Four Christmas Treats. Jessica Hart

nuance of his flesh, its texture firm and taut where it padded his muscles, sleek and cool over the length and strength of his bones, deliciously male-scented and erotic in the vulnerable hollows of his throat, the inside of his elbows, behind his knees.

      Her own flesh seemed to be vibrating in a hymn of sensuality that was beyond her own hearing. She could feel it growing and expanding within her, deepening and tightening, filling her senses until it spilled over and flooded every bit of her.

      Silas, who had been lying wide awake, gritting his teeth against his own aching desire, heard her soft moan and the accompanying acceleration of her breathing. It was too much for his self-control. He turned over, reaching for her, covering her mouth with his own before she could object and kissing her with so much skilled sensuality that she didn’t even want to.

      She reached up and wrapped her arms around him, trembling under the forceful pressure of her need for him as he gathered her up against himself. He was naked, she recognised, submitting to the starburst of heated pleasure that the knowledge brought.

      When and how had she learned to open her legs just enough to be able to feel the delight of the space she had created accommodating the hard strength of his erection as he slid her down against it? His hands were sliding beneath the waist of her thin cut-offs so that he could cup her buttocks and press her more deeply against it, moving her rhythmically as he did so. Up and then down the thickness of his flesh, just a little, just enough to make her want to cry out in fierce recognition of her own aching frustration every time the movement sensitised her growing ache for a deeper intimacy.

      She tried to focus away from the clamouring demands of her clitoris and to concentrate instead on the slow, explorative thrust of his tongue against her own. Only it wasn’t slow any more, and she didn’t know if the urgent movements galvanising her body were the result of what he was doing to her or the cause of it. She could feel the hot, tight, piercingly erotic ache of her nipples as her movements brought them into contact with his naked chest. She wanted him to touch them, to caress them, to soothe their hard need with the comfort of his kiss and then to inflame it again with the hotter, harder lash of his tongue and the rake of his teeth. She wanted him to slide her body free of her sleepwear and then explore each and every part of it while she gave herself up to the pleasure of that intimacy.

      ‘You’re going to have to provide the condom; I didn’t think to bring any with me.’

      Tilly stared up into Silas’s face and gulped. ‘Neither did I,’ she told him. ‘I’m a woman. They aren’t the kind of thing I usually carry around with me.’

      ‘But presumably, like me, you don’t have unprotected sex?’

      It was a question rather than a statement.

      ‘I don’t have sex, full stop,’ Tilly admitted honestly.

      She sounded so self-conscious that Silas knew immediately that she was telling the truth. He reached out and switched on the bedside lamp, keeping a firm grip on her arm when she would have squirmed away.

      ‘It isn’t that I have any problem with having sex,’ Tilly assured him. ‘The problem has been meeting the right kind of partner.’

      Silas arched one dark eyebrow in disbelief.

      ‘You work in the City. You’re in charge of a department of testosterone-fuelled young males.’

      ‘Exactly,’ Tilly agreed vehemently, adding in exasperation when he continued to look slightly aloof and disinclined to believe her, ‘Don’t you see? If I started dating one of them, then it would be bound to be discussed by the others, and then they’d all…’

      ‘Want to take you to bed?’ Silas suggested, and then wished he hadn’t when he was suddenly savaged by the most unexpected raw male jealousy.

      ‘Hardly. But in order to maintain my authority over them I have to ensure that they respect me. They wouldn’t do that if they thought they could have sex with me.’ She gave a small shrug. ‘It sounds brutal I know, but it’s the truth. The City has a very macho image, and the young men working there are keen to uphold that image. They’re pushing the boundaries all the time. They’re like pack animals—if you show a weakness they’ll sense blood and go in for the kill. If I want to date a man it has to be someone outside the City, and the hours I work make that almost impossible.’

      Silas knew what she was saying was true. ‘Hence your decision to include some recreational sex in the deal you set up when you hired an escort?’ he suggested.

      Tilly stiffened in angry outrage. ‘How many times do I have to tell you that there was no such decision—either by me or for me?’

      ‘You haven’t had sex in a very long time, to judge from the way you were responding to me. It makes sense that you should think of getting a double deal for the price of one.’

      Tilly’s face had started to burn with the heat of her emotions. ‘I do not and would not pay for sex. I’ve already told you that. And if that had been my intention you can be sure that I would have taken steps to ensure that I was properly protected. I don’t use any kind of contraception,’ she told him fiercely. ‘Never mind carry condoms with me just in case.’

      Silas could hear the emotional tears thickening her voice. If she was telling the truth then his accusations weren’t just in bad taste and unfair, they were also cruel. Her need must have been very great indeed to make her respond to him as intensely as she had.

      ‘Okay, I was out of order. You’ll have to put my lack of subtlety down to the fact that I’m frustrated and disappointed as hell that we can’t take this to its natural conclusion.’

      Tilly gave a muffled sound and let him draw her back against his body and hold her there, with her head tucked into his shoulder.

      ‘It’s been a long time for me as well,’ he told her quietly. He felt her sudden shocked movement. ‘No, I’m not lying. It’s the truth. Contrary to the impression I’m probably giving right now, I don’t go in for impulsive spur-of-the-moment sex. My own work means that finding the right kind of partner isn’t easy.’

      Tilly assumed he meant that because he was an actor the opportunities were many, but so were the risks. As Sally had once graphically said to her, every time she slept with a new man she felt totally put off by the thought that she was also in part sleeping with all his previous partners—and their partners too.

      ‘Perhaps I’m not thinking laterally enough,’ Silas murmured.

      ‘About finding a sexual partner?’

      ‘No, about having the satisfaction of giving you the pleasure and fulfilment I want to give you. After all, we don’t need a condom to achieve that.’

      Tilly’s heart somersaulted, and then slammed into her chest wall. She didn’t know now whether to feel shocked or excited, and ended up feeling a mix of both, tinged with wary resoluteness.

      ‘If you’re saying that because you still think I hired you with the ulterior motive of having sex with you—’ she began.

      But Silas didn’t let her finish her objection, putting his fingers to her lips instead to silence her, and then bending his head to her ear to tell her meaningfully, ‘Right now I ache like hell with frustration, and, like I said, it’s the best way I can think of to go at least partway towards getting rid of that.’

      ‘By satisfying me?’

      Silas could hear the disbelief in her voice. ‘I don’t know what kind of men you’ve known, but I can’t believe they haven’t shown you how much pleasure a man can get from bringing his partner to fulfilment. From seeing it in her eyes, feeling it in her kiss, from witnessing that he’s satisfied her.’

      ‘There haven’t been men,’Tilly felt obliged to admit. ‘Just one man. It was when we were at university, and I felt I should…’

      She’d only had one previous lover? Silas was caught off-guard by the wave of unexpected