Wishful Thinking by Lynette Sofras Page B

it. His kisses there made her entire body shudder with longing.
     
    “Make sure you have everything you both need for the night,” He told her quietly, sending little shockwaves of pleasurable anticipation tingling across the whole surface of her skin. He wanted her to spend the night with him! The thought both thrilled and terrified her and she bit her lower lip nervously. He turned her around to face him and looked deep into her eyes. “You do want to, don’t you?” He asked, depositing tiny kisses on her eyes and nose.
     
    As she looked up at him she hoped her eyes would not betray her anxiety. She wanted to shout out ‘Yes - more than anything in the world!’ But at the same time she wondered how she could ever compete with the calibre of girlfriend he’d been used to in the past. She almost wished she hadn’t done her research and seen his name linked with some of the world’s most glamorous women.
     
    “Don’t worry,” he said, as if reading her troubled thoughts. “I won’t rush you.”
     
    But her worries escalated dramatically as they drove into the spacious grounds of the Surrey mansion. It looked like a stately home and Jess could only stare at it in speechless wonder, while Ben asked Christian which windows belonged to him, assuming it was a block of flats. This is a different world to mine, Jess thought. I must be insane to imagine I could ever have a rightful place in it. It was a sobering realisation and she entered the house in a thoughtful mood.
     
    Ben was quickly made comfortable in a room that was almost the size of Jess’s entire flat and one of the efficient nurses immediately checked his pulse and temperature and began a chart on him to record any changes. Jess had packed some of his books and games into his bag and the nurse helped him to unpack and stack these beside him.
     
    “Oh look! Connect Four . I’m ace at that. As soon as we get you into this nice big bed, I’m going to challenge you to a game of that – though I warn you, I’ll win!” Nurse Jacqui told him.
     
    Jess watched in amusement as Ben hopped into the vast bed, eager to prove the nurse wrong. He hardly glanced up when she and Christian left the room.
     
    “How many rooms does the house have?” Jess asked.
     
    He shrugged. “Not sure – I haven’t counted them recently. Shall we do that now while I show you around? We’ll start from the top – the studio is my pride and joy.”
     
    The sound-proofed studio occupied almost half of the top floor with its adjacent recording rooms and mixer booths. She allowed Chris to demonstrate the various gadgets which meant nothing to her, but she enjoyed his enthusiasm and their intimacy as he demonstrated the technology and asked numerous questions. She loved that he assumed she would share his interest in music and gadgetry and tried hard to follow and understand because it seemed so important to him.
     
    “Why did you give up the band? This is your life, isn’t it?”
     
    He looked at her as if her observation surprised him and then nodded. “I haven’t given it up, exactly. I just wanted to explore new avenues when the opportunity presented itself. I know too many people who claim not to have been brave enough to ‘seize the day’ and lived to regret it. I didn’t want to be one of those, constantly wondering how different my life might have been if only I hadn’t ignored the chance when it came my way.”
     
    Jess bit her lip and winced inwardly. That sounds like me, she thought. I’m one of those people. “So you’re quite an impulsive person then?” she asked, peering through the window into the blue-lit studio.
     
    He drew her towards him, encircling her waist with his hands and nestling his face beside hers so their cheeks touched. The gesture made her feel cherished and safe and she allowed her body to relax in his arms, nestling her head against his neck and darting tiny, soft kisses at his neck.
     
    “Maybe not so much impulsive as