The Best Of The Year - Modern Romance 2016

‘Not that you’ve been plain sailing!’

Theo burst out laughing and Alexa reluctantly smiled.

‘Some men might find your fighting spirit a little challenging, but I admit that I’m growing to rather like it. And now that we’ve established a fragile truce I wouldn’t want to ruin it by forcing you to build your nest on the chaise longue, so I’ll take the floor.’

Alexa nodded.

Good.

But it was a super king-sized bed, and the floor was going to be an uncomfortable resting place even for a guy who probably survived on only a couple of hours sleep a night.

She escaped to the bathroom, washed her face and brushed her teeth and changed into her pyjamas. Feverishly she decided that whilst she could continue ranting and railing and behaving like a child, she could also just...trust that new side of him she had seen. He wasn’t going to make a pass at her just because they happened to be lying on the same mattress, was he? She had been superimposing her own anxieties on to him and it was foolish.

He took the bathroom after her and she pretended not to notice the fact that he was already half naked...that the button to his trousers was undone...that she could see a sliver of his underwear where the trousers dipped down over his lean hips.

In the fifteen minutes during which she heard the whoosh of water and the sounds of him getting ready she tried to get her racing heartbeat under control, and she was burrowed down under the duvet by the time the bathroom door was flung open.

She sneaked a glance and heaved a sigh of relief that he was still in his boxers.

‘Well, well, well...’ Theo strolled into the room and registered that she was in the bed but that there was no pile of linen on the floor, waiting to be turned into a sleeping area. Instead she had banked some cushions down the middle of the mattress in a neat dividing line.

Alexa flipped over and feigned a yawn of exhaustion. ‘It’s silly for either of us to sleep on the floor. The bed is huge and there’s no reason why we can’t share it like two adults.’

‘I like your definition of sharing like two adults...’ He nodded at the military march of cushions along the middle of the bed.

Reluctantly she grinned. ‘I thought it might be a good idea to have separated sides.’

‘Of course.’

Theo was amused at just how innocent that gesture was. He climbed into bed, his antennae noting the way she shifted ever so slightly away from him. She was clearly awake, but she wasn’t reading her book and she certainly wasn’t about to engage in conversation. He reached for his laptop, propped it on his lap and casually asked if it would bother her if he worked for a couple of hours. He was even more amused when she didn’t answer.

Bother her? It bothered her that he was even breathing next to her, far less working.

Her body was rigid. She would never manage to get a wink of sleep. She knew that. Nor would she be able to toss and turn. If she tossed and turned he would guess that she was awake, plus she would keep him up, and then they’d both be awake...in a bed...just the two of them...

Sleep overcame her. It had been a long and tiring day and her exhausted body at last won the battle over her hyperactive mind.

She dreamt that she was skimming over the clouds, looking down. And then, as she looked behind her, over her shoulder, Theo was advancing, getting closer and closer. Part of her wanted desperately to run away, but another, stronger part was holding her fast and liked the fact that she couldn’t move, that he would get closer and closer, and their bodies would fuse... She would be able to skim her hands over his broad chest and feel the rough surface of muscle and tendon...

The dream was so real that she could almost feel his hands on her, brushing against her thigh and then curving between her legs. She moaned softly.

Her eyes fluttered open and...she wasn’t dreaming.

For a few seconds Alexa was completely disorientated. The strategically positioned cushions had hit the floor at some point during the night, and not only had she rolled towards Theo but right now the palm of her hand was flat against his hard chest and he was as awake as she was.

And holding her against him as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Her limbs felt heavy and lazy and, just like in her dream, whilst a part of her desperately knew that she should pull away, another part of her felt heavy and warm and lazy, utterly incapable of doing anything but revelling in the feel of his equally warm body.

‘Shh...’ Theo murmured, as if she had spoken.

After lying in complete silence while he had tried to focus on work Alexa had eventually fallen asleep. He had known by the change in the rhythm of her breathing and, oddly enough, having her asleep next to him had made him a little jumpy.

He had managed to subdue his disobedient libido when it had reared its head and he had done that by rationalising it out of existence. He was in an unnatural and forced situation—heading down the aisle and not by choice. He was with a woman whose emotionalism was not the kind of thing he sought or appreciated in any woman—certainly not in a woman to whom he was to be married. And, physically, since when had he ever gone for small, curvy girls? That had always been his brother’s domain.

But just knowing that she was next to him in the bed had kept him awake. At one point he had seriously considered slipping out of bed and heading for a cold shower—especially when those cushions had been kicked away and, like a little mouse gravitating towards the source of warmth, she had wriggled closer and closer until she had been touching him.

‘You were moaning,’ he whispered. ‘Having a bad dream? Or a really good one?’

Alexa squeezed her eyes shut and remembered exactly how erotic that dream of hers had been. Heat was still making her want to snap her legs together.

‘I’m sorry if I woke you,’ she whispered back. ‘The cushions...’

‘Turns out that soft furnishings don’t make very successful fortifications...’ He sifted his fingers through her hair. His body was raging, his libido in full surge—a primitive response over which he had no control.

Right now, right here, Theo wanted her in a way he had never wanted any woman in his life before. This wife-to-be he had never asked for and from whom he knew he should keep a safe distance. Because if he slept with her...slept with someone who was looking for a guy who was most certainly not him...that single act of passion would make the next year even more impossibly awkward than it was already showing signs of being.

And yet...

‘Why did you feel the need to stick a row of cushions between us?’

His hand dipped to the curve of her waist. She wasn’t pulling back with a screech of maidenly outrage and more than anything else that was a massive turn-on—because it was proof that despite all her protests she wanted him. She didn’t want to want him...just as he didn’t want to want her...but their bodies were not on the same page as their intellects.

In a life that was formidably controlled this lack of self-control felt good...satisfying...addictive.

How the hell was he going to endure twelve months of wanting her and banking down his desire?

They were both adults, he reasoned. They fancied one another, and he knew from experience that it was a very short journey between fancying a woman and boredom setting in. He had no doubt that if she fancied him it was something she was fighting to ignore, which meant that the same would apply to her. If they slept together they would rid themselves of an inconvenient lust—a bit like taking the right medicine to kill a fever.

‘Did you think...?’

His voice was low and soft, and Alexa knew that it was no shock that she was finding it impossible to pull away from him when he was hypnotising her with his deep, dark, sexy drawl.

‘Did you think that if it weren’t for some scatter cushions you might have found yourself wanting to touch me?’

‘No!’

‘Liar.’ He laughed softly under his breath. ‘I’ve felt the way your body tenses up every time I’ve touched you and seen the way you slide hot little glances over at me when you don’t think I’m watching you... Except I’ve been watching you a hell of a lot more than you probably thought. In fact a lot more than I ever anticipated...because I’m feeling what you’re feeling...’

‘I never said...’ Her voice was so feeble and unconvincing that she wasn’t surprised when he laughed again.

‘Sure about that? Because there’s a foolproof way of proving whether you’re telling little porky-pies...’

He was going to kiss her—and she wasn’t going to fight it. Her body was on fire and she wanted him to touch it...she wanted to touch his...and she had never wanted to touch any guy like that—hadn’t even come close...

She’d never suspected—not for a second—that lust could trample all over her principles and turn them to mush.

She closed her eyes on a sigh, leaned into him, and Theo, trailing the most delicate of caresses along her jawbone, simultaneously slipped his finger under the baggy nightie and beneath her underwear and into her wetness to finger her.

It was shocking and unexpected, and Alexa wriggled away from the touch, reaching down to push his hand away, squirming free, but knowing that she didn’t want to create space between them—she wanted to abolish it.

She shouldn’t want this but she did. She wanted his fingers exploring her and she burned with mortification. When he slid his hand along her stomach desire held her fast, stopped her from breaking their connection. It felt like an extension of her dream, weird and surreal and somehow not really happening—at least not in a way that felt dangerous or threatening.

Her breathing quickened. She heard herself pant a desperate ‘No!’ but it felt so good. She slid her treacherous, trembling hands over his chest, yanked them away, repeated the caress, this time tracing the broad, muscled width of his shoulders.

The sexless nightie felt itchy and uncomfortable, and she wanted to squirm out of her underwear—and was immediately horrified and panicked by the impulse.

So she fancied him. And he, to her amazement, fancied her. Maybe it was the strangeness of the situation into which they had both been thrown. In fact that was probably it—because if she had bumped into him under normal circumstances, at one of those social events which she hated and which he saw as part and parcel of being who he was, then she was sure that she would never, ever, have been attracted to him. And he would have had one of those leggy, supermodel airhead types clinging to him like ivy. He wouldn’t have given her a second glance.

But here they were...

She tentatively let her hand stray to his waist, and then a bit lower, and she shivered as she felt the massive bulge of his erection pushing against the boxers. It was terrifying, and she withdrew her hand as though she’d suddenly plunged it into an open fire.

But she wanted to touch him so badly...

‘Theo...this is crazy...’

‘Is it? I don’t think so. In the whole crazy charade, this feels like the least crazy bit...’

‘I don’t do this sort of thing.’

‘You mean make love to your fiancé?’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘I know what you mean, my dearest wife-to-be. But do you want to...?’

‘Yes! No... Oh, I don’t know... Theo! I can’t think straight...not when you’re touching me...’

‘Not thinking straight suits me—and what does “Yes! No... I don’t know...” mean?’

‘It means I find you attractive. Okay?’

‘Okay.’

He’d never had to ask a woman if she wanted him, had never received such a grudging response, but hearing her say that put him on top of the world.

He gradually pushed up the nightie. He was as out of control as a horny teenager about to lose his virginity. Crazy. He cupped the fullness of her breast and then rubbed his thumb over her stiff nipple, over and over, until she was moaning and moving restlessly against him.

‘We shouldn’t...’ In the grip of the sensations that were bombarding her on all fronts she could barely get the pathetically weak protest out.

‘Life is too short for shouldn’t...’

‘That’s easy for you to say.’

You’re experienced. You haven’t spent your life welding sex to love and waiting for them to come along at the same time. You’re relaxed and carefree about this sort of thing. Not like me.

And yet for all that she couldn’t have shifted out of his reach if she’d tried.

‘You’ve done nothing but fight me,’ he moaned softly. ‘Now I want you to tell me that you need this as much as I do...’

‘I...’

‘Say it, Alexa...’

‘I want this so much,’ she confessed shakily, thrilled at the hot urgency in his voice.

‘Good.’ His voice was thick with satisfaction.

He lowered his head, angling her body so that he could lick and kiss her neck, her shoulders. He nearly lost it completely when he felt the hitch in her breathing as he trailed kisses over her breasts, until finally he clamped his mouth over the big, pink circular disc of her nipple.

Her whole body tensed, and then relaxed into the caress. He was dimly aware of the fluttering of her fingers in his hair as he continued to draw the stiffened bud of her throbbing nipple deep into his mouth, nipping and suckling on it. He was a big man, with big hands, and the abundance of her breasts was a good fit as he cupped her other breast and massaged it.

‘Touch me,’ he commanded roughly, pulling her hand down and clasping it hard over his erection. ‘Just hold me. Tight, for God’s sake. I don’t want to spoil the party prematurely...’

He reared up as she obeyed and took a few deep breaths, fighting to recover some of his lost self-control. When his breathing finally levelled out he resumed where he had left off, this time devoting his attention to her other breast, but not until he had looked at her nakedness, feasting his eyes on the paleness of her skin and the contrasting rosy flush of her nipples.

Alexa gazed up at him through half-closed eyes. He had rid himself of his boxers and his erection was a thick, hard, pulsing rod of steel. There wasn’t a shred of self-consciousness in him as he watched her gazing at him. She was scared, thrilled, massively turned on...all at the same time.

‘Would you like to sample the fare...?’ He asked, and when she frowned in bewilderment he grinned. ‘Taste with your mouth what you’re busy tasting with your eyes...?’

He couldn’t understand her... She was enthusiastic, turned on, and yet curiously shy and hesitant. But, then again, the women he slept with were all so experienced that perhaps he had forgotten what it was like to be with one who didn’t see sex as an exercise in impressing him with gymnastics. He liked it. He knew that.

‘I... I’m not... I don’t... This is all so far out of my comfort zone...’

‘Then I’ll let you set the pace...’

He was moved by the nervousness in her voice. She wanted him, but she wasn’t going to jump on him, and he got that. She needed to be treated like a delicate piece of porcelain china. He needed to let her have control. And that turned him on.

She covered him with tentative little kisses. She clearly liked him to touch her breasts and he did. But he wanted her to hold his erection, and after a while, after she had trailed delicate little kisses over his stomach—kisses that were driving him mad, had she but known it—she garnered the courage to take those delicate little kisses lower down.

She whimpered softly, and those little whimpers were a turn-on beyond belief. To a man with a fairly jaded palette when it came to the opposite sex and their bedroom antics, this was uniquely refreshing. She was shy. He wanted her to feel comfortable with his body, comfortable to touch him wherever she wanted, but the way she took her time...agony. He could barely breathe.

To Alexa, witnessing this big, utterly confident and controlled man lose it a little was as heady as a dose of adrenaline shot straight into her system.

Her faltering self-confidence strengthened into a growing sense of liberation. A guy who was restless and impatient, who took what he wanted whatever the cost—a guy for whom tomorrow was not a word in his vocabulary if it could be replaced by today—was letting her take charge, and that felt so good to her.

She straightened and looked down at him. She’d never been naked in front of a man in her life before, and her skin tingled and burned as he gazed at her with open, unashamed desire.

When he reached forward to graze his thumbs across her stiff nipples she moaned softly and closed her eyes. Her whole body was trembling.

She wanted more than this. She wanted him inside her, moving inside her, filling her up...

She guided his hand between her legs and even as she did so was shocked at her forwardness. When he began massaging her there she covered his hand with hers, groaned as he slid two fingers inside, unerringly finding her clitoris and sending her into spiralling, ever-increasing zones of sexual pleasure.

She felt like a rag doll. As her pleasure grew...and grew...and grew...she opened dazed eyes and levelled them at him.

‘I want more, Theo.’ She barely recognised her own voice, which was husky with desire.

‘And so do I... You have no idea... But...’ He reached for his wallet on the dressing table to extract a condom. ‘Life right now,’ he murmured, catching her heated gaze and holding it, ‘is complicated enough without adding to it...’

CHAPTER EIGHT

HE DROPPED THE condom on the side table and settled over her, grazing between her legs with his erection, nudging, but not too much. And then he slid his hands under her back, arching her up towards him. Nerves mingled with wicked anticipation, and anticipation won.

She had disposed of her nightie—flung it over the side of the bed. She knew that she should be feeling timid, quailing at his frank inspection of her body, but there was open heat in his lazy gaze. No mistaking the fact that he was hot for her. She didn’t think that his heat could match her own.

‘I’m fat...’ she confessed, burning up like straw flung to a struck match.

‘Whoever told you that? Surely not your parents...?’

He didn’t normally do pillow talk, but the openness of her admission touched him. He lay down next to her and pulled her against him. He could feel the steady beating of her heart and the squash of her breasts against his chest.

A slight delay to proceedings. There was nothing uncool about that. In fact it made sense, gave his body time to adjust to its normal tempo.

‘Gosh, no.’

This intimacy felt good. Not so much sex for the sake of sex as two people in bed about to make love. She had a gut feeling that he wasn’t the kind of guy who slowed down to accommodate anyone, and that included the women he took to his bed. But he was slowing down for her. And whilst the logical part of her knew that it meant nothing, it still felt good.

Plus... Rushing into sex...

Yes, her body was on fire for him, but her mind was tentative, filled with her own shortcomings and what he might say about them. If he’d made some great big show of trying to get her into bed she might have stood a chance at resistance, but like this...in the dead of night...here in this bed...she was powerless to fight her body’s urgings.

Talking like this might relax her...

‘The opposite.’ She traced the outline of his shoulders, liking its tough ridges and contours. ‘My parents always told me that I was beautiful and that I could do anything I wanted.’ She laughed a little breathlessly, because confiding wasn’t something she was accustomed to doing. She marvelled that she was doing it now, with this man. ‘Of course most parents say that, and I wasn’t a complete idiot. I knew I wasn’t beautiful.’

‘And you knew that because...? You had a magic mirror on your wall...?’

Alexa laughed, but there was a telling catch in her laughter and Theo experienced a moment of disorientation during which he felt weirdly tender and possessive towards this prickly, argumentative woman who had given him nothing but a hard time ever since their paths had crossed.

‘I overheard a conversation when I was eleven,’ she confessed. ‘I was in a toilet cubicle at school and I overheard some of my friends giggling about me. I’d never thought I was fat but it seems that I was...and I had also developed way ahead of everyone else. That’s a big deal when you’re a kid. Whilst all the girls in my year were busy shooting up like beanpoles I was getting...well...a figure... It seems I was something of a figure of fun...especially to boys...’

‘Boys that age can be idiots,’ Theo told her fiercely. He dropped a kiss on her forehead and held her against him, her face pressed against his neck. ‘In fact...’ he angled her so that he could look down at her seriously ‘...quite a few idiot boys grow up into idiot men.’

Was that her opinion of him? A guy who judged by appearances only?

He sensed that that was just the sort of introspective question that might not benefit from too much in-depth analysis. Her whole persona now made sense to him. Her defensiveness...her passionate interest in the intellectual as opposed to the physical...her mulish aversion to the sort of high society affairs where she might feel herself judged, yet again, on appearance instead of personality.

The fact that she was here now, playing at a relationship with the sort of man she had probably spent her entire adult life erecting walls to keep out, spoke volumes about her close relationship with her parents.

‘I suppose...’ She laughed a little self-consciously. ‘Thanks for listening...’

Theo was highly offended. ‘Of course I listened to you! Why wouldn’t I?’

‘Because you don’t listen a lot when women moan and whine?’ she suggested teasingly.

Theo had the grace to flush. ‘Maybe that whining and moaning always had a certain predictable flavour...’

‘What do you mean?’

‘We’re having a conversation,’ Theo heard himself say.

Alexa nestled against him, nerves temporarily banished. ‘Isn’t that what you told me we had to do, considering we’re about to tie the knot?’

‘I don’t do a lot of that either,’ he admitted with a wry smile.

‘Talking in bed with a woman?’

Theo thought that it might have been more accurate to say talking, and leave it at that, but of course he did talk to women... Regrettably, the conversations were not usually of an inspiring nature and, having never—not once—thought about that, he now wondered whether he had set his standards a little on the low side in the past. At least insofar as intellectual stimulation was concerned.

‘There always seem to be far more exciting things to do than chit-chat...’ He shoved aside the niggling moment of introspection and returned to the business of making love—his comfort zone.

He curved his hand along her side, smoothing it over her rounded hip and confidently inserting it between her legs, parting them and laughing under his breath at her little pant of anticipation.

This was definitely more like it.

‘Now it’s time for you to lie back and think of England...’

‘Is that an order?’

‘Of course it is. Haven’t we already established that I’m the arrogant sort, who gives orders and expects them to be obeyed...?’

Alexa giggled breathlessly and closed her eyes—although she knew the last thing she would be doing was thinking of England...

He explored her body and took his time doing it, suckling on her swollen nipples, arching her body up so that he could enjoy them all the more. The longer he spent there, the more she frantically wanted him to go further, and her whole body was tingling as he made his way down, inch by inch, until his mouth found the dampness between his legs.

Alexa gave a little yelp and tried to wriggle away, but Theo pinned her down by her hips and glanced up at her.