finding the belt loop of his jeans. She tugged, bringing his chest into contact with hers, scraping her nipples to exquisite, nerve-tingling awareness.

No way would she back out now.

‘Are you sure?’

Yes, yes, yes...

At her silent nod, he took her hand, laced his fingers through hers and led her inside the glass and chrome rotating door of the swanky hotel.

Essie hurried after him, his longer strides swiftly guiding her across the elegant foyer that she was too turned on to appreciate. Her last thought—how nice it must be to know someone who owned such a well-appointed and convenient establishment—fled the minute the lift door closed and Ash pinned her against one wall with the stealth and predatory instincts of a jungle cat.

Essie surrendered to the reckless impulses, so foreign but urgently addictive. She climbed him, her own instincts set free as her hands tugged his hair and her mouth found his while her legs encircled his thighs and she clung to him for dear life.

Every taut inch of him was hard. She knew, under his slouchy clothes, he’d be sleek and toned and bulging in all the right places. They broke apart long enough to hurry from the lift to his room, although she was so turned on that Essie was certain she’d floated.

He took a key card from his pocket, swiped it through the reader and stood back so she could enter first. Essie turned to welcome him as he followed her inside, her pent-up libido and the fizz of adrenaline in her blood making her embarrassingly eager. She gave him no time to activate the lights or even wait until the door had fully closed before she leapt at him, the air leaving her in a whoosh as he caught her around the waist and hauled her up to his equally insatiable mouth.

The chemistry between them practically melted her body to his as if they’d been welded together.

The kissing, unlike anything she’d known, was so voracious she whimpered out her pleasure. With dizzying speed, Ash deposited her on the bed, whipped off her underwear and produced a condom.

Essie panted while he tore at his fly and covered himself, a look of desperate concentration on his face, barely visible in the gloom. This was wild, audacious and thrilling. But then Ash’s mouth was back on hers, his fingers stroking her nipple to a peak through her clothing while he pushed slowly inside her, and she lost herself to what she was certain would turn out to be the single best sexual experience of her life to date.

She wasn’t wrong. Ash pulled his mouth from hers, yanked his T-shirt over his head and reared back. With her hips gripped in his large hands and her stare locked with the white-hot one he bore down on her, Ash pounded into her again and again.

He was a god—ripped torso, a smattering of dark hair trailing down to his magnificent manhood, which she couldn’t see, but which was currently rendering her a speechless bag of raging female hormones. When he scooped her hips with one arm, not losing his rhythm, and slipped his free hand between them and located her clit, her world fractured and a broken cry left her throat as she came, shortly followed by Ash.

Yep—best sex ever.

Go, Essie.

CHAPTER TWO (#u849661c9-0378-53f9-bf41-efdb4bcead06)

ESSIE EXITED THE Piccadilly Circus Tube station into glaring sunlight and joined the mass of people heading towards the start of their work week. Stifling a yawn with the back of her hand, she dragged her sunglasses from the top of her head and scoped out another coffee fix. Of course, if she’d had more than three hours’ sleep last night, she wouldn’t need another dose of caffeine. But she always worked on her blog first thing in the morning when the words flowed freely and the ideas were fresh, and this morning, the morning after the best sex of her life, had been no different.

Ash had kept her up into the early hours with his impressive stamina. After a second round of high calibre, sheet-clawing sex, another life-redefining orgasm, she’d sneaked out of his hotel room, like a sexually enlightened Cinderella, in the early hours while Prince Charming had slept.

She sniggered, scuffing the toe of her Converse on the tiled floor. Yes, it hadn’t been her proudest moment—leaving without so much as a ‘nice to meet you, thanks for the orgasms’—but that had been the unspoken deal, right? The casual sex secret code. One of the pros. No awkward swapping of numbers, no obsessively checking her phone for his call and no stalking him on social media to confirm his single status.

Of course, in practical terms, she was no expert. But she’d been right—what had occurred with Ash last night far surpassed the commonplace.

Good thing he was leaving the country soon. Sex that good should come with a health warning.

Hazard! You are ten times more likely to develop feelings for this man. Avoid sexual contact at all costs. Danger! Disappointment ahead.

And she’d had enough of that to last a lifetime.

Essie accepted her coffee from the barista, wincing as she set off at a quicker pace into Soho—starting her new job for her brother on a few hours of sleep was not her wisest move.

She sipped her latte and checked her phone for directions, cursing at the time displayed as she hurried along unfamiliar streets to meet Ben at the basement-style club and cocktail bar he’d recently purchased and had just completed renovating.

Of course, she wouldn’t have needed the map if she’d scouted the route to her new job yesterday as she’d planned. But the sun had been shining and she’d disembarked the Tube a few stations early to indulge in a pleasant walk in the park. Meeting a sexy stranger hadn’t been part of the plan. But she couldn’t tell Ben why she’d got...sidetracked.

Essie quickened her pace, holding her coffee out in front of her. Of all the days to be late. And for Ben, too. Her older half-brother, seven years her senior, had taken a chance, offering her a job at his new club. Yes, she’d done some bar work throughout uni, but she’d never held a managerial position. All the same, she had assured him she was capable—she had a PhD, for goodness’ sake, well almost, the conferment ceremony only a few weeks away—and she was determined to make the best of the chance to work for her brother.

This was more than a job. Working with him would hopefully lead to a closer relationship than the cordial but unemotional one they currently shared. Not that she blamed Ben for the distance—she had been equally hesitant. Their father had kept her existence a secret from his only son, too. They both had some making up for lost time to do.

That was why Essie had grasped at his request to help out, when his current manager had quit unexpectedly, with both eager hands. If she had a career plan, bar work would have no place in it, but the job comprised predominantly night shifts, which protected her dedicated blog-writing time during the day. And until she decided if she was cut out for a stuffy academic position, it provided a perfect stopgap. And the pay Ben had offered was great.

Essie rounded the corner, dodging a steady stream of smartly dressed office workers and frantic stallholders setting up their fresh produce and delicious-smelling street food for Soho’s famous, three-hundred-year-old Berwick Street Market.

She stepped off the kerb to dodge a fruit and veg vendor carrying a precarious tower of produce-laden boxes six high, narrowly avoiding a delivery van that screeched to a halt. The coffee sloshed inside the takeaway cup with a violent lurch. A spout of scalding liquid jettisoned from the sip hole in the plastic lid and sprayed the front of Essie’s favourite dress, deliberately chosen for her first day at work.

She cursed while a trail of coffee dripped down her cleavage and soaked into her bra. Her eyes stung as she dabbed at the brown stain with her fingers and stepped back onto the pavement, pushing her way back into the hustle of the commuter crowds.

She breathed through her disappointment over the dress, her face forcing a bright smile. Ben wouldn’t care how she dressed. Only that she turned up, offered him as much help as she could and became someone he could rely on. And if she hurried, perhaps she could beat Ben and his business partner there and she could clean up before making a good impression.

This part of Soho housed an array of trendy bars, eclectic restaurants and small, elegant hotels. The innocuous, black-painted street frontage of The Yard—sandwiched between a designer menswear store and an Italian deli—meant Essie almost walked straight past. If it hadn’t been for a van parked on half of the pavement and the sign writer blocking the other half with his ladder while he worked on the shiny new nameplate, she might have missed her destination completely.

Essie followed the harassed sign writer’s directions to the narrow alleyway between the deli and the club that led to the rear entrance of The Yard. Yanking open the ancient, squeaky door, she entered the cool gloom of the darkened interior.

‘Ben?’

She made her way along a maze of dimly lit corridors, following the sounds of activity, her insides a flurry of twisting energy, one she couldn’t blame on the barely tasted coffee.

The bar area swarmed with electricians rigging reams and reams of neon lights into every available nook and cranny. The sharp chemical tang of new paint filled the air and a very harassed-looking Ben paced near the front entrance door with his mobile phone glued to the side of his head. When he saw Essie, he visibly sagged and quickly ended his call.

‘I am so glad to see you.’ He gripped her elbows and kissed her cheek, a gesture that felt far from natural. She forced her breathing to deepen so she didn’t pass out from excitement.

Baby steps.

Although they’d known of each other’s existence for some years, their sibling relationship held a new and fragile quality. Recalling the first time Ben had made contact still held the power to suffocate her with emotions; the date, time and what she’d been wearing when his call had come in engraved on her memory as if it were yesterday.

Twelve months ago, he’d relocated full-time to London, which had taken their contact from the occasional awkward video call to an actual face-to-face meeting. From that moment Essie had been secretly and cautiously smitten, because all they’d really shared to date was a genetic bond with their devious and unscrupulous father, a string of hesitant emails and a few quick, stilted coffee dates. If they were going to have a lasting relationship in the future, using this opportunity to get to know each other better was crucial.

Essie shrugged off her doubts by rummaging in her backpack for her notebook and a pen. She was here to lighten Ben’s burden. To show him who she was. To build on their sibling status, having been denied that opportunity all their lives by their father.

She bit down hard on her lip—she wouldn’t spoil her first day by thinking of Frank Newbold. She flipped open the notebook, pen poised, a picture, she hoped, of cool, unfrazzled competence. The coffee stain notwithstanding.

‘Tell me what you need. You look stressed.’ And so much like their father, a man whose face she could no longer bear to look at.

Ben scrubbed his fingers through his already messy hair.