The Gift (3 page)

‘Me, perverse?’ He took a long swallow of wine, his strong throat undulating against the open collar of his dark shirt, then paused, licking a droplet off his lips. ‘Well, not in that way.’ He finished his drink in another deep swallow. ‘I’m a plain and simple man, Sandy. I just see what I want and go after it.’

‘Like me?’

What on earth was she thinking? What had she said? It could be pure coincidence he was here. But then again, what was a perfect stranger who she’d first set eyes on this afternoon doing at a Chamber of Commerce Christmas party? She’d lay odds on the fact that he’d gate-crashed and, if he had, was it specifically to meet her?

His laugh pealed out, a rough sexy sound that drew the attention of folk nearby, mostly the women. The way they looked at him suggested that his scars and his fierce appearance didn’t reduce his attractiveness one bit. In fact, their hungry glances told Sandy that the way he looked made him infinitely more desirable, rather like a glamorous pirate or some other ruthless sexy scoundrel.

‘You’re very direct. But then, so am I. As a rule.’ Long, dark and splendidly thick eyelashes flickered down for an instant.

‘I’m staying here at the hotel for a few days. Would you like to come up and see my room, Sandy Jackson?’

‘No.’ Yes! ‘Of course not.’

She cursed a blue streak inside, feeling her face colour with a furious revealing blush. Hell, she didn’t know this man from Adam but suddenly she did want to go up to his room with him. It was insane, it was dangerous and it was downright sluttish, but there was something about his strange, scarred but still handsome face, and his large
powerful body that spoke directly to her own body, making it want him.

‘Why not?’

‘Because I don’t know you. I’m not sure I even like you. And I certainly don’t sleep with perfect strangers just minutes after I’ve met them.’

Jay shifted his weight between his feet, his eyes on her. She didn’t know how he was doing it but she couldn’t seem to move a muscle.

Her eyes moved though. She couldn’t stop skittering all up and down him, noting his white taunting smile, his uncompromising haircut and the long muscular lines of his limbs beneath his good suit.

She also noted, with a thud of her heart, that he was starting to get the makings of an erection.

Looking up again, her face crimson, she found his eyes upon her. Dropping her gaze again, she focused on her glass, twirling its pointless emptiness in her fingers.

‘More Champagne?’

He was laughing at her, the beast, laughing his arrogant sex maniac’s head off.

‘No … no thank you. I think I’ll get some air now. It’s been nice meeting you, Jay. I’ll see you around. Presumably …’

Still clutching her glass, she spun and darted for the door, cursing the stupid shoes that meant she couldn’t walk as fast as she wanted to. A second later, Jay was at her side. ‘Good idea. That air you mentioned … It’s too warm in here. I’ll join you.’ Reaching out confidently, he plucked the empty Champagne glass out of her fingers, and deposited it and his own on a passing waiter’s tray. ‘Let’s go that way.’ With his hand beneath her elbow, he began to guide her
towards a set of patio doors that led out to the Waverley’s gardens.

Disorientated, and fighting both Jay and her shoes, Sandy stumbled, only to be caught around the waist and held upright, almost off her feet, as if she weighed nothing. A piercing sense of déjà vu swept through her, and she teetered dangerously. Not pausing to give her time to protest, Jay gathered her up in his arms and began to carry her towards the doors to the garden.

‘Get off! Let me down! It’s just my shoes!’ she hissed in his ear, but his grip only tightened and his smile became infuriatingly arch and he-man.

‘All the more reason for me to carry you. Don’t make a fuss, woman.’

Sandy’s brain sent messages to her hands and arms to beat at Jay and to her body to wriggle in order to get loose. Her little evening bag swung on its chain from her shoulder as he walked and she felt like catching hold of it and using it to batter him around the head with. Yet somehow the nerve impulses got sidetracked, swept away by the raw power not only of him but of a deep persistent memory.

Transported across time, she relaxed, became pliant and curled her arms around his neck. She was suddenly living in the world of fifteen years ago, being rescued and carried to safety by her perfect knight. A beautiful Prince Charming figure, barely out of his teens, a scruffy backpacker, large and wonderful in his strength and kindness, with the face of an angel and long dark hair that tumbled to his shoulders. She even seemed to smell again his distinctive odour of male sweat and some musky incense-like cologne.

The expressions of astonishment and interest all around her seemed to come through a thick filter. The cocktail
party was a million miles away, apart from one grinning wag who stepped forward to open the door for them. All that really existed was the warm haven of protective arms, keeping her safe and comforting her after trauma.

The crisp winter air of the Waverley’s formal gardens rudely awakened her though, reminding her that she was a grown woman. She hadn’t just been mugged, and this was most definitely not the romantic Bohemian prince of her dreams whose large hand was curved evocatively around her thigh. Instead, it was a rude and overconfident man who might well have an unhealthy fixation on her. And one who’d just seen fit to make a complete exhibition of her in front of many of Kissley’s worthies and quite a few of her friends and acquaintances!

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? I was going to get my wrap first,’ she lied. ‘It’s the middle of winter and I’m wearing a strappy dress!’

Wriggling like fury achieved nothing, and she was about to escalate to thumping and punching when Jay stopped in front of a bench in a deep, hedged alcove, and set her gently down on it. Shrugging off his jacket, he swirled it around her shoulders, and then, sinking to his knees on the turf, he pulled off first one of her offending shoes, then the other.

‘Your feet were hurting and I carried you,’ he said, giving her a look as if she were an airhead. ‘God knows why you women wear these stupid things.’ He tossed the borrowed slingbacks away with obvious male disdain.

‘If you must know, they’re not mine and I was persuaded to wear them because they look good with this dress.’ It should have come out assertively, but the sweet relief of being out of the horrible shoes was warping her mind. All
she could do was lean back on the bench, wiggling her liberated toes and trying to get her bearings.

‘Hobnail boots would look good with that dress as long as you’re wearing it.’

Sandy’s eyes had closed in bliss because her toes were hurting less, but now they snapped open.

Perfect knight-type compliments too?

She opened her mouth, but couldn’t think of a single appropriately gracious remark. Jay’s eyes were glinting with a strange, vaguely confused intensity. He wanted her, that was obvious, but there was more than desire there. Something indefinable and enigmatic and possibly not even connected to sex at all.

‘Let me give you a foot massage.’

His rough voice was soft and low and, before she could answer, he took her right foot in both his hands, cradling it as if it were fashioned out of porcelain. Then he began to massage, delicately and yet with assertion, and what had been bliss became sublime, almost breathtaking pleasure. The sensation of his cool hands on her skin was like having an orgasm right there in her foot, and unable to stop herself she made a noise that told him so.

‘Good?’

‘Oh God, yes.’

What the hell am I doing?

She tried to wrest her toes from his grip, but he held on firmly. The pressure of his hands was unyielding without hurting her abused foot.

‘Hush … hush … Why are you struggling? You like this, don’t you?’

His fingers began to move again, pressing, circling, releasing tension and unwinding knots.

What is this? Reflexology?

Never one for alternative therapies, Sandy suddenly found herself an instant convert. His sensitive kneading of her metatarsals was having effects in most unexpected places.

Her sex. It was as if he was touching her sex. Stroking. Pressing. Fondling. Exploring. The impending orgasm was no longer confined to her foot.

‘No,’ she murmured, closing her eyes again, her face flaming. She tried to struggle again, but it was half-hearted, merely token.

‘Yes,’ he asserted, fingers still moving and circling.

Sandy slid down in the seat, her thighs parting. It was like being hypnotised by touch, mesmerised by sensation. All her negative reactions to him were dissipating like mist in the moonlight, leaving only a woman’s yearning for his strength and his mystery.

He was intent on her foot, studying it closely as he worked. Sandy felt drugged and dreamy, her body loose now, and fluid. Her sex was soft, open and ready, and she could feel silky arousal drench the crotch of her panties.

It’s a fantasy … just a fantasy … It’s not real.

And it seemed that way as she shifted her hips on the bench, bunching her dress beneath her as Jay continued to caress her foot. Drenched in euphoria, she stared down at him, loving the dark fuzz of his hair as it clung to his scalp, and the focused expression on his austere face. There seemed to be nothing sexual in his expression, but in her gut she knew he knew precisely what he was doing. The foot massage was a deliberate assault, a careful strategy for seduction.

And God, was it ever working. Her pussy felt wide and
pouched. Surely he could smell her arousal? He was close to it, and her dress was thin and silky, and her knickers even less substantial.

As if he’d heard her thoughts, he looked up at her, and with one last squeeze of her toes he abandoned her foot and ran his long fingers deliberately up her calf, to her knee. He cupped his hand around the back of it, the very tips of his fingers on the underside of her thigh, then he gripped harder, shifting her leg a little to the side on the bench, making space. Edging forward a little, he grew closer, ever closer to the heart of the matter.

Seemingly satisfied with his position, he slid his hands down flat, one on each of her thighs, and began to edge the silk hem of her dress up her freshly waxed legs. The dress was dark green, slightly iridescent with flashes of emerald, and it seemed to fluoresce in the twilight as if reacting to a magnetic field, or just the presence of Jay.

Looking directly into her eyes, he slid the edge of the silk up to her crotch, right up to the level of her panties. His expression was more complex than ever. Hot and hungry, but with drifting shadows in the dark-grey depths of his eyes. He seemed to want her, but not like a normal man. There was a strange reverence in his face, as if he too couldn’t quite believe what was happening.

Then, with a gasp, he pushed her silk skirt further, in a bunch, exposing her knickers.

Sandy felt weak, yet somehow also strong. Suddenly it was as if she were some kind of erotic goddess, exhibiting herself for his pleasure, and she sagged against the hard back of the seat, her body loose and boneless. Wanton.

Let whatever might happen now happen. She no longer cared about propriety or what was sensible. She no
longer cared that she barely knew this unusual scarred man. All that mattered was the way he looked at her, and the way that made her feel.

And she could smell herself now. A gust of warm, musky arousal seemed to float up from her crotch, from the saturated gusset of her fine panties. They were thin and lacy, not her usual style at all, and tiny curlicues of red pubic hair escaped the confines of the elastic at the edges. She supposed she should have trimmed or waxed there too, but there just hadn’t been time. Life running a small café on the edge of viability was always busy, and she was a practical girl, not a finicky fashion victim.

Two long, square yet tapered fingertips settled against the lace, flexing, pressing ever so lightly. The touch barely registered, yet at the same time it was the most profound sexual contact she’d ever experienced.

He’d been watching, watching what he was doing, and suddenly he looked up again, a raw question in his eyes.

Do you want this?
he seemed to say.
Only say stop, and I will.

Not needing to think once, let alone twice, she nodded.

His grey eyes widened. His entire face almost seemed to glow. Suddenly he looked divinely beautiful to her, beard and scars and all, and whatever was going to happen was right. Was good.

His flexible fingers hooked into the waistband of her knickers, and he raised his other hand to the job, tweaking the silk and lace down with both hands. Deftly, he teased the garment down over her thighs, and instinctively she lifted her bottom to help him take them off her.

As he tossed aside her pants, he let out a hiss of air, as if he’d been poleaxed, sideswiped simply by the sight of her
fragrant ruddy-haired pussy. Before she could analyse his reaction, and this unexpected expression of awe, he dipped forward and pressed a kiss to her pubic floss.

It seemed perfectly natural to cradle his skull in her hands, and she gasped with delight at the sensation of touching his scalp. It was like suede, heated suede, as if he was running a temperature.

He kissed the surface of her pubic hair, nothing more, lightly nuzzling her and uttering rough male purrs of wonder and delight. She opened her legs wider to him, loving the strong shape of his head beneath her fingertips, and as he pressed deeper she felt him murmur something against her, a word, low and fervent.

What had he said? She could barely tell … but it sounded like ‘Princess’.

Paradise. He was in paradise. Within the capsule of this moment, she was everything he’d dreamed she’d be. And more.

Inhaling her scent, tasting the essence of sex on the soft hair of her pussy, Jay felt giddy. His knees were screaming from kneeling on the cold ground, but the pain felt as if it were in another universe. The only thing that touched him was her fragrance, her heat, her total femininity, all available to him.