The Dare Collection: June 2018. Lauren Hawkeye

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СКАЧАТЬ his heart rate accelerated again.

      ‘Thanks so much. You’re a lifesaver.’ She rattled off her number and he typed in the digits, sending the photo via text.

      ‘My name’s Essie, by the way.’ She held out her hand—delicate; smooth-skinned; short nails painted purple.

      He shook it, the brief slide of palm-to-palm grating in its formality after the mild flirtatious banter bouncing between them.

      ‘Ash.’

      She grinned as if he’d confessed his name began with HRH and he’d come to invite her back to the palace for afternoon tea.

      ‘So, Ash the American tourist...’ She had her photo, but she wasn’t leaving. In fact, she was twirling that hair again, her eyes glinting with an unmistakable interest—one matched in him. No, his instincts were spot on.

      ‘So, Essie, English fun facts expert...’

      Another laugh that shot straight to his balls. ‘Wanna grab lunch?’ she said. ‘I don’t know this part of London well, but there’s a cute deli not far from here and I have tons more facts about the city...’ Her pretty blue eyes gleamed.

      Heat soared in his chest. She was coming on to him in a subtle, fetching way he found way more enticing than the overt advances of his usual hook-ups. Absolutely, he’d be up for a no-strings one-time with this beautiful stranger. And as a tourist, he needn’t spin his usual spiel about having a good time, keeping things casual, hooking up and other euphemisms that let the women he bedded know exactly where they stood. Where he stood.

      She’d leave London to go back to whatever charming part of the UK she came from and, as far as she’d know, he’d go back to America.

      He held out his arm, indicating she take the path ahead of them before tucking both his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. She smiled, swung her hair over her shoulder and set off at his side. For a few beats they walked in silence, the warm summer air heavy with possibility and an insistent flicker of sexual chemistry.

      Something stirred in his gut—that delicious coil of excitement that the anonymity of meeting a stranger in a foreign place brought. Today he could be anyone. There were endless possibilities to reinvent himself and shake off the recently acquired shackles that held him down as if his feet were entombed in concrete.

      Not Ash the duped, who’d not only been cheated on but also lied to by the two people in his life who should have had his back. Yeah, fuck that guy. He was Ash the American tourist, killing time with the interesting, beautiful breath of fresh air that was Essie.

      ‘So...’ he flashed his first genuine smile her way, enjoying the telling pink flush of her cheeks ‘...tell me about these noses.’

      * * *

      Essie Newbold laughed and bumped shoulders with the sexy American she’d spent the afternoon and evening with. Well, she would have bumped shoulders with him if he weren’t so tall—instead, her shoulder bumped his arm. But the effect was the same.

      Contact.

      Those delicious little trembles of static electricity zinged to all her highly attuned erogenous zones as they’d been doing all day, every time their arms had brushed as they’d hunted the Seven Noses of Soho or when they were squeezed together, chest to chest, on the standing-room-only Tube. She’d never been more grateful for the crowding of London’s underground.

      Instead of allowing the momentum of her flirty little shoulder bump to ping her away from him, Ash scooped his arm around her waist and grinned down at her.

      Her head swam.

      She was really going to do this—sleep with the dreamy man she’d met in the park this morning? Her first one-night stand.

      Essie slipped her hand into the back pocket of his jeans, her fingers pressing into his tightly toned backside. Where had her uncharacteristic bravery come from? The desire for something more than the dribs and drabs she’d tolerated from her no-good ex?

      Her ex’s idea of foreplay had been a mandatory squeeze of the boob. And to her shame, she’d accepted such lazy, shoddy attention.

      All the more reason to explore a one-night stand with the drool-worthy, confident American. She’d gain some much-needed experience in the one-night-stand stakes, and hopefully score herself the kind of orgasm that only existed in her world as a mythical will-o’-the-wisp, and afterwards they’d move on having both had a good time. Unless Ash was a serial killer, it was a win-win situation. She absorbed the foreign, heady thrill of his big warm body next to hers. Not that it was cold—her shivers originated purely from anticipation.

      The best kind of shivers.

      She sucked in a stuttering breath—she’d never felt more reckless. And, if she was honest, she also felt a little embarrassed. There was no law that stated that, before her twenty-fifth birthday, she should have experienced at least one night of no-strings sex, but, as she touted herself as something of a relationship expert, didn’t she owe it to the readers of her relationship psychology blog to experience what all the fuss was about?

      Ash’s hand looped around her shoulder. She reached up and clasped his fingers. They grinned at each other, Essie’s belly jolting in time with her excitable pulse.

      No serious scientist could rely solely on academic theory. She could finally verify her years of extensive research with some cold, hard, scientific data.

       Surely he must be able to hear the blood whooshing through her head?

      Because in practical terms, what did she really know about relationships, especially the functional kind?

      Her face fell at the momentary wobble. Her one serious boyfriend during uni had left her practically swearing off the opposite sex for good on the grounds she clearly couldn’t spot a decent relationship candidate if he was stark naked in front of her wearing a pick me, I’m a safer than houses bet hat.

      A trait she’d inherited from her mother perhaps... The woman had, after all, procreated with Essie’s lying, cheating, deserting father and spent many years playing second fiddle to his actual wife, his real family.

      Not that Essie had known all that back then. She’d simply been a girl who desperately missed her beloved father while he’d worked overseas for long stretches of time. Clearly she and her mother shared a desperate-for-love vibe that usually sent men running.

      But Ash wasn’t running.

      And she wasn’t looking for a relationship. Just sex. She’d gleaned from Ash’s subtext that, like her, he was only interested in a one-night thing. She shoved the buzzkill thoughts from her mind, focussing on the specimen of manly perfection beside her. Exotic Ash. A gentleman. Funny, intelligent and interested in what she had to say.

      So different from her ex, and she’d wasted two years in that flawed relationship.

      Her throat tightened.

      Perhaps she was ready for a change. It was, after all, the eve of a brand-new chapter of her life—her new job working for her until-recently estranged half-brother began tomorrow. Or perhaps it was just charming, sophisticated, sexy-as-sin Ash with his crinkle-eyed smile, his quick wit and his tales СКАЧАТЬ