Free Simply Divine by Wendy Holden

boyfriend?' asked Tom wickedly. By now his hands had slipped inside her shirt. They were cool and dry, unlike Nick's, whose were always the temperature and moistness, if not the cleanliness, of the hot towels served in Indian restaurants. Tom's tongue, too, was miraculously free of the rivers of saliva that accompanied Nick's rare attempts at tonsil hockey.
    'He's not here,' said Jane. Having decided that she would sleep with Tom, she felt quite calm now. What possible harm would one empty, brittle, mad, impetuous and utterly meaningless fling do? It was, anyway, Nick's fault for throwing her in temptations way. Wasn't it?
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    Jane looked boldly into the clear eyes a few inches from her own. 'Let's just get something straight, shall we?' she said, as Tom's hand gently pushed down her jeans zip and started investigating her knickers.
    'What?' mumbled Tom. 'I've got some condoms.'
    'There's something else.'
    Jane made no attempt to resist as he pushed her gently down on the rug. Thank goodness she'd hoovered it reasonably recently. And thank double goodness she'd shaved her armpits. As Tom's mouth moved down to her stiffening nipple she breathed in the heady scent of him -top notes of basil with a dash of salt.
    'What?' muttered Tom. His tongue flicked thrillingly about her nipple. Jane gasped as every nerve in her body started singing the Hallelujah Chorus and her insides dissolved into molten metal.
    'This is a one-night stand, isn't it?'
    'Of course.' Tom looked up at her and grinned through his tangle of hair. 'This is far too much fun to last.'
    'So you won't respect me in the morning?'
    'I sincerely hope not.'
    'That's all right then.'
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    Chapter 5

    'Wore that yesterday, didn't you?' Josh asked as Jane came into the office the next morning.
    Jane ignored him. Who cared if she'd rushed out of bed at the last minute and thrown on the clothes still lying on. the floor from the night before? Josh was lucky she'd got them on the right way round. She sighed as her eye caught the clock. Tom would soon be leaving to catch his flight to New York. She would never see him again. Parts of her — very particular parts of her - regretted this intensely. But it was just as well, obviously. Last night had been a meaningless, mad and utterly shallow fling. But as meaningless, mad and utterly shallow flings went, it had been a good one.
    Tom had made her feel more beautiful and desired than Kate Moss, a World Cup win and the National Lottery jackpot all rolled into one. He had been the gentlest as well as the most skilful of lovers, although admittedly her field of comparisons was limited. He had made her laugh. He had astonished her by his gentleness and sensitivity. And she had never seen such an enormous penis. It had looked big enough to pick up Channel Five. The World Service, come to that.
    Nick would finally be on his way back from Brussels
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    now. He'd probably pass Tom in the air. Jane swallowed to combat a rising and recurring nausea, unsure whether it was an excess of champagne or guilt.
    Two Nurofens later, Jane stood on the strand of the morning's news, preparing to wade through the tide of tabloids. 'Wondered when you were going to get on to those,' came Josh's voice out of his office. 'Then again, you should know everything about the big story already.'
    Please don't let it be another transport minister disaster, prayed Jane. She couldn't cope with the thought of Nick sulking all week like he had after the run in with Piers and the crusties. Trembling, she scrabbled for the Sun.
    'END OF A LAV AFFAIR', read the headline, breaking to an astonished world the shattering news that Champagne had swapped the vitreous enamel heir Rollo Harbottle, whom the tabloid unkindly dubbed 'Loo Rollo', for a more glamorous model. The paper revealed Champagne's latest consort to be 'brooding bad boy of rock Conal O'Shaughnessy, lead singer of moody Mancunians the Action Liposomes, whose "Make Mine A Large One" single, taken from their