On the First Night of Christmas... (13 page)

Sitting back at her easel, she lifted up the Sugar Plum Fairy design and scrunched up the card. Then drew out a new card and started drawing. She’d finish her Christmas card design, get Manny at the printing shop round the corner to do a rush job, then post them before she packed up some stuff and went round to The Chesterton later.

There was no big rush, especially as Jace wouldn’t even be there.

This was a casual affair. That was how he was treating it, and how she would treat it too. No blowing it out of proportion in any way. And no getting upset about him having to rush off to a business meeting, especially as she had lots of things to rush off and do in the next few days too.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

‘I
T’S
Sunday!’ Cassie stared at the Sunday papers she’d just noticed folded on the coffee table, the spoon of muesli poised in mid-air. ‘It can’t be.’

Jace glanced up from the plate of Cumberland sausage and eggs he’d been tucking into. ‘That’s correct. Sunday usually comes right after Saturday.’

Cassie plopped the spoon back into her bowl. ‘But Sunday is Christmas Eve.’

‘Is it?’ Jace said, apparently unconcerned as he sliced into his sausage.

Cassie blinked. Watching him as he chewed the meat, then swallowed, her mind having gone completely blank. How could this have happened? She’d arrived at his hotel suite on the night of the twentieth of December. And now it was the morning of the twenty-fourth!

Which meant, even with her atrocious maths skills, that they’d spent three whole days cocooned in his hotel suite. Ordering in room service and indulging in an orgy of sexual pleasures, fulfilling every prurient fantasy she’d ever had, not to mention a great deal more that she’d never even dreamed of.

‘I can’t believe it’s nearly Christmas Day already,’ she murmured, feeling disorientated.

Three whole days. It didn’t seem possible she could have spent all that time doing nothing but making mad, passionate love to Jace Ryan.

The small talk he’d promised hadn’t really materialised. Not in the way she would have hoped. He’d asked her a lot of questions about her work as an illustrator and she’d learned a little about his web design business, which was clearly very successful. But the few times she’d strayed into more personal territory, he’d clammed up and then distracted her. Mostly with sex. And she had forced herself not to take it personally. And not to push. Revelling instead in the passion he stirred so easily.

He shrugged, sent her a suggestive smile that had the heat pooling low in her abdomen. ‘We’ve been busy.’

Cassie’s skin heated as he pierced her with that hungry look again.

Pushing back from the breakfast table, she tightened the tie on her robe. ‘I should shower and get dressed. I’ve got a lot to do today.’ Three whole days had gone by in a haze of lust and passion and she hadn’t even noticed.

As she went to walk past him he snagged her wrist. ‘How about I come in and scrub your back for you?’

She tugged her hand free, dismayed by the way her pulse punched his thumb and her hormones instantly jitterbugged into overdrive as if leaping for joy at the prospect.

They’d made love less than half an hour ago when he’d woken her up to tell her breakfast had arrived, his fingers had started stroking and before she’d known it she’d been rocketing to orgasm while she was still barely awake. And just like all the other times they’d made love, she’d felt the clutch in her chest, the tightening in her heart muscle as he’d carried her into the suite’s living room and plopped her down in front of her breakfast. And she’d steadfastly ignored the bump. But even she couldn’t ignore the fact any longer that her behaviour was veering out of her control.

If this was all just about sex, why couldn’t she seem to get enough of him? And why was the need inside her increasing with each passing day instead of abating?

‘I’d better shower alone this morning,’ she said, remembering how last morning’s shared shower had ended.

‘Hey.’ He stood up as she turned to go, circled both of her wrists with his fingers to hold her in place. ‘What’s the matter? You look kind of spooked.’

Spooked was putting it mildly, she realised as she looked into his pure green eyes, and realised she didn’t actually know any more about him than she had four days ago. ‘I think I’m just getting a little stir crazy,’ she said. That had to be it. She simply wasn’t used to a physical relationship of this intensity. And it would probably be good to dial it down today. Plus she really did have a lot to do. She had a ton of Christmas presents to buy. ‘We haven’t left the hotel suite since Wednesday night,’ she reasoned.

‘True.’ He lifted his hands to frame her face, leaned in to give her a quick kiss. ‘I guess I haven’t kept my promise, have I?’ he said sheepishly.

‘What promise?’

‘Not to keep you a prisoner here.’

She felt herself flush, and her heart clenched again as she sent him a crooked smile. She forced the feeling of elation down.
Don’t be daft.
The intensity of the relationship in the last three days had been purely sexual. His desire to spend time with her had no more significance than fulfilling a physical urge. For both of them. And the fact that her body still responded to him with such intensity was proof of that. For goodness’ sake, she’d just established the fact that she hadn’t got to know him, as she’d planned. And that hadn’t just been his doing. She hadn’t pressed because she’d been happy with the way things were. Because she’d been determined not to read anything more into their intimacy.

‘I’ve enjoyed it,’ she said. ‘But I’ll have to break out today. I’ve got a ton of shopping to do.’

His hands trailed down her arms, gripped her wrists for a second then let go.

‘I guess that means I’m going to have to let you go for the day,’ he said, sounding genuinely disappointed.

‘Not necessarily,’ she heard herself reply. ‘You could always come with me,’ she added, before she lost her nerve.

While she totally understood this was about great sex and nothing more, the compelling desire to spend time with him outside the hotel suite was unstoppable.

It would give them the chance to talk properly. And there were so many things she’d become curious about in the last four days. His failed marriage, his past, how the moody boy from a ‘bad home’ she remembered from school had become such a charismatic and successful man. All things she hadn’t had the chance to ask about. Maybe that was why the heart bumps kept getting worse. Because she wanted to know more about him, and the more she didn’t know, the more he avoided giving her that information, the more vulnerable she felt.

If he came shopping with her, she’d be able to quiz him without him being able to distract her quite so easily.

She dismissed the niggling little voice that told her she might be straying into dangerous territory. She’d become more sexually intimate with this man than she had with any other man. He knew things about her body that no other man had ever even bothered to discover. How could it be wrong to want to know a bit more about him? It didn’t mean she would lose sight of her objectives. They’d already set out exactly what this relationship entailed and what it didn’t. And they’d been busy reinforcing that point in the most delicious way possible for three whole days. So where was the harm in satisfying a little of her curiosity about him now?

Jacob Ryan had been a fascinating enigma ever since she’d had a crush on him at school. He’d always been so taciturn and surly then. And while he had acquired a layer of relaxed easy-going charm as an adult, she couldn’t help wondering if traces of that angry boy still existed, or if he had disappeared for good.

Surely this would be the perfect opportunity to dispel her fascination with him once and for all. Because she had an awful feeling that all the great sex they’d been having might have started to reawaken that stupid crush. Which would explain all the heart bumps. And that could not be a good thing.

‘Nah, you go ahead,’ he said, sitting back down and picking up the paper. ‘I’ll contact my PA. I should schedule some of those meetings today while you’re not here to distract me.’

‘But, Jace, that’s silly. It’s Sunday. And it’s Christmas Eve. No one will be able to meet today. And we could have lunch out together.’ She hurried on, trying not to sound too eager, the opportunity to have some of her curiosity satisfied suddenly irresistible. ‘And don’t you have any Christmas shopping to do?’

Jace stared at Cassie and kept his mouth firmly shut, before he did something really daft, like agreeing to go with her. Ever since she’d turned up at the hotel four nights ago, her small wheel-around suitcase in her hand and a shy but eager smile on her face, he hadn’t let her out of his sight. In fact, he’d barely let her out of his bed. The plan had been to seduce them both into a coma, overdose on great sex for a few days and get the driving need to have her out of his system. Parts A and B of his plan had worked out great—a bit too great. Because part C had clearly been a dead loss. If not, why would he have the driving urge to stop her going out as soon as she had suggested it?

The woman was becoming an addiction. An addiction that all the really amazing sex seemed to be making worse, not better.

Luckily he had the perfect excuse not to accept her invitation. He folded the paper, dumped it back on the coffee table. ‘Believe me, Cassidy. You don’t want me along.’

‘Yes, I do,’ she said, earnestly. ‘Why wouldn’t I?’

‘Because I hate shopping. I won’t be good company.’

‘Why do you hate shopping?’

He shrugged; this bit at least was easy. ‘There’s always crowds of people and too much stuff to choose from and it takes for ever. Before you know it you’ve lost the will to live over a rack full of suits. I’d rather be kicked in the …’ He paused when Cassie winced. ‘I’d rather be kicked somewhere a guy definitely does not want to be kicked,’ he finished, deciding to spare her the graphic visual.

‘What is it about guys and shopping?’ she said, exasperation edging her voice. ‘It’s the eighth wonder of the world if you do it right.’

‘I do do it right,’ he said flatly. ‘I do all my shopping online.’

She didn’t just wince this time, she flinched. ‘That’s awful. How can you buy clothes on a computer? Especially designer ones. You’ve got to try them on, see how they hang. What the cut’s like. You can’t tell that from a picture and a list of measurements.’

‘If I don’t like it, I send it back. Get a refund.’

‘Which means standing for hours in a post office queue. Personally, I’d rather take my chances at the shops.’

He sent her a level look. ‘I don’t do post office queues.’

‘How can you send it back if—?’

‘Put it this way.’ He stopped her in mid-argument. ‘One of the reasons I worked so hard to earn my first million was so I could send someone else to queue at the post office.’

She dropped back on her heels, an adorable crease of consternation lining her brow.

‘And so I would never have to enter a department store again in this lifetime,’ he added forcefully. ‘Especially not in the West End on Christmas Eve. It’ll be my worst nightmare,’ he said, determined to keep that fact front and centre. He didn’t do shopping, even with someone as cute and sexy as Cassie.

‘No, it won’t,’ she said, clearly not prepared to be beaten. ‘It won’t even take that long.’