but instead her traitorous fingers curled into his shirt, then loosened a button and slid inside. Her fingers felt the roughness of his chest hair, warm skin and solid muscle and she felt his grip on her head tighten as his kiss gentled and his tongue traced the seam of her mouth, coaxing her to open for him.
And then he was really kissing her.
Kissing her in the way that she’d always known only he could.
And it felt like magic. How could one person make another feel so different unless it was magic? She was trembling and shivering, overwhelmed by an excitement so intense that she didn’t know where it was leading or how it would end. She only knew that she wanted to get closer to him, to crawl all over him but the seats in the car didn’t exactly encourage that type of contact. So instead she leaned into him, sliding her hand around his body and trying to draw him closer.
His tongue teased hers gently and then dipped deeper, exploring the interior of her mouth with a lazy expertise that was so erotic it set her entire body on fire. With a maddening degree of self-control, he slid the backs of his fingers over her cheek and down to her neck, trailing his fingers tantalisingly close to her aching breasts before stopping just short of his target. Bryony whimpered with frustration. Longing for his touch, she arched against him but he didn’t move his hand. Instead, he continued to kiss her with increasing intensity until none of her senses were under her control.
And then finally, just when she thought her entire body would explode with frustration, he touched her. His strong hand cupped one breast through the silken fabric of her dress and then he drew his thumb over her nipple, creating an agony of sensation so powerful that she gasped against his mouth and shifted in the seat to try and relieve the nagging throb between her thighs.
‘Jack…’
The moment she sobbed his name he lifted his head, his breathing unsteady as he stared down at her. Then he released her abruptly and ran a hand over his face, obviously as shaken as she was.
Her whole body screamed in protest that he’d stopped and she looked at him in dazed confusion.
‘Jack?’
She saw him tense and then he turned to face her, his handsome face totally blank of expression. ‘Now do you see?’
She swallowed, finding it terribly hard to concentrate, still suffering from the aftershocks of his kiss. ‘Now do I see what?’
‘That kisses can get out of control.’ His eyes dropped to her parted lips, still swollen and damp from the ruthless demands of his mouth and then dropped further still to the outline of her breasts which pushed boldly against her dress. He dragged his gaze away and stared into the darkness. ‘That’s what would have happened if you’d invited David Armstrong back for coffee.’
Bryony stared at him in silence.
She felt as though the world had changed shape. As if everything should look different. It certainly felt different.
For her, their entire relationship had changed in an instant. The moment his mouth had touched hers, everything had become different.
But evidently he didn’t feel the same way.
Chewing her lip, she reminded herself that this was Jack. Jack, whose parents had divorced when he was eight and who had vowed never to get married himself when he grew up. And then he’d grown up and had shown no intention of changing his mind about that one fact. Jack didn’t do relationships. Judging from the few conversations she’d overheard between her brothers, Jack did sex and not much else.
But even knowing that, her whole body flooded with disappointment as she realised that obviously the kiss hadn’t meant anything at all to him. He’d actually been proving a point and in doing so he’d proved something to her, too.
That she’d been right all along about Jack.
He was an amazing kisser.
And she knew that the same thing would never have happened had she invited David Armstrong back for coffee. David might have kissed her, that was true, but she knew that there wasn’t another man on the planet who would make her feel what Jack had just made her feel.
But it was totally hopeless.
And the raw, sexual attraction she felt for Jack shouldn’t interfere with her determination to find a father for Lizzie, she told herself firmly.
That was just lust and lust always faded anyway. She needed a man who would be kind, good company and a caring father to Lizzie. She didn’t need raw sexual attraction. In fact, raw sexual attraction was starting to turn her into a nervous wreck.
So she lifted her chin and smiled at Jack, proud of how natural it seemed. ‘Well, thanks for the practice,’ she said lightly, leaning forward and kissing him on the cheek, resisting the almost overwhelming temptation to trace a route to his mouth with the tip of her tongue. ‘I’d forgotten how to do it, but you reminded me. Now I know I’ll get it right next time I go out with David.’
And with that she opened the door, climbed out of the car and walked to her cottage without looking back.
DAMN. Damn. Damn.
What the hell had he done?
He’d kissed his best friend.
Jack stared after Bryony, trying to decide what shocked him most. The fact that he’d kissed her, or the fact that he hadn’t wanted to stop.
He sat in the car with the engine switched off, staring into the frozen darkness feeling as though something fundamental to his existence had changed.
Where had it come from? That sudden impulse to kiss her…
Blondie was family.
As much a baby sister to him as she was to Tom and Oliver.
And until tonight he’d never thought of her in any other way.
Or had he?
Had he really never thought of her like that or was it just that he’d trained himself not to?
He sat still, watching the house, and then suddenly the lights went on. He saw her walk into her cosy sitting room and shrug off her coat, revealing that amazing red dress and an avalanche of blonde hair.
For years he hadn’t seen her in a dress and suddenly she seemed to be wearing a different one every week.
He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, still able to detect the tantalising scent of her hair and skin. The instantaneous reaction of his body was so powerful that he gritted his teeth and shifted slightly in his seat, trying to find a more comfortable position.
There wasn’t one.
Suddenly, somehow, she’d invaded every part of him.
He’d made an unconscious decision never to cross that boundary but now he’d crossed it there was no going back.
Whichever
