Read On the First Night of Christmas... for Free Online Page B

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