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I rock my pelvis forwards, so our bodies are pressed together at the hip. And yes .

He’s hard.

Like I knew he would be.

Like I hoped he would be.

‘If you say so,’ I say, raising one eyebrow at him – in exactly the way he usually does to me.

His fresh, minty scent tickles my senses. He always smells like this, clean and delicious.

My lust intensifies, rushing the blood through my veins and making my body throb with need.

We stare at each other, locked in a stand-off. Who’s going to break it first, either by walking away, or taking it further?

My heart races as I wait to see what his next move will be.

This is one of those moments where life turns on an axis.

Which way will it go?

I know which way I hope it’ll spin.

Even though I’m primed for it happening, I’m not prepared for the rush of energy that sweeps through my entire body as he lets out a low breath of frustration and closes the small space between us, covering my mouth with his.

And it’s not just a peck. It’s a full-on, possessive kiss.

I react instinctively to it, opening my mouth and returning the pressure – kissing him in the way I’d wanted to when I was high the other day.

But I’m not high now.

Not in that way, anyway.

It’s rough and messy, this kiss – our teeth clashing and our mouths wet.

Because we’re still locked in a fight, I realise.

And it’s so damn hot.

I dart my tongue into his mouth and he pulls back from me, though only a few centimetres, as if this added intimacy has made him think he should stop this now, but he isn’t entirely convinced he wants to.

I know I don’t want him to.

He’s still holding on to my wrists and I lift my arms so he has to raise his too, then I guide his hands towards my chest.

He resists for one agonising moment, then gives in to my urging and lets go of my wrists so he can cup both breasts, his fingertips pressing into the soft material of my bra so I can feel the pressure of his touch through it.

When he rubs his thumbs over my hard nipples, even though they’re covered by the cotton, they’re so sensitive, desire barrels through me.

We breathe hard against each other’s mouths, our lips close but not quite touching now. He’s staring into my eyes, like he’s in a trance.

I’m aware of my heart racing and guess he must be able to feel it too, as his thumbs continue to stroke over my nipples.

And then his lips are on mine again, his tongue deep in my mouth. It’s urgent and so very deliberate. Like he’s given in to something he was fighting.

The idea of this is so exciting, a low moan builds in my throat.

I want more. More kisses. More touching. More of his soft skin over hard muscles under my fingertips.

I press one hand against the wall behind him for balance and stroke the other down his chest to the top of his shorts, enjoying the feel of the ridges of his muscles through the damp t-shirt.

I pause for a moment at the waistband of his shorts, giving him time to stop me from going further, but when he doesn’t, I slip my hand under the elastic, first of the shorts, then of his boxers.

He sucks in a sharp breath against my mouth, then lets out a low groan of pleasure as my fingertips find the head of his cock.

I wrap my hand around it and move it slowly from tip to base, exploring the length of him.

He’s big. Not scarily big, but there’s some impressive girth there.

I imagine what it would feel like to have his cock inside me, stretching me and thrusting deep, and my body floods with excitement, triggering a low, determined throb in my pussy.

Moving my hand slowly up his shaft again, I rub my thumb over the head, finding it’s slippery with pre-cum. So this is definitely doing it for him too.

I slide my hand slowly down again, then repeat the last motion, drawing another groan from him. I have him pinned to the wall like this and it’s brilliantly enabling.

We both know he could easily stop this by pushing me away from him – he’s a lot stronger than me after all, in every sense – but he’s choosing not to.

His enthusiastic response drives me on. I want to make him groan like that again.

So I keep moving my hand, up and down, up and down, speeding up a little as he starts to jerk his hips.

‘Whoa, Dee, whoa, slow down, slow down,’ he begs against my mouth, his breath rushing out of him.

But I’m enjoying myself so much, I don’t want to slow down and I definitely don’t want to stop. I want to see this to its conclusion.

I’m in charge here for once and it feels bloody fantastic.

And then he comes.

Hard.

His entire body jerks against me, and his hands, which are still on my breasts, grip them firmly, like he’s trying to anchor himself to me. His lips are still pressed to mine and he moans his pleasure into my mouth, his breath clouding my face, his eyes screwed shut.

It’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever experienced – Jem letting go like this. In front of me. It’s such a rush.

The build-up to this has been pretty intense, to be fair, so it’s not a surprise he came so quickly.

And I don’t care. In fact, I like it. I like that I made this happen. That he had no choice but to let go. Especially because he’s been fighting it.

There’s something really empowering about that.

His grip on me lessens a little, then his ragged breathing starts to slow and he moves his hands away from me and rocks his head back till it touches the wall.

‘Oh fuck.’

He still has his eyes screwed shut and he’s not touching me at all.

I give a little shiver as I feel a distance grow between us again.

What’s going on? He can’t be regretting this already. Can he?

‘Are you okay?’ I ask, a little tremulously.

There’s a few seconds pause before he opens his eyes and drops his chin to look at me.

‘Uh, yeah. I guess. I wasn’t… uh, intending that to happen, that’s all.’

I’m surprised by how flustered he is.

‘You’re acting like you’ve never had a handjob before,’ I joke, disconcerted by the extremity of his reaction.

There’s a loaded pause where he looks away and refuses to meet my eye.

‘I haven’t,’ he says eventually.

‘You’ve never had a handjob?’ I say, incredulous. ‘What kind of women are you dating? That’s very lax of them.’

‘No kind of women.’

‘Oh.’ It suddenly occurs to me that I’ve been very presumptuous. ‘Men then?’

‘No. No kind of men either.’

‘So, hang on. Are you telling me you don’t date?’

‘Yes.’

‘Ever?’

‘No.’

‘So, what, you’re a virgin?’

‘Can we not…’

I blink at him, completely flummoxed. I never would have guessed he’s never had sex. He’s too virile, too, well, sexy for that to be believable.

I wonder what’s got in the way of that happening.

An unsettling thought strikes me.

‘Are you saving yourself for my sister?’ I blurt. I realise as soon as I’ve said it that I don’t actually want to hear the answer to that. Especially if I’m right.

‘I don’t want to talk about Bea right now. Especially after… what just happened here,’ he mutters, pushing himself away from the wall and past me.

I take a stumbling step backwards as his movement unbalances me and I have to reach out to steady myself.

‘Could you give me the room for a minute please,’ he says. But it’s not a request, it’s a demand.

I nod, my stomach sinking, and grab a towel from the heated rail, which I wrap around myself, then hobble past him and out of the room, hearing him close the door firmly behind me.

I make it over to the bed on shaky legs and flop down onto the mattress, screwing my eyes shut and frowning hard.

I feel weird. Uncomfortable. Like I’ve done something wrong.

But I haven’t, I remind myself. He could have stopped it at any point. I wasn’t exactly holding him hostage in there. He was free to leave. He could have said no.

I swallow past a lump in my throat. But then I did push very hard for what I wanted to happen there. Perhaps he didn’t feel he could say no.

But that’s ridiculous, isn’t it?

He was turned on. He kissed me first!

I guess as soon as he came down from his horn, he regretted what we’d done immediately.

Especially as I stupidly mentioned Bea.

Ugh!

There’s the sound of the bathroom door opening and Jem walks out. His hair looks rumpled, like he’s run his fingers through it in agitation, and he’s not smiling. He does, at least, look at me.

I sit up as he approaches the bed and swing my legs over the side.

‘Bathroom’s all yours,’ he says.

‘Jem? Perhaps we should talk about what just happened?’ I say, worried now by the closed expression on his face.

‘I’d rather not. It wasn’t a good idea and it’s not something we should repeat. It’ll fuck everything up,’ he says, his voice hard, like he’s built back his emotional wall between us.

My body rushes with a sickly sort of horror.

‘So that’s it? We just pretend it didn’t happen?’ I say. I can hear the frustration in my voice. I don’t want to just sweep this under the carpet. It’ll be even more difficult being around him from now on if we don’t address this right now.

‘Yes,’ is his determined reply.

I feel emotion closing my throat and I’m suddenly terrified I’m going to cry in front of him.

But I won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing that.

‘Okay. Fine. Let’s forget it happened then,’ I say, leaping up from the bed. ‘I’m going to have that bath if you’re really not prepared to be a grown-up and talk about this.’

He sits down on the bed with his back to me and I see the tension in his shoulders. ‘You do that,’ is all he says.

I give him another few seconds to come to his senses and at least look at me. But when he doesn’t, I let out a low, wobbly sigh and hobble back to the bathroom.

Maybe once we’ve both had a little while to get our heads around what happened in here, we’ll be able to at least laugh about it, I tell myself.

But I don’t really believe that.

And when I come out of the bathroom half an hour later, with my heart in my mouth and my pulse racing, I find the room is empty.