Just for the Rush. Jane Lark

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СКАЧАТЬ raged into life as it sucked oxygen through the grate.

      He knelt back on his heels, watching the fire.

      ‘Why is that here?’ When he looked at me to see what I meant, I glanced at the naked fir tree.

      ‘I may have forgotten to tell the housekeeper that Christmas wasn’t happening.’

      ‘You said the word. Now I get a forfeit.’ I drank some of my champagne, pretending to think, but I already knew. ‘When you’ve finished with my blindfold, I’m going to use it to tie you up.’

      ‘I might say the word more if you’re going to come up with that kind of forfeit.’

      ‘Then I’d change the rules.’

      ‘You can’t change the rules, it’s my game.’

      ‘But you’re not the boss any more, Jack. You’re just my lover.’

      He stood up suddenly and came towards me. ‘Do you know how sexy that sounds?’ His hand came about the back of my head. ‘Feel.’ His other hand gripped mine and pressed it against the front of his trousers.

      ‘Shit. I’m in for some fun.’

      ‘You are.’ His lips came down on mine and I spilt champagne on the stone-flagged floor as his tongue pushed into my mouth. Forget jelly, my stomach was lighter than that; it was soft snow melting into slush. A sexual tingle teased between my legs, while heat raced across my skin, four chilli symbols of heat. I’d felt nothing like that when Rick kissed me. Had I never really fancied him?

      Jack broke away. ‘I think you spilt your drink down my jumper.’

      ‘Sorry.’

      ‘No need to be. It was my fault.’

      ‘I feel guilty about Rick—’

      ‘You’re not pulling out now we’re up here?’ He looked at me, his body stiffening.

      ‘I wasn’t saying that. I meant I feel guilty for staying with him so long. You’re right. I’ve fancied you since I started. I don’t think I ever fancied Rick. I should have let him move on years ago. Oh, I forgot. I got a text.’ I finished off the champagne, put the glass down and went over to my bag. I pulled out some tissue to wipe up the spilled champagne, but took my mobile out too.

      ‘Rick: Hey, I miss you. You should be here. If you change your mind over Christmas I can drive up and get you. I still love you, Ivy.’

      Daggers pierced through my chest, a hundred of them… All dipped in guilt.

      ‘What is it?’

      I touched my thumb against the screen to unlock my phone, then went into Rick’s messages and held the phone out to show Jack.

      He took it from my hand. ‘He wants you back,’ he said after he read the first one, but then he started scrolling through them. ‘Oh shit. Are you sure he hasn’t got some sort of problem?’

      ‘I think his problem is just me. I walked out on him.’

      ‘There are hundreds of these things.’

      ‘I know. I stopped replying a fortnight ago. He still sends them. They generally start about ten and then, as the night goes on, they get more and more desperate. I think he’s drinking a lot.’

      Jack looked up from the phone, at me. ‘You must feel like shit.’

      I closed my lips and nodded. Stupid tears welled up. He pulled me into a hug. Crazily that did stuff to my innards too, just in a different way than the kiss.

      ‘It’s alright to feel shit when you’re breaking up. No matter what side of it you’re on. And you’re not obligated to have sex with me just because you came up here.’

      I pulled away. ‘But I want to have sex with you.’ I sounded petulant.

      He laughed as he dropped my phone into an armchair, then his fingers braced the back of my neck and he kissed me.

      My arms reached around his neck, one hand still gripping the tissue I’d got out to wipe up the spilt champagne.

      He was taller than me, but in my heeled boots, not all that much. We felt like a perfect fit physically—but otherwise, I only knew him professionally, getting personal and touching and exposing myself was scary. But that was why this felt so tummy-churning.

      He broke the kiss. ‘If you had a skirt on I’d lift your legs up right now and do what I’ve been wanting to do to you for two years.’

      ‘What’s that?’

      ‘Have sex with you on my desk.’

      ‘Your desk isn’t here.’

      ‘No, but the table would do.’

      He let me go and I squatted down to wipe the champagne off the floor. He turned to the fire, opened the burner door and poked it with a metal poker to make sure the wood caught properly, then shut the door again. ‘I thought we could get the cushions off the sofa and the chairs and put them out on the floor.’

      ‘Okay.’

      My phone buzzed again. Jack picked it up and then read out the text. ‘Ivy. Please. I want to spend, the C word, with you.’

      I looked at him. ‘See, it’s like the first text is a nice tester to see if I’ll reply and now I don’t, then he dives into being more and more pressing. But even when I was replying they used to end up desperate when I wasn’t saying what he wanted.’

      ‘You have two options. I call him and tell him to get lost – you’re here with me. Or we switch your phone off. I’m not listening to him texting and you shouldn’t be reading them.’

      ‘Just switch it off.’ It was nice to have someone else know about them. I hadn’t been able to talk to anyone because everyone was on Rick’s side.

      ‘Done.’ His thumbnail flicked the little switch, then he threw my phone back down on the chair.

      ‘Thank you.’

      I went into the kitchen to throw away the soiled tissue. When I came back in Jack had spread out the sofa and chair cushions in front of the fire, and he was stripping off his burgundy jumper. His body was so firm and his black pinstripe shirt was fitted to every lean contour.

      I loved watching his body. In the summer, when he just wore a shirt and trousers at work, when we were doing something in the blue-sky room, and he reached up, stretching, or bent down and twisted, my brain had me working on how his body might look beneath his clothes. His stomach was so flat and hard, and his pecs were not pronounced, but they had definition. Like his arms. He didn’t have massive biceps, but they were marked, slim, sculpted shapes. He was a man someone would love to sculpt in bronze.

      He threw his jumper on to the now-bare sofa. ‘Are you going to come and get cosy with me? Do you want some music on?’

      ‘Yes, and yes.’ I threw him a smile.

      He СКАЧАТЬ