Lessons in Rule-Breaking Read online

  Until Xander came along with his dogged determination.

  How completely and utterly bizarre the whole situation was. It was as if she’d just tumbled down the rabbit hole and found herself in a new, completely baffling world.

  Her expression must have reflected some of her bewilderment because Xander frowned and put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Are you okay?’

  His show of concern made her chest constrict. He seemed to be genuinely worried about how she was handling it all.

  She gave him a smile, which she hoped transmitted more poise than she felt right at that moment. ‘I’m fine. Thanks.’

  He grinned. ‘So it is possible for you to orgasm with someone else in the room.’

  She snorted and shook her head in amusement at his awe-inspiring confidence. ‘Yeah, okay, you were right, apparently you are a sex magician.’

  ‘A sex magician.’ He smiled. ‘I like the way your mind works, Jess.’

  She felt light-headed and discombobulated by it all—and suddenly, overwhelmingly tired. A yawn pushed against the back of her throat and she tried in vain to suppress it.

  Xander grinned in amusement. ‘Okay, I’m going to let you sleep now.’

  Before she could say anything he rolled away from her, off the bed and onto his feet in one fluid movement.

  ‘See you in the morning, Jess.’ He blew her a kiss. ‘Sweet dreams.’

  She watched his retreating figure until he’d pulled open the door and disappeared through it, letting it click closed behind him.

  She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.

  Her whole world had been tipped upside down and she felt suddenly very lost and alone and horrifically guilty about not giving him any pleasure back.

  No wonder he’d got up and left.

  And she didn’t know what to do next.

  Now she’d allowed her hard-clung-to control to slip she was in some kind of crazy limbo, not sure which way to turn.

  Xander had made it pretty clear he was all about the here and now and that tonight was just a bit of fun for him and she didn’t know what to think about that. On the one hand she didn’t want that to be it for them—now she’d toppled over the line she wanted more time to explore this brave new world with him—but on the other, she had a horrible feeling she wouldn’t be able to be as casual about sex with Xander as he apparently could be with her.

  Could she risk it?

  If she decided to walk away now and keep her sanity—and quite possibly her heart—intact, she’d need to go first thing in the morning, before things became awkward and uncomfortable for them both.

  But could she bring herself to do that?

  Based on his reputation she’d be a fool to think anything long-term could come out of this, but, damn it, she couldn’t just walk away now, leaving things hanging between them.

  She wanted more.

  Flopping back onto the pillows, she rubbed a hand over her drowsy eyes.

  Sleep, that was what she needed right now. The crazy whirl of emotions had exhausted her and she could barely think straight any more.

  Yes, sleep now.

  There would be time for decisions in the morning.

  * * *

  Xander paced around his bedroom, weirdly adrenalised from the effort of walking away from Jess when all he’d wanted to do was bury himself inside her and stay there all night.

  To lose himself in her.

  Giving his face a vigorous rub to get the blood flowing, he stared at his eyes in the mirror and tried to pull himself together.

  He’d never done that before—put someone else’s needs before his own—and he was amazed by just how fantastic it felt. He was making a positive difference to her life, helping her find something she’d been missing for too long, and the thought of it warmed him.

  Xander Heaton, Sex Therapist. Who’d have thought it possible?

  It had been hell on earth to walk away, but he was glad he’d done it. He could see they needed to take things slowly so she could keep some vestige of control. Judging by the way she’d closed herself up again afterwards, she evidently needed space away from him now.

  So did he if he was honest.

  He couldn’t put his finger on exactly why he felt so unsettled by what had just happened between them, but it unnerved him something crazy.

  Perhaps it was because he liked her so much. The lovers he’d had in the past had been very sexy, engaging women, but he’d never enjoyed being with them the way he enjoyed being around Jess. There were so many layers to her that he got the feeling he might never get to the heart of who she was.

  She fascinated him.

  And he was having fun. He seemed able to push away the anxiety that had plagued him for the last year when she was around.

  She calmed him—and he needed that right now. It would be good for him to have her company here while he worked on his exhibition.

  He just needed to find a way to persuade her to stay.

  SEVEN

  Jess slept badly, despite her exhaustion, trying like mad to put the thought of what had happened with Xander out of her mind until the morning.

  She failed spectacularly, of course. He was all she could think about.

  He’d made her feel like the most important, fascinating, sexy woman on earth for those few short hours and she knew she wanted that feeling back, so desperately. She could almost taste the tang of need like a physical reaction in her taste buds.

  The fact he’d seemed to genuinely find her a turn-on had helped something begin to shift in her head. It wasn’t as though she suddenly felt like throwing off all her clothes and running around in the nude, but his gentle attentions and the stream of compliments had made her start to think about her body in a different way.

  Rolling out of bed, she walked over to the cheval mirror in the corner and stood naked in front of it. For the first time in a very long time she looked at herself—really looked—studying the places he’d mentioned he liked so much, running her fingers over the dips and swells of her figure and tracing the lines of the muscles that delineated her body.

  She was surprised by how different she felt this morning, after finally allowing herself to release the brakes on her control and discovering that the earth hadn’t crashed around her ears. It was as if she’d uncovered something new and secret and hidden about herself, after all these years.

  Something that Xander had seen all along.

  After showering, she dressed quickly, her body humming with a strange excitement.

  She needed to see Xander, if for no other reason than to prove to herself he was real and she hadn’t just dreamt it all up.

  He was in his studio, stripped to the waist and engrossed in what he was painting on a large canvas. There was a dark smudge of paint on his left cheek, as if he’d absent-mindedly swiped at his face with dirty hands as a child would.

  There was something so pure and human about that, something that made her chest contract with acute sadness for him. He was alone in the world and carrying around such a heavy load of pain and anger it made her want to cry. No wonder he couldn’t settle down if he’d never known what it felt like to be loved. She so desperately wanted to show him how it could feel, but she was terrified she wasn’t strong enough or bright enough or alive enough to get through to him.

  Was she brave enough to at least give it a try?

  She still hadn’t figured out what she was going to write about him for the magazine. That really ought to be her top priority, not working out how to get him into her bed, but she couldn’t think about that right now, not when Xander was standing in front of her looking like all her best birthdays rolled into one.

  Her heart raged in her chest as she realised this was her opportunity to ask for what she really wanted. To make
love to him. Feel him move inside her. Breathe in the clean scent of his skin and slide against him, over and over again until they were breathless. Something she’d been aching for all night.

  No, strike that, since the first moment she’d set eyes on him at his studio in London.

  As she walked towards him he looked round at her and gave her a tentative smile as if he wasn’t sure how he should act around her today. ‘Good morning,’ he said, his voice low and sweet.

  Without saying a word, she put out a shaking hand and pressed it against the rock-hard muscles of his chest and felt his sharp intake of breath. Encouraged that he hadn’t slapped her hand away, she took a step closer to him and forced herself to look up into his face.

  He stared down at her with an open, questioning look in his eyes. Summoning all her courage, she pushed up on her tiptoes and leant in towards him, her lips tingling in readiness for the feel of his mouth against hers.

  His breath was coming out in shortened gasps and she felt it whisper against her skin for a moment before their lips connected.

  A low, almost animal sound came from deep within his chest as she slipped her tongue against the ridge of his teeth. Opening his mouth against her tentative invasion, he flexed his tongue against hers and she tasted the sweetness of him, her body reacting immediately to a desperate need to be enfolded in his arms and held close.

  He let her take control as she slid her fingers into his hair and drew him even closer. Leaning into him, she felt the solid ridge of his body press against her from pelvis to chest.

  He wanted her, she noted with a breathless sort of glee—she could feel it in the tension of his muscles and, more to the point, in the hard bulge at the front of his trousers.

  With shaking hands, she fumbled with his belt, her clumsy fingers making slow work of unbuckling it.

  She didn’t allow herself to stop to think about what she was doing. She couldn’t. If she let anything other than her determination to feel him inside her flit through her head she’d stall and the moment would be lost for ever. And that meant never being able to have what she so badly wanted.

  To indulge her fantasies for once in her life.

  To let go of her anxiety and just take what she wanted.

  And she wanted this. So much it hurt.

  She was going to take it and decorum be damned.

  The buckle finally came apart and she popped the button on the front of his trousers and slid her hand inside them, under his underwear, until she found the hardness of him. She drew away and looked up into his face.

  His eyes were hazy with a need she felt sure must be reflected in her own.

  ‘Don’t stop,’ he growled, his voice so low she could barely make out the words.

  Wrapping her hand around the length of him, she moved her fingers from base to tip, catching the velvety soft head with her thumb and feeling the slickness of his arousal coat her fingertips.

  ‘Ah, hell, Jess, that feels so good.’ His fingers wound into her hair, pulling her mouth towards him and kissing her so thoroughly she thought she might die from the pleasure of it.

  His hands skimmed beneath the hem of her dress and slid up her thighs, his fingers tugging at the elastic of her knickers so hard she felt it ping and give as the seam ripped and the scrap of material fell to the floor.

  ‘Oops, sorry,’ Xander said against her mouth, not sounding in the least bit sincere.

  She giggled as he kissed across her cheek and gently tickled the sensitive whorl of her ear with his tongue, but soon stopped as she felt his fingers find the slick heat between her legs.

  Pressing against his hand, she felt the beginnings of an orgasm stir deep in her pelvis and the need to have the hard length of him inside her grew even more intense. She’d been picturing this situation in her head all night and now that the possibility it might actually happen had arisen she could barely wait. She felt greedy for it.

  ‘Xander...’

  ‘Yeah,’ he groaned, as if sensing she was about to cut their encounter short and readying himself to be a gentleman about it.

  ‘Do you still want me hard and fast against the wall?’ she asked, forcing herself to look him directly in the eye. If this was the last chance she was going to get to test out just how brazen she could push herself to be, she wanted to go all the way.

  ‘Hell, yeah,’ he breathed in relief, reaching a hand round to grab his wallet out of the back pocket of his trousers. Releasing his hold on her, he located a condom before dropping the wallet onto the floor next to them.

  He didn’t move his gaze away from hers as he waited for her to step back so he could strip off his clothes.

  She’d never seen anyone get undressed so fast.

  He stood there naked in front of her, the heat of his body radiating outwards, warming her skin with its fiery intensity. Taking a deep breath, she allowed her gaze to travel down the magnificence of him, taking in every beautiful dip and curve.

  Her gaze returned to his and locked for a moment as he checked with her silently that she really wanted this.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, and he gave her a smile of such unadulterated pleasure she nearly came on the spot.

  He took a moment to sort out the condom, before returning his gaze to hers, his eyebrow raised in a seductive challenge.

  ‘You ready for me, Jess?’

  ‘As I’ll ever be,’ she replied, suddenly horrendously shy about what was about to happen. But before she had time to dwell on it, he stepped forward, and, putting a hand on each of her upper arms, walked her backwards until her shoulders slammed against the wall. His mouth came down on hers immediately and she was lost in an electric storm of need, her body throbbing with want, want, want.

  His body enveloped hers, pressing into her with a power she’d never experienced before. She knew she was wanted because she could feel it in him.

  His hands raked up under her skirt again, bunching it up around her waist, exposing her to his exploring fingers. He moved them against her, then inside her until she thought she’d go crazy with it, bringing his mouth hard down onto hers at the same time, the dual stimulation sending her senses into overdrive.

  She was so on the edge it wasn’t funny.

  ‘Now, Xander, I want...’ she gasped.

  He waited a moment for her to continue, then stilled his movement until she looked back into his eyes. ‘Tell me what you want, Jess.’

  ‘I want you. Inside me.’ The words left her lips as though they’d been primed and were just waiting for the opportunity to finally be said. It was easy, so easy now she’d given herself permission not to care about anything other than what was happening between them at that moment.

  He didn’t need anything more from her. Sliding a hand down the inside of her thigh, he hooked his wrist under her leg and drew it up against his waist. The rigid tip of his erection penetrated the slick opening to her a second later, and she gasped with pleasure as he slowly slid inside her.

  They began to move together, Xander pressing her hard into the wall to support them both as he thrust, filling her completely and hitting a sweet spot over and over as their bodies crashed together. They kissed hard, their mouths swollen and hungry as their tongues delved, tasting each other. Grasping the buttoned-down front of her dress, Xander pulled it apart hard, ripping the delicate buttons away from the material so they pinged and bounced across the room. The material gaped at the front, exposing her breasts, encased in the lacy bra she’d chosen to wear on a whim that morning and she didn’t even think to react as he pushed aside the cups to expose the hard peaks of her nipples to his searching fingers.

  Jess thought she might go crazy from the pulsing heat between her legs and the gentle rasp of Xander’s touch on her exposed nipples. But she wasn’t there yet; it wasn’t quite enough.

  ‘Xander...I need...
I need...’

  Seeming to sense her frustration, he dipped his hand between their bodies, sliding the pad of his fingertip against her clitoris, mimicking the movement of his thrusts inside her.

  Gripping the bulk of his shoulders for support, Jess closed her eyes and allowed the delicious friction to build and intensify, sending waves of exquisite pleasure radiating out from deep within the centre of her, teetering on the edge of an orgasm for utterly crazed moments, before finally breaking into a rush of the most intense pleasure she’d ever experienced. A low guttural moan grew from the base of her throat and vibrated in the air around them as she totally lost control.

  It only took Xander a couple more thrusts before he joined her in her electric ecstasy, pounding into her hard as he came, his breath hot and fast on her neck as he surged into her.

  They remained like that for a while, both gasping for breath as they came back down to earth.

  Finally able to relax her fingers enough to release her grip on his shoulders, Jess put her palms against his chest and pushed gently until he dipped and slid out of her. He took a step away so she could put both feet back on the ground.

  They stood and looked at each other for a beat, their breathing still low and rough from their exertions, before they pulled themselves together.

  Xander disposed of the condom while she readjusted her clothes, trying in vain to reclose the top of her dress where it now gaped open after his callous treatment of it.

  ‘You owe me a dress,’ she said, raising a mock-stern eyebrow.

  He laughed. ‘I think it looks better like that.’ He ran a hand over her hair, smoothing it against her head. ‘Let’s lie down before we fall down,’ he said, cocking a suggestive eyebrow. Taking her hand, he led her out of the studio and into his room.

  He flopped down onto the bed, pulling her down next to him, his naked body gleaming in the soft, late-morning light.

  She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the magnificent strength of him as he lay stretched out next to her. Her gaze raked him from head to toe, only snagging momentarily on the deep V where his hips joined his body, and lower...