One Night Only / No Strings

But instead she stood and watched him leave while her stomach flopped to her coffee-speckled shoes.

Get a grip. You’re a grown-ass woman. Soon to be Dr Essie Newbold, psychologist and relationship guru. Not some insecure sad sack ruled by her hormones.

She straightened her spine and prepared to follow Ben’s lead and leave the room that shrank the minute she and Ash were alone, compressing the available oxygen.

‘Well, you failed to mention this last night...’

She yanked her stare back to Ash.

Every minute hair on her body stood to attention. Ben seemed to have taken the sun with him, too, because the room’s temperature plummeted as Essie and Ash faced off.

‘Me?’ Was he for real? ‘What about you?’ Playing the charming tourist and allowing her to believe he’d be leaving town in a few days. Laughing at her London anecdotes and listening intently when she’d offered top tips for surviving the capital, when all the time he probably knew the city better than her. If she’d known last night that he owned a sizeable chunk of St James’s, she might have put two and two together and kept her knees and her mouth shut.

And now she and Mr Moneybags had to survive an intolerable working relationship, where every time they crossed paths she’d blush beet red at her folly.

Her phone vibrated in her bag, a reminder it was time to publish the blog post she’d drafted that morning. Oh, the irony. She’d waxed lyrical about casual sex, clutching her shiny new members’ badge to the one-night-stand club. Now the pieces of that newfound air of authority lay scattered around her two left feet.

Perhaps she could quickly pen an alternative piece: How to work with people you want to...jump.

No.

Not jump. Ignore.

Ash stepped close, his big manly body producing enough heat to scorch her bare arms, lobster red. Flicks of blue flame danced in his eyes.

‘I didn’t conceal anything. I just didn’t mention anything personal.’

The unspoken hovered in the air... Unlike you.

Essie wanted to curl in on herself, but she held her head high. Being eager to take off her casual sex training wheels was nothing to be ashamed of.

‘If you made wrong assumptions, that’s your problem,’ he bit out. ‘And what was with the “My phone died. Please take a photo for me...” Why were you playing the tourist? You live here.’

She’d wanted the photo for a future blog post, the wheel symbolic of the spectrum of human emotions and the sun catching the Eye a reflection of hope—a new day. But she couldn’t tell him that, couldn’t tell him about the blog. Not when her reckless, mind-blowing one night with him was the focus of today’s post. When she published it later, this new element of fucked-upness, would give the subject matter even more credence—a cautionary tale of how people concealed what they really were to get what they wanted. To get laid.

The perils of casual sex...

‘You’re the one who lied. Ash the tourist? From what Ben told me, you own half of London.’ Typical. She’d inherited her bad taste in men from her mother...

She bit the inside of her cheek, scalding heat flooding her body. Her mum was a good person who’d raised Essie virtually single-handedly. No, she only had herself to blame for her foolhardy behaviour last night and its humiliating consequences this morning.

Where were all the honest, dependable, upfront men? And why was she a magnet for the opposite type? The ones who evaded the truth, like Ash. The ones who claimed they wanted a relationship but took more than they gave, like her ex. The ones who made promises and then broke them and threw money at the situation so they avoided dealing with real life, like her unreliable, phoney father...

Ash’s stare raked over her features. ‘So?’ He lifted his chin, looking down his nose with a lazy smirk on his face. ‘You didn’t seem to care who I was last night. In fact, all you seemed concerned about was marking your one-night-stand card—or was that part of the act, too?’ He inched into her personal space, invading until the breadth of his chest eclipsed her field of vision.

Essie placed the flat of her hand between his well-developed pecs, ignoring the burn of his body heat and the clean male scent wafting up from his expensive shirt.

‘I’m not the only one who made wrong assumptions. And I rocked your world last night, counsellor.’ Her fingers wanted to curl, to dig, to tug. But she forced them to stay flat. Time to put some boundaries in place. No matter how fantastic their brief, steamy interlude, the after shame currently making her hot and twitchy rendered the high worthless. Another important post–casual sex lesson she could impart to her readers.

His mouth kicked up on one side, and he snorted a soft gust of air.

‘Funny, I thought I’d rocked your world?’

Her internal muscles clenched at the memories of his spectacular manhood. She laughed, stepping away from toe-tingling temptation and heading for the door with a shake of her head. There was no chance of damaging this man’s ego, but she didn’t trust her voice to emerge without the breathiness that made her light-headed.

‘No?’ His hurled question stopped her in her tracks. ‘We could rectify that situation, right now.’ He flicked his stare to the uncluttered slab of a desk, his sinful mouth twisted, but his eyes hot.

Challenging?

Essie imagined herself spread there with Ash, determined to prove something, between her thighs. Thighs that loved the idea if the tremble between them was any indication. She instinctively knew that sex with hot lawyer Ash would be twice as intense as sex with hot tourist Ash. No mean feat.

Tempting.

Lying made sense, serving a dual purpose of bringing him down a peg or two and fortifying her own wobbly defences.

‘There won’t be anything more between us. I’m here for Ben, my brother. And, as you’ll remember from last night, I don’t trust your type.’

His cocky, lopsided smirk lifted her shoulders until they threatened to dislocate.

‘You’re right, there won’t be.’ He closed the distance between them, his dismissive stare dipping down the length of her body. ‘Ben is my friend, this is my business and I don’t trust anyone.’

‘Good. So we agree on one thing.’ That didn’t mean she couldn’t toy with him as he toyed with her. Make him crave a repeat performance. One he’d never get to experience. It was childish and vengeful and filled her with white-hot shame. But she longed to cut the arrogant jerk down to size. To claw back some of the dignity her poor choice and shabby vetting had decimated.

He nodded. ‘It seems so. I made it clear yesterday—one shot is all you get from me.’

Her back teeth ached as she ground them together. ‘What a gent you are. Ladies must be lined up around the block.’ She forced his spicy scent from her nose with a short snort.

He raised his dark brows. ‘I’ve never had any complaints. And you didn’t walk away unsatisfied.’

She wanted to deny his prowess. To tell him he’d been a lousy lay, but that was one lie too far. Instead she stepped closer, fighting the urge to rub her body against his like a cat. ‘As you’re so...experienced in the casual sex department, I’m sure you know this.’ She looked up at him from beneath her lashes. ‘There’s a world of difference between mindless fucking and the ultimate connection found during a real, honest human interaction.’

She dropped her head back with a prolonged sigh, feigning a look of utter ecstasy while she ran her fingertips slowly down the length of her exposed throat. She released a breathy moan, her hand coming to rest at the top of her cleavage.

And then she snapped her head up and dropped her arm to her side. Her expression returned to one of mild scorn while power blazed through her nervous system at the sight of lust glittering in his eyes and the tent in the front of his trousers.

‘If you’ve never experienced the latter—’ a shrug ‘—I feel sorry for you.’ She smiled her brightest beam. ‘Have a good day.’

She turned on her heel and left his office with her burning back ramrod-straight and her belly quivering in time to the soundtrack of When Harry Met Sally.

CHAPTER THREE

ESSIE SPENT THE rest of the day holed up in Ben’s office answering phone calls, sending emails and hiding from Ash. For all her bravado, her encounter had left her shaken to the core. Not because his confirmation there would be no more sex in their future left her reliving their one night together, over and over until her erogenous zones ached and clamoured for a rerun, but because, burning with righteous indignation, she’d rashly clicked publish on that morning’s blog post, retitling it The OMG Pros and One-Night Cons of Casual Sex, while still reeling from their verbal and sexually charged spat. And now her tongue-in-cheek cautionary tale of her first one-night stand winged its way through cyberspace to land in the inboxes of the thousands-strong audience her relationship blog attracted.

Stupid.

Reckless.

But providing a belly-warming kick of satisfaction.

Her small, naughty smile turned into a lip nibble.

Thinking about her blog should have brought her a sense of pride. Her usual posts were heavily theoretical and science based, calling on the latest psychological research on relationships, love and the complexities of all forms of human interaction.

But crammed full of shame, betrayal and an overwhelming head spin of good sex hormones, she’d thrown caution to the wind and edited her earlier draft with personal details of her explosive but reckless night with Ash, detailing a pared-down version of the sheet-clawing sexploits and their disastrous morning-after fallout as reasons for prudence.

She’d kept it totally anonymous, only referring to Ash as Illegally Hot, but she shouldn’t have mentioned him at all. She was a professional with a serious academic reputation to consider, not some kiss-and-tell reality blogger.

Her belly twisted even as her breathing accelerated, a sickening swirl of opposing emotions. The added personal anecdotes afforded her writing an air of authority she’d never before believed she possessed. As if, overnight, she’d become a true expert, at least on her chosen topic.

Heady stuff.

She grinned, dragging her lip back under her teeth as the first comment came in, lighting up her phone with a ping.

Well, BatS*#tCrazy liked it. They’d even asked where they could find Illegally Hot...

Bugger—it was too late now for regrets.

She slammed her laptop shut with screen-cracking force. Ash didn’t strike her as an avid pop psychology reader—he’d never know.

As the triumphant head rush dwindled, the lip-gnawing insecurity returned, full-blown. She’d begun her blog, Relationships and Other Science Experiments, as a first-year psychology undergraduate. Still struggling with the knowledge of her father’s betrayal, emotionally and geographically isolated from a half-brother she’d never met and angry with her father’s desertion and the lies he’d spun to cover it up, she’d taken to putting her own complex and often overwhelming feelings and thoughts into a sort of online diary. Shortly after, she’d made the mistake of falling in what she’d assumed was love. Two tumultuous years later, the ex she’d pinned all her happily-ever-afters on had left her with her self-esteem in tatters, and her heart seriously doubtful that honest, dependable men—let alone love—actually existed.

Around the same time, she’d fallen in academic love with social psychology and her fascination with the intricacies of human relationships began, guiding both her writing and her choice of PhD study.

Initially, she’d been amazed to acquire a handful of keen followers who had warmed to her quirky, often humorous take on the complexities of interpersonal dealings. No subject was taboo. From the rude man on the Tube to the day-to-day social minefield of undergraduate life, she tackled the full gamut of complex interactions humans faced and presented the science behind them.

And now she had a whole heap more fodder for her writing in the guise of her sexy but arrogant boss, her one night of orgasmic bliss and the awkward, self-inflicted quagmire her temporary job had become.

Essie reopened her laptop, determined to end the day leaving no stone unturned when it came to her responsibilities towards Ben. With tomorrow’s to-do list stuck on a virtual sticky note on her desktop, she performed one last check of her emails before heading home.

There was one from Ben’s interior designer and another from his PA, asking for her bank account details for payroll. But it was the one from her brother, entitled A Favour, that she pounced upon.

Essie

I left some documents in the safe for Ash to sign. I can’t get hold of him—suspect he’s still jet-lagged and has fallen asleep. Can you please take them around to him and then scan the signatures through to the bank before six p.m.?

PS A spare set of keys to Ash’s apartment is also in the safe, in case he’s out of it and doesn’t hear you knock.

A combination number and address accompanied the request.

Essie dropped her head into her hands, tempted to headbutt the laptop screen and pretend she hadn’t read the urgent missive. The last thing she wanted was any further interaction with Ash after last night’s reckless abandon and today’s humiliating reunion.

Didn’t billionaires have teams of lackeys traipsing after them, doffing their caps and facilitating their masters’ every whim? Why her?

But Ben would be in the air by now en route to New York. There was no escape. If she kept her head, kept her focus on the goal and not the infuriating, sexy-as-fuck Ash...her mission couldn’t fail.

Get in. Don’t have sex with him.

Acquire a signature. Don’t have sex with him.

Get out. Don’t have sex with him.

Simple.

* * *

Ash closed his eyes, braced his palms flat on the tile and let the steaming water pound down on his head. Perhaps it would rattle some fucking sense into his brain.

Stupid. Impulsive. Fantastic sex.

He curled one hand into a fist, knuckles bloodless.

He’d moved to London to claw back control of the wrong turn his life had taken, not to embroil himself in another personal shit storm of epic proportions. While he licked his wounds and disentangled his suddenly public personal life, he’d hoped to forge a new path away from Jacob Holdings. A fresh start. Something of his own, untainted by his father.

Sleeping with the intriguing and exotic stranger he’d met in the park had been beyond reckless. He should have vetted her beyond her flirtatious smiles, her sexy laugh and her astounding body. But he’d been charmed by her bubbly, ingenuous personality, so unlike the somewhat cynical sophisticates he normally bedded.

Cynical like him.

And she’d upped the intrigue factor with her hesitant confession of her relative inexperience.

Fuck.

Ash dumped a palmful of shampoo onto his head. But knowing exactly who she was only threw up more questions. If Essie lived in London, why the hell did she need a picture of one of its iconic landmarks? If she had a degree and a PhD, why was bar work so appealing? And what was the deal with her and Ben?

He scrubbed at his scalp, nails punishing. Now, not only did he have to work with her—fucking eyeball-scalding torture right there—but he also had to watch her prance her sexy ass around his club covered in those flirty little dresses she liked to wear, all the while keeping his libido under control and his hands to his damned self.

Screwed.

He rinsed his hair, welcoming the sting as the suds ran into his eyes.

Not that he’d known it at the time, but sleeping with Essie had broken one of his life’s cardinal, cast-iron, unbreakable rules: Never screw a mate’s sister—the golden bro code every decent male lived by.

And he was decent. He didn’t use people. He didn’t cheat. And he considered the consequences of his actions.

Usually.

Unlike his no-good, lying, asshole father.

His other rule—never more than one night—well, he hadn’t broken that...yet. Although he’d been sorely tempted in his office earlier.

It was sure as shit going to test every single ounce of the rigid control he not only prided himself on but needed like oxygen in order to resist temptation. The minute she’d walked into his office behind Ben he’d wanted her again so badly he’d had to think of his whisker-chinned, sixth-grade music teacher Miss Lemmon to stave off his boner.

When he’d awoken at four that morning to find her gone, part of him had sagged back on the pillows with relief. He’d done his job. Shown her a good time—actually, a fucking fantastic time.

Yes, she’d understood the unspoken rules, sneaking out of his hotel room in the middle of the night. No number on the nightstand. No scribbled note demanding he call her. No hijacking his cell phone. But the sense of relief had done little to comfort him. A part of him, the part left restless by betrayal and humiliation, the part he’d hoped to leave behind in New York, had coiled like colic in his gut until he’d arisen before the dawn, taken a frigid shower and numbed his mind with several hours of legal work.

Despite walking away from Jacob Holdings, he still had unfinished deals for the family business, one in particular that, as shareholder, he had a personal interest in. No matter how much he might want to throw his father under the bus in retribution, he had his sisters’ future inheritance to protect and his mother’s share when her divorce from the old bastard was finalised. At least he could atone for causing the split by recommending a hotshot divorce attorney to get his mother a fair slice of the pie. But even drafting a complex and lengthy contract hadn’t dragged his mind away from the fascinating Essie.

He sighed, succumbing to the inevitable. Every muscle clenched and his cock thickened. He gave it a couple of lazy tugs as the memory of Essie’s whimpers and her cries echoed inside his head...

Ash slammed his eyes open and slapped the tile beside the showerhead. Here he was thinking about the other ways he’d like to fuck her, when there wasn’t going to be a next time. There should never have been a first time.

He’d been done with women even before he’d set foot on English soil. Plus she was Ben’s sister and now his club’s temporary manager. An employee. And, more importantly, someone he couldn’t trust.

Perhaps he could fire her? Employ a replacement manager before Ben returned from his trip and say it hadn’t worked out with Essie. But Ben, quite rightly, wouldn’t tolerate the slight. And if it came out that Ash had fucked his little sister and then fired her for humiliating him, their longstanding friendship wouldn’t survive. And right now, Ash needed his friend—the only friend he could be certain hadn’t known what his fiancée had really been up to all those years ago.

Her dumping him practically at the altar had left him struggling to trust the opposite sex, but his father’s recent revelations and the public backlash had thrown Ash into a tailspin until he no longer knew which way was up and who he could rely upon not to snigger behind his back.

Of course, Ben didn’t know the latest twist, the one that had prompted Ash’s departure from New York. How the third wheel in his past relationship—the work colleague she’d claimed to have cheated with—had been nothing but a ruse. A decoy to stave off the marriage his ex had no longer wanted and conceal what had really been happening. Ash closed his eyes against his own reflection in the glass. Some things were so shameful they couldn’t be shared, no matter how good the friend.

He completed his shower routine with a bitter taste in his mouth. A taste that morphed into the sweetest honey when Essie slipped back into his mind. With her blue eyes blazing and indignation thickening her accent and giving her extra height...he’d wanted to kiss her pinched-with-disapproval mouth and haul her spectacular ass out of his club at the same time.

She’d duped him. And no one duped him any more. He made sure of that in his professional sphere; his uncompromising reputation had become legendary.

And personally...? Fuck, there he was a mess. But he’d get there if it killed him. He’d claw back control, starting with his libido and the temptation threatening to derail him in the shape of Essie Newbold.

Now he had to spend the next two months both avoiding her and checking up on her so she had no opportunity to hoodwink him again. Not to mention hiding the fact he’d fucked her from his best friend, all the while fighting the urge to repeat the mistake.

Hi, Ben, how was New York? You know how I never date? Yeah, you understand why... Well, just FYI, I fucked your shiny new sister and I wouldn’t mind having another crack at it, no strings. Hope you don’t mind...

For a man who loved the law, loved truth and valued honesty and loyalty, he had certainly waded in some pretty murky waters recently. And it messed with his already reeling head.

He’d thought a satisfying night with the bubbly, curvaceous redhead would soothe his battered pride and redress the balance. But all it had done was land him deeper in the shit and reaffirm his stance on trusting no one.

Slamming out of the fogged-up cubicle, Ash threw a towel over his head and scrubbed at his hair. Looping that one around his damp shoulders, he quickly towelled his legs dry and then wrapped the second towel around his waist.

Just as he’d finished cleaning his teeth, he heard the noise and froze, every sense on high alert.

Someone was inside his apartment.

His SW1 penthouse apartment equipped with state-of-the-art security.

‘Um, hello...?’ A female voice.

Tossing the towel from around his neck, he strode from his en-suite bathroom, expecting perhaps to find the building manager or the cleaner he’d hired to ready the place for his arrival.

He came to a halt just inside his bedroom.

Essie stood in the doorway, her cheeks flushed as if she’d been running and her mouth hanging open as her stare took a slow, sensual meander over his naked torso. Her hot eyes settled on his groin.

He’d been hard most of the day, thinking about her and their night together. Hard in the shower, tempted to bang one out just to attain a measure of relief from the memory of her tight warmth gripping him. And now here she was. Wide eyes touching every inch of his bare skin, and the hard again parts of him behind the towel.

Her chest lifted and fell with shallow pants, which pushed her luscious, pert breasts in his direction. Having taken her time leisurely touring his body, she met his stare again.

He lifted one brow, lips twitching, tempted to fling off the towel so she could really go to town.

‘You wanted something?’ Had she come for a do-over? Fuck—that was refreshing.

It wasn’t his usual style, but damn if he wasn’t seriously considering bending the rules and bending her over. Just to clarify that it had been as ball-emptying as he remembered.

No. He didn’t do second times. Clearly his libido was on New York time.

She stuttered back to life. ‘I... I... Ben needs you to sign these forms for the bank. He couldn’t get hold of you.’ A pretty pink flush stained her chest above the neckline of her dress, which still bore this morning’s coffee stain. It did nothing to diminish her allure. If anything, it heightened her attractiveness, a sign she was human, clumsy and lacked the vanity to rush home and change.

‘I was in the gym and then the shower. How did you get in?’ He took the folder from her and tossed it onto the bed. Perhaps he should offer her the use of his washer and dryer...get another glimpse of that phenomenal body.