The Gift Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Portia Da Costa

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  Copyright

  About the Book

  It’s going to get hot and steamy this Christmas...

  Sandy Jackson still dreams of the sexy stranger who came to her rescue years before.

  And when she meets Jay Bentley again she doesn’t recognise him. Horrifically wounded in a car crash, Jay has both physical and psychological scars and is more Beast than Prince Charming.

  But he has not forgotten their earlier encounter either... And all he wants this Christmas is Sandy in his bed...

  About the Author

  Portia Da Costa is one of the most internationally renowned authors of erotica and the Sunday Times bestselling author of the classic erotic romance In Too Deep and the brand new erotic romance ‘Accidental’ trilogy: The Accidental Call Girl, The Accidental Mistress and The Accidental Bride.

  The Gift is the latest of her Black Lace titles to be re-released and was originally published as Kiss It Better. Portia has re-imagined the novel with a Christmas setting, complete with a new sexy, seasonal epilogue.

  Also by Portia Da Costa

  Continuum

  Entertaining Mr Stone

  Gemini Heat

  Gothic Blue

  Gothic Heat

  Hotbed

  In too Deep

  Shadowplay

  Suite Seventeen

  The Devil Inside

  The Red Collection

  The Stranger

  The Tutor

  The Accidental Series:

  The Accidental Call Girl

  The Accidental Mistress

  The Accidental Bride

  Chapter 1

  ‘Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!’

  Throwing himself on the bed, Jay gritted his teeth and rode the pain.

  When the hell was this going to get easier? It had been over a year now. Well over a year of feeling as if someone was driving red-hot spikes into his joints and bones whenever he overdid it. Months and months of fighting the fight against taking weapons-grade painkillers. Surely one of these days he’d be able to run again without ending up feeling as if he’d been put through an industrial grinder?

  Pulling his ‘worst’ leg up to his chest, he tensed and released, tensed and released, longing for the almost supernatural ministrations of his masseur, yet knowing such luxuries were off the menu for the time being.

  One of the many prices to be paid for mixing business with the irrational pursuit of an adolescent dream.

  Heaving himself upright again, he glanced around. It was an old-fashioned room, a little too fussy and chintzy for his taste, but immaculate. The Waverley Grange was a deeply weird hotel, but it was in the area and he’d wanted to stay here and find out what all the fuss was about. He’d never seen his father quite as pissed off as he’d been last year over this place.

  The old man had had the Waverley in his sights, only to be denied by an unexpected management buyout. At one time, this would have pleased Jay mightily. He’d been at odds with his father for so long. But in recent years, they’d come to an accommodation, and begun to work together at last. And now, the Waverley was ideally situated for Jay’s current mission of fact-finding and general reconnoitring of the area. Not to mention the fact that the cable porn on offer was first class, the hottest and most explicit he’d ever seen. He’d never expected such a degree of sophisticated cosmopolitan perversion in a provincial country house hotel, but it seemed to be a speciality of the Waverley.

  No wonder the old man had been niggled at losing out. The thought of porn, sex and women made Jay frown. Back to that bloody conundrum again. He shuddered as if someone had stamped snow on his grave.

  I am so screwed up. I haven’t a fucking clue what I want. Or with whom.

  And yet here he was. Chasing a fantasy. Probably a figment of his imagination. But one that made sex, and his dick, come alive again, despite its confused and fragmentary nature.

  He reached for his wallet. There was a secret treasure in it, something only he knew about, a little clipping from a magazine, with a photo. The tiny scrap of paper was a bridge between the present and the past. And an unlikely fantasy that unscrewed his screwed-up libido.

  You stupid prick! Mooning over her like a moronic teenager! Is this what getting mangled in an Aston Martin has reduced you to? Weaving sick masturbation fantasies over an idealised memory, but struggling to get it up with a real live sexy woman?

  Recent memories of humiliation and disappointment surged up in his throat like bile, but with a supreme effort he banished them, and returned to the panacea of dreams where he was in control, where his body was unfaltering and always obeyed him.

  With reverence, he unfolded the clipping. He’d found it by chance in a local magazine, amongst his father’s background materials, and the thought that he might just as easily never have flipped those pages made his blood run cold. Now, he traced his fingertip lightly over the gentle heart-shaped features and the mass of wild red hair of the smiling woman in the picture. She looked just the same as she’d looked fifteen years ago, if you didn’t count the scrapes and bruises and the terrified, thunderstruck and numbed expression she’d had then.

  You were a very very sick young puppy, man.

  But he could still remember the slight weight of her body as he’d carried her, the scent of her fresh, girlish perfume, and the sweetly yielding softness of her lips, in that one brief kiss.

  Kiss it better.

  He’d meant it as a comfort while they’d been waiting for the ambulance, but shame washed through him even now, remembering how horny he’d felt, even while he was doing his saintly, rescuing knight act. He’d felt as bad, if not worse than he would have done if he’d been the bastard who’d knocked her to the ground.

  He lay back on the bed again, holding up the little magazine clipping like a religious icon as his dick hardened spontaneously in his sweaty jogging pants.

  Local café owner gets Fresh Food award.

  ‘Alexandra … Alexandra …’ he rasped, savouring the printed name on his tongue, his damaged voice rougher than ever because he was tired.

  His bitter laugh rent the air. She’d probably tell him to take a running jump. She had every reason to. The twists and tangles of life’s ironies were unlikely sometimes, but this juxtaposition of circumstances beggared belief.

  ‘You’ll probably never fuck me in a million years now, Alexandra, and yet you’re the only woman I seem to be able to get it up for now. How about watching me toss myself off instead?’ He shook his head. Fatigue and pain were making him demented. He was convinced the face in the picture had winked and smiled at him.

  ‘OK then, a wank it is.’

  He pressed a kiss on her image, and placed it carefully on the bedside table. Then, not without a groan and a profanity, he hitched his aching body around until he was sitting propped up against the pillows, with a perfect view of her smile, her amazing hair and those sweet curvaceous breasts in a pure white T-shirt.

  He drew in a deep breath and then let it out as a sigh. He slid his hand into his joggers and took a hold of his penis. Fingers tightening around himself, he sank into a fami
liar fantasy.

  Princess.

  That was what he called her in these secret private moments. Because she did look like a perfect fairytale princess with her long red curls and her huge green eyes. And her hands that handled his cock as if she loved it.

  Slowly, slowly she worked him, her imaginary hand cool and light, moving the skin of his organ seductively over the hard core within. She teased and she twisted ever so lightly, almost threateningly. Mm, just the way he liked a woman to touch him. Her fingertips rode him delicately, cajoling and coaxing one moment, ruthlessly pumping and pulling him the next.

  Oh, God, yes! Princess!

  But no, not Princess any more. Now she had a name and it was time to get used to it.

  ‘Alexandra.’

  Closing his eyes, he slid down on the bed. He didn’t need the little picture any more, because now his mind showed him the product of fifteen years of visualisation, speculation and obsession.

  In his fantasy, Alexandra Jackson peeled her pristine white T-shirt off over her head to reveal her adorable breasts beneath. His imagination dressed her in a lace bra, just the sort he liked to see on a woman. It was white and sheer, showing nipples like sweet dark berries through the mesh. As she wiggled out of what he speculated were a pair of skinny jeans, she revealed a tiny matching G-string beneath, a scrap which only enhanced the view of her pussy rather than impeding it.

  No ballet dancer, no athlete could have been more graceful than Alexandra as she climbed astride him and, using her slender skilled fingers, guided him into her, pushing the fragment of lace aside. In his rational mind, he knew it was still his own hand that pleasured him, but since when had his rational mind had anything to do with this relationship? He’d had fifteen years to develop its verisimilitude.

  Oh Lord, but you’re tight! And so hot. So embracing.

  In his mind, her expression was everything seductive. Her lips were sweet and soft and full, curving into a slow, greedy and deliciously lascivious smile. She was pure sex but at the same time fresh and tender.

  Yet despite his lurid imagination, while fucking him she remained an enigma. And it was that sense of mystery, and the tight caress of her sweet, hot and totally illusory pussy that tipped him over.

  White-hot pleasure poured down his spine, up from his balls and jetted from his penis. Dimly registering that he’d have a cleaning-up job to do when he was finished, he surrendered himself to bliss and blind sensation. He was a victim of his orgasm, a willing slave to it.

  It took him a while to come down. He lingered in a floating hinterland between consciousness and sleep, not quite aroused, but skirting it, his mind awash with vague scenarios. Fairytale princess fucking. Perverse scenes from the Waverley’s high-class porn channel. Fond memories of kinky experimentation, and the sexual adventures he’d indulged in prior to the day he’d woken up in traction and with his entire head swathed in bandages.

  Finally he sat up, clearing his mind of fantasy in order to focus on reality.

  It was time to take a shower, trim his beard, make himself as presentable as was possible nowadays. This afternoon he was heading for the Little Teapot Café.

  Chapter 2

  The back of her neck was prickling again.

  Sandy Jackson spun around on her heel, and sure enough there he was, the man from the Teapot. The scarred husky-voiced stranger with militaristic shaven head and the roguish little goatee beard. The one who’d been scrutinising her so unremittingly that afternoon over his tea and scones. She wasn’t sure what he was doing here tonight, but he was definitely the same one who’d never taken his eyes off her once. Even when her back was turned, according to Kat.

  He wasn’t watching her now. Or at least, if he was, his reflexes were like lightning. Right now, he was chatting to a handsome middle-aged woman, his stern expression mellowed by an attentive sexy smile, his dark eyes twinkling and flatteringly focused on his companion.

  Git! I thought you were my stalker.

  Irrationally jealous, Sandy turned her back on the aggravating man and inched away towards the edge of the room. She felt like a fish out of water at this Chamber of Commerce pre-Christmas soirée. She’d only come in the hopes of picking up some news about the supposed development of the old Bradbury’s supermarket site. If the surprisingly reliable rumour mill was to be believed, and Forbes Enterprises was going to make it over into a new open-all-day food pub, it might well mean the end of the Little Teapot Café.

  Forbes Enterprises. More gits!

  Plastering on a smile, she fabricated a few bits of semi-auto small talk with one or two fellow guests. Blah, blah, blah, not long to Christmas now, eh? Blah, blah, wasn’t this place splendid? Blah-diddy-blah, did you know it has a rather risqué reputation?

  A waiter appeared at her elbow with a tray of hors d’oeuvres and, still on automatic, she took one.

  Mm, not bad. Something tomato-flavoured, a bit like a large cheese straw. Before the lad could get away, she grabbed a second one, a miniature tartlet filled with what tasted like minced prawn in herb mayonnaise. Again, not bad at all. She hoped that Kat, her cook, was taking notice of all this stuff. It was always nice to try out a few new flavours and more imaginative goodies in the Teapot now and again, instead of concentrating on basic confectionery and then simple grills and fries at lunchtime. If they could grow their reputation for irresistibly moreish snacks, it might help them survive the onslaught of that bloody fun pub.

  Her neck did the prickle thing again and, before she could stop herself, she looked round again, searching for Mr Hard-Case Stalker with the sexy goatee beard.

  And there he was of course, but this time he didn’t bother to hide the fact he was looking at her. In fact, he nodded slightly, tipped his glass, and favoured her with an enigmatic half-smile.

  Sandy flashed him a vague semi-smile of her own in return, although she tried not to make it too encouraging. For some reason – she couldn’t work out why exactly – she wasn’t all that sure she wanted to talk to him. He looked like a brutally attractive serial killer, and there was something about him that scared her and made her nerves twang. He was probably perfectly nice when you actually got to know him, but looking at him now was like having him walk straight through her soul.

  Not my type. Not at all. Too battered. Too macho. Probably far too complicated.

  The wine in her glass was indifferent, but she sipped at it anyway. It wasn’t strong enough to act as an anaesthetic, but she had to do something to take her mind off ‘The Man’.

  And her feet. Why in God’s name had she let Kat persuade her into wearing these stupid heels? They looked fabulous and did wonders for her legs. But they were seriously killing her and it demanded an Oscar-winning performance just trying not to show it. Sweat popped out at her hairline as she smiled brightly at one of the Teapot’s patrons, wishing someone would turn the central heating down. If she needed to make a quick getaway, she certainly couldn’t run for it tonight.

  A psychic sideswipe made her almost spill her dreary wine.

  Getaway?

  A powerful fist seemed to clutch her innards.

  What, after all this time? Why think of such ancient history all of a sudden?

  A memory both sharp and fuzzy zipped through her mind, bringing with it cold fear and the warm fleeting image of a face. A smooth young male face, almost angelically handsome. Long, thick, rather shaggy dark hair. A soft voice and soft lips on hers, her saviour whispering, ‘Kiss it better.’

  But as soon as the impression appeared, it began to fade again, leaving her shaking her head and, back in the present, glancing around.

  Shrugging off the last of her disorientation, she focused on her surroundings.

  This was the first time she’d ever been to the Waverley Grange Hotel and, probably like most people here, she was curious about its rumoured reputation. The place was supposed to be a den of rampant sexual iniquity beneath its sleek veneer of luxury and old-world charm, and some of the prints on the wall of
the Lawns Bar certainly seemed to confirm the provocative whisperings.

  Sandy fanned herself with her fingers. God, it was hot in here. And that was even before you got near the saucy artwork.

  In front of her was a stylised photograph of a naked couple tangled up in a complex mandala of limbs, sweat and sensuality. Sandy sincerely hoped the rather prim Mayor’s wife didn’t catch sight of it, because its blazing frankness made her own blood stir and pulse. The man’s hand was between the woman’s legs and, even though the resolution was indistinct, she could almost feel those ghostly fingers touching her. They seemed to move in the cleft of her pussy, stroking and paddling and playing. She almost whirled around again, imagining the man from the café just behind her. Or maybe someone else, someone impossible, from a dream.

  The sensation made her giddy, and the claustrophobic crush of real bodies around her made her heart trip. Excusing herself, she slid away between two other art connoisseurs who’d been attracted to the photograph. Someone wasn’t using quite a strong enough deodorant, and she wrinkled her nose as she moved on in search of fresher air.

  Next to a window, she found another art photograph on the wall. It showed a handsome man with long dark hair also standing beside a window, in dramatic shadows. He was gazing out into the middle distance with a pensive expression on his face and, like the couple in the previous shot, he was stark naked.

  Not my type either. But you do look familiar.

  Narrowing her eyes, Sandy leaned close, and then chuckled, recognising the rather sexy owner/manager of the hotel, to whom she’d been introduced a short while earlier.

  ‘So, is he your type?’

  Sandy rocked – literally – on her silly heels. She knew exactly who was standing beside her, and the deep and strangely raw voice really seemed to fit him. She’d only heard it briefly in the Teapot because Kat had served him, but it was unmistakeable, never to be forgotten.

  Schooling herself to stay calm, she turned slowly towards the hard man with the beard, who’d been watching her and who was now only a couple of feet away.