The Gift (31 page)

‘Then why hide behind the signature of one of your flunkies?’

Jay shrugged and made an elegant gesture of befuddlement with his long scarred hands.

‘God knows. I can’t seem to think straight when it’s anything to do with you,’ he said, straightening up. ‘I suppose that’s why I had to stay strictly away all these weeks. There was some serious stuff that needed to be sorted out for, and with, my father, and I knew if I allowed myself the luxury of visiting you, and trying to explain myself, I wouldn’t want to go back.’

‘I’m touched.’ It came out sarcastically, but that was because she was the befuddled one now. Contrived as they sounded, his words did make sense to her. And it was a sense that thrilled and excited her and made all the silly insane dreams that she’d unequivocally squashed down, or thought she’d squashed down, flare up again like a wildfire. ‘But why here? Why the cloak and dagger?’

Jay laughed, a delicious sound. It made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up and a slow honeyed surge roll low in her pelvis. She hadn’t stopped wanting him one
second during all the time he’d been away, regardless of what had happened, and she’d made much use of some of his sexy box of tricks in his absence. A blush rose to her face at the thought of some of those sessions. Crying out his name as she’d climaxed, and then feeling cross with herself for clinging on and not letting go of his influence upon her.

‘I said, I don’t know. I wanted to make a dramatic entrance or something, a bit of theatre.’ He walked towards her, and a delicate wave of his spicy cologne met her before he did, overwhelming the vaguely plastery odour of the still unfinished walls. ‘We first met in dramatic circumstances. And we got together again in dramatic circumstances … sort of.’ A little touch of blush flowed into his face now, high on his perfectly reconstructed cheekbones. She knew he was thinking of the garden at the Waverley, so much heat in the cold. She certainly was. ‘And I wanted our reunion to match it.’

‘Reunion?’

‘Well, yes. With my dad pretty much back on top form again now, he doesn’t need me at his side all the time, and he bloody well doesn’t want me there either.’ He was in front of her now, looking down, his grey eyes steady and dark. ‘So I’m free to pursue my own projects. We’ve got a lot going on in this region so I thought I’d relocate up here, to be on hand. And pursue other things too.’

Sandy could feel herself trembling. It was him, his presence, his body and his fragrance and his eyes and his low rough voice. She knew she should quiz him about the café and the lease and all that practical stuff. But she couldn’t. It was like having Christmas all over again and all she wanted was to touch him. Be with him. Come to know
him in the real world as well as she’d known – and loved – him in her dreams for fifteen long years.

They stared at each other, just inches apart. Who would be the first to succumb?

Sandy gave in. She reached up and touched Jay’s face, drawing her fingers over his ever so slightly stubbled cheeks, loving the rough texture. It was like him, a bit rough, a bit edgy, but irresistibly attractive and wonderful. Jay turned his face into the caress and kissed her palm.

Rational sense tried to reassert itself. ‘Why should I just let you back into my life like this?’ she demanded, even while she was finding it difficult to breathe. His lips were soft yet demanding, still exploring her palm, and his tongue darted out, reminding her of other dartings in other more intimate places. Oh God, he was so good at that and she’d missed it like the very devil.

‘Because we’ve known each other fifteen years. We should be together,’ he insisted, the breath of the words a caress in itself. She felt his hand close over hers, and his other hand slide beneath her jacket to settle lightly against her waist. It felt hot through the black camisole she was wearing under her cardigan. The cami had come from that first gift of his, the cache of lingerie, and the cardigan, pure cashmere, had arrived at Christmas, also from Jay.

How had she known to wear them today? How could she have
not
worn them? Accepting fate, and embracing it, loving it …

‘Jay,’ she gasped, feeling the fight for control and resistance dissipating, dissolving, burnt off by the heat in his eyes and in his skin, ‘we’ve barely actually spent more than fifteen hours together all told. What kind of basis is that for being together?’

‘It’s a good start,’ he said, more crisply now. She could tell that, as always, he’d decided what he wanted and was determined to get it. A voice inside that should have had her telling him to hold his horses and not get ahead of himself was in fact making her melt, urging her to rub herself crazily against him, prior to demanding that he fuck her. ‘And all the more reason why we should do everything we can to make up for lost time,’ he finished triumphantly, not pausing for her reply but just sliding his hand around the back of her head and propelling her face towards his, for a kiss at last.

How could it be that everything in the world could be right, just because one pair of lips met another? It wasn’t sensible. It wasn’t logical. But it was true.

Jay’s touch had felt right, in innocence, fifteen years ago. And it felt just as right now, informed by a wealth of shared sensual desire and exploration. The innocent connection was still there, but so was sex, wild and immediate and impossible to resist.

They were in the middle of an instant conflagration. No slow sweeping of arms around each other, just hungry, almost angry grabbing and searching and touching and owning. Jay’s tongue was in her mouth, and she didn’t care about anything to do with cafés and business and owing or being owed or whatever. She just wanted him.

Her hands were beneath his jacket, pulling at his shirt, searching for bare contact with his hot skin and his muscles and his scars. His hands were on her too, beneath the soft cardigan and pushing up the camisole, sliding over her back and her ribcage, one coming around the front to cup her breast and strum her nipple in a rough stroke of possession. The black silky top was shaped, and she didn’t need a bra
with it. More fate, she supposed, dressing for sex because some sixth sense had told her that she’d get some.

She laughed into his mouth, and he pulled away, pressing his lips to her ear, demanding, ‘What?’ while his fingers still worked on her teat.

‘I don’t know. Really, I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense.’

‘Whatever,’ he observed pithily, angling her head with his hand so he could kiss her again, hard, and with total authority.

Sandy’s hips started moving of their own accord, circling and pressing her belly against his crotch. He was rock-hard and he growled, grinding back at her, while she dropped her hands to his buttocks and grabbed them, two hard muscular rounds, and squeezed hard.

God, you have such a fabulous arse, Mr Forbes! I could forgive you just about anything for this!

Jay’s mouth roved over her face in little nibbling tasting kisses that somehow managed to be totally possessive and aggressive at the same time. He abandoned her breast and paused to shrug out of his good jacket and drop it on the dusty floor. Then he applied himself to her jeans, unfastening the button, sliding down the zip, and working them down to her hips so he could wiggle one hand down into the front of her knickers, and one down the back, beneath the elastic.

‘Oh God!’ Sandy gasped, as he started to finger her, fore and aft, roughly yet artfully.

It was no time to grope his bottom now. She had to throw her arms around his neck and cling on for dear life. Her own hungry body was betraying her, wriggling and jerking as she rubbed herself against his fingers, just as they rubbed themselves against her.

‘You like that, don’t you, Princess?’ he murmured in the most disgustingly smug macho voice.

Sandy could have smacked him if she hadn’t been too thoroughly otherwise occupied. But it made her laugh too, in the small part of her mind that wasn’t completely blown by the way he was circling and slicking around her clit and probing at her bottom, all wicked and rude.

‘Admit it!’ he growled, redoubling his efforts. The sweet mock ferocity in his voice made her sex pulsate, and the low sound of approval he made told her he’d felt it.

She bit her lip, even if she couldn’t stop her body gyrating like a houri in blatant lust.

‘Stubborn little bitch! I’ll make you come for that. I’ll make you speak!’

Still probing and rubbing in the groove of her bottom, he pinched her clitoris between finger and thumb, tugging delicately.

Sandy yelled, her orgasm soaring like a skyrocket. She was helpless against his moves, his knowing, knowing touch. Kicking and shaking she hung onto him like a limpet, locking her hands at the back of his neck instinctively. If she hadn’t she would have bucked and wriggled her way clean out of his grip, and ended up in a moaning, spasming heap at his booted feet.

‘Oh my Princess, my Princess,’ he crowed more gently, still working her as she arched and gasped and clung to him, ‘I love to feel you come like that. I can’t get enough of it.’

Sandy slumped, played out completely for the moment as he gently released her. She was so overheated and sated that she imagined she could actually hear her pussy sizzling. Gulping in air, she tried to remember when she’d last taken
a proper breath, and she could feel sex-sweat trickling down between her breasts, her camisole sticking to her.

With her head against his shoulder and her body draped against him, she could feel Jay’s heart pounding in time to hers, and his deep chest lifting and falling. He was breathing hard and, when she moved uneasily against his pelvis, his cock seemed to jump inside his jeans. And she wanted some of that! Oh how she wanted it!

Energised by his hardness, his unhidden desire for her, she came back to life again. Finding her feet, she cupped his cock in her fingers and squeezed. Not hard or roughly, but assertively, looking up into his eyes, challenging him now. The grey depths glinted like brilliant sunshine bouncing off the polished surface of the Aston, and he smiled his fierce, tough smile, accepting the challenge. Sandy reached up and brushed fingers through his hair. It was thick and soft and smelled really good.

‘I like this,’ she said, tugging a little hank of it between her finger and thumb. ‘Makes you look like less of a thug.’

‘I thought you liked my thuggish behaviour,’ he purred, sliding his hand between her legs again, gripping her. She didn’t melt into a pool of lust this time, even though it felt so good. She just stared back at him, her head up, her eyes narrowed and defiant.

‘When it suits me.’ She rode his hand, taking what she wanted, and then, when she could tell he thought he’d got her again, she grabbed at his black shirt and ripped it open by main force, sending buttons flying everywhere.

‘Jesus, Sandy, are you going to rip all my clothes off me?’ But he was laughing, just as she was. And a breath later, he was ripping at the thing himself, wrenching at the cuffs to free himself.

While it still hung half on him, half off, she ran her hands over his warm skin, feeling the pop of fine perspiration rise on the smooth areas and the ones ridged by scarring and pain. She saw nothing ugly about the marks, just a pagan beauty, as harsh and uncompromising as he was. Leaning down, she kissed the ones she could reach, licking and nibbling too.

Then she unzipped him and drew out his big hot cock. Sinking to her knees, jeans still bunched around her hips, she mouthed him for a little while, laughing around his flesh as she wrung groans from him with her enthusiasm if not her polished artistry.

‘Jesus, Sandy,’ he complained again, his voice more broken than ever by his gasps, ‘do you want me to come in your mouth? Because you’re heading that way.’ She plunged her tongue at a tender spot beneath his glans and he yelped, his hips working of their own accord. ‘I don’t really mind,’ he panted, ‘but I’d rather like to get in you if I could.’

‘Fair enough,’ she said in a muffled voice, her mouth still enclosing him. They both laughed like maniacs as she let him slip out.

Reaching down, he grabbed her under her arms and hauled her to her feet. Then he backed her up, kicked the door to the kitchen closed and then pressed her against it. Sandy realised there were no locks, and the combined weight of their bodies was a form of security. Not that thoughts of being discovered had even come within a mile of her mind while he’d been touching her and caressing her, and she’d been on her knees, giving him head.

Against the door, he kissed her hard, fondling her breasts through her camisole, and flicking at her nipples. Roused all over again, Sandy squirmed against him, pushing with her
hips, while he pushed back against her, the heat of his exposed cock searing her. With their mouths still fused and their tongues still duelling, he helped her out of her jacket and peeled her cardigan off her. He flung it behind him, over his shoulder, then he went for her jeans, grabbing them and tugging them down her legs. Sandy kicked away her shoes, helping him to strip the jeans right off her, and her panties too. She was vaguely aware that she still had on her cute and rather silly white ankle socks trimmed with pictures of Winnie the Pooh and Tigger.

She didn’t think Jay had noticed them, but when he whispered, ‘Love the socks,’ in her ear, she blushed even more than when he’d been masturbating her.

Naked from the waist down, she reached up, ripping at his shirt again, and though Jay gave her a fierce look, he allowed her to drag it off him. It was a cool day, barely spring yet, and there was no heating in the shell of the building, but somehow it didn’t seem to matter. The heat that flared between them fired their blood.

‘That’s it, no more shilly-shallying around,’ Jay gasped as she stroked his back and his ribcage, and kissed the scars on his shoulders and his neck. ‘I’ve got to fuck you now whether you like it or not!’

Oh, I’ll like it! I’ll like it!

She didn’t speak though, because she couldn’t. As a precursor to his cock, he slid two hard curved fingers straight into her sex, and then went deep because she was dripping wet. For a few moments he caressed the tender spot on the front wall of her vagina until she mewled and wailed and shimmied around. But when he made her come again, sharp and hard, and she bit his neck in the process, he dragged out the digits with a low grunt of pain.