Free Starting Over by Sue Moorcroft

his shoulders as she sighed her approval and he swooped almost savagely on her mouth, hot and tasting of sexy woman. Endless, deep, tingling kisses, her nipples firm against his chest, tongue tip running mad inside his mouth. Heart racing, breath catching, sinking to the edge of the bed with her somehow on his lap. Sinking into the white softness of her breasts. Hearing her inhalation as she paused from her dizzy grapple with the dress studs of his shirt to lift trembling hands to cup his head, hearing her whimper ‘ Yes ! ’ when his mouth closed feverishly on her. Struggling his shirt open, hoarse groan as her hot flesh met his. Wonderful, marvellous, lithe downiness beneath his hands, stroking, suggesting, up and down her body. The body that she arched and offered.
    His delicate fingers discovering the advanced state of her arousal through the sliding fabric of her French knickers, willingly entering into the rhythm she immediately rocked against his hand. God, she was exciting! Hot as hell, unpretending, undisguised, needing – God what a need.
    Spine arching, curving, hands clamped on his biceps, breasts bobbing against him, silky-skinned, her hair slithered over her breasts and his arms, spangling his senses.
    Her head fell forward.
    And she slumped, boneless, on his shoulder.
    Lowering her gently to the coolness of the sheets, he cradled her. Then her breathing slowed. And. Every. Inch. Of. Her. Relaxed …
    Swearing horribly, he watched as her face slackened, eyes shut and she slithered into unmistakable sleep.
    She’d crashed.
    Sweeping back her hair from her unconscious face, he tried his lips and tongue up the xylophone of her now unresponsive rib cage. Out cold.
    He gave an angry snort of laughter. ‘That’ll teach me!’ A wave of frustration broke over him. What if he flung off his clothes and climbed in beside her anyway? Simply slept beside her, woke with her? Maybe they could take up where they left off ...?
    He blew a sigh. It could be better than that.
     

 
Chapter Seven
     
    ‘Lovely summer!’ Angel pushed back her hair, turned her kitten face up to a sun which had, untypically, been giving England its best for weeks, and held up her arms to admire a milk-coffee tan. Tess glanced at her own arms, spangled with a million tiny freckles, envying Angel her Rich Tea biscuit complexion.
    This summer was continental; long days lasting into warm evenings. Everyone spent all their spare time outdoors, the pub gardens filled with kids running between geranium tubs and people going home to barbecues. ‘Are you staying this evening?’ Angel’s hair brushed Tess’s arm as she rolled nearer to watch her trying to come up with new Nigels. Tess had spoken to the card company and they’d agreed to give her the Nigel range.
    To sell cards for boyfriends, dads, husbands, brothers, nephews or sons, Nigel now played golf, football or squash. He drove a sports car, he drank pints. For Valentine’s Day he clutched a pulsing heart and wore a soppy look. She tapped her pencil and thought about Christmas. Nigel began to emerge in the bottom half of a Santa suit, braces a-dangle, sharing a beer with a reindeer.
    ‘Ever run out of ideas?’
    Tess shrugged, absorbed. ‘I just go on to something else.’ She avoided committing herself to staying this evening. Would Ratty be joining them?
    Ratty.
    How the hell was she going to face him? The ball had been bad enough – when Ratty had, apparently, walked her home. In the morning she’d surfaced alone, a wake-up-in-her-make-up number. And half naked.
    What had happened ?
    Back of her mind, there was the niggling memory of dancing in the arms of someone. Then nothing. Blank. What next? Maybe she muddled her way upstairs alone, drew the curtains, undressed and rolled beneath the duvet?
    Maybe she hadn’t needed hauling to bed. Perhaps the edge-of-the-mind memories of groans and furious curses were some head-trick, some earlier experience her dreaming mind had dredged