Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
CLARA
T he thing about realising a chapter of your life with someone was done was that it cast everything that person did in a new light because you were no longer in their corner. And this light was highlighting just how exhausting being around Drew was.
At some point over dinner, Lucy suggested we do a shot every time Drew said something in the name of asserting his alphaness, and we had to stop half an hour in when we realised that we would not be able to cope with that level of alcohol consumption. So we decided to do one every time Jesse tried to do the same.
We only drank one shot, and we debated long and hard about whether what he had done even counted. He’d positioned his body in front of me because Drew had approached with a level of familiarity that we no longer had. He hadn’t even said anything, just placed a solid body in front of me that Drew had no hope of getting around.
We decided it counted, but only just, and we went to bed sober.
In my Drew-related exhaustion, I forgot to set an alarm, despite Becky reminding me before she went off to bed. I said I’d do it, but clearly, she didn’t believe me because she took it upon herself to wake Jesse and me up.
With a spoon and a saucepan because she was nothing if not loving.
I startled awake at the first bang of metal and then burrowed into the sheet, hiding my face so I could pretend I didn’t know she was there.
Except it wasn’t the sheet. It was a T-shirt. And the man it was attached to was pulling me into him. And I hadn’t just burrowed into this position at the wake-up call because one of my legs was comfortably hooked over Jesse’s waist, and one of his hands was underneath my pyjama shirt, his thumb sweeping arcs against the underside of my breast.
I shifted to try and make us look less comfortable with one another in front of a woman who would not let this go and felt rather than heard a groan escape from Jesse.
My thigh was pressed against his very obvious erection.
I tried not to look at him as I unhooked my leg, which dragged across his erection, but I could see his eyes flutter in my peripheral vision as I extracted myself from him. His hand brushed against my side as I sat up, leaving goose bumps in its wake.
I looked at Becky, my eyes still half closed but open enough that I noticed her smug look. I was never going to hear the end of this.
“If you’re not downstairs in the next forty-five minutes, we will leave without you, and I will never let you live any of this down,” she said, punctuating the end of her sentence with another bang on the saucepan. She levelled one more look at me before she made her exit.
Maybe if we made it downstairs on time, she would keep the display she saw to herself.
“How serious is her threat?” Jesse asked, his voice still thick with sleep.
I had never been turned on by a voice before, but Jesse’s morning voice was really doing it for me.
“I find it best not to push her with these things,” I replied as I rushed out of bed and into the bathroom.
I tried to avoid looking at Jesse. I didn’t need to see what he looked like sleep rumpled and half asleep.
Except, obviously I did.
The duvet had fallen to just above his hips, revealing a thin strip of skin where his T-shirt had ridden up. I could see the smallest hint of the waistband of his boxers. Boxers that he was hard in.
I locked myself in the bathroom before I did something ill-advised. Like take that erection in my hands and work it over until he came.
That didn’t mean that I couldn’t think about doing that once I removed the detachable shower head from the wall.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, on still shaky legs, I opened the bathroom door with all the confidence I could muster, wearing nothing but a towel.
It didn’t take long for me to feel the weight of Jesse’s gaze on me as I walked over to the vanity table in the room. My skin prickled under his gaze with a pleasant kind of heat.
“All yours,” I said.
He cleared his throat as he grabbed his clothes and locked himself in the bathroom.