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She shakes her head, eyes faraway. “He’s not relevant anymore,” she says.
He?My brain almost explodes in my freaking skull.
So there’s evidently a guy in her life who’s causing emotional distress. I drop it for now so that she doesn’t get uncomfortable.
“My priority right now is making sure you’re feeling better – I don’t want to talk about bad stuff either. But I can’t deny that, once you’re recovered, I do want to talk about what happened last night.” I roll my shoulders and decide to go for brutal honesty. “I want to talk about how much I liked it. How much I’m liking right now, with you in my kitchen, wearing my shirt.”How much I’m liking you up against my counter, eye-fucking my bare chest. You millimetres away from me, squeezing your thighs together to relieve that ache.
Her eyelids grow heavy and her head tilts back a bit, like she doesn’t have the strength to keep upright anymore. “Okay,” she murmurs, fingers fumbling with the bottom of her shirt. “When I’m better we can…”
I nod at her, arms rigid at my sides in an attempt to keep my hands to myself.Keep this clean, Coleson. I try to realign my thoughts with the here and now.
“Water and then back to bed?” I ask her, somehow managing to not suggest getting in there with her and holding her until she’s asleep.
She nods up at me so I walk her upstairs. I stop outside of my bedroom doorway, but I know it in my bones that she wants me in there with her too.
*
At 6a.m. on Monday morning I’m shoving my feet into my work boots whilst Harper slips her long legs into a pair of wellies. I stop what I’m doing so that I can watch her, dazzled by how lithe, how feminine, she is. She needed something to put on her feet to prevent those fluffy socks getting irreparably dirty because it pissed down last night and the driveway is fully slick, so rain boots seemed like the most appropriate call.
That makes them the only appropriate thing to happen this weekend.
Getting Harper well again consisted of her snuggling down in my sheets on Saturday, followed by her snuggling into my sofa on Sunday, whilst I made her various plain soups to try and get her belly full again. After all the sickness passed it could’ve technically been one hell of a romantic weekend, but I kept my hands as far away from her as possible, busying myself in the workshop whilst she worked her way through my entire DVD collection.
It gave me thinking time too, which is why when she looks up at me now wearing my work shirt, my boots, andno damn braI pass her a jacket to put on and rumble out, “I had a thought.”
She slides her arms into the sleeves, looking up at me as she adjusts the collar and then fastens the zip, leaving nothing but those smooth thighs on show. God, she’s sexy. Add on that sore-throated recovery rasp and it’s no wonder that she’s had my pipe throbbing all weekend.
“Yeah?” she asks, tucking her hands into the pockets. Then she frowns and removes her fingers, pulling out a receipt, ten tonnes of keys, and a fat wad of cash. She raises her eyebrows and gives me a look that readsuh…?
I hold out my hand and she passes me all of the crap that she just found.
“Yeah,” I tell her, tossing the receipt aside and putting the keys and cash in my cargos.
I’m hesitant to tell her about what’s been playing on my mind because I’m still not entirely sure about where we’re at or how she feels. But I want to hear her opinions so I suck it up and come out with it.
“I was thinking about the bungalows on the site, and how I’ve been staying in a motel, and how you came up here this weekend because there was no-one on hand to look after you. Not that you need looking after,” I add on, quickly. “Just that it’s better to have someone with you when you’re unwell. Not ‘you’ specifically! It’s the same for everyone.”
Jesus Christ. I scratch at my forehead, hoping that this is making some kind of sense to her.
“What I’m trying to say is that if I’m not staying here during the reno then maybe I could occupy the vacant bungalow next door to yours. If something was to happen on the site” –or to you– “then I’d be right there, no travel time.” I pull a jacket off the rack for myself and sling it over my forearm, looking down at her now to gauge her reaction.
She’s being unusually impassive. I narrow my eyes.
“So,” I finish up slowly, “how does that sound to you?”
She tucks her hands back inside the coat pockets and her eyes flash briefly over to the kitchen – or, more specifically, to River’s pumpkin. I tug at my lip, knowing that there’s a lot of stuff I haven’t told Harper about myself yet.
She breathes out a shaky breath and then looks up at me, her eyes big and bright.
She’s been ill all weekend and she still looks beautiful.
“You wanna move into the bungalow next door to mine?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I tell her, shoving my hands deep in my cargos.
“So we’d be neighbours until you finish the reno,” she continues.
I swallow and nod. “Yes.”
