Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Jo lay still as she blinked her eyes open slowly.
Her heart was already pounding before she’d even fully woken up or moved an inch, and she was sweaty under the covers.
Embarrassed. Actually, she was fucking mortified.
She sat up suddenly, her chest tightening as the memories of last night surged to the front of her mind in an unforgiving rush.
The sound of Amelia’s voice when she realised what Jo was doing. The sexy little moans from them both as Jo did the unthinkable. Go on. Give it to me. Jo shuddered and clamped her thighs shut.
“Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck!” She pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead. “You are fucking crazy! It’s official! You’ve lost the fucking plot!”
What the hell had she done?
She reached blindly for her phone, checking to see if Amelia had messaged. Maybe a follow-up, a sarcastic remark, anything…something to take the edge off what had happened.
But there was nothing there.
No new messages. No missed calls. No dots typing.
Jo’s stomach roiled. What on earth had she been thinking?
Well, she hadn’t been thinking, and that was the problem. She’d been swept up in the way Amelia had looked while they were at Satin, in the way her mind wouldn’t stop circling back to that fucking lingerie, or the tilt of her mouth, or the shadow of her thigh…
She’d let her body take over, and now she couldn’t undo any of it.
She groaned and flopped back against the pillows, dragging the covers over her face. Maybe if she held it there for long enough, she’d suffocate and die. That seemed like the best outcome right now.
But the guilt was too distracting.
Because she hadn’t just gotten herself off. She’d let Amelia hear every second of it, she’d asked if she could come for her, and Amelia hadn’t hung up.
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
There was only one person she could call.
She flung the covers off, rushed into the kitchen, and hit Ada’s name on her phone. It was barely six in the morning, but she didn’t care. She paced barefoot across the tiles, one hand in her hair as she waited for her best friend to pick up.
“Jo?” Ada sounded groggy and full of sleep. “Are you okay?”
“No, I’m not. I… Fuck. Are you alone?”
“Um…yes. What’s going on?”
Jo’s mouth moved, but no words came. How was she supposed to explain this? How was she supposed to say, ‘I moaned Amelia’s name as I came on the phone with her, and now, I want to walk out in front of a bus?’
Ada, as usual, filled the silence with gentle coaxing. “Jo, babe, what’s going on? Just breathe and tell me what happened?”
“I did something really fucking stupid,” Jo finally blurted out. “Ridiculously stupid!”
Ada sighed. “Okay…what kind of stupid are we talking about here? Are we talking ‘texting the ex at 2am’ stupid, or ‘accidentally slept with your boss’ stupid?”
“Neither. It’s so much worse than that.”
Jo heard the rustle on the line as Ada said, “Okay, I’m up, and I’m listening.”
“I took your advice and went to Satin last night.”
“Okay…”
“I didn’t tell Amelia I was going to show up, but when I got there, she was in the main lounge…lingerie and everything…with another woman.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t be sorry. The moment she saw me, the other woman was the least of her concerns.
” Jo recalled the moment Amelia had excused herself, ultimately spending the remainder of her time with Jo instead.
“She just…she was lounging there like she wasn’t the hottest fucking woman I’ve ever seen in my life. ”
“Oh, you went there, didn’t you? You had filthy sex with your ex’s mum!”
“No, I didn’t.” At least not quite, Jo thought. “I came home, but I couldn’t get her out of my head. Not her face, or her body… Nothing.” Jo cleared her throat. “Then she called me.”
Ada inhaled sharply. “She called you?”
“Yeah.”
“And…what did you say?”
Jo winced. “Well, it uh…it was more about what I was doing rather than saying.”
“Oh, my God!”
“I, um…” Jo chewed her lip. “I was…already midway through.”
“Jo!”
“I know.” Jo knew exactly what she’d done. She’d fucked it all up because she couldn’t control her desires. “Believe me, I know.”
“Just to clarify, she called you while you were—”
Jo cut Ada off. She couldn’t bear to hear her say it out loud. “Yes!”
“And you answered?!”
“I couldn’t help it, Ada. I was so focused on thinking about her that the moment that phone rang, I wasn’t even thinking. Not like a normal, sane person, anyway.”
“D-did she know what you were doing?” Ada’s voice held a hint of concern, but Jo understood. This was a lot for anyone to hear. “She surely didn’t.”
“She had an idea, which I then confirmed.”
“Wait! She stayed on the line? While you were sorting yourself out…she stayed on the line and listened?”
“Yeah.” Jo groaned and slid to the floor, resting her head against the kitchen cabinet. “I think I’ve lost my mind.”
“Well, what happened then?” Ada sighed. “You what? You just finished, said ‘good talk’, and hung up?”
“S-she was enjoying it, Ada. She asked if she could help me.” Jo foolishly allowed her mind to wander. “God, it was the hottest fucking thing in the world.”
“Wow. I don’t even know what to say at this point, other than…wow.”
“I feel like such an idiot.”
“Don’t,” Ada said quickly. “You’ve been holding all this tension in for ages. I’m not saying that was the healthiest outlet, but I also get it. I’m not surprised it happened.”
Jo closed her eyes. “I crossed a line.”
“Maybe, but it sounds like Amelia stayed on that call for a reason.”
“Please don’t,” Jo whispered. “Don’t give me hope.”
“I’m just saying…she’s not a prude. If she was uncomfortable, she’d have hung up. But she didn’t. In fact, she encouraged you. She’s just as much to blame, babe.”
“I don’t know what to do now. I can’t go back to pretending we’re just friends.
” Jo scoffed. She’d lasted precisely five minutes pretending she could be friends with Amelia.
That was dead and buried with no chance of resurrection.
The woman had told her to come for her last night, so no, any hope of a friendship was completely gone. “I can’t do it.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t.”
Jo rubbed at her face, feeling exhausted and wrung out even though she’d only just woken up. “You make it sound so simple.”
“I’m not saying it’s simple, but maybe it’s time you stopped trying to convince yourself that you only want to be her friend.”
Jo’s heart ached deeply. She really didn’t know where she went from here.
She had apologies to make, she knew that much, but she didn’t know if she could actually call Amelia to give that apology.
She certainly couldn’t bring herself to meet face-to-face.
“I think this is where I cut ties, Ada. I don’t want to, the thought of not seeing her anymore kills me, but… I can’t ever look at her again.”
“Oh, babe.”
“I have some thinking to do. Can I call you later?”
“Of course.” Ada yawned. “And Jo?”
“Y-yeah?”
She felt Ada smiling down the phone. “You didn’t fuck up. Everything will be okay.”
Jo hung up and stayed on the floor, her phone limp in her hand and her eyes fixed on nothing. Maybe it would turn out that Ada was right, but in this moment, she still felt like she was falling into the abyss.
And the only one who could catch her was the one she’d already lost her grip on.
Amelia was stretched out on the couch in her home office, laptop balanced on her thighs, barely a paragraph into the project proposal she’d meant to finish this morning. She hadn’t been able to concentrate since she’d woken up, and even sleep had been hard to come by during the night.
She’d replayed it a dozen times in her head. Every breathless word and every broken moan. The way Jo had whimpered her name. She wasn’t sure if it was the most erotic thing that had ever happened to her or the most emotionally reckless.
Oh, it’s both, and you know it.
The buzzing of her phone on the armrest snapped her out of her daze, and for a second, her stomach flipped. Jo’s name blinked across the screen.
Amelia hesitated before answering, her pulse quickening as it connected. “H-hi.”
“Hey.” Jo’s voice was littered with nerves. “You got a minute?”
“Of course I do.”
Jo cleared her throat. “I needed to call you about last night.”
“Jo.” Amelia let her head rest back against the cushion. “It’s really not necessary.”
“No, let me say this. Please, I need to say it.”
Amelia sighed. “Okay. Go on.”
“I’m sorry. So sorry. I crossed a line, it was inappropriate and impulsive and I…God, I don’t even know what I was thinking.”
“You were thinking that you needed to come,” Amelia said, a smile working its way to her lips. “Which, by the way, is absolutely okay.”
“Jesus, Amelia!”
“I don’t know what the big deal is.” Amelia’s tone softened. She never wanted Jo to apologise for something so beautiful. “And please, don’t apologise again.”
“You’re not angry?”
“I’m not sure I have it in me to be angry with you. You caught me off guard, but…angry is something I’m definitely not.” Amelia smiled as she trailed her fingers around the rim of her mug. “Sometimes a woman just needs to get off. I’m flattered that I was on your mind while you did.”
Jo groaned on the other end of the line. “You’re not helping.”
“I’m not trying to.”
Even though Jo sounded as though she was at her wits’ end, Amelia could feel her smiling.
“I think we need to talk, Amelia. Properly and seriously.”
Amelia nodded. “I agree.”
“I just don’t know what this is anymore. We agreed this couldn’t go anywhere, but the way I’m feeling and the things I’m doing…I mean, last night was—”
“Intimate,” Amelia offered gently.
“Yeah,” Jo breathed out. “Exactly. It was intimate.”
They sat in the quiet for a moment with the truth hanging between them.
“I want to talk, but this week is chaos. I’ve got two viewings on Tuesday, I need to be at the architect’s office for extension plans on Wednesday, and I have a final inspection at a property on Thursday.”