On the First Night of Christmas.... Heidi Rice

while noticing the impressive bulge in his trousers. She smoothed the tunic down. ‘It means, that was …’ She halted, her face flushing. How did you thank a guy for giving you the most incredible orgasm of your life? She’d never come that quickly before, or with such intensity. And certainly not with a man she hadn’t been in a relationship with. ‘It means, that was amazing. So thanks,’ she said, opting for honesty while her endorphins were still high on the afterglow.

      He stretched out his arms across the back of the sofa. ‘The pleasure’s all mine.’

      ‘I’m sorry, you didn’t …’ Her gaze snagged on his obvious state of arousal, and she wondered if she should offer to do something for him in return. It seemed only fair. ‘Would you like me …?’

      He tucked a finger under her chin, lifted her gaze to his. ‘It’s okay, Cassie. I’m not fifteen any more. I can wait.’ He placed a quick kiss on her nose, before standing up. ‘In fact, unfortunately, we’re both going to have to wait, we’re already fashionably late.’

      ‘Late? Late for what?’

      Instead of answering, he took her hands in his, and hauled her off the sofa. ‘If you want to go do whatever it is girls do while they hog the bathroom, go ahead.’ He placed his hand on her bottom and gave her a proprietary pat. ‘It’s that way.’

      ‘Yes, but … where are we going?’ she asked, trying to maintain a little sanity. Why had the invitation turned the afterglow into a giddy rush of pleasure?

      He settled his hands on her shoulders, swept her hair back and kissed her neck. ‘The Blue Tower. With me. This evening.’

      When had she agreed to that? ‘But I …’ She trailed off, unable to concentrate on anything but his lips nuzzling the sensitive skin under her ear—and the darts of sensation shivering down her spine.

      The doorbell buzzed and he nipped her ear lobe. ‘That’ll be your clothes. Don’t take too long—we don’t want to be too fashionable.’ So saying, he strode out of the room.

      Locating her bag under the coffee table, Cassie dashed off to the bathroom he’d indicated. She knew when she was being railroaded. But right now she didn’t care. She needed time to think.

      Once inside the lavish marble bathroom, she flung her bag on the vanity and studied herself in the mirror that covered one wall.

      She hardly recognised herself.

      Her hair sprung out in all directions, the unruly curls spilling out of the topknot she’d swept it up in that morning. Her cheeks were flushed a vivid red, her lips puffy and swollen, and her pupils so dilated her blue eyes were almost black. She touched her fingertips to the raw spot beneath her bottom lip. And she had whisker burn on her chin.

      She looked like a woman who had been well and truly satisfied. She huffed out a breath. Probably because she had been. But she needed to take stock and think clearly now.

      Or at least try to think clearly with her brain still addled from the endorphin rush and her core still throbbing from Jace Ryan’s exceptionally skilled caresses.

      Unwrapping a bar of the fragrant vanilla soap in a basket on the vanity, she washed her hands and face, then doused her cheeks in cold water. After patting herself dry with one of the hotel’s monogrammed towels and finger-combing her hair, she examined her face again. She still looked dazed and dishevelled, but at least the colour in her cheeks had subsided from a vivid magenta to a pale rose. And her pupils had shrunk enough so she didn’t look as if she were on crack.

      Okay, so what had happened out there? She simply wasn’t that into sex. Not that she was frigid or anything. She liked sex well enough. The sensible, comforting, predictable kind with a man she knew well and cared about and respected. Even if it later turned out he didn’t deserve it. A line formed on her brow in the mirror. However, she did not do the hot, wild, knock-you-for-six kind of sex with a man who was a virtual stranger.

      But there was no denying she’d done just that with Jace Ryan.

      One minute they’d been talking, then they’d been kissing and then she’d been begging him to bring her to the most earth-shattering orgasm of her life. Another line appeared on her brow. And he had.

      How had he known just how to touch her, and where? How had he known so instinctively just what she needed when she didn’t know herself? She’d only had two serious boyfriends in her life. Two men whom she’d become sexually intimate with before she’d leapt into Jace Ryan’s car this afternoon. She’d known both of them for weeks, months even, before she’d ever considered taking things to the next stage. But even after forming proper committed relationships with them, even after convincing herself she was in love with them, neither of them had ever been able to make her lose her mind as Jace had with a simple touch. In fact, Lance and David, her college boyfriend, had both complained at one time or another that she thought too much during sex, that she wasn’t spontaneous enough.

      She swallowed heavily, her throat dry. She hadn’t merely been spontaneous on Jace’s sofa. She’d come close to spontaneously combusting.

      And she hadn’t been thinking either. In fact, she’d been doing the opposite. Jace had offered to get her coat cleaned, and, less than an hour after walking into his hotel suite, she’d been straddling his thighs and writhing under his touch like a woman possessed. What had happened to her smart, safe, sensible, measured approach to sex and intimacy?

      Opening her bag on the vanity, she rummaged for her phone. Unlocking the keypad, she scrolled down to Nessa’s name.

      What she needed now was some expert advice. Until Nessa had finally admitted that their old school friend Terrence was the love of her life, she’d had an enviably straightforward attitude to men and sex. Nessa knew how to handle a candy man, because, to hear Nessa tell it, she’d had more than her fair share of them.

      There was little doubt that Jace Ryan was a candy man. But now she’d identified him, Cassie didn’t have a clue what to do with him. Should she do what her hormones were begging her to do? Go out with him this evening so they could finish what they’d started later tonight? Or should she do what her head was telling her and run a mile? Not just from him but from the wild woman who had inhabited her body?

      Nessa owed her, she thought as she pressed Dial and listened to the phone ring. It was Nessa’s fault she was in this ridiculous situation. If she had kept her advice to herself, Cassie would never have had that moment of recklessness and accepted Jace’s invitation in the first place—and ended up having an out-of-body experience on his sofa.

      ‘It’s Ness. What’s up?’ Her friend’s familiar greeting had the tension in Cassie’s shoulders easing.

      ‘Ness, it’s me,’ she whispered into the phone. ‘I’m in trouble.’

      ‘What kind of trouble?’ Nessa replied, her voice instantly direct and focused, reminding Cassie why Nessa was the perfect person to turn to in a crisis.

      ‘Do you remember Jacob Ryan? From school?’

      There was a slight pause on the line, then Nessa gave an appreciative purr. ‘Oh, yeah. Jace the Ace. That boy’s tight white buns looked so fine in black jeans, they occupy a real special place in my school memories. Why?’

      ‘I met him. Tonight. I’m in his bathroom at The Chesterton. And we just had … well, not exactly sex, but nearly sex on his sofa.’

      ‘Define nearly sex?’ Nessa said, apparently completely unfazed by Cassie’s confession.

      ‘I had an orgasm. A really amazing orgasm,’ Cassie blurted out, not quite comfortable discussing the mechanics. ‘But he didn’t.’

      ‘That’s not nearly sex, honey.’ Nessa’s deep, satisfied laugh echoed down the phone line. ‘So little Cassie finally found herself a candy man. I always knew that boy looked fine for a reason.’

      ‘Don’t you dare mention that stupid candy-man thing again. I’m in trouble. And you’ve got to get me