His Best Mistake Read online

  She could handle just once, surely. So she didn’t normally do one-night stands. Her self-esteem, which had been battered by everything that had happened lately, would certainly thank her for it. And she hated the knowledge that the last man she’d slept with was a lousy, lying, toerag who hadn’t even been that good in bed. How much better would it be to have a scorching encounter – and it would be scorching, she just knew it – with a seriously hot man to remember?

  Her heart hammered. Heat pooled between her legs and she was slowly disintegrating with it. Up against a cascade of dangerous and exciting possibilities, doubt and confusion fled along with every drop of reason she possessed. Dizzy with lust, helpless to resist, Stella laid a hand on his chest and felt the leap of his heart beneath her palm. She murmured, “All right then, just once,” and it was like she’d flicked a switch.

  In an instant the slow, smouldering burn of Jack’s gaze ignited and she gasped as he hauled her into his arms properly and slammed his mouth to hers. Their tongues touched, then tangled, and fire surged through her. Sparks shot the length of her body, making her shiver all over and any lucidity she may have been trying to cling to evaporated.

  With the hand he’d clamped to the back of her neck he angled her head to deepen the kiss and she couldn’t help moaning. This was everything she’d hoped it would be, everything she’d longed for. Hot and demanding and, oh yes, he definitely knew what he was doing. The heat of him, the scent of him… She was melting. Going dizzy. Her legs turned to jelly and if he hadn’t been holding her she would have crumpled to the floor.

  Just in case for some mad reason he decided to let her go, Stella whipped her arms round his neck and used his strength to press herself closer and kiss him harder. In response he held her tighter, and she could feel the stiff thick length of him pushing against her abdomen. It made her want to have him inside her, desperately, urgently, so she shifted her hips in invitation and Jack groaned.

  He released her suddenly, but she didn’t have time to miss him because he was pushing her robe off with one hand and deftly undoing the buttons of her pyjama top with the other, his breathing as harsh and ragged as hers, and then somehow that was off too and now he was kissing her again only this time his hands were on the bare skin of her back and her naked, achingly sensitive breasts were pressed against his hair-roughened chest, and the friction was almost too much to bear.

  She moaned deep in her throat, and he slid his hands down her back, over her bottom, wrapping them round the backs of her thighs and lifting her. Stella locked her ankles at the base of his spine, wriggling instinctively and frantically until his erection was pressing against just the right spot, at which point he broke off kissing her to growl a low, urgent ‘Fuck’, and then he was kicking the fallen clothes out of his way and carrying her across the floor to the worktop, away from the flickering light and into the shadows, with a strength that she would have admired had she been able to think straight. But she couldn’t because every step he took made her rub against him in the most intoxicating way, which stoked her desire and devastated what little remained of her control.

  He deposited her on the counter and pushed her back. He thrust his hands beneath the waistband of her pyjama bottoms and as Stella lifted her hips he shoved them down and off. He looked at her for one long hot searing moment that sent her temperature soaring, then stepped back and briefly disappeared before returning to her, shedding his shorts and rolling on the condom he’d just retrieved from who knew where. And then he was parting her knees and moving in and bending over her, his eyes dark and wild, a muscle hammering in his jaw.

  The strength of him, the heat and the scent of him hit every one of her senses; it was so thrilling, so exciting, she actually whimpered. Jack planted his hands on the counter either side of her head, and laid waste to her mouth again until she was shivering and moaning with need. As he dragged his mouth along her jaw, dropping hot kisses as he went until he reached the sensitive spot by her ear, he twisted slightly and a soft rush of air hit her exposed, feverish skin; but it provided no relief because a second later he put his hand on her shoulder and then moved it down, setting off little explosions beneath her skin until he reached her breast, where he stopped and cupped it.

  He brushed his thumb over her nipple and she gasped at the strength of the arrows of heat that shot straight to the centre of her. He did it again and again and she bit her lip to stop herself from crying out, to prove to herself that she did have at least a shred of control over this, but then, suddenly, his mouth was there, hot and demanding on her swollen breast and aching nipple and she gave up pretending. Her self-control was history.

  And she might as well go with it, she thought dazedly as he tugged gently with his teeth and she practically arched off the counter. She was in the hands of a master. She might never experience this kind of pleasure again.

  As Jack continued to torment her breasts she thrust her fingers in his hair to hold him where she wanted him, but he wasn’t having any of it. Shifting, he took her wrists and pinned them above her head. He transferred them to one hand and the other he placed on the exposed skin of her abdomen, sliding it down, lower and lower and then, oh God, he reached the spot where she was hot and aching and desperate for his touch. She closed her eyes again, giving herself up to it, squirming and panting with need, and then finally, finally, his fingers were parting her and entering her slick heat.

  She sighed in ecstasy as he stroked his fingers in and out of her relentlessly, sometimes gently and slowly, sometimes hard and fast, his thumb circling her clitoris with inexorable skill. The way he seemed to be able to read her body, her needs, was mind-blowing, and already she could feel the hot delicious tension building deep inside her. Already her mind was spinning off into God knew where and her breathing was turning all shallow and ragged and he wasn’t letting up. He was pushing harder and deeper, and then the swell of pleasure was rushing towards her, fast and unstoppable, and suddenly she was coming so hard she thought she might splinter apart.

  “Oh God,” was all she could breathe over and over again as pleasure exploded inside her and lights flashed behind her eyelids.

  Lost in a kaleidoscopic whirlpool of sensation Stella was only dimly aware of Jack pulling his fingers out of her, of him moving, but then he was thrusting into her, stretching her and filling her and pulsating deep inside her so deliciously she cried out against his mouth as it started all over again.

  For a moment he didn’t move, just looked down at her, his face taut, the desire blazing ferociously in his eyes, and then he began to move, pulling out of her slowly dragging against a million tiny nerve endings, and then plunging back in, dissolving her mind and destroying any semblance of control because he had all of it and she had none.

  All she could do as he began to pound into her harder and faster was clutch at his shoulders, gasping with every thrust and lifting her hips to meet him because, God, he was going so deep she could feel him everywhere.

  And now the delirious pleasure was building again. The tightness coiling inside her was growing stronger and the storm of pleasure was coming closer and closer until it was there and she shattered, crying out and shuddering as he thrust into her one last time and groaned, pumping hard and deep within her and collapsing on top of her, leaving her wrecked, wasted and wondering how on earth she’d ever imagined once would be enough.

  *

  So much for just the once, thought Jack grimly, staring up into the darkness as Stella slept beside him. For the last few hours they hadn’t been able to keep their hands off each other. She’d been insatiable; he’d been desperate. In hindsight that shouldn’t have come as a surprise. It had been a long time for him, and the things Stella could do with her hands and her mouth…

  God.

  Even now, when he ought to be as wiped out as she was, he could feel himself hardening as snapshots of what they’d done together flashed through his mind.

  But he wouldn’t wake her again and he wouldn’t ha
ve her again because in the absence of heat and desire and X-rated action, regret and guilt were beginning to seep in. How the hell could he have let things go this far? he wondered, his stomach suddenly churning. If anyone ever found out what he’d done, he’d be crucified. Where had his self-control gone? His integrity? And what about that line he’d vowed he wouldn’t cross? All obliterated by lust he should have been able to resist.

  And now he wished he had. God, he wished he had. The experience had been too intense. He’d never had a night like it. Never been so instinctively able to read a woman’s body. But then the only other body he’d ever tried to read had been his wife’s. Having met as teenagers he and Mia had spent hours learning how to please each other, and it had always been lovely, but now he’d slept with Stella he realised that it could be better than lovely. It could be spectacular, and dammit, he shouldn’t even be comparing them.

  So where did all this leave him? he wondered, ruthlessly shutting out the past and focusing on the now. In trouble, that was where. He’d never had a one-night stand. He didn’t know what he’d been thinking in offering it. What if Stella woke up wanting more?

  Well, that was just something he was going to have to handle, he told himself darkly. The mess he was currently in was nobody’s fault but his own. He was pretty sure that if he hadn’t pushed it, she’d have simply got that glass of water she’d been after earlier and gone straight back to bed. The awkwardness and discomfort of the morning after was therefore simply the price he was going to have to pay for weakening. He’d get through it. He’d survived worse.

  Just then, the shriek of a siren pierced the dark, eerie silence and Jack sat bolt upright, adrenaline surging, every sense on high alert.

  What the hell was that?

  Heart pounding, he flung back the covers, leapt out of bed and stalked to the window. In the distance the lights of the Land Rover were flashing and the noise seemed to be coming from the same direction.

  “What’s going on?” Stella muttered sleepily.

  “Car alarm,” he said. “The Land Rover.”

  “I thought nothing was working.”

  “Something must have jogged the circuitry.”

  “Another sheep?”

  “Who knows?”

  “Can you make it stop?”

  “I can try. I’ll go and check it out.”

  “Need any help?” she murmured, her voice muffled by the covers.

  “I should be OK. You go back to sleep.”

  *

  At the crack of dawn some time later, Stella woke up in a deliciously achy haze, totally ready to continue where exhaustion had made her and Jack leave off seeing as how they’d already dispensed with the just-once thing, only to find that he and the Land Rover had gone.

  Chapter Five

  Oh, fuckety bollocksy crapety fuck.

  A month had passed since Stella had been back home, and it had been a pleasingly busy one. On arriving at her lovely little house in Cricket St Thomas she’d unpacked and settled in, and had charged her phone and then tentatively checked her social media pages. As the sites had opened, she’d held her breath and braced herself for the worst, but thankfully the previously rabid interest in her seemed to have died down and everyone had moved on.

  And so, so had she. Feeling remarkably upbeat about everything and mentally patting herself on the back about how well she’d got over Brad, she’d decided to give her life an early spring clean. Determined to consign the last two horrible months to history she’d been about to empty her voice mail and delete her text messages when she recalled Jack’s triumph when he’d asked her to prove what she claimed and she hadn’t been able to, and archived them instead. Then she’d cleaned the house from top to bottom, reacquainted herself with her neighbours, hit the phones and lined up work.

  She’d barely thought about Jack. She hadn’t had time. The first job she’d been given was a last-minute fill-in on a high-profile murder trial, which had taken all her concentration to zone out of, and anyway she didn’t want to think about him. She preferred to pretend that it had never happened, thank you very much, even if it had been the best sex of her life.

  She wasn’t remotely pissed off that she hadn’t even merited a farewell. No. She was glad he’d spared them a brutally awkward aftermath. Truly. Well, she was now. When she’d woken up she’d been mildly disappointed and faintly insulted but she’d got over that swiftly enough. And who cared whether Jack had passed on her version of Brad’s shenanigans to his sister? She didn’t. She didn’t need anyone else to grant her absolution, she’d come to realise recently. She could do that all on her own. She knew she was innocent, and that was all that mattered.

  Jack Maclean didn’t require a moment’s consideration so Stella didn’t give him one. She didn’t dream about him and she didn’t google him. Any lingering mortification she still felt with regards to how ravenous she’d been for him, how desperate, she buried beneath a ton of denial, along with the niggling guilt that somehow she’d sort of stabbed Cora in the back all over again, which was ridiculous. It certainly hadn’t seemed to bother him.

  No, Jack had been a blip, one that had to be forgotten, and so Stella did exactly that. She focused on getting on with life, entirely content to wipe that whole weekend from her mind, and everything was fine.

  Until it wasn’t.

  Two days ago she’d woken up feeling sick, and had only just made it to the bathroom before throwing up the contents of her stomach. Sitting on the floor, head back against the tiled wall of her en suite, her skin clammy and her head spinning, she’d attributed it to the prawns she’d eaten the night before. It simply couldn’t be anything else because she and Jack had used protection all four times. But she’d thrown up yesterday morning too, and again this morning, and, then, despite the unlikelihood, there seemed little point in not addressing the possibility of the obvious.

  Which was now no longer a possibility but a certainty, she thought, staring shell-shocked at the stick she’d just peed on, the evidence there in black and white. Or, in this case, in blue. She was pregnant. How, she had no idea, but while one test might possibly be faulty she doubted six would be.

  For a moment, Stella just sat there, her head swimming and her heart racing, but then she somehow managed to dredge up an inner strength from who knew where and pulled herself together. Everything would be fine, she reminded herself, her breathing steadying and her vision clearing as the seconds ticked by. She’d considered the consequences of this outcome at length. Since yesterday afternoon, when she’d forced herself to face the facts, she’d thought about little else. She’d spent hours considering the situation from all possible angles and weighing up the pros and cons of every course of action, and she more or less had a plan.

  The situation was far from ideal, but with her track record on the man front this might be her only chance to have a much longed for family. She’d love this child. Even though it was only the size of a lentil she already did. She’d never neglect it the way her parents had her. She’d never make it feel worthless and hollow or allow it to wonder what was wrong with it. She’d give it all the devotion and support and unconditional love she possibly could. It wouldn’t be easy but she’d figure it out. She’d never been more certain of anything.

  First of all, though, she had a visit to pay.

  *

  The last few weeks had not been the best of his life, thought Jack grimly, sitting at his desk and watching the Euro/yen market career off in the opposite direction to the one he’d anticipated and thereby losing him a cool fifty million.

  Following his return to London he’d thrown himself back into work, but for the first time in a long while he seemed to have lost his knack for reading the markets. His objectivity was shot. His self-discipline and patience, crucial in this business, were history. It was annoying and frustrating, and the worst of it was that he knew perfectly well that the reasons for his game being off were entirely of his own making.

  Guilt.
/>   That was the trouble.

  Or rather, yet more guilt.

  What had started as a niggle when he’d climbed into the Land Rover and driven away from the cottage, away from Stella and away from what they’d done, now came at him from all sides, at all times, and just wouldn’t let up. It was fresh and virulent, and unlike the low-level variety that he lived with on a daily basis and was now used to, pretty bloody inescapable.

  Initially, it had been all about Mia, his wife, his teenage sweetheart, the love of his life. He hadn’t planned on living like a monk since her death four years ago, but that was just the way things had panned out since he hadn’t met anyone who’d made him want to change the status quo. Until he’d met Stella with whom he’d lost his mind and had had the kind of hot and explosive, frantic and sweaty sex that made him feel as if somehow he’d betrayed Mia’s memory.

  On arrival home, that guilt had then transferred itself to his sister when it had finally sunk in that he’d absolutely betrayed her too. He still couldn’t believe he’d disregarded her with barely a qualm. Cora wasn’t currently speaking to him, although that wasn’t entirely surprising given the way their conversation after he’d come down from Scotland had gone. Ruthlessly shutting out the Saturday night he’d passed on Stella’s version of events of the Brad saga and had told Cora that he believed it and the reasons for that belief.

  His sister had not been impressed. How could that cow have seduced him into believing her? she’d asked. How could he have let her off scot-free? For some reason Cora preferred to cling to the fact Brad had been blameless in the whole thing and nothing he said seemed to be able to change that.

  Thank God his sister had been too fired up with indignation to probe into his stay in Scotland further, or she might have seen right through him when he’d described Stella as average and nothing special. Not that there was anything above average or special about her, of course, but still.