One Night with Her Ex (4 page)

* * *

As the words sank into her head Lily’s mind reeled and her heart lurched. Kit wanted to take her to bed? Could she really have heard that right? Surely she must have got it wrong. Surely his proximity was having such a disturbing effect on her mind and body that she’d misheard or something because the very idea of it didn’t make any sense at all.

Kit hadn’t given any indication of wanting her earlier. Quite the opposite, in fact. He’d been cool and utterly indifferent to her. Which was entirely to be expected. They hadn’t seen each other in five years and didn’t even like each other particularly.

But no, she thought, blinking up at him in astonishment. It seemed to be that she hadn’t misheard and he really had just told her that he wanted to sleep with her. She could see it in his dark eyes, blazing down at her with barely suppressed desire, and she could feel it in his body, which was radiating heat and vibrating with tension.

And even though it could well be nothing more than a simple case of male jealousy or a misguided attempt at marking out territory or something, whatever it was, for one brief, crazy moment she wanted to throw caution to the wind, fling her arms around his neck and sink into him because it had been so long since she’d had great sex and she missed it more than she’d ever let herself admit.

But she stamped out the temptation, set her jaw and held her ground. She hadn’t spent the last five years of her life building up sky-high defences to protect herself against men who could cause her the kind of emotional turmoil he could only to have them annihilated by the very man who’d created her need for them in the first place. She’d trained herself to look forwards, not back, and Kit didn’t feature in her present, let alone her future.

She didn’t want to sleep with him anyway, she told herself firmly. She was totally over him and completely immune. In fact she rather thought she was appalled, insulted and even disgusted by his suggestion.

Especially if
this
was why he’d come here. Lily frowned as the possibility crossed her mind. Was it? Was he on some sort of booty call or something?

Well, if he was, she thought, her indignation firing, that was just awful. If he was, she’d have liked to be able to turn back time in order to slam the door in his face when he first pitched up on her doorstep.

‘You want to take me to bed?’ she said, her tone as scathing as she could manage, which wasn’t very because in amongst the indignation and shock was something that felt suspiciously like hurt, although what there was to be hurt about she had no idea.

‘Very badly.’

‘Why?’

‘You have to ask?’

‘Clearly,’ she said dryly. ‘Are you lonely for a little company on New Year’s Eve, Kit?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘You must be pretty desperate if you’re here.’

‘I am.’

‘So what is this? Auld lang syne and the remembering of old acquaintances or something?’

‘I don’t know what this is,’ he muttered, shoving his hands through his hair, looking as baffled as she felt. ‘I didn’t come here to sleep with you, Lily, but nevertheless I want to.’

‘Well, I don’t, so dream on, darling, because it’s never going to happen.’

He nodded. ‘Fine. Then move aside and I’ll go.’

‘Right.’

‘You aren’t moving.’

‘I’m about to.’

But she wasn’t. Because, to her horror, her feet refused to move.

A burst of panic exploded inside her and she felt a cold sweat break out all over her skin.

Why wasn’t she sending him on his way, as he’d demanded? Why wasn’t she moving aside, wrenching the door open and bundling him out? Why was she still standing here, deliberating, struggling with herself?

Struggling with herself?

Oh, no, she thought, her heart hammering. Why was what should be an easy decision a struggle? Why was she dithering? She wanted him to leave, didn’t she? She didn’t care why he was here, did she? She was over him. Wasn’t she?

Kit went very still, alert, like a panther about to pounce. ‘You still feel it too, don’t you?’

‘Feel what?’ she said, so poleaxed by the notion that she even had to question her indifference to him after such certainty for so long that for a moment she genuinely didn’t know what he meant.

‘The chemistry.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said, not altogether genuine now.

‘Yes, you do.’

‘I’m over you,’ she said to convince herself more than him.

‘Are you?’

‘Totally.’

‘Then why aren’t you moving?’

‘You’re in the way.’

He took a step back, but to her alarm it didn’t make any difference to her mobility. And he knew it. She could tell by the glint in his eye, and the panic escalated to such a level that she thought the top of her head was about to blow off.

What if she wasn’t as over him as she’d thought? What if, despite all this time, despite all the lengths she’d gone to to ensure otherwise, she wasn’t over him at all?

Because if she was, she wouldn’t have to spend every anniversary drunk out of her mind to avoid the memories, would she?

If she was, she wouldn’t have found it so hard to drink out of those glasses.

If she was, she wouldn’t be so afraid of mind-blowing sex, and she wouldn’t only enter relationships with men who left her body completely unstirred.

If she was she wouldn’t have felt so hurt at the thought Kit had just come here for sex.

‘Do you want to know what I think, Lily?’

‘No,’ she said, her voice as croaky as if she hadn’t used it for years.

‘I think you’re as over me as I am over you.’

She cleared her throat and tried to pull herself back on track. ‘You can think what you like.’

‘Can you honestly say you don’t want me?’

No. ‘Yes.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Too bad.’

‘I want you.’

‘Well, we can’t always have what we want.’

‘Can’t we?’ he murmured.

She set her jaw because whatever he wanted, whatever she might or might not want—and who knew the answer to that?—them sleeping together would be a disaster of titanic proportions and she had no intention of giving in. ‘No.’

He moved closer, his gaze not letting her look away, and beneath its intensity she felt her resolve, her immunity to him begin to crumble. ‘Are you sure about that?’

Her heart thundered. ‘Quite sure.’ And then at the predatory gleam in his eye, she added, ‘What?’

‘I’ve thought about you, you know.’

She shrugged as if she couldn’t care less but inside she was beginning to shake. ‘Have you?’

He nodded, his eyes glittering, and took a step forwards. ‘A lot.’

‘I haven’t thought about you at all.’

‘Really?’

She nodded. ‘Really. Not once.’

‘Don’t you remember how it used to be?’

‘I remember how it was in the end.’

‘Coward.’ He reached out and touched her hair while his gaze dipped to her mouth, and despite all her protests she shivered.

‘Kiss me and you’ll regret it,’ she said, unfolding her arms and flexing and curling her fingers in warning, but that didn’t seem to stop him.

He tilted his head and looked down at her, his eyes as black as night and so full of intent and desire that she could barely breathe.

‘That’s a risk I’m prepared to take,’ he muttered, and before she could even think of protesting he slid his hand round to the back of her neck then bent his head and captured her mouth with his.

FOUR

Lily tried
to keep her mouth closed and her eyes open, she really did, but the familiarity of Kit, the heat of his mouth, his body and his scent blew away her resistance like a dandelion on the wind, and within a second she found herself succumbing to the drugging desire that swept through her.

Her eyes fluttered shut and she moaned and his tongue thrust into her mouth with devilish intent. The heat and the spark she’d felt earlier and had ignored shot back with a rush and her knees went weak.

Any thought of pushing him away vanished. The fingers she’d been flexing in warning now clutched at his shirt to pull him closer because despite everything they’d been through, everything she’d tried to convince herself of over the years, she’d missed him. So damned much.

She could tell herself that she didn’t want and didn’t need that spark all she liked, but, goodness, she’d missed feeling like this. The heady, delirious rush of simple, hot desire, without any of the angst and anguish that had blighted the latter months of their marriage. She’d missed this kind of need, primitive, pure and fierce.

Just when she feared her legs were going to give way and she’d either fall into him or collapse into a heap on the floor Kit broke off the kiss and lifted his head.

‘So is he or isn’t he?’ he asked roughly, his breathing all fast and ragged and his eyes glazed.

She stared up at him, her heart twisting and tugging, and she could feel herself falling under his spell just as she had the moment she’d looked into his eyes at the bottom of that ski slope in Italy.

The longer she looked up at him, the more her head began to swim with the emotions that she’d kept buried for so long and were now breaking free. Love, hate, joy, despair, desire.

And bewilderment, because had she spent the long lonely weeks, months, years since their divorce hoping for this? Hoping he’d come and find her? Had she been living a lie the whole of the last five years? And if she had, what did that make her? Nuts? Lucky? A hopeless case?

And what did all of this mean? Did Kit still feel something for her other than lust? Something more? Were there still feelings between them? Did they have a second chance?

Her mind teeming and her heart racing, Lily let the weight of emotion submerge the voice of reason bellowing in her head and warning her to be, oh, so very wary.

There’d be time for talk later, time for analysis and perhaps regret, perhaps hope. Right now, though, she just wanted him.

With excitement rushing through her and her pulse thundering, Lily took a deep, shaky breath, then said, ‘Despite what I may have implied earlier Nick isn’t my boyfriend, and he isn’t going to be.’

* * *

Kit was wound so tight with tension and desire and the expectation of a slap across the face that for a moment he couldn’t work out what Lily was saying.

And then, when his shell-shocked brain finally got round to working it out, couldn’t quite believe it. Couldn’t quite believe that the risk he’d taken had paid off.

Yet apparently, against all the odds, it had, because here she was, not moving, not lifting her hand to slap him. In fact her eyes were shining, her chest was heaving and she was giving him the kind of look they’d shared at the beginning of their relationship, the one that was filled with heat and need and desperation and had always made his head spin.

That acting on what was clearly going through both their minds wasn’t a good idea didn’t seem to matter. That there was so much between them and starting something up again would only make things worse and set them back years seemed an irrelevance.

Kit was drowning beneath a wave of desire that had been absent for so long and lust was hammering through him so strong and hot that it drugged his senses, wiped out his reason and everything but the thought that he needed this and he needed Lily. With a desperation and hunger that was eating him up. And it was the same for her too judging by the way she’d just kissed him back.

With one quick move, before she had time to rethink the wisdom of her choice, Kit had her back in his arms and was then twisting her round away from the door and backing her up against the hall wall. The feel of her, the heat of her blasted into him and a bolt of sheer desire powered through him.

He planted his hands on either side of her head while she threw her arms around his neck and then their mouths met, tongues tangled and his mind went blank.

He’d never met anyone who kissed as Lily did, who threw themselves into it with everything they had and everything they felt. Kissing her had always been intoxicating and it was no different now. It was familiar and hot and made him burn.

As did the little moans coming from the back of her throat and the way she was melting against him.

Moving his hand, he buried it in her hair and angled her head so he could kiss her deeper, harder, and she responded with equal need.

Breaking for breath several long, hot minutes later, Kit pulled back and stared down into her eyes. ‘Are you sure about this?’ he muttered.

‘No,’ she said dazedly, her breathing all ragged and harsh. ‘Are you?’

‘Hell, no.’

‘Then what are we doing? What is this?’

‘Who knows?’ he said, sliding his hand round to her jaw and stroking his thumb over her lower lip. ‘Irresistible chemistry. Undeniable attraction. A disaster, probably.’

‘You could be right.’

‘Want to stop?’ It might kill him but if she was having second thoughts he couldn’t blame her.

‘Don’t you dare.’

She pulled his head back down to hers and started kissing him again. And then things switched up a gear because she was making sounds—familiar, encouraging sounds—that he hadn’t heard for years, and tugging at his clothes, reaching beneath his coat, pulling his shirt from the waistband of his jeans and pushing it up.

He could feel her impatience, but it wasn’t a patch on his, and as she put her hands on the bare skin of his back it sent such a shot of desire through him that Kit couldn’t wait any longer.

Breaking the kiss, both of them breathing hard, Kit lowered his hands to her thighs, slid her dress up and wrenched her knickers down, feeling as he did so how wet, how ready for him she was. He released her for a moment so that she could kick them off while he grappled with his belt. Which, with shaking hands, was frustratingly difficult.

‘Let me,’ Lily muttered, brushing his hands aside, unbuckling his belt and then making swift work of the buttons of his jeans.

As she slipped a hand inside his shorts and caressed the rock-hard, aching length of him he groaned and nearly exploded right there and then.

‘Enough,’ he muttered, removing her hand and planting it on his neck.

‘Hurry,’ she said with an urgency that nearly obliterated his control.

‘Hold on to me.’

She did, wrapping her arms round his neck and her legs round his waist as he lifted her, pressed her back against the wall for support, and with relief, desire and heat rushing through him he drove into her.

At the warm, wet feel of her he let out a groan of pleasure, relief and who knew what else.

Lily moaned, dropped her head back but, honestly, he was too far gone to notice much what she was doing. All he could feel, and all he could think, was that he was in absolute heaven.

Then she moved and as heaven came that little bit closer Kit realised he was in deep trouble. Because he wanted to go slow, savour the moment, make sure that she was with him every step of the way, but it had been so long, so incredibly long, and if she didn’t hold still he’d lose what little control he had left.

‘Stop moving,’ he said roughly, his fingers digging into her thighs in an effort to hold her still.

‘I can’t help it,’ she whimpered.

As he gritted his teeth against the pressure she held on to him tighter, pressed herself closer. He could hear her breathing go haywire, could feel her tight around him, hear those little pants and he began to spin out of control.

‘Stop it now, Lily.’

‘No, it feels too good.’

She tilted her hips, pulled him in deeper and that triggered a primitive need in him he couldn’t begin to comprehend, let alone control. His head swam with the urge to take, to possess, to reclaim. His heart thundered and inside him there was simply too much urgency. Too much build-up. Too much everything, and his resistance collapsed beneath the sheer force of it.

His control now history, instinct took over and, with the sound of Lily’s whimpers and sobbing moans in his ear, he started blindly thrusting in and out of her, faster and harder, unable to stop or even slow down.

And just when the tightness gripping his lower body became unbearable, just when he thought he was about to implode beneath the pressure, or die from the intensity of the pleasure, he lost it.

With a great groan he erupted inside her, pulsating and spilling into her for what felt like for ever.

* * *

As hot sexual encounters went that one hadn’t quite delivered on its promise, thought Lily, her heart thumping, her breathing skittery and her body twitching and aching with unfulfilled desire while Kit collapsed against her.

But that was OK. She didn’t have to be up until seven and she had plenty of experience at recovering after burning the candle at both ends. Later she had a ten-hour plane ride during which she could catch up on sleep, and Kit spending the rest of the night making it up to her would be well worth any fatigue she suffered.

‘I’m sorry,’ Kit muttered, his voice muffled against her neck.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ she said softly, stroking the back of his neck and smiling at the thought of what was to come.

‘How could I not worry about it? That hasn’t happened to me since I was sixteen. I didn’t even take my coat off.’

A sense of pride surged up inside her at the memory of how keen he’d been. ‘Anyone would think it’s been a while.’

‘Anyone would be right.’

‘Really? How long?’ Surely it couldn’t rival the eighteen-month drought she’d had.

Not that she particularly wanted to think of him with a string of girlfriends, but the undeniable fact was that he was gorgeous, about to enter some rich list or another and, according to the gossip columns that she definitely didn’t read, single. A man like Kit wouldn’t lack company.

He sighed and her skin tingled beneath the warmth of his breath. ‘Five years.’

Lily stopped stroking his neck, frozen with astonishment. ‘What?’

‘Don’t make me repeat it.’

‘You haven’t had sex for five years?’

‘Not since our divorce.’

‘Truly?’

He grimaced. ‘You think it’s something I’d make up?’

It wasn’t. Who would?

And because it wasn’t and because of what it meant Lily felt instantly sick. Her blood went cold and her body went numb and her throat went tight.

Not because she’d weakened and let herself fall under Kit’s spell. And not because she was feeling twitchy with need and could feel him still hard inside her.

No. What was making her want to throw up, what was making her suddenly all shivery and achy and what was making her suddenly desperate to get him the hell out of her body and her house was the realisation that the last person he had had sex with before her just now must have been the woman he’d picked up at some work do while their marriage lay in ruins.

The knowledge triggered a deluge of memories. The devastation she’d felt when he’d told her what had happened. The excoriating hurt and agonising sense of betrayal. And then the pain and the disillusionment and the realisation that they really were over.

As the memories hit furious and fast she could feel a great wave of emotion begin to roll towards her, could feel herself about to break apart and she had to swallow hard to free her throat of the lump that had lodged there.

Unwinding her legs from around his waist, she shifted herself off him just as fast as she could. How could she have been so stupid? How could she have thrown away five years of protecting herself with such abandon? She’d fallen back into Kit’s arms without a care for herself. What the hell had she been thinking? How could she have resisted so little? How could she ever have imagined that they might be able to make another go of things? How could she have even wanted to?

Unable to look at him because God knew what he’d see in her eyes or on her face, she pulled her dress down and then used her fingers to smooth her tangled hair.

‘Lily?’ asked Kit, the concern in his voice showing that he’d sensed something had changed.

‘What?’ she said blankly, casting her gaze around the floor for her knickers and dimly aware that he was fixing his clothing and tucking his shirt into his jeans.

‘Are you all right?’

She bent down and swiped them up. ‘I’m fine.’

As she straightened he reached out to touch her face and she recoiled as if he’d struck her. Frowning, he pulled back and stared at her. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I think you’d better go.’

She needed space. Time. Privacy to examine the wounds, the scars of which had just been ripped off.

‘Not until you tell me what’s the matter.’

‘Nothing’s the matter,’ she said flatly. ‘You got what you wanted. Now go.’

He blanched at the bite of her tone. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t wait.’

As if that was what was upsetting her. ‘Forget it.’

‘No.’

‘Look, I was wrong,’ she said, bracing herself and looking up at him. ‘This was a mistake. An awful mistake that should never have happened and now I’d really like it if you went. Please.’

He must have heard the finality in her voice, must have sensed her weariness or something else, because for a long time he just looked at her. Then he nodded. ‘OK, fine,’ he said with a frown. ‘I’ll call you in the morning.’

And with that, he turned on his heel, opened the door and left.

* * *

Lily was avoiding him. That was the only explanation for it.

Kit sat at his desk in his office in the penthouse apartment of his London flagship hotel and the place he called home, and glowered at his phone, which might have been broken for all the use it had been so far.