Her Best Worst Mistake (9 page)

“
Violet, Violet. You’re so hot. So
bloody hot,” he murmured as he kissed his way down her neck to her
breasts.

He pulled her nipple into his mouth and she nearly
came on the spot.

“
Now, Martin. Now,” she
begged.

He shifted for a second and she heard the crinkle of
a foil packet and then he was pressing into her, thick and hard.
She drew her knees high, hooking one over his shoulder, the other
over his hip, arching herself toward him as he thrust deep inside
her.

Her breath came out in a huge rush as he filled her,
stretched her, completed her. Her hands found his bare ass and she
dug her nails in, denying him movement as she relished the
satisfying fullness.

“
I’m sorry, I have to move. I have
to. You’re so bloody tight. So good,” he groaned, his face
distorted with need.

He started to pump into her, long, powerful thrusts,
the slap of flesh on flesh and the wet rush of their bodies moving
together mingling with their ragged breathing. Everywhere she
touched him he was hard as granite, as though every muscle in his
body was straining toward completion. She’d never felt more
desired, more wanted, more wanton or sexy in her life and she felt
her own desire rising higher with every stroke.

Then he lowered his head and bit her nipple, just
hard enough to hurt, and she was gone, her body clenching around
his as she came and came and came. Incredibly, he kept going, his
neck corded with tension, his eyes closed, teeth bared in a
grimace. More and more and more and she felt her own desire rising
again.

“
Yes. Yes,” she panted.

Then he was buried deep inside her, his hips grinding
against hers has he shuddered through his release. She found her
own peak again, throwing her head back, barely able to breathe as
she pulsed around him.

He collapsed onto the couch beside her, his chest
heaving, his eyes tightly closed. Violet closed her own eyes and
tried to hang onto the sheer freaking joy of the moment for as long
as she could.

But as her body cooled and her breathing slowed her
brain came back on-line with a vengeance.

And all she could think was
what have we done, what have we done, what have
we done?

She slid off the couch and headed for the bathroom.
She shut the door, then pushed the toilet lid down and sat. She
could see her forehead and hair in the mirror above the sink, but
not the rest of her face.

Good. She didn’t want to look herself in the eye
right now.

Elizabeth was her best friend. She had been Violet’s
staunch supporter through everything. She’d been there when Violet
had been sent home from school in disgrace. She’d been there when
her parents had rejected her. She’d held Violet’s hair back from
her face while she threw up from too much drink more times that
Violet could count. She’d passed the tissues during every one of
Violet’s break ups. She’d helped Violet find her shop and stayed up
all night helping her price and display stock for the
opening...

She had always been there. Always.

And Violet had just repaid Elizabeth’s loyalty and
love and thoughtfulness and generosity by fucking her ex-fiancé on
the couch.

She felt sick. She felt like smashing something. She
wanted to turn back the clock.

But then you wouldn’t have just had
the best, most explosive sex of your life. Then you wouldn’t have
known what all those years of animosity and sniping were leading up
to.

She pushed the thought away. It didn’t matter. E
mattered. Their friendship mattered. That was all.

She heard a door closing. She was almost certain it
was the front door. Not a huge surprise. She knew Martin well
enough to know he’d be flagellating himself for this, too. He
prided himself on his sense of honor, on his private moral
code.

This would kill him, even though Elizabeth had been
the one to call off the wedding. Even though he at least had the
excuse of being drunk to salve himself with.

She had no excuse. Nothing.

She waited another ten minutes, just to be sure he
was gone, feeling like a coward as well as a feckless, disloyal
slut. Finally she slipped her arms into her robe and eased the door
open, walking up the hall to the living room. It was empty. Relief
washed over her, followed by yet more guilt.

Her gaze found her phone on the coffee table. She
forced herself to pick it up. She needed to call Elizabeth right
now and tell her everything. No excuses, no glossing over anything.
Pure, unvarnished truth. And if she still had a friend at the end
of the conversation...

She would cross that bridge when she came to it.

She dialed Elizabeth’s number, adding the requisite
digits to reach her on the other side of the world. The phone rang.
And rang. And rang. She shut her eyes and willed Elizabeth to pick
up, aware of her stomach churning sickly. If she didn’t do this
now, she wasn’t sure she would have the courage to do it later. The
phone switched to voicemail. Violet listened to her friend’s cool,
cultured voice.

Belatedly it occurred to her that she had no idea
what Elizabeth was dealing with over in Australia. Had she made
contact with her father yet? And Martin seemed convinced there was
another man on the scene. Clearly, Elizabeth’s plate was full. The
last thing Elizabeth needed was to have Violet dump this mess on
top of her, too, because Violet craved her friend’s forgiveness and
absolution.

That was what this phone call was about, after all.
Making herself feel better. Purging her guilt through
confession.

About as self-serving as a person could get,
really.

When the beep sounded, she ended the call without
saying a word. Then she forced herself to simply sit and experience
all the messy, ugly thoughts and emotions surging through her body.
It was the least she could do. The absolute least.

Chapter Five

Martin walked blindly down the street, barely
registering the cold, every cell in his body vibrating with
shock.

He’d just had sex with Violet Sutcliffe. No, that was
too dry a word for what they’d just done. They’d fucked.
Desperately. Urgently. As though their lives depended on it. As
though they’d been waiting for that exact moment for far, far too
long.

He couldn’t get his head around it. He didn’t even
like her—yet sliding into her body had felt like coming home. Every
word out of her mouth made him want to grind his teeth—yet her
moans and urgings and pleadings had blown his mind.

He didn’t understand. Better yet, he didn’t want to
understand. She was reckless and impulsive, she drank too much, she
dressed too provocatively. She was a mess. A disaster waiting to
happen.

He stopped on a street corner, registering for the
first time that he’d walked in the exact opposite direction of
where he needed to be.

He was both sober and drunk enough to appreciate the
symbolism of his unconscious action. The whole past hour of his
life had been one big, long walk in the wrong direction. A wild,
amazing, wet, tight, breathless walk, granted, but there was no
denying the stupidity of what he’d just done.

So why had he done it? For revenge? Because Elizabeth
had handed his heart back to him and told him she had no use for
it? Because he’d wanted to prove something to himself?

How about because you always, always, always
wondered. Even when you shouldn’t have. Even when you loved
Elizabeth. You always wondered...

His breath rushed out in a cloud of steam, but there
was no denying the truth.

He
had
always wondered about Violet,
down in some deep, testosterone-driven part of his psyche. He’d
wondered what her breasts looked like. How they’d taste. If her ass
was as firm and round as it looked in her provocative little
dresses. If she really did like sex as much as she appeared
to.

And now he knew. God, did he know.

He felt himself growing hard again as he relived
those moments on her couch. The way she’d yanked her top over her
head, then gripped his cock so boldly. The way she’d urged him
higher, harder, faster.

A double-decker bus rushed past, so close it made his
coat flap. He took a step back from the curb. Blinked. Looked
around again.

He needed to find his way home. Better yet, he needed
to forget what had happened tonight. It had been a moment of
craziness. A stupid, impetuous act, driven by ego and peach
schnapps and undeniable curiosity. But he’d satisfied that
curiosity now. It was time to consign Violet to the past, along
with Elizabeth.

Feeling suddenly very, very sober, he turned on his
heel and started walking.

The flowers arrived mid-morning, delivered by a plump
middle-aged man with a cheery smile.

“
Someone’s keen,” he said, offering
Violet a wink as he handed over a full, heavy bouquet of pink and
yellow striped carnations and pale pink roses.

Violet felt all the color drain from her face. “Thank
you.”

She waited until the bell over the door signaled his
departure before opening the small white envelope tucked inside the
bouquet.

I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.

Martin St Clair.

A small, sharp laugh huffed out her mouth. He’d
included his last name, just in case she had trouble working out
who he was. As if she would ever forget him. As if.

A part of her wanted to dump the flowers in the bin,
an absolute rejection of what had happened last night. They were
too beautiful to destroy, however. The florist had misted the
bouquet before sending it out into the world and the full, plump
rose petals glistened with moisture. She lifted the flowers to her
nose and inhaled deeply. The peppery scent of carnations mingled
with the sentimental sweetness of roses and she remembered
something from her long lost teen years.

She’d been obsessed with Victorian-era everything
back then. The social mores, the fashion, the language. She’d
devoted a whole month to exploring floriography, the secret
language of flowers the Victorians had once used to convey
sentiments they couldn’t express in any other way. Carnations had
many meanings, but striped carnations signaled rejection.

Appropriate enough.

Pale pink roses, however, symbolized desire and
passion.

Ironic that Martin—or the florist—had chosen those
two flowers to dominate the bouquet.

Ironic, but ultimately unimportant. As she’d decided
the previous evening, the only thing that counted in any of this
was Elizabeth.

Taking the flowers into the back room, she stuck them
in a jug of water and set them next to the sink. She might not be
able to throw them out, but she wasn’t about to spend all day
staring at them and inhaling their fragrance, either. The phone
started ringing as she returned to the shop floor. Caller ID told
her it was Elizabeth. Her stomach bottomed out and she sat down
with a thump.

Okay. Do this. Get it over and done with.

“
E. How are you?” she said as she
took the call.

“
Vi. God. It’s so good to hear your
voice. You have no idea how much I have needed you over the past
few days...”

Elizabeth sounded strange. Not herself. It took
Violet a few seconds to recognize that the odd note running beneath
her voice was excitement.

“
What’s going on?” she asked,
frowning.

“
It’s so complicated. But the
nut-shell version is that I met this man. This infuriating,
stubborn, outrageous man...” Elizabeth’s sigh sounded down the
line. “I feel as though I’ve been walking around in a fog half my
life, Vi. The things he does to me... The way he makes me
feel...”

Violet closed her eyes. Martin had been right, then.
There was someone else in the picture. Someone Elizabeth had only
met a handful of days ago, yet was barely able to contain her
excitement over when she talked about him.

“
What’s his name?”

“
Nathan. Nathan Jones.”

“
What does he do?”

“
At the moment, not much.
He’s...He’s recovering from a car accident.”

For the first time there was a hesitation in her
friend’s voice.

“
How bad were his injuries?” Violet
asked quietly, worried for her friend. Elizabeth was such a giver.
Violet could imagine her getting sucked into taking on this Nathan
person’s problems, making them her own.

“
Nothing physical. His sister died
in the same accident.”

Elizabeth didn’t say more, but a whole world of
possibilities blossomed in Violet’s mind.

“
Has there been any more news on
your father?”

That was why Elizabeth had left everything she knew
and loved behind, after all.

“
I spoke to him on the phone. Only
for a few minutes.”

Violet picked up on the flat note in her friend’s
voice.

“
He wasn’t pleased to hear from
you?”

“
Not really, no. He
sounded...indifferent, if I’m being honest. Not exactly what I was
hoping for. But he’ll be home after Christmas, so I guess I’ll know
for sure then.”

“
Christmas?”

Four weeks away. When E had jumped on a plane for
Australia, Violet had never imagined she’d be staying there so
long. An odd little shiver of premonition ran down her spine. As
though her body understood something that her mind had yet to
comprehend.

“
What’s happening at your end? You
must be so sick of hearing about all my stuff,” Elizabeth
said.

Violet glanced guiltily over her shoulder. She could
see Martin’s bouquet beside the sink in the back room, a floral
rebuke.