Australia: In Bed with a Bachelor

In the meantime, she couldn’t resist lifting her free hand to slide her fingers across Jake’s. ‘Your skin isn’t rough,’ she remarked.

He was amused by her checking. ‘I wear gloves for heavy work. You must do, too.’ He caught her hand and held it, caressing it as he had before, smiling into her eyes. ‘Definitely no calluses.’

Laura had difficulty catching her breath he was so utterly gorgeous and her mind was spinning with the wonder of how excited he made her feel. Only belatedly did it click into the line of conversation and produce a reply, the words coming out huskily. ‘My mother’s training. A lady should always protect her skin from damage.’

He stopped walking, halting both of them as he released her hand to lift his to her cheek, stroking it with exquisite softness. ‘No damage,’ he murmured.

His thumb slid under her chin, tilting it up. He un-hooked his arm from hers and wrapped it around her waist. His head bent and Laura watched his mouth coming closer and closer, her heart hammering in wild anticipation for the kiss she had been remembering all week.

It didn’t matter that they were standing on a public sidewalk in the centre of the city with people passing by. Everything beyond this moment with Jake faded into insignificance. The desire, the need to feel what he’d made her feel before, was pulsing through her.

His lips grazed over hers, igniting a host of electric tingles. His tongue flicked over them, soothing, seductively seeking entry, which she eagerly gave, wanting the deeper sensations, the erotic tasting, the rise of feverish passion that would blow away any lingering doubt about choosing to have this night with him.

Eagerly she surrendered her mouth to the intimate connection with his and almost instantly her inner excitement escalated, wiping all thought from her mind, making her super-aware of physical contact with him, the delicious pressure of touching points; breasts, stomach, thighs, a wild vibrancy pouring through her, making her ache with the intensity of feelings that had never been so overwhelmingly aroused.

This kiss was not just a kiss. It was total invasion, possession, wildfire sweeping beyond any control, burning her up with the need to have all of this man. Laura lost all sense of self. She was completely consumed by her response to him, and the response was too immediate, too powerful, too real for her to reason it away.

She wanted him.

More fiercely than she’d ever wanted anything.

It was a dizzying shock when he tore his mouth from hers and pressed her head onto his shoulder, making the separation decisive. Her heart was pumping so hard, the drumming of it filled her ears. Only vaguely did she hear him suck in breath. His chest expanded with it. He rubbed her back, probably an instinctive calming action. Her quivering nerve ends were grateful for it.

‘Shouldn’t have done that but I’ve been wanting to all evening,’ he muttered. ‘Are you okay to walk on, Laura?’

Hotel…alone together in private…bed…uninterrupted intimacy… ‘Yes,’ she breathed on a sigh that relieved some of the tense ache in her chest. ‘As long as you hold on to me.’

A deep sexy laugh rumbled from his throat. ‘Letting you go will be the problem, not holding on to you.’

His words struck a vulnerable chord in her that Laura instantly shied away from examining. ‘Let’s not think about problems,’ she said quickly, lifting her head to shoot him a look of needful appeal. ‘I only want to think about what we can have together.’

‘So do I,’ he answered, tenderly cupping her cheek as though she was something very precious, his dark eyes shining with pleasure in her. ‘It’s not far to the hotel now.’

‘Okay. Give me your arm.’

He tucked her close to him. The shakiness in Laura’s legs gradually lessened as they walked the rest of the way to the Intercontinental. Neither of them spoke. They moved in a haze of mutual desire, impatient for the fulfilment of it, everything else irrelevant.

The hotel had been built around the old treasury building, making spectacular use of its special features. Laura had shared an afternoon tea with her mother there after a shopping day in the city. The main gathering place was The Cortile, a marvellous two-storeyed area covered by a huge glass dome, with colonnaded walkways surrounding it. Tonight, as Laura and Jake headed around it to the reception area, elegantly dressed people were indulging in a late supper, enjoying the ambience and the music being played on a grand piano.

It was a classy hotel and Laura couldn’t help feeling pleased that Jake had chosen it. Somehow it made tonight with him more special. He collected their door-key from the receptionist and as they moved to the bank of elevators, he murmured, ‘I took a Bayview room. It overlooks the Botanical Gardens. I thought you’d enjoy the view over breakfast.’

Laura’s heart swelled with happiness. He’d been thinking of her, planning to give her pleasure. This wasn’t just about sex with him. They were going to share more. Much more. She had made the right decision. A journey with Jake Freedman was well worth having. She no longer cared about how far it might go or where it might end. He was the man she wanted to be with.

CHAPTER SEVEN

JAKE quickly slid the door-key into the slot just inside the room and the lights came on. Everything looked fine—classy, welcoming, and most important of all, providing a private oasis, not touching on Laura’s home environment nor his, completely separate to the lives they normally lived.

It had to be this way.

Bad enough that he was in the grip of uncontrollable desire for Alex Costarella’s daughter. Boundaries to this affair had to be set and kept. He couldn’t allow it to take over too much of his life. But right here and now he could satisfy his hunger for her, and to his immense relief she was up for it, no further delay to what they both wanted.

She walked ahead of him, moving towards the window seat with the view on the far side of the room. He watched the provocative sway of her hips, felt the tightening in his groin, started unbuttoning his shirt, impatient for action. She set her handbag on the desk as she passed it. Jake tossed his shirt on the chair in front of it, took off his shoes, his gaze fastening on her turquoise high heels with their seductive ankle straps. She had great legs and the thought of having them wound around him brought his erection to full tilt.

‘Lots of city lights but it’s too dark to see the botanical gardens,’ she remarked.

‘Won’t be dark in the morning,’ he muttered, unzipping his trousers.

She glanced back over her shoulder. ‘I think I like this view better,’ she said with sparkling interest, her eyes feasting on his bare chest and shoulders. ‘I’ve been wondering how you’d look naked.’

He laughed, exhilarated by the honesty of her lust for him. He whipped off the rest of his clothes, dumping them on the chair with his shirt. ‘Hope you’re not disappointed,’ he said, grinning with confidence, knowing his physique invariably drew attention from women at the gym.

‘Not one bit,’ she answered emphatically, examining all his bits, which raised the already high level of Jake’s excitement.

She lifted an arm and hooked the long tumbling fall of her black curls away from her neck, her other hand reaching for the top of the zipper at the back of her dress, obviously intent on removing her own clothes.

‘Let me,’ Jake said hastily, finding the bared nape of her neck incredibly erotic and wanting the pleasure of slowly uncovering the rest of her, visually feasting on her lush femininity.

A few quick strides and he was taking over the task, opening up the snugly fitting bodice, exposing the satin-smooth, elegant slope of her back, which, delightfully, was uninterrupted by a bra. The line of her spine created an intriguing little valley that compelled his finger to stroke the lovely length of it. His touch raised a convulsive shiver of pleasure and he smiled, knowing her body was as taut with excitement as his own, every nerve alive with sensitivity.

Eager to see more of her, he unzipped the top of the skirt and peeled it from her hips, letting it fall to the floor. The sight of a sexy black G-string encircling her small waist and bisecting a totally luscious bottom sucked the air from his lungs and blistered his mind with urgent desire. He barely stopped himself from moving forward and fitting himself to the tantalising cleft.

Better to remove the last scrap of clothing first. He hooked his thumbs under the waistband and glided it over the soft mounds, down the long, lissom thighs and the taut curves of her calves, every millimetre raising the raging heat in his blood. The flimsy fabric caught on the straps of the erotic shoes. Couldn’t leave them on. The stiletto heels could do him a damage in the throes of passion and Jake was already envisaging a huge amount of fantastic activity in bed.

‘Sit down, Laura. Makes it easier to take your shoes off.’

He was still crouched, ready to free her feet when she swivelled around and sat on the window seat. The eye-level view of her beautiful full breasts was a mind-blowing distraction. She leaned back so they tilted up at him, large rosy aureoles with peaked nipples shooting temptation. He stared, captivated for several moments before gaining his wits to lift his gaze to see if she was deliberately teasing him.

Her thickly lashed blue eyes looked darker than before, simmering with an inviting sultriness. She wanted him enthralled by her fabulous femininity, wanted to drive him wild for her. Whether it was a deliberate exertion of her woman-power or not, it reminded Jake of who she was and how careful he had to be not to become ensnared by this woman.

He fixed his attention on the shoes, forced his fingers to undo the ankle straps. In a few moments he could take all he wanted of her, revel in having it, and he would, all night long, but come the morning he had to be sane enough to walk away from her and keep her at a mental distance until the next time they were together.

Shoes off.

They were both completely naked now.

He stood up, and the act of towering over her triggered his sense of man-power. He was in charge of this encounter. He’d brought her to this cave and he would control everything that happened between them. With a surge of adrenalin-pumped confidence he leaned over, gripped her waist and lifted her off the window-seat, whirling her straight over to the bed, laying her down, positioning himself beside her with one leg flung over hers, holding her captive so he could touch the rest of her at will.

‘Kiss me again,’ she commanded, her voice huskily inviting, her eyes glittering with the need for passion to blow them both away.

‘I will,’ he promised, but not her mouth, not yet.

The rose-red nipples were pointed up at him, hard evidence of her arousal and he wanted her more aroused than he was. He closed his mouth around them, drawing on the distended flesh, sucking, his tongue swirling, lashing. She wrapped her hands around his head, fingers thrusting through his hair, dragging on his scalp, her body arching, aching for a more consuming possession.

Not yet… Not yet…

He swept a trail of hot kisses down over her stomach to the arrow of dark springy curls leading to the most intimate cleft between her thighs. He could smell the wonderfully heady scent of her desire for him as he dipped his mouth into the soft folds of her sex, intent on driving this centre of excitement to fever pitch. He exulted in tasting her hot wetness, exulted even more as she writhed to the rhythm of his stroking, crying out at the frantic tension building up inside her, jack knifing up to grab his shoulders and tug his body over hers.

He was ready to oblige now, knowing her entire being was screaming for him and he was still in control, though bursting to unleash his own knife-edge desire. As he lifted himself up, her legs locked around him, her hips already rocking, and there was no more waiting. He surged into the slick passage to the edge of her womb and dropped his head to ravish her mouth, wanting total invasion, absolute domination of this intimate togetherness.

Yet she met the attack of his kiss with an assault of her own, a fusion of heat that turned aggression into a melting pot of exploding sensations and he lost every vestige of control. Her legs goaded him into a series of fast thrusts, clamping around him at the point of deepest penetration as she moaned at the intense satisfaction of it, then rolling her hips around the hard heated fullness of him as he withdrew to plunge again, driven to hear and feel her pleasure in him over and over, wildly intoxicated by the sense of being drawn from peak to peak, each one raising the stakes to a higher level of fierce feeling.

It was like riding a storm, hurtling towards the eye of it at breakneck velocity, their lives hanging on holding on to each other until they reached beyond the violent shattering that threatened every escalating moment and landed in a place where they could peacefully return to themselves again. Jake didn’t care how long that took…minutes, hours.

It was a fantastic journey—her response to him, what he felt himself, a host of primal elements whipping them towards a final crescendo. The breakthrough was a totally cataclysmic moment, both of them crying out as the storm released them into a free fall of exquisite delight and they floated down on a sweet cloud of ecstasy, still clamped together as they shifted into a more relaxed embrace, prolonging what they had shared as long as they could.

Even just cuddling her close to him was sweet, smelling the scent of her hair, winding strands of it around his fingers, rubbing his cheek over its silkiness, feeling the rhythm of her breathing in the rise and fall of her breasts against his chest, the sensual stroking of one of her legs between his, knowing she was still revelling in feeling him.

Eventually thoughts drifted through Jake’s mind, carrying a need to make sense of why this sexual experience with Laura had been so incredibly intense. Never before had he been completely locked into having a woman like this, driven to take, driven beyond what he’d previously known. His liaisons with other women had been more casual pleasures, enjoyable, relaxing—what he’d considered normal. Why did the animal chemistry go deeper with Laura Costarella?

She was definitely the most beautiful woman he’d ever taken to bed. Had that heightened his excitement? Somehow he couldn’t quite believe that would affect him so much. His mind kept niggling at her family connection to Alex Costarella. Was it because of who she was, linking her to the passion for retribution, which had consumed most of his life for the past ten years? Or did the fact that she should have remained forbidden to him cause the difference?

Impossible to pin it down. All he absolutely knew was he couldn’t allow this affair to escalate into a serious relationship. If he kept to that, surely he could simply enjoy what she gave him—her companionship over the dinners he would arrange, and the intense physical pleasure they would share in bed together afterwards.

Settling on this determination, Jake shut down on the questions, intent on making the most of this night together. ‘Feeling good?’ he asked, wondering what she was thinking, if she was happily satisfied with her decision to set aside her reservations about him.

‘Mmmh…very good.’

There was a smile in her voice.

He didn’t need to know any more. He smiled his own contentment with the situation.

She began an idle stroking of his body—slow, erotic caresses, which instantly stimulated him into touching more of her, lingering over every voluptuous curve, loving the wonderfully sensual feel of her womanliness. Touching moved into kissing as they explored each other in intimate detail, arousing the need to merge again, to feel all that could be felt between them.

It was marvellous, less frenzied this time but still incredibly exciting with the mutual abandonment of all inhibitions. It left Jake feeling flooded with pleasure, and the gradually ebbing waves of it lulled him into a deep untroubled sleep.

Laura woke to morning light. They’d forgotten to draw the curtains last night, too consumed with each other to think of anything beyond the sensational intimacy they’d shared. She rolled over to look at the man who had taken her to heights of pleasure she had never even imagined, let alone known.

He was still asleep. Despite the brilliant dark eyes being shut, his face was still strongly handsome and his body… She sighed over how perfectly manly it was, just the right amount of muscularity and everything ideally proportioned. Absolutely gorgeous. Sex appeal in spades. What a fantastic night she’d had with him! No regrets, that was for sure! Whatever happened next between them, this was one experience she would never forget.

Careful not to wake him, she slid off the bed and padded quietly to the bathroom, wanting to freshen up and look good when he did open his eyes. She grabbed her handbag off the desk in passing, glad that it contained a small hairbrush and lipstick. With no change of clothes to wear, it was a relief to find bathrobes provided for guests. She could lounge around in one of them until it was near time to leave the hotel.

Having showered and groomed herself as best she could, Laura returned to the bedroom to find Jake still asleep. Quite happy for a little time on her own, she settled on the window-seat, her back against the side wall, feet up on the cushion, arms hugging her knees, instinctively wanting to hug in all the lovely feelings generated by last night with Jake.

It wasn’t just the sex, although that had been unbelievably awesome. Even now her heart swelled with the sheer joy of learning how marvellous it could be with the right man. Nothing could have felt more right to her, which made her wonder if it was wrong to stand back from a serious relationship with Jake. So far she liked everything he had shown of himself, and definitely wanted to know a lot more. Maybe they could have something great together.

The view of the botanical gardens caught her eye. A stroll through them would be a pleasant way of continuing the day—time to chat about their interests and look for more common ground between them. She would like to see the house he was renovating, too, the kind of home he was making for himself. The environment people chose to live in could speak volumes about them. Sharing the private life of Jake Freedman was an exciting prospect and Laura was hugging that to herself, too, when his voice broke into her hopeful reverie.

‘Happy with the view this morning?’

She laughed, bubbling over with high spirits and looking at him with sparkling pleasure. ‘It’s lovely! The sun is shining and it’s going to be a beautiful day.’

He grinned at her as he rolled out of bed, saying cheerfully, ‘So let’s make a start on it. Call room service and order breakfast for both of us while I freshen up in the bathroom.’

‘What would you like?’

‘You choose. I have great faith in your food judgement.’

He left her grinning, enjoying the back view of him as he headed off to the bathroom. Only when this vision was cut off did she swing her legs off the window-seat and set about ordering their breakfast, choosing what she wanted herself and hoping Jake would be pleased with everything.

He came out of the bathroom, wearing the other bathrobe and checking his watch. ‘It’s eight o’clock now. How long before room service arrives?’

‘About another twenty minutes.’

The dark eyes twinkled sexily. ‘Only time for a good-morning kiss then. And no disrobing.’

‘We have the rest of the day,’ she suggested happily as he drew her into his embrace.

He frowned. ‘No. No we don’t. There’s work I have to get done on the house before the plumber comes tomorrow.’

‘Can I help you?’ she asked impulsively, wanting to be with him.

He shook his head. ‘You would be a major distraction, Laura. I’ll work more efficiently on my own.’

He grazed his lips over hers—a distraction that didn’t quite soothe the stab of disappointment over the rejection of her offer. She told herself his reasoning was fair enough and opened her mouth for a whole-hearted kiss. He’d given her a wonderful night and there would be more in the future. No need to be greedy, asking for today, as well.

It was a soft, very sensual kiss, and he withdrew from it before it escalated into wild passion, brushing her hair tenderly from her face, smiling into her eyes. ‘Thank you for last night. We’ll do it again soon,’ he promised her.

‘Thank you. I’ll look forward to it,’ she said, inwardly craving much more from him but doing her best to accept the situation gracefully.

‘I’ll book a taxi to take you from the hotel to Eddie’s apartment after we’ve had breakfast.’ He stepped back from her and moved towards the telephone on the desk, asking, ‘Where does he live, Laura?’

‘Paddington.’

‘That’s handy.’ He grinned at her as he picked up the receiver. ‘We can share the taxi. I’ll see you to his place first before going on home.’

‘Where do you live?’

‘Next suburb. Woollahra.’

Virtually in walking distance from Eddie’s apartment, she thought, watching him make the call. She wanted to ask what street, but held her tongue, knowing she would be tempted to go there and suddenly frightened of how deeply she was being drawn by this man.

Jake didn’t want a full-on relationship. He’d told her so at dinner last night. And she had been super-cautious about going down that road, too. Obviously nothing had changed for him. It shouldn’t have changed for her, either. She had to keep her head straight about this, not get twisted up by emotions that could mess with the decisions she’d made about her life.

A journey with meeting places.

Best to keep to that.

But somehow she couldn’t really take pleasure in the breakfast they shared. It didn’t sit right in her stomach. And she hated the taxi trip to Paddington, knowing Jake was travelling on without her. It took an act of will to smile her goodbye at him. And then, of course, she had to face Eddie and say everything had been fine.

Which was the truth.

Though not quite.

It had been fantastic, brilliant, totally engaging.

Too engaging.

And that was dangerous.

CHAPTER EIGHT

TO Eddie’s inevitable query about her night with Jake Freedman, she breezily answered, ‘Great food, great sex, and marriage is not on the menu for either of us so don’t worry about my becoming a victim of secret agendas. That’s definitely out!’

Later in the day, she settled her mother’s concern with, ‘It won’t become a serious relationship, Mum. It was just a dinner date, which I might or might not repeat.’ With a mischievous smile, she added, ‘Depends on how good the restaurant is if he asks me out again.’

It made her mother laugh. ‘Oh, you and food!’

And she cut off her father’s probe into the personal connection by regaling him with details of every spicy dish she’d tasted, virtually dismissing Jake’s company as pleasant enough but relatively unimportant.

However, it was easier to establish in other people’s minds that an involvement with Jake was not a big issue than it was to convince herself. Life simply wasn’t the same as before she met him. He dominated her thoughts, especially at night when she was alone in bed, her body restless with memories of their intense intimacy. It was impossible to block him out for long and she grew angry and frustrated with herself for not being able to set him at a sensible distance, especially as day followed day without any contact from him.

He hadn’t given her his mobile telephone number.

He obviously had a silent land number at his Woollahra home because his name wasn’t listed in the telephone directory.

No way could she call him at work because her father might get to hear about it.