Chapter 9
The next morning, after sweating my arse off at the gym, hoping to run off the tension and chase my wandering thoughts away, I walk through the automatic doors of M&S and grab a basket, calling Abbie as I meander down the fresh fruit aisle. “I’m in M&S,” I say when she answers, reaching for a pack of sliced mango pieces and popping them in my basket. “What do you fancy for dinner?”
“You choose.”
“Busy?”
“Run off my feet. Have we rewound a month back to February? I feel like every man in the land has stopped by to pick up flowers for the woman in their life, and it’s not even ten o’clock. Or is it a full moon or something?”
I laugh and pluck a bottle of wine out of the fridge. “What, like it’s sending women everywhere crazy, and the men think it’s their fault?”
“Maybe.”
“I’ll get chicken.” I pluck a tray of breasts out of the fridge. “Make kievs. Sound good?”
“Oh, and those yummy potato things drenched in cheese. And, come to think of it, get more cheese. I’m in a cheesy mood.”
I smile and head for the dairy aisle, loading my basket with various cheeses. “This will make the gym totally pointless this morning.”
“Who goes to the gym at eight on a Saturday morning, anyway?”
“Me.” I pout. “It sets me up for the day.” I pull a baguette from a basket as I pass the bakery section and swing it as I stroll. “So it’s a cheese coma and movie tonight?”
“Love it. Don’t worry about wine, I have a case full of that delicious French stuff. I’ve got to go, another two blokes just walked in.” Abbie hangs up, and I slip my phone into my gym bag, shifting it farther onto my shoulder, as I roam the rest of the aisles, tossing various sweet treats into my basket to try and even up the ratio with cheese.
Once I’ve paid, I wander out and cut through the park to Abbie’s, enjoying the pre-spring-morning chill on my clammy, post-gym skin. When I get back, I let myself in and toe my trainers off, dumping my shopping on the counter. “Alexa, play my favourite music,” I say, pulling out the packs of fruit and natural yoghurt. I pause, smiling to myself, when Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” starts playing from all the speakers around Abbie’s flat. “Alexa, volume up.” I wriggle out of my sweater and throw it on the chair before shimmying over to the cupboard to get a bowl. I load it up, dancing and singing my way around the kitchen as I make my breakfast and unpack my M&S haul before lowering to a chair to eat. I open my laptop and start browsing through the latest news bulletins between spoonfuls, checking for any news on Galactia. Nothing. Still a ton of whispers, people with theories, some conspiracies, but no concrete evidence that the company is onto something big. I pout and take a mouthful of yoghurt, resting back in my chair. “Come on, find the oil,” I whisper to my screen, sending my positive thoughts into the universe.
The sound of my phone ringing breaks through Blondie, and I hop up and hurry to where I dropped my gym bag. “Hey,” I puff, answering to Abbie. She talks as I wander back to the table, but I can’t hear her for the life of me. “Wait a minute,” I yell, lowering the volume on the Alexa.
“Having a private party?” she asks.
“Just letting my hair down while I have breakfast.” On that, I reach for my ponytail and pull out the hair tie, shaking my hair out.
“I know. Mrs. Hobbs just called me.”
“Who’s Mrs. Hobbs?”
“The old dear upstairs. She tried knocking on the door, but you obviously couldn’t hear her.”
I cringe. “Shit, sorry.” I hurry to the door and pull it open, finding an empty corridor. “Bring some flowers home for her?”
“Behave while Mummy’s at work, will you?” She hangs up, and as the screen clears, I see some missed calls. Five in total. Not Abbie. My heartbeat increases as I stare down at the known unknown number. His number. I go back to the table and lower to the chair. And it rings in my hand.
“Shit.” I startle and toss it across the table. It’s as if my head is telling me to get it as far away as possible to lessen the chances of me folding and answering. And it rings. And rings. And rings.
Shower.
Leaving my mobile on the table, I go take a shower, my hands working roughly through my hair, scrubbing the shampoo in as I mentally chant to myself. Tell myself to resist temptation. Walk away from the danger. Listen to my head.
By the time I’m done, wrapped in a towel, and have made it back to the kitchen, I have four more missed calls. “Jesus, give in, will you?” I murmur, wiping the screen clear.
It rings again. I freeze where I stand. My quivers increase. This is bloody crazy. “Hello,” I answer assertively, and yet I can hear the breathiness of my voice as well as I can feel my trembles. I don’t know what it is about this guy, but he ruins me.
“Do you always play hard to get?” he says, ruining me further with that rough but silky voice. I can suddenly smell him.
“I’m not playing anything,” I assure him.
“Sure. And what have you done on this fine Saturday morning?”
“I’ve been to the gym.” Are we having a chitchat? “And M&S.” My frown is massive. “You?”
“I was in the gym too.”
I still. “Which gym?”
“Not yours,” he confirms, and I deflate. “Because that would be weird, wouldn’t it?” I snort to myself. And this isn’t? “So tonight,” he goes on. “You’ll come to dinner with me.”
“That wasn’t a question.”
“It wasn’t intended to be.”
My forehead bunches as I sit, my mind turning in circles. It’s just dinner. But his approach, his tenacity, tells me otherwise. He doesn’t only want dinner. I growl at myself with frustration. “I don’t want to have dinner with you.”
“Then we’ll skip dinner.”
And there it is. My brain just can’t compute such bolshiness. “Look,” I say, standing. “I have other things going on in my life right now.”
“What, so you can’t fuck?”
“Are you real?”
“Oh, baby, I’m very real, and you will give in.”
I scowl at thin air, hating his cockiness. And the fact that he could be right. He looks like an experience no woman should pass up. Fucking hell. “I’m going to hang up now,” I say, my voice noticeably wobbly.
“Where are you?” he asks.
“What?”
“Where are you?”
I shake my head, my frustration growing. “I’m in my friend’s kitchen.”
“Your friend’s kitchen?”
“I’m staying with her while I find an apartment.”
“Right. Because you broke up with someone.”
“Right.”
“Are you sitting?”
“No.”
“You should.”
“Why?”
“Sit down, Amelia,” he orders. “Now.” And like a robot, I slowly lower to the chair. “Put the phone on speaker,” he practically whispers. “And place it on the table.”
“What the hell are you—”
“Just do it.”
“No.” I snort, indignant. “Why do you want me to?”
“Don’t you trust yourself?”
My jaw rolls, frustration and anticipation getting the better of me. “I trust myself.”
“Then do it.”
On a sigh I want him to hear, I follow his order.
“Put your hands on your thighs.”
I bite at my lip, his voice doing things to me a voice shouldn’t do all by itself. I swallow and rest my hands there, my skin heating, my thighs clenching. I know what’s happening. Can I stop it?
“Keep them there,” he says. “And listen to me. Are you listening?”
My swallow is lumpy. “I’m listening,” I whisper. And I’m already shaking.
“Don’t move your hands.”
I close my eyes and let his voice sink into me.
“Think about my fingers weaving through yours, Amelia. You liked that, didn’t you? My big, capable, slippery hands working yours.”
Oh fucking hell. But I keep my mouth shut.
“Did. You. Like. It?”
“Yes.” I grind the word out, unable to stop myself from admitting it.
“Are your hands still on your thighs?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t move them.”
“I won’t move them,” I grit out, my body tight, my pussy tight.
“It felt so fucking good, didn’t it?” he whispers. I groan quietly, back in the ladies’ with his hands all over mine. “I could have bent you over that sink and fucked you into tomorrow, and you would have loved that. Tell me. Tell me you would have loved that.”
I inhale, my hand creeping to the inside of my thigh, the pressure building, making me shake. I need to suppress the pulse. Rub myself. Ease the tingles. “I would have loved that.”
“Not so stiff now, are you?” he rasps. “In that chair desperate to come to the sound of my voice.”
My hand meets my pussy over my workout pants, and my breath hitches.
“You’re touching yourself,” he whispers. “Fuck, you’re touching yourself. Does it feel good?”
I can’t talk, can only breathe, my chest pumping, the heat rushing through me. I push my back into the chair, feeling it coming.
“Does it feel good?” he demands harshly. “Tell me, Amelia.”
“It feels so good,” I cry, throwing my head back. It’s coming. It’s coming.
“Take it, baby. And remember who got you off with his voice alone.”
Buzz, buzz, buzz!
I startle, coming into my body on a jarring gasp, my climax fizzling out. “Oh my God.” I blink, looking toward the intercom by the door. I’m panting. A little confused. What just happened?
“Amelia?”
I look down at my phone on the table. Then at my hand between my legs. Fuck. I scramble to grab my mobile.
“Amelia,” he says, sounding urgent.
“I’ve got to go.”
“No, Amelia, do not hang up on me.”
I cut the call and rush to the telephone by the door, so unstable. “Hello?” I gasp.
“Delivery for Abbie Pearson.”
I hit the button to open the main door. “Just leave it in the lobby, thanks.” I hang up and fall against the wall, still fucking breathless.
A puppet on his strings.
What that man could do to me.
Abbie plucks a yellow rose from a metal bucket and adds it to the bouquet she’s building as I follow her around the florist. “I don’t know why you don’t just have dinner with him,” she says. “Worst case, you get a free dinner. Best case, you get a ride on the stallion.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re not helping.”
“Then why did you come to see me and not Charley?” she asks as she pulls a few sprigs of eucalyptus out and arranges them just so. “Don’t answer that, I know why.”
I narrow my eyes as she carries on her merry, casual business building a bouquet. “Why?”
“Because, Amelia, you want to have dinner with him, and you know I will encourage you, whereas Charley won’t. That’s why you’re here. Pass me a pussy willow, will you?”
I snatch a twig out.
“And another,” she says, placing it precisely as I scowl and pull out another stick. “Thanks.” She carries on walking, and I chase her heels. “Have dinner with him. What’s the worst that can happen?” She places her built bouquet on a stack of floral paper.
“He nearly made me come just by talking to me, Abbie,” I confess, stepping back when she swings around. “He’s a master seducer. I’m scared of the power he could have over me.”
Abbie blows out her cheeks. “What do you want me to say, Amelia? You’re attracted to him. He’s obviously attracted to you.”
“I just broke up with someone,” I grate. “I have to make partner.”
“You think sleeping with Mr. Hot as Fuck will change that?”
I laugh under my breath. Yes, actually, he could, because I can’t seem to stop thinking about him, and I can’t imagine that problem improving if I give in to his persistence and take what he’s going to give.
So I won’t.
Be sensible.
“Want some help?” I ask. I can’t go back to Abbie’s, and I have nothing else to do. Except work, and I’m not in the right headspace.
And there’s my point. One phone call from the God and I’m a mess.
Abbie smiles, takes my shoulders, and puts me behind the cash register. “You can take the money,” she says, throwing me a colourful floral apron with Flora Flora emblazoned across the bib. “Corey will show you how to work the card machine. I’ve got to get the flowers out of the fridge ready for the wedding.”
I smile my thanks and shove my bag under the counter, faltering when my phone rings. Abbie raises her brows.
“He’s determined, I’ll give him that.”
“Or his ego’s too inflated to lose,” I muse, fighting back the mental images of him to the corners of my mind.
He calls a further five times that day.
I answer none.