Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
RICH
It wasn’t as though thinking like this about a woman was a new thing for me. I was just a lot out of practice. Erica had been the person I thought I was going to spend my life with, and I hadn’t looked at anyone else in that time.
But the divorce happened and Annie moved out to go to university. While I hadn’t seen anyone seriously, I’d had a handful of encounters while my house had been empty.
What was insanely new for me was that this was my child’s best friend. I’d been around Lucy since she was three, watched her and my daughter grow up together. She had been in my house as much as she’d been in her own. And there I was, lying in my bed in the dark with my cock rock hard, thinking about every inch of her beautiful face. Thinking about how my body had reacted to her touch, to her closeness. Thinking about what a fucking dirty old man I was for lusting after her like that.
I tried to shake the thought that she was lying on the other side of the wall from me. Somehow, I needed to put out of my mind the notion she might be right there, thinking similar thoughts about me. Pulling my pillow over my face and growled my frustrations into it. Tomorrow, I’d text my ‘friend’ and see if her house was empty. Perhaps I could relieve some of my frustrations with her. It wasn’t ideal, but wasn’t that the point of a friend with benefits?
There was a knock at the door, and I knew who it was before I answered. Annie had mentioned Lucy was going to be calling over to meet her when she got out of work. It had started to feel like she had been arriving a little earlier each time. Part of me wondered if that was because she was coming to see me. The other part told me to remember I was old enough to be her father and to get a damn grip of myself.
I grinned when I answered, trying hard not to notice the twinkle in her eyes, that her mouth looked utterly kissable. The smell of her perfume teased me as she walked past me into the kitchen.
I offered to make extra food for her, and she accepted. Sliding gracefully onto a stool at the breakfast bar, she watched me move around the kitchen. I felt her eyes on me as I shifted around the space. I couldn’t deny the effect it had knowing she was there looking at me.
“Any luck on the job front yet?” I asked, trying to distract myself from the fact she was making my jeans feel a little too tight at the front. I kept my back to her and talked to her like I did when she was younger, giving myself a verbal cold shower.
Christ, Rich. She’s too young for you. Get a grip.
“Not a bloody thing. I’m starting to think I’ll never get a job. Maybe I’ll have to find myself a sugar daddy.”
She laughed, and I felt it prickle over my skin. I swallowed, closed my eyes, and tried to calm my physical reaction to her. A sugar daddy, indeed. In my distraction, I let my wrist get a little too close to the pan I was cooking the chicken in.
“Shit!” I jumped, and in an instant, Lucy was beside me, grabbing my wrist.
“What did you do? Here, let me look.”
She blew over the burn on my skin and goosebumps rose all over my body. Gently, she pulled me to the sink and turned on the cold water, shoving my arm under the flow.
“Keep it there,” she instructed and went back to the cooker to turn down the hotplate under the pan and check the chicken wasn’t burning as well as me. She moved back beside me and touched my arm again, puling it back out of the water to check on it. “Have you still got that first aid kit?”
“It’s not that bad.”
She glared, and I admitted defeat. “Yeah, it’s in the same cupboard as always.”
She nodded and moved to the upper cabinet on the other side of the kitchen, ordering me to sit down. I did as I was told, letting her take care of my injury.
She moved against my knees as I sat on the stool and watched her play nurse with my scald.
“It’ll be fine, you know.” I winced as she covered it with an antiseptic spray.
“It will be once I’ve finished, yes,” she agreed.
I laughed and shook my head. Watching her bandage my arm, I tried not to think of her body brushing against my knees and how damn close she was. She ran her fingers over the bandage, lifted my wrist, and kissed it better with a little smirk. When her eyes made it to mine, I felt like I was being pulled towards her.
She licked her lips, and my gaze fell to her mouth. I knew where this would end up; I felt it in every inch of me. I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to sample her taste. I could see her breathing quicken, and she moved ever so slightly towards me too.
Her phone rang. She pulled back and reached into her back pocket to answer it. I took the chance to escape and went back to the stove where the pan of chicken waited for me.