Unwrapping the Best Man

And it’s enough. I think of Jackson four months ago, the one who swore he would never make love... This is something, and for now it’s enough.

‘Yes,’ I whisper, kissing him back, angling my body to meet him and when he enters me I trap my sob in our kiss. I let him fill me, rock into me, and with every thrust I silently tell him that I love him, that I want to keep him, that I want us to work.

If I can just keep hold of him long enough to make him realise this could be real, long enough for him to trust me with his demons and let me in.

I have time. For him, I’ll wait for as long as it takes...

CHAPTER TWELVE

I HAVE THIS feeling in my chest I can’t describe. It’s been two weeks since Cait and I embarked on this affair that’s not an affair. Neither of us have voiced what it is, not since the night at her parents’ place, and I feel like the clock is ticking. Like I’m slowly suffocating under the pressure of what I feel for her and what I’m keeping locked inside.

She wants the truth of my past and I can’t give it to her. The very idea breaks me out in a cold sweat and though I’m sitting alone in my office now I almost retch with it.

I press my fist to my mouth and curse my stupidity. How could I think I could keep all this under control? How could I let it go on so long when every day that passes gives Cait hope that we could be more? I see the look in her eye—I see the love, the belief that I’m fixable, that we can play happy families for real. And every day has those three words clambering further up my throat—I love you. Words I cannot confess because Cait will never understand that though I love her I can’t have her.

I spin away from my desk and stand to look at the poster on the wall. It’s a blow-up of the advert that was issued when the club relaunched under my ownership, when it became Blacks. It’s a reminder of how far I’ve come and what I’ve left behind. But the scars...nothing can take those away, not even Cait.

And, given enough time, those scars will ruin her too.

It’s why I need to end it now. But I told myself that yesterday and the day before and the day before that... Every morning I wake up with her in my arms and in my heart and tell myself the same, but I can’t do it.

Which only proves how twisted I am. Twisted and selfish and fucked up.

A rap on the door accompanies my fist to the poster and I take a breath, dropping back down into my seat.

‘Come in.’ I spin back into my desk, rubbing at my fist and frown at the opening door.

‘Hey, bad boy!’ Caitlin appears—Caitlin in full-on elf mode. Holy fuck.

My heart stutters, the rush of heat down low no less powerful than it was the first time I saw her elfed up. In fact, it’s more because now it’s filled with everything that’s happened between us these last two weeks. It’s love, it’s desire, it’s a wish for so much more, and fuck, fuck. Fuck. How can I stop this?

She smiles at me all sexy and sultry as she flicks the door closed behind her.

‘Santa sent me to sort you out... He even gave me a special little stocking just for you.’ She saunters up to me all cat-like and sexy, her hips swaying, her midriff bare, her little skirt and stockings showing so much thigh that my cock is already like granite. The blood pounds through my body, between my ears, drowning out my conscience as she swings the stocking in front of her. ‘Wait until you see what naughtiness awaits you in this little bundle.’

‘Isn’t it a little early for presents?’

She sets it down on the desk and leans over me, her hands resting on the arms of my chair as she teases me with her cleavage, her sexy pout and her desire-laden eyes. ‘It’s never too early for this kind of present and, since Mum’s inviting you to stay for Christmas, I wasn’t sure when I’d get the chance to give—’

‘What?’ My chest squeezes tight and my pulse skips a beat. Wait. She couldn’t have—she wouldn’t. I mean Christmas Day. It’s one thing to masquerade as a couple and do the odd family dinner together, but Christmas. I don’t even like Christmas.

Liar. You liked it well enough these past two weeks when you’ve been present-buying with Cait, decorating with her, eating festive fancies, drinking mulled wine, Granny’s eggnog...

‘Hey, it’s okay; she knows you don’t have family and thought it would be nice for you, for us, to, you know, spend Christmas with them.’

‘And you said yes?’

‘I said I’d ask you, but—’ She shrugs, a frown marring her brow, the spark in her eyes starting to ebb. ‘Sorry, Jackson, I didn’t realise the idea would upset you so much. I thought after all we’ve shared these past two weeks, we were kind of in that place.’

In that place. In a relationship. It’s confirmation of everything my conscience has been spewing and suddenly my brain is racing, my heart too.

‘Cait—’

I break off as the door swings open. ‘Jackson, we need to—’

‘Eliza?’

She freezes in her tracks as Cait scrambles off me, her eyes quick to take in the scene she interrupted.