Chapter 20
“Are you ready for this?” Booker asks, parked outside his dad’s house in Chigwell. He pulls me across the bench of his truck to the middle and wraps his arm around my shoulder. Then he takes my hand and kisses the tips of each one of my fingers.
“Why are you acting like I haven’t been here for Sunday dinner before, Booker?” I ask, half laughing and half turned on because he’s moved onto my neck and ear.
“Because you haven’t been to Sunday dinner as my girlfriend before, and the people in that house are vultures. I want to make sure you’re mentally ready for the Harris Shakedown we’ll probably get,” he murmurs against the flesh of my neck.
I’m definitely ready for some kind of fucking with the way his whiskery chin is brushing my skin. Not to mention the glorious label he’s tossed on me so easily. “Is that what you’re calling me now? Your girlfriend?” I can’t hide my smile. I don’t want to.
“What else would I call you?” He pulls back and pins me with those hazel eyes, his dark lashes blinking curiously.
Looking away, I casually reply, “Oh, I don’t know…Mistress, lover, main squeeze, the object of my erection.”
His laughter vibrates right through me and it makes the warmth between my legs spread. “Those sound more like pet names. Is that where we are in our relationship? Should I come up with something a bit more intimate for you?”
“Obviously,” I scoff. “I mean, we’ve been together an entire week. This is clearly the next logical step.”
His dimple flashes as he brushes my cheek with his thumb. “Do you have one in mind for me?”
“Well, it’s a tie between Lamb Chop and Keeper,” I state without hesitation.
“Lamb Chop and Keeper,” he repeats with a sexy chuckle. “Those are two very different options.”
“I like variety.” I shrug. “Depending on my mood and all.”
“Whatever you’d like, Poppy.” He kisses my lips, trying to distract me from the subject at hand.
I pull away. “Come out with it then. What do you have for me?”
He narrows his eyes and looks away, giving me his stunning profile as he ponders for a moment. When he looks back at me, he’s lost all humour on his face. “Sunshine,” he states confidently and then adds, “Because my whole life, you’ve always been the brightest part of my day.”
His words go straight to my heart. They tell me so much and are nearly everything I’ve always wanted to hear from him.
It’s incredible. Is this really how it will be between us?
Can it possibly be this natural? This easy?
To go from best friends to content lovers without any awkward transitional period? God, I really do love my Keeper.
Quieting those words for now, I smile and reply, “That’s a mouthful, but suit yourself.” I press a chaste kiss on his lips. “Come on then. We better get in there, Lamb Chop.”
“So that’s it? Yer boyfriend and girlfriend now?” Andrew asks as he spreads his legs wide on the bench and presses his elbow to his inner knee for a bicep curl.
“Yeah, I guess so,” I reply, pressing my trainers together from my spot on the floor in front of him.
“Braw. So tell me, how’s the sex?” he asks with a naughty wink that somehow perfectly matches his accent. “Although, I dinnae really need tae ask because I can hear yer cries of passion coming through the ceiling every night.”
“Oh my God, you can?” My heart leaps up into my throat as I realise he is probably the neighbour who yelled at us the first time we had sex.
He smiles and winks. “Dinnae worry. I’ve learned tae put on my headphones.”
“Good God,” I mumble, deciding right then and there I’m going to bite a pillow from now on because this is mortifying.
“Seriously, though. I thought after two weeks we’d be slowing down, but we’re not.
We go at it every bloody day, and it’s the best I’ve ever had.
I swear, he simply brushes my breast and I want to shag him. ”
“I’d shag constantly, too, if I had a man like him in my flat.” Andrew gets a distant, dirty look in his eyes. “Just picturing those dimples wrapped around my cock would send me intae a raging orgasm.”
“You dirty slut!” I snap. “Those are my dimples. Stop picturing them wrapped around anything but me.”
“Possessive cunt,” he murmurs. “Ye should learn tae share. Ye wouldnae even have those dimples if it wasnae for me.”
I sigh heavily. “I’m not sure I ever told you what a good kisser you are.”
His brows lift. “Cheers, Poppet. Nice ye noticed how fit my lips are. It’s all that cock I suck.”
We both giggle naughtily, and I bite my lip as my mind flashes to my shower sex with Booker this morning. Shower oral sex, I should say. Water isn’t the best lubricant when you have a well-endowed footy player between your thighs, but our skilled mouths more than made up for it.
Quite honestly, though, it’s not only about the sex.
Not at all. It’s all the intimate moments we’ve been sharing that are making my heart truly soar.
The quiet nights we cuddle on the sofa while watching a film.
The way he kisses my forehead every time I go to work.
His husky morning voice when he says, “Good morning, Sunshine.” It’s all enough to make me fall even more in love with him than I already have.
I had no clue that this is what embracing love could feel like. It’s as if I’m living in a dream.
Normally, living together as a brand new couple is a disastrous idea, but Booker and I know each other so well. We know which buttons to avoid. It also helps that we don’t have horrid sexual tension eating us alive anymore.
Even last week with his family was brilliant.
They’ve accepted me as one of their own.
Vi was a bit watchful at first because she’s always been protective of her youngest brother, but she has softened toward me.
We all had great fun. I couldn’t help but join in on the laughter when Booker’s brothers had a go at him for calling me Sunshine in front of them.
The only hiccup was when he wanted to go for a walk in the woods…
again. I refused. I’m not ready to see that space.
Not until I know that I’m different than Sidney.
We’re still so new. I don’t want to mess things up by admitting to him the real reason I left for Germany was because of that horrid night I saw the two of them together. It’s…embarrassing.
In a perfect world, Booker will love me the way I love him and that sad part of our past will be irrelevant. A nonissue. Not even worth mentioning.
“Well, I’m happy for ye, Poppet. And hey, I may no be the kind of neighbour tae help ye oot with a cup of sugar, but if ye ever have a late night condom emergency, I’m yer man. I’m sure footy players can rebound like no other.”
His condom comment makes me wince. “Actually, we haven’t been using them.”
He gives me a hacked off look. “Poppet, riding withoot a saddle can be dangerous, even with someone ye ken really well.”
I wave him off. “I know he’s clean and I’m on the pill.”
“Still, those footy lads have super stamina and super sperm. Havenae ye heard of all those illegitimate wee ones bringing in big money for their wannabe WAG mummies. There are articles in the papers weekly.”
“I’m not one of them!” I nearly yell and then lower my voice when someone on a treadmill looks over at us.
“I ken, I’m just having a go at ye,” he chides.
I force a laugh and then a peculiar heaviness that I’ve been ignoring presses down on my shoulders.
I haven’t had to sneak those tampons from my bedroom into the loo for quite some time.
I had what was looking like the start of my period a couple days after Tanner and Belle’s wedding, but it never amounted to anything tampon-worthy.
I figured since I had all the normal cramps and aches of a period, it was simply one of those off cycles.
However, Andrew’s concern awakens the little voice in the back of my head that I’ve been silencing because I don’t want to stop enjoying all my time with Booker.
“Why dae ye look like a fucking ghost right now?” Andrew drops his weight and thrusts his water bottle in my face. “Dae ye need a drink?”
I shake my head like a lunatic. “I’m fine. It’s nothing I’m sure.”
“Oh my God, yer bloody pregnant.” He drops down on his knees in front of me.
“Shut up!” I exclaim. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I dae. I have a sixth sense aboot these things.” His brown eyes are grave. “I thought ye were pregnant at the wedding, but I didnae want tae say.”
“I said shut up!” I shriek because I can’t help it.
“Fuck me, ye were pregnant at the wedding.” He thrusts a nervous hand through this hair and looks down at my belly.
“Would you quit? You are not some pregnancy whisperer. Just…stop saying so many words and let me think.” I press my hands to my temples, resting my elbows on my knees.
This can’t be happening. I’ve been on the same pills since I came back from Germany.
They are some German brand, but a pill is a pill, right?
Some periods are lighter than others. It’s nothing to worry about.
I cringe as I think back to how I struggled to communicate with the doctor in Germany.
My German was not great and they’d said if I went back, there’d be an English-speaking doctor.
But I didn’t want to go back. I’d just met Nigel and was ready to let loose.
I struggled through the communication barrier throughout the entire appointment, but “nein baby” is pretty much a universal phrase.
I assumed the doctor knew what I was there for.
I’ve never even looked that closely at the pill package, even after I became fluent, because I always used condoms.
Fuck me. Was that a period I had two weeks ago or not?
“Verfickte Schei?e!” I curse in German through clenched teeth because it feels like the language might be to blame if this all goes tits-up.