Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
Oh my God, did you fuck me?
Milo
I come awake slowly the next morning as if my brain knows the scale of the imminent pain awaiting me and has decided to try and shield me.
It doesn’t work because as I shift position, my head throbs sickeningly.
I groan pitifully, and I realise belatedly that I’m incredibly warm at the same time as there’s a low chuckle from beside me.
I crack open one eye, slam it shut and wait a few seconds until the glaring light stops trying to incinerate my eyeballs. Eventually, after several false starts, I manage to crack open both eyes to a sort of slitted half-stare. And stare I do because lying next to me is Niall.
His tanned skin looks golden against the pale blue of the sheets and his hair is a tangled mess on the pillow.
I move slightly, and a woody smell mingled with a faint hint of lemon and rosemary drifts up from the tangled bedlinens.
Both of our scents have combined and it’s strangely erotic.
I bunch the sheets up over my body’s reaction.
The force is strong with my cock, despite my brain’s opposition.
I look up and choke slightly when I find him watching me. His eyes are slumberous and sexy and way, way too amused.
“What are you doing here?” I ask hoarsely to forestall the piss taking. I can’t exactly remember the precise reason why he’d do that, but I know with a deep certainty that it exists.
He stretches, giving out a low, satisfied grunt which makes me swallow hard. He moves his head on the pillow and smiles at me. It’s a warm, intimate smile that hits me like a brick between the eyes because he’s never looked at me like this before. My eyes narrow.
“Oh my God, did you fuck me?”
He snorts and stretches his arms behind his head. “Milo, I have done and enjoyed many things in my sexual peak, but necrophilia has never been one of them.” He pauses as if considering something and then shakes his head. “No, I’m certain I’ve never done it.”
I glare at him. “Then why are you in bed with me?”
“Well, dearest.” My eyes narrow at the endearment and he snorts and bops me on the nose.
“After you rather charmingly threw up in the sink, I showered you and put you to bed. I decided to sleep in with you because Cora is here and also because I wanted to make sure you didn’t choke on your own vomit.
” He pauses. “That would have really set me back on my mud run schedule.”
I groan and fall back on the pillows, putting my hand over my eyes. “Oh my God , I can’t believe I was sick in your sink. I’m so sorry.”
A warm hand pulls my fingers away from my eyes and I squint at him as he gives me a soft look. “Why be sorry? Better the sink than my crotch.”
“You should put that on a t-shirt,” I say sourly, and he laughs loudly. There’s a rustle and a soft coo from the Moses basket and he vaults up and paces over to it. Bending over Cora, he grins.
“Hello, baby girl. Ready for a nice day out?”
I blanch. “Oh my God, have I still got to go?”
“Yes. Death would not be an excuse for missing the mud run.” He straightens up with Cora cradled in his arms. He lays her next to me. “Here. Watch her while I get her bottle.”
He exits the room and I listen to his footsteps thundering down the stairs. I look down at Cora lying next to me in her little Babygro decorated in pink flamingos. She gives me a gummy smile and windmills her arms and legs about, stretching after her long sleep.
I lean down and kiss her head, inhaling the scent of baby shampoo and sleep that clings to her.
“I’m going to miss you when your daddies come back,” I say softly and she coos, reaching one tiny hand and clutching a hank of my hair in a grip that’s fucking tighter than The Rock could manage. It makes my eyes water.
When I’ve untangled her hand, I lie peacefully in the bed. It’s still dark out there and I can hear the wind blowing in the trees outside. It makes me feel safe and warm in our little nest.
I shake my head and wince at the pain that catapults across my forehead. I’m trying to recall the evening but I’m coming up blank. It’s a bit of a hazy mess from the point that Simeon had ordered a third bottle of wine. I scrunch up my face in concentration.
“I remember putting the kettle on,” I say slowly to Cora who’s watching me intently with her bright button eyes. “And I remember Niall making tea.”
Realisation flashes across my brain with the speed of a comet. A comet that’s intent on destroying a planet.
“Oh my God ,” I gasp to Cora. “I kissed him.” I pause. “And then told him I was crap in bed and threw up on him.”
“It’s a charming story, but even if you put ‘once upon a time’ in front of it, I’m not sure you could market it as a fairy tale.
” Niall’s voice makes me jump, and I look up to find him staring at me from the doorway.
He paces into the room, unscrewing the lid.
I hold my arm out automatically for him to test the bottle and nod as Cora works herself up into a frenzy.
He passes me the bottle and plops himself down next to me.
I eye him nervously as I give the bottle to Cora. She grabs it quickly and possessively, her eyes sliding shut in total contentment as she sucks. The room is full of the sounds of her surprisingly loud gulps for a long minute.
He rummages in his pocket and produces a packet of painkillers. “Open up,” he demands and pops two of the tablets on my tongue, handing me a bottle of water to wash them down and taking control of the bottle while I do it.
Silence falls again until eventually I stir. “I’m so sorry,” I mutter. “I’m m-m-mortified.”
“Milo, no,” he says immediately, his hand coming down on my leg. “Relax.”
“No, I said you were like Thomas. You’re nothing like Thomas.”
“Baby, I know you say that, but there’s a tiny part of you that thinks it.”
“I really don’t.” I hesitate. “It’s just that you’re so competent and confident that it’s daunting to someone like me.”
“Someone like you?” He pauses. “Ah, let me think. What did you say last night? Plain and boring?”
I feel myself flush. “I think we should try and forget last night’s conversation.” I nod determinedly. “Yes, that should be one of our yearly goals. We can put it as number one, just outranking world peace and working out what exactly Kanye West is talking about.”
He smiles. “I don’t want to forget last night’s revelations.”
I groan. “Oh God.”
He shakes his head. “We haven’t got time to discuss this, but we are going to.”
“I vote no.” I shrug. “It’s embarrassing, Niall, but it’s the truth.”
“No, it’s not. It’s someone else’s words, but the truth has nothing to do with that.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I know you,” he says sharply. “Sweetheart, you’re warm and full of life. You’re quirky and earthy. No fucking way you’d be bad in bed. You just need someone to show you how.”
“Oh my God, who would do that?”
“Anyone,” he says firmly, his eyes dark with some feeling I can’t work out. “Some lucky bastard can teach you and think himself the luckiest man on earth.”
“I could never tell anyone what I’ve just told you. It would be far too embarrassing. I’m practically a virgin. Ugh!”
He hesitates for some reason before saying abruptly and rather gruffly, “Then maybe don’t look too far afield. I’m always here for you.”
“What?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing. I’m going to get ready. Get up and get dressed when Cora’s finished.”
He moves out of the room and I stare after him. “Did he just offer to teach me how to have sex?” My brow furrows. “I’m not sure whether that’s embarrassing or hot.” I consider it for a second but I’m too hungover to make sense of it, so I shrug. “A bit of both.”
An hour later we’re ready to go. Or Niall and Cora are ready to go. I, however, am hungover to the eyeballs and feel like a cast member of The Night of the Living Dead.
“Was that a groan?” Niall asks with an amused note in his voice.
I look sideways at him. He’s sitting comfortably back in his seat, one hand on the wheel and the other resting on his thigh.
I stare at the long fingers and neat nails and the veins on the back of his hands.
I imagine them on my body and heat rushes through me.
He clears his throat and I jump, glad that I’m wearing sunglasses and not just because the daylight will fry my retinas.
“It might have been,” I say faintly. “I’m sure you don’t need Cora and me for this.”
“You’re my cheerleaders.”
“I think you need to revaluate your social life if one tiny baby and a hungover man are your cheerleading squad.”
“I already did that. Now, I’m implementing changes.”
“What does that even mean?” I look askance at him, but he doesn’t say anything more.
My phone beeps and I look down and smile.
“What?” he asks. “Who is it?” His voice goes darker. “Is it Simeon?”
“No, it’s Oz. They’re on the way back now.”
“Already?” Is it my imagination or does he sound slightly disappointed?
Or is it me projecting my feelings onto him because I’m not ready for our little sojourn to be over?
With Cora gone there will be no reason for me to stay at Niall’s house anymore.
I’ll have to move back to the main house and my attic suite.
My mouth turns down. I won’t be able to sit with him, eating and talking.
I won’t smell his aftershave in the air and hear his voice in the other room, knowing I’ll see him in a second.
I’ll go back to nodding at him over dinner and watching as he leaves for the evening to meet whichever man or woman is waiting for him.
The sound of the indicator rouses me from my thoughts and I look up as he pulls into the McDonalds drive through. He orders a coffee and a sausage and egg McMuffin and I look curiously at him as we wait. “Won’t you feel sick if you run after eating that?”
“It’s not for me,” he says, smiling at the woman who hands him his food. “It’s for you.”