Lindsey Kelk Girl Collection: About a Girl, What a Girl Wants. Lindsey Kelk

      I held still for a moment, concentrating on breathing and not falling over. Falling over wasn’t sexy. Nick, however, was sexy. Even in the delicately lit darkness of the bay, there was no way around the fact that he was a very handsome man. And he was looking at me that way again. No one looked at me that way.

      ‘I was thinking about coming to see you,’ I said, standing as still as possible. I wasn’t sure what would happen if I moved. There was every chance I would run and lock myself in the bathroom. Again. ‘About this afternoon.’

      ‘To apologize?’ he asked, rising from the chair, his forearms flexing against the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt. I really was a mug for those forearms.

      ‘No.’ I managed to get the word out before he was in front of me. It was just as well. Once he was only inches away, I seemed to lose the power of speech. Nick was not my type. He was barely taller than me. His eyes were too blue and he had too much of a tan. He was blond. He was arrogant. I didn’t know him, I didn’t love him, I didn’t like him. He wasn’t Charlie. And I had never wanted to have sex with anyone so badly in my entire life. ‘I’m not going to apologize.’

      ‘Good,’ he replied, pushing me back against the door, knocking my head against the wood and kissing me deep and hard without asking permission, without pausing to see if I was OK. I was more than OK. My body lit up under his touch, excited to be doing something, or someone, so new, and started to explore the man pressing against me. Nick didn’t waste time with his kisses, moving from my lips to my throat and all the way down to the neckline of my T-shirt before I could even blink, and somehow, with eyes closed, I concentrated on the sensation of his fingertips tracing patterns all over my body and tried to remember to breathe. His hands coiled themselves up in my hair and pulled my head back sharply, making me gasp. I heard him laugh. He did not stop. Instead, his hands slid down my back, feeling out the fastest route into the waistband of my jeans and slipping inside. This was not his first time. Gasping for air, I wrapped my arms around his neck and hung on for dear life as he pulled me away from the door, pushed me into the cottage and kicked it closed before tearing at my button fly.

      ‘These are in the way,’ he whispered.

      He was right, but they weren’t in the way for long. With no chance of turning back, I wriggled around, my back against the closed door, and helped him remove my extraneous clothing while reaching for his belt buckle. Two could play at this game. I just hoped he wouldn’t notice my amateur status when he was quite clearly a pro.

      It was an unnecessary concern. Making love to my soulmate might have scared me senseless, but when it came to a filthy throwdown with a near stranger, it seemed I was a natural. I kicked and stamped my way out of my skintight denim, all the while pushing and pulling and bucking against my lover, lips already raw, cheeks chafed from his stubble and the taste of him in my mouth. My brain had long since switched itself off, leaving a previously unknown dirty girl autopilot in charge. There were no thoughts, no arguments, no concerns. All I knew was that I wanted this man inside me as soon as humanly possible, and there was nothing else. I heard the rustle of denim, the clank of his belt hitting the floor and felt the burn of Nick’s fingers on my thigh, lingering at the edge of my underwear. He paused, pulled away and looked at me, our noses almost touching, both of us breathing so hard I could hardly bear it. His eyes were deep and dark, and, panting back at him the way I was, I knew I must look feral. But messy hair and worn-away make-up didn’t matter any more. He kissed me again, crushing his lips against mine. His hand slipped around my waist and grabbed my hips, lifting me up, locking me in. I curled myself around his waist and buried my face in his neck. He smelled warm and dark and delicious. I could already smell his sweat on my skin.

      We only made it as far as the sofa before he threw me down, tore off his shirt and knelt down between my legs. Everything was hot and hard and wet and humid, and the last thing I remembered before losing myself completely was the soft sound of his laugh, the flicker of his fingers and the whirr of the ceiling fan. For the first time in my life, being in control seemed overrated.

       CHAPTER ELEVEN

      It was still dark when I woke up, and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust. I was in my room, I was in my bed, but I was very, very naked. Oh no. I rolled over to the edge of the mattress and patted the floor until I could find something underwear-shaped. But when I held them up to face height, they were not my pants. They were man pants. Instinctively I threw them across the room – no one wanted a pair of boxers that close to their face unless they were being worn by Michael Fassbender – and turned over very slowly, very carefully, to see Nick lying beside me. Sliding my legs over the side of the bed, I followed the trail of clothes back out to the living room, wincing at the assorted sex injuries that made themselves known as I moved. If shagging Charlie had been like riding a bike, then Nick was a mechanical bull. Fast asleep, face down in a mound of pillows, he looked so different. All I wanted was to get back into bed and stroke his hair gently until he woke up and shagged me senseless again. I was romantic like that.

      Replaying the action in my mind, I pulled on my knickers as well as a T-shirt I picked up en route and surveyed the damage. The apartment was quite a scene. We’d knocked vases off tables, tipped over chairs, and there were cushions everywhere. I placed a hand on the small of my back, gingerly pressing to test bruises and friction burns. How had I managed friction burns in a cottage with hardwood floors? I glanced back towards the bathroom. Ahh, bath mat. Wow, we really had given the entire place the once-over.

      ‘Hey.’

      Nick was awake. In the darkened bedroom, his voice sounded softer than before. Husky. From sleep or sex – I wasn’t sure which. Either way it made me want his hands on me.

      ‘Hi,’ I replied, still standing in the living room, staring back into the bedroom. I was so pleased about the darkness: he couldn’t see me blushing.

      ‘So I feel like I should mention it now, before it’s a thing …’ He sat up and stretched. Hot, hot, hot. ‘But you know, this is just what it is. I’m a much better shag than I am a boyfriend.’

      I stared. I felt a bit sick. I nodded.

      ‘I know we’re on the same page, anyway,’ Nick said, patting the empty bed beside him. ‘It’s just usually best to make everything really clear. Just in case.’

      ‘Just in case?’ I asked.

      ‘Well, I wouldn’t want you to go falling in love with me,’ he said with a laugh. ‘Come back to bed.’

      ‘Actually, I’m really tired.’ I picked up his jeans and threw them at him. ‘And I sleep a lot better alone.’

      ‘Seriously?’ Nick grabbed the jeans and clung to them, showing no sign of actually putting them on. ‘You’re kicking me out?’

      ‘I wouldn’t want you to get the wrong idea,’ I replied, burning with anything but desire and making a beeline for the bathroom. ‘You can see yourself out.’

      I sat myself down on the toilet and angrily scrubbed at my face with a cleansing wipe until I heard the front door slam. How dare he warn me not to fall in love with him? How dare he think I would get ideas? How dare he assume we were ‘on the same page’? Even though we were. Definitely. What an arsehole. I stopped rubbing when my face started burning from something other than shame and leaned back against the cold porcelain of the toilet cistern. Tossing the face wipe into the bin, I went back into the bedroom and straightened up my messy bed. I shook out the sheets and turned over all the pillows. The last thing I wanted to do was turn over in the night and get a whiff of wanker. I’d wanted a one-night stand and now I’d had a one-night stand. Tick box. And now it was time to sleep. But of course I couldn’t sleep. There was only one thing for it. I picked up my phone and asked Siri to call the only person I had left to talk to.

      ‘Tess?’

      ‘Amy,’ I said. ‘I’m a knob.’

      ‘Me too – I shouldn’t worry,’