Chapter Five #3
She was alarmed by this new, unexpected arrangement, and why wouldn’t she be?
They really knew nothing of one another’s personal habits. Was she a morning person? A night owl? From that thought came another and another…
As he’d told her, he tried not to spend the night with any woman…or at least, the occasions were rare. He liked his personal space and could easily compartmentalise his solitary downtime, his work time and his play time.
Did she share her space with whatever man she happened to be dating?
She was gregarious and warm-hearted by nature. He was fundamentally intensely private.
But now they would be finding out a little bit more about one another. It wasn’t a treacherous slope, but as he headed inside, quietly shutting the door behind him, and walked to his bedroom, he couldn’t stop the feathery touch of trepidation.
Gabriel heard the faintest of noises and stirred instantly. He hadn’t been asleep, but his mind had been drifting. He’d been thinking about Jennifer, not in a consciously analytical way but in a distracted, vaguely cloudy way with strands of thoughts coming together and pulling away.
Something in the atmosphere between them had changed. A subtle change that thrummed between them now like an invisible spark of electricity that made him feel over-alert and wired.
Sharing this cottage…
Unexpected. He’d seen the look of horror on Jennifer’s face when Luisa had triumphantly told them that Francesca could stay in the main house so they had the cottage to themselves.
All of a sudden, it had felt as though his foolproof arrangement had been turned on its head.
How had that happened? He’d been so sure that everything would be straightforward.
Yet here they were.
He was uneasily aware of the adage about best laid plans but dismissed the thought as fast as it entered his head. His plans never went awry, and this had been a carefully thought-out plan.
He decided that the cottage sharing was a minor setback. Like he’d told Jennifer, at least there would be a reprieve from the playacting when they were on their own here.
He heard that stealthy noise again.
Distracted by his own unedifying thoughts and frustrated that he couldn’t seem to get a handle on them, Gabriel padded to the door without switching his light on, only stopping to sling a towel around his waist in the absence of a dressing gown.
He pulled open his bedroom door softly.
He had no idea what he’d been expecting to find at three in the morning. An intruder? Creeping around in a remote cottage in the middle of nowhere?
His brain hadn’t fully engaged when he looked out of the bedroom, but he saw her immediately, her back to him as she peered inside the fridge in search of…
ah, a bottle of water. She’d been bending over, but now, with the bottle in her hand, she straightened, removed the cap and drank, head back and eyes closed.
Gabriel dragged in a shaky breath and stared, mesmerised. Her long, dark hair tumbled down her back to her waist, and her body…
He’d seen her in a million different outfits but never in a pair of pyjama shorts and a vest. The shorts were festooned with cartoon characters, and the vest was white and close-fitting. As she turned sideways, it showed off…
He breathed out and continued to stare.
He could feel himself hardening until his erection was so stiff that it hurt.
She wasn’t wearing a bra, and the soft fullness of her breasts begged to be touched.
He was about to beat a hasty retreat back into his bedroom when she turned round fully, still drinking the water.
Although the moment their eyes met, she stopped and slowly lowered her hand.
A slow creep of colour seeped into her cheeks.
Even in the half-light in the kitchenette, he could see that, was aware that she was blushing.
‘I… I heard a noise,’ Gabriel said with hoarse challenge in his voice. He didn’t want to look at her breasts. He did his utmost not to, but he couldn’t help himself, couldn’t miss the way they hung, heavy and full. He could almost see the outlines of nipples.
Jennifer, staring back at him, wanted the ground to open and swallow her whole.
Every inch of her felt exposed, from her legs, on show in a way that felt more revealing than if she’d been wearing a swimsuit, to her breasts, which were bursting out of the miniscule vest. Even the fact that she was barefoot made her feel as if she was advertising all her womanly assets in a brazen invitation.
Gabriel had never seen her before like this, in surroundings like these, in a situation like this one…
It was intensely, shockingly intimate. As his friend, she shouldn’t be standing here, mortified and acutely conscious of herself and of him in ways that made her toes curl.
This was the guy who had seen her cry during a tearjerker, made her laugh when she’d been feeling down and listened to all her worries when she’d been starting out in her teaching job.
This was her friend.
‘A noise?’ was the sum total of what she could muster in response as she drank him up with greedy eyes.
He was wearing nothing but a towel around his waist. Her eyes skirted over that completely.
Too dangerous. Although was it any less dangerous staring at his hard, muscled chest? The broad, sinewy shoulders?
The dampness between her thighs intensified, and she was overwhelmed with a crazy restlessness.
‘I just wanted some water.’ She stumbled over her words, which immediately made her cross with herself and cross with him for making her cross. ‘It’s not a crime!’
‘Obviously not.’