The night ends with no further wobbles from me, but lots from my friends. Everyone is totalled, but having only drunk water since my enthralling encounter with one prime example of an unholy delicious man, I’ve maintained a sensible level of tipsiness. I’ve been knocked sideways, and it’s taken the rest of the evening to gather myself.

Lizzy has harped on endlessly about my failure to bed said man; Micky has flirted outrageously with Lizzy, and she with him; and Nat has worn away the wood of the dance floor.

It’s time for taxis.

‘It’s been the best night ever!’ Nat sings as I herd them like sheep to the line of cabs. She throws her arms into the air and swishes her hair. ‘And I fucking love my new hair! Do you love my new hair?’ She looks to Micky, who now has a wilting Lizzy in a headlock.

‘I fucking love your new hair,’ he agrees, hiccupping.

‘I think it makes you look older,’ Lizzy chimes in on a slur.

‘Sophisticated!’ Nat screeches indignantly. ‘Eh, Annie?’

‘Sophisticated,’ I confirm on a laugh. ‘In you get!’ I order, pulling open the door of a waiting cab and guiding them in one by one. Surprisingly, no one trips up the step, but they do all land in their seats with a thud. The taxi man looks at me, his years of experience telling him that I’m the one he needs to communicate with.

‘Evening,’ I say as I bend to get in, but as I lift my foot from the kerb something catches my attention across the road. I straighten my body to look over the roof of the cab as heat creeps through my veins, making my blood pound its way to my heart until it’s racing. If I ever lay eyes on you again, Annie, I can’t promise I’ll do what’s best and walk away next time.

He’s standing on the other side of the road, his hands resting lightly in his jeans pockets. And he’s staring across at me, intensity in his grey eyes shining bright, even from across the street. My stomach begins to fill with butterflies.

‘C’mon, Annie!’ Micky yells, reaching for my hand that’s resting on the door. ‘Get in!’

The rest of the group starts chanting, possibly telling me to get in the cab too, but I can’t hear them. Nor can I hear the rush of traffic as it zooms by; the cars passing between me and Jack are just a blur.

I don’t know what to do. Get in the cab – the sensible option – or shut the door and send my friends on their way – the stupid option. I’m not stupid. Never have been.

He looks like a statue, frozen into position. He’s waiting for me to decide, our eyes never unlocking. Then he nods, so very mildly I nearly miss it. He can see my inner conflict. He’s silently willing me to remain where I am, because despite what he said, I could be the one to walk away. To make the decision for both of us.

The choice is down to me. Whether it’s the right decision for both of us is unknown. But right and wrong aren’t featuring in my mind. It’s too consumed by him.

I shift my grip on the door, ready to shut it. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, guys,’ I say, not looking at them.

‘Huh?’ they all call in unison, but I ignore them and turn to the cabbie, reeling off their addresses. But my eyes remain focused on Jack across the road. I slam the door, hearing my friends’ confused mumbles, but the driver pulls away before they can protest further. There’s no question that any one of them would leave me alone on a night out, but the alcohol is in my favour tonight. I look to the back of the cab as it drives off, seeing Lizzy looking out of the back window, her confusion evident. Then her eyes flick to the other side of the road and her mouth drops open. I just catch the sight of her straight lips before the cab takes a corner.

My phone rings two seconds later. I don’t answer it, but I do send a text, telling her that I’m fine and I know what I’m doing. It’s a lie. I haven’t the faintest idea what I’m doing.

I look up through my lashes to Jack. There’s a road between us – him standing on one kerb, me on the other, cars whizzing on by between us. And when he steps into the road, having a quick check for traffic, I start backing up as he comes closer, until my back’s pressed into a brick wall. My breathing is shot to bits and my body is trembling like a flame in the breeze.

When he reaches me, both of his palms land on the wall on either side of my head. I’m staring at his neck, afraid to lift my eyes to his face now that he’s this close. ‘Why didn’t I carry on walking home?’ he asks, his frustration clear and present. ‘Why the fuck didn’t I just carry on walking?’

Because you felt it too, I scream in my head, feeling dizzy from the intoxicating smell of him – his closeness, the light skim of his groin across my dress.

His hard stare drills holes into me as his face slowly lowers towards mine. I hold my breath and let him brush his lips lightly over mine, our eyes still open and locked. My breath stutters, as does his. Then he pulls away a few inches, his tongue running across his bottom lip, as if tasting what he’s just had. His chest forces against mine from his deep inhale. ‘Tell me to go,’ he whispers, the demand licking its way from the base to the top of my spine. ‘Tell me.’

‘Go.’

‘Not a fucking chance.’ He swoops in and takes my mouth as if he owns it – deeply, passionately and with an unfathomable conviction. I’m immediately lost in a haze of want and lust as he grinds into me. Our tongues duel, our bodies press together, and it’s beyond any level of pleasure I thought possible.

I bring my arms up to circle his neck, holding him while we kiss like we might never get the opportunity to do this again. One of his big palms slides onto the back of my thigh and tugs, bringing my leg to his waist. I’m inhaling his groans, swallowing them down into the deepest parts of me, whimpering each time he circles his hips into mine, forcing me harder to the wall.

Holy fucking shit, I’m lost.

‘I need more than this,’ he says desperately, working his lips to my ear and licking the shell slowly, panting hard. ‘I need you naked. I need to be inside you. I need you fucking now. Where do you live?’

His question gives me a moment’s pause. I’m as desperate for all of that as he is, but I still have a tiny scrap of sense within me somewhere. No way am I taking him to my place. I still have to be wise.

This isn’t me. I’m not reckless, but right now, halting this is impossible. It might be the spontaneity; it might be how illicit this feels; it might be the thrill factor, the danger and the unknown. Or it might just be something as simple as intoxicating chemistry. I don’t know, but I want more.

‘Your place,’ I counter, nuzzling into his neck, feeling him shake his head.

‘I can’t wait that long.’ He pulls away from me, leaving me a shaky mess held against the wall. ‘Hotel.’

I nod, thinking that’s best all round. Mutual ground. He wastes no time, sliding his hand to my lower back and putting some weight behind it. I manage to prise myself from the bricks with his support, but my legs are still quivering beyond my control as we walk urgently down the street. I look at him discreetly out of the corner of my eye, finding him focused forward, his jaw tense. And I definitely detect his trembling beyond mine. We’re both wound up like tightly coiled springs, dying to let loose on each other. It’s new to me – odd and thrilling.

The walk to the nearest hotel is excruciatingly long. Jack approaches the reception desk and asks for a room, and though the lady eyes me knowingly, I don’t even blush.

He gets a room card, marches me to the lift and virtually tosses me inside. He doesn’t even wait for the doors to close. He’s on me again, kissing me brutally, pinning me against the back wall and making sure I feel what’s concealed behind the fly of his jeans. He rolls us, now his back against the wall, our mouths going at it like starved lions. The small space is drenched in moans, groans, whimpers and cries of passion.

When the doors open we practically fall out, our mouths still glued as he walks me backwards down the corridor, having a quick check for the right room before he fumbles with the card and kicks the door open. He breaks our kiss and pushes me inside. I stumble back, dazed, disoriented . . . wanting like I’ve never wanted before.

He starts to unfasten his shirt as he prowls towards me, and once he’s worked his way through his buttons, he shrugs it off.

And I gulp down my awe as I take in the smooth planes of his torso, the perfection of his body making me giddy. He can’t be real. Is he real? Am I here?

The way he’s looking at me – the hunger, the resolve. I’ve never felt so wanted and, weirdly, needed. It’s a satisfying revelation. But there’s an alien feeling too, one that I should probably devote a little more time towards analysing. How much I need him right now. A stranger.

His hands move to the button of his fly as he comes to a stop before me, just a few feet away. The waistband of his boxers is peeking above his jeans, taut material spanning a taut stomach. My eyes fix on his fingers as he lazily reveals more of himself to me, torturing me, his shallow breathing matching my own. Why so slow now? Why is he dragging this out? I flick desperate eyes to his and find him watching me closely. Then his jeans hit the floor. Followed by his boxers.

The muscles in my legs threaten to give up on me as I stare at him before me, stark naked and beyond stunning. This isn’t me. I don’t bend to a man’s will, but this man has had me bending from the second he found me at the bar. I’m unsure whether I loathe the notion, or love it. What I do know, though, is there is nothing I can do about it. Neither do I want to. A night of dirty, raw fucking is currently standing before me, with illicit promises shining from his grey eyes, and I’m going in feet first.

As soon as I find my feet.

Kicking away his shoes, jeans and boxers, he takes my hands delicately, like he’s sensed I need a moment of gentleness and reassurance.

‘Ready, Annie?’ he asks softly. ‘Because I sure as hell am.’

He doesn’t wait for my answer. He must see the certainty in my eyes. Moving into me, pressing me against the window behind me, the side of his coarse face resting against my cheek, he grips the hem of my dress and pulls it up between us. My arms lift with it as my mind searches frantically for some poise, anything to match his calm, measured actions. I have nothing.

He’s taking it slowly now, savouring every moment, every movement, every sound. My dress is gone, but he’s still pressed against me, moving his hands around to my back. I feel the clasp of my bra release and then he steps away, pulling the straps down my arms, his eyes falling down my body.

He swallows.

Hard.

He blinks.

Slowly.

He growls under his breath.

Then he drops my bra to the floor and his eyes to my skimpy black knickers. The sight of his big, naked body before me distracts me from any shyness. The power of his presence distracts me from any restraint I should be working hard to find.

My fingers reach for the sides of my knickers and push them down my thighs, revealing myself in my entirety to him.

And I wait.

And wait.

I wait so long for him to make his move, wondering where my mind has gone. It’s lost, fallen into a pit of recklessness. All I can do is admire what’s before me.

‘Ever experienced this before?’ he asks quietly. ‘The chemistry, the need?’

‘No.’ My answer is easy and it’s the truth.

‘Me neither.’ He steps forward and cages me against the window, picking up on the crazy, passionate kiss he started in the street and continued in the lift. My mind swims with pleasure.

He’s naked. I’m naked. We’re touching everywhere that two people can touch, his erection wedged against my lower stomach, pulsing in time with my body. He moans around my lips, his hands sliding down to my bum and onto my thighs, squeezing constantly. I lock his wide shoulders in my arms and let him at me.

A swift tug hauls me up to his waist on a whimper, his cock poised and ready to enter me. The glass behind me is becoming slippery, my back sliding across the smooth surface as a result of my dampening skin.

‘Open up to me,’ he orders, feeling the constriction of my thighs.

Without a moment’s thought I relax, letting him hold me against the window with his body. ‘Condom,’ I breathe into his mouth, managing to locate a shred of sense through my hunger.

‘I don’t have one.’ He continues to kiss me, and my heart sinks. ‘Jesus, this wasn’t part of my plan for this evening, Annie,’ he declares. ‘You?’

I lap my tongue around his, digging my nails into his shoulders. ‘I don’t have one. We should stop.’

‘Are you on the pill?’

‘Yes, but that doesn’t make this right.’ I continue to kiss him, speaking into his mouth. ‘We should stop.’

‘I know.’ He takes my hands from his shoulders and pushes them up the glass, releasing my mouth briefly to bite my lip before plunging his tongue deep again, exploring far and wide. ‘We need to stop.’

‘We do,’ I confirm through my pleasure, letting him thread his fingers with mine above my head, his lips kissing their way across my cheek and into my neck.

‘Tell me to stop,’ he demands weakly and with zero conviction, sucking and biting at my flesh.

‘Oh God!’ I breathe, slamming my head against the glass behind me, my thighs tightening around his waist again. ‘Jack, you need to stop.’

‘I will. You want me to?’

‘No!’

He swivels his hips and enters me on a ragged shout of satisfaction, his teeth clamped lightly around the flesh of my neck. My whole world explodes into a haze of powerful pleasure as I scream to the ceiling, a long, despairing, satisfied scream. He’s still now, but breathing erratically, his long, thick length fully inside of me. The fullness twists my mind, warmth fills my veins and boils my bloodstream, and the rightness prevents me from fighting him off. His grip on my hands above my head is now solid and my legs are wrapped around him like ivy.

‘My heart is hammering,’ he confesses, his hips shaking with the strain to keep still. ‘It’s beating so fucking hard, and it feels so fucking good. Where did you come from, Annie?’

I’d ask him the same question if it wasn’t for my inability to talk. So I push my face into his instead, closing my eyes and relishing the feel of our bodies connected so completely.

Strangers.

Two complete strangers. It defies reason that our joining could be this intoxicating. This whole situation defies me. Taking my chin to my shoulder, I look behind me, out of the window. The city below is alive with lights, people going about their business. And I’m up high above them all, pinned against this window with a stranger’s cock buried inside me.

‘Are you okay?’ His soft question prompts me to ask myself the very same thing, because I think the mind I’ve lost has gone forever.

And I’m totally okay with it.

I grind down in answer, making him jerk on a whimper. So I go again, building up the friction as much as I can without Jack moving.

‘Jesus,’ he mumbles, dragging his face from my neck.

His grey eyes land on me. Sparks erupt. More desire floods me. My world starts to spin out of control. He watches me as he draws back, slow, sure and careful, and when he pauses, only the tip of his cock inside me, I pull in breath and hold it, bracing myself.

He pounds forward, and I cry out. Jack grunts and the momentum is set – no more waiting, no more conscience, no more doubts. He thrusts hard, hitting me again and again, adding the odd deep grind here and there so as to never let me guess what’s coming next. My cries of pleasure are on a loop, our sweat is mingling, and his hands around mine are locked tightly, keeping my arms ramrod straight above my head. It’s insane. It’s crazy, raw, carnal fucking, and it’s making me wonder amid the intoxicating feelings if one night of this passion and these feelings will be enough. I’m vehemently holding back, not wanting this to end just yet. I can only hope Jack feels the same.

‘Fuck!’ he shouts, releasing my hands and cupping my arse, peeling me away from the window and turning. He carries me across the room and holds me with one arm under my bum as he swipes the contents of the desk from the surface, then lowers me onto the hard wood, coming down with me so as not to break our connection. I yelp, squirming across the polished wood as he jacks me forward and rises to standing, taking hold of my thighs. My hands go above my head and grip the edge of the desk.

His teeth clench as he withdraws, his head dropping back but his eyes remaining on mine. He yanks me up and down the desk, our sweaty skin slapping, our shouts and cries of pleasure loud and chaotic.

Yet I still hold back on letting the looming orgasm claim me.

The desk is creaking under the force, and just when I think it might give under the strain, his arm slides under my back and pulls me up. The front of my body crashes with his, and my shout is loud. I cling to him as he takes reverse steps and then falls to his back on the bed with me straddling him. ‘Fuck me, Annie,’ he demands, his voice like gravel, full of hunger and sex. ‘Fuck me hard.’

I don’t delay. I’ve had my order. My hips kick in and I rock back and forth, my palms braced into the hardness of his chest. His fingers claw into my thighs, his face strained. ‘Oh shit,’ he groans, his hips now flexing up and meeting my rhythm.

The sight of him, the effect I’m having on him, it’s addictive. I’m spent but energised, my body doing things without thought. Then I’m moving again. His stomach muscles tense and he sits up, edging us to the side of the bed with me on his lap. He guides my legs behind his back so I’m wrapped around him, and his hands find my hips, lifting and then pulling me back down precisely on an exhale of shaky breath.

I yelp, the new position sending him so deep. My head goes limp, but I refuse to lose his gaze as he guides me ferociously, slamming me down onto his lap repeatedly. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to fight off my release. He’s challenging me on so many levels. ‘Jack,’ I gasp, my head falling forward, our foreheads meeting.

He senses my struggle and flips me around, taking me to my back and re-entering quickly. I scream. He roars. I’m in pieces, almost frightened by the potential of the orgasm that’s going to strike me. It’s going to be powerful. He comes down to his forearms, my thighs clamp around his waist, and he takes us on that final stretch towards explosion.

He nods, and I nod right back. He looks in pain as he takes the last few strokes, his face twisting, as I’m sure mine is. The veins in his neck bulge, his cock swells, and I’m shoved over the edge, screaming as the nerves in my clitoris explode.

My world goes blank, my body lax, and Jack collapses on top of me, pinning me to the mattress as we both splutter and gasp for breath. And as if it’s instinctive, my arms come up around his back and hold him to me, pulling his heavy body closer while we ride the waves of pleasure ripping through our bodies. His chest is rolling atop mine and his skin’s wet under my hands on his back.

Opening my eyes, I look up to the ceiling of the hotel room, my hearing fuzzy with the sounds of our breathlessness. Jack is breathtaking in more ways than one.

The silence is comfortable; neither of us is in a rush to break it, and I begin to wonder if he’s doing what I’m doing right now. Is he trying to fathom what just happened? Is he quietly trying to wrap his mind around the extreme madness of the incredible moment we just shared? My thoughts begin to race as I absentmindedly trace small circles across his back.

I’m interrupted when he chuckles softly, squirming above me. Despite myself, I smile. ‘You ticklish?’

He lifts his torso on a shudder and looks down at me. His eyes. God, his eyes are sparkling madly. ‘Not usually. But your touch seems to do things to me.’

I hold back from telling him that the feeling is mutual, though I sense he sees it in my eyes when he reaches up to my face and draws a perfect line down my cheek to my chin, smiling as he does. He looks thoughtful, and I’m desperate to know what his thoughts are. ‘Architect Annie,’ he murmurs, casting his gaze to mine. ‘I’m glad I didn’t carry on walking home.’ He dips and pushes a sweet kiss onto my lips, stealing my breath once again. ‘You’ve been a welcome distraction from real life.’

I fall into the pace of his kiss, and gladly let him distract me from life as I know it too.

Just for tonight.