One Night Only. JC Harroway
he’d go back to America.
He held out his arm, indicating she take the path ahead of them before tucking both his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. She smiled, swung her hair over her shoulder and set off at his side. For a few beats they walked in silence, the warm summer air heavy with possibility and an insistent flicker of sexual chemistry.
Something stirred in his gut—that delicious coil of excitement that the anonymity of meeting a stranger in a foreign place brought. Today he could be anyone. There were endless possibilities to reinvent himself and shake off the recently acquired shackles that held him down as if his feet were entombed in concrete.
Not Ash the duped, who’d not only been cheated on but also lied to by the two people in his life who should have had his back. Yeah, fuck that guy. He was Ash the American tourist, killing time with the interesting, beautiful breath of fresh air that was Essie.
‘So...’ he flashed his first genuine smile her way, enjoying the telling pink flush of her cheeks ‘...tell me about these noses.’
* * *
Essie Newbold laughed and bumped shoulders with the sexy American she’d spent the afternoon and evening with. Well, she would have bumped shoulders with him if he weren’t so tall—instead, her shoulder bumped his arm. But the effect was the same.
Contact.
Those delicious little trembles of static electricity zinged to all her highly attuned erogenous zones as they’d been doing all day, every time their arms had brushed as they’d hunted the Seven Noses of Soho or when they were squeezed together, chest to chest, on the standing-room-only Tube. She’d never been more grateful for the crowding of London’s underground.
Instead of allowing the momentum of her flirty little shoulder bump to ping her away from him, Ash scooped his arm around her waist and grinned down at her.
Her head swam.
She was really going to do this—sleep with the dreamy man she’d met in the park this morning? Her first one-night stand.
Essie slipped her hand into the back pocket of his jeans, her fingers pressing into his tightly toned backside. Where had her uncharacteristic bravery come from? The desire for something more than the dribs and drabs she’d tolerated from her no-good ex?
Her ex’s idea of foreplay had been a mandatory squeeze of the boob. And to her shame, she’d accepted such lazy, shoddy attention.
All the more reason to explore a one-night stand with the drool-worthy, confident American. She’d gain some much-needed experience in the one-night-stand stakes, and hopefully score herself the kind of orgasm that only existed in her world as a mythical will-o’-the-wisp, and afterwards they’d move on having both had a good time. Unless Ash was a serial killer, it was a win-win situation. She absorbed the foreign, heady thrill of his big warm body next to hers. Not that it was cold—her shivers originated purely from anticipation.
The best kind of shivers.
She sucked in a stuttering breath—she’d never felt more reckless. And, if she was honest, she also felt a little embarrassed. There was no law that stated that, before her twenty-fifth birthday, she should have experienced at least one night of no-strings sex, but, as she touted herself as something of a relationship expert, didn’t she owe it to the readers of her relationship psychology blog to experience what all the fuss was about?
Ash’s hand looped around her shoulder. She reached up and clasped his fingers. They grinned at each other, Essie’s belly jolting in time with her excitable pulse.
No serious scientist could rely solely on academic theory. She could finally verify her years of extensive research with some cold, hard, scientific data.
Surely he must be able to hear the blood whooshing through her head?
Because in practical terms, what did she really know about relationships, especially the functional kind?
Her face fell at the momentary wobble. Her one serious boyfriend during uni had left her practically swearing off the opposite sex for good on the grounds she clearly couldn’t spot a decent relationship candidate if he was stark naked in front of her wearing a pick me, I’m a safer than houses bet hat.
A trait she’d inherited from her mother perhaps... The woman had, after all, procreated with Essie’s lying, cheating, deserting father and spent many years playing second fiddle to his actual wife, his real family.
Not that Essie had known all that back then. She’d simply been a girl who desperately missed her beloved father while he’d worked overseas for long stretches of time. Clearly she and her mother shared a desperate-for-love vibe that usually sent men running.
But Ash wasn’t running.
And she wasn’t looking for a relationship. Just sex. She’d gleaned from Ash’s subtext that, like her, he was only interested in a one-night thing. She shoved the buzzkill thoughts from her mind, focussing on the specimen of manly perfection beside her. Exotic Ash. A gentleman. Funny, intelligent and interested in what she had to say.
So different from her ex, and she’d wasted two years in that flawed relationship.
Her throat tightened.
Perhaps she was ready for a change. It was, after all, the eve of a brand-new chapter of her life—her new job working for her until-recently estranged half-brother began tomorrow. Or perhaps it was just charming, sophisticated, sexy-as-sin Ash with his crinkle-eyed smile, his quick wit and his tales of New York that earned him a place at the top of Essie’s bucket list.
Nothing at all to do with his muscular physique and his dark good looks, which were enough to attract smiles and stares everywhere they’d gone today. And she instinctively knew, as if it were stamped on her overworked ovaries, that Ash would be phenomenal between the sheets. High-calibre screaming orgasms—another experience sadly lacking from her rather pathetic repertoire.
But she could still back out of this. Thank Ash for his company and bid his sexy American butt farewell. Her insides twisted while her indecision ping-ponged inside her skull, releasing an uncharacteristic verbal catharsis.
‘I’ve never done this before.’ She nibbled her lip, ignored the heat almost suffocating her and raised her eyes to Ash’s.
Now he’d think her some sort of ingénue when really she’d simply tolerated mediocre for far too long.
He turned to face her, drawing her closer with the arm banded around her waist while his glittering blue stare danced over her features. ‘Okay...’
No judgment. Only the heat she’d seen in his eyes most of the afternoon.
The sizzle and spark over lunch at the funky deli had turned into flirting around Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square, where Essie had provided a ‘how to’ tutorial on travelling the Tube. Flirting had turned to inhibition-lowering drinking at a typical Victorian Soho pub, where Ash had insisted they sample pints of tepid real ale, which was strong enough to make Essie both giggly and bold. Which was probably how they’d come to their current location—on the pavement outside his hotel, with his arms around her and her lips tingling to kiss him.
Still she wavered, caught between lust and caution.
She wanted to slap herself. Her doubts, her desperation to get it right where her parents had got it so wrong, hadn’t helped her avoid heartache. She’d just had one bad experience...
Ash didn’t have to be the perfect man—he could be perfect for now, this one night. Then she’d never see him again. And she could try out her sexually sophisticated legs.
Ash smiled, his blue eyes sparkling with promise and his yummy mouth stretching in a sexy, lopsided way.
Full lips so close.
Warm breath laced with hops.
Shrugging off the last reservation, Essie stood on tiptoes and kissed him, right there in the street where