Chapter 23
23
Boathouse Cottage, St Aidan
Wet wet wet
Friday
T he whole evening seems to have passed like a time slip. All I know is that it’s a whole lot later when I make it across the kitchen at Boathouse Cottage, crash down onto the sofa still in most of my clothes and tap out my message to Scarlett.
Home safe, thanks for sending Miles
As the keys blur, I press send and murmur the rest of what I wanted to say to myself. Good luck with Tate, let me know how you go, and blow it into the ether with a kiss from my finger ends.
As my head eases onto the pillow and the room starts to spin like a fairground waltzer it hits me how drunk I am. My last thought before I black out is how lucky I am to have made it back.
When I wake again the sky is lightening with the first pale streaks of dawn, and I’m jolted out of a dream where Miles is snogging my face off. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I have the classic combo of a mouth like a desert and an axe embedded in my skull, and despite the dehydration, I’m bursting to pee. Then I remember that Scarlett and Tate might actually be breaking up as I wake, and the world seems to tilt again.
Those two have been such a constant when other things in my life have crumbled. If it’s hard for me to think of them not being together, I can’t imagine how it must be for them.
I roll off the sofa, untangle the tulle from around my legs, then make a dash through the half-light to the bathroom. Living with Miles, I’m grateful every day that Tate designed a bathroom with an ultra-quiet toilet flush, but at four in the morning my silent thank yous are coming out ten times faster than usual, and there’s a second wave of gratitude when I turn on the sink tap and manage to drench my whole head with cold water too. I towel my hair dry in more grateful silence, then ease the door open, step softly out and hurry back to the living room.
I’m two steps along the corridor when I crash into something that feels immovable and approximately the size of a dinosaur. Except when I put the palm of my hand on the object, there are no scales. There’s just an expanse of warm skin with super-toned muscle beneath it. Trying to disentangle my arms and legs and still keep my balance and stand up in the darkness is slightly harder than the time I fell backwards into a hawthorn hedge as a kid.
‘Betsy? Are you okay?’
Miles’s low voice resonates through his chest and against my cheek, and as his arms encircle my body, I stop flapping mine. It takes me a full minute to realise I’m holding on to him too. We stand there, motionless in the dark, and rather than stepping gracefully back and going on my way, I stay. I have no excuse or explanation for what I’m doing other than that I must still be trolleyed– fully intoxicated to the point that I’ve lost control of my normal physical and emotional functions. Because instead of pulling away, there’s a hot rush of desire surging up in the pit of my stomach, and I crush my body against his. The instant thrum of electricity that crackles between us tells me he’s as up for this as I am. And now I’ve got my hands on him I am literally gasping for all the sex I haven’t had for as long as I can remember.
I’m grinding my hips against his, stretching my hands up to run my fingers through his hair. Pulling his head down towards me. I’m parting my lips, breathing in the scent of his skin, anticipating how sweet he’s going to taste when our mouths fuse. Then, from some very distant universe my override button kicks in to save me, and instead of brushing my tongue against his, I’m slamming my hand over my face, and jumping backwards so fast that when I land no part of my body is touching his.
I bite my lip, gather my skirts around me and try to stop myself shaking. Order myself not to go back in again for more.
I flatten myself against the side wall so he can come past me without touching, and clear my throat. ‘All good, thanks, Miles. Just nipped to the bathroom for a drink.’
‘Is your hair wet?’
Even in the dark I can hear he’s doing that puzzled frown of his.
I smile and think of a better reason for drenching my head than having a blinder of a hangover. ‘Just rinsing out the smell of the chippy. I’ll shower properly in the morning.’
‘The citrus and verbena shampoo in there might work for that. Or the almond. Help yourself to whatever you like.’
‘Thanks, I will.’
An open invitation to use his shower products, I should be whooping. But all I’m seeing on repeat in my head is me grinding my pelvis against his. As for how incredible it felt, that’s a whole other story, which is totally eclipsed by the shame that any of it happened at all. There are other questions too. How am I ever going to live this down? How will I ever face Miles in the daylight? Like, truly, I will never be able to look at him across the kitchen island, knowing that he knows I wasn’t just trying to steal a quick kiss. I was a hundred per cent desperate to jump the man’s bones.
Pecan and toffee boathouse buns won’t ever taste the same after this. Just saying. For the record. I thought I was in a mess when I arrived in St Aidan, but that was nothing. My life as I know it is over. I’ll have two more hours of sleep, and then I’ll sort myself out. Bring on Operation Total Disaster– I have a mahoosive incident to manage.