ME: Because we aren’t. We meet up every couple of weeks, we have sex, and we move on.
ADELAIDE: Doesn’t he buy you dinner every time?
ME: Obviously. I don’t give it away for free, and I like food.
ADELAIDE: There are childhood pictures that agree with that.
ME: Don’t be a bitch, Adelaide. It’s not a good look.
ADELAIDE: You’d know. :D
ME: What do you want? I’ll be home tomorrow after lunch.
ADELAIDE: Well, where are you? Are you near here?
ME: Pretty much Birmingham. Shall I come over before I go home tomorrow?
ADELAIDE: Yes. It’ll save having to bribe Olympia into leaving the cats.
ME: Okay. I’ll let you know when I’m leaving.
If she pulled out the wedding magazines again, I was going to throw myself off the roof. I’d already helped every way I could until she gave me the green light to organise her hen party and get everyone together to find the dresses.
Other than that, I was good..
Not that I didn’t care about her upcoming wedding. I did—I cared greatly about my sister having the wedding she’d always dreamt of, but I just… didn’t get it.
I’d never been the girl who watched Cinderella and wished to be her. I’d never fantasised about my prince charming riding in to save the day like some kind of miracle worker. My parents thought I did, and I was sure even my friends all thought that was the case, but I could genuinely say there wasn’t a single part of me that wanted to get married.
The only thing I really wanted to do was punch my wanker of a boss in the face, but we didn’t always get what we wanted, did we?
Adelaide would never understand how I could have regular hook ups with Matthew and not feel anything for him.
Well, it wasn’t like I felt nothing. As far as I was concerned, I enjoyed his company, I liked spending time with him, and he made me laugh. I could even go as far as to say I was quite fond of Matthew, but that didn’t mean I had any inclination to make things romantic.
Nor would I find myself so inclined.
No. I was more than happy for things to continue as they were.
I jerked my head around at the sound of a card being slipped into the slot on the other side of the door. Had I really been lying here that long? A quick check of the TV showed I had, and it had been an hour since I’d last spoken to Matthew.
The door to the room opened, and the man himself stepped in. He looked as handsome as he always did, with his dark hair and blue eyes and his scruffy, stubbled jaw that he swore hid his dimples.
It didn’t.
“You look comfortable,” he said, tone tinged with amusement.
I stretched my legs out and smiled. “I am, thank you. This sofa will be exceptionally comfortable for you tonight when I apparently start snoring.”
He laughed, closing the door behind him. “Don’t be like that, sweetheart. You know I was only teasing you.”
“Sweetheart, my arse,” I replied, staring at him.
He pulled off his coat, grinning, and walked over to me. “Ah, there it is. Your signature sweetness.”
“Oh, shut up.”
Matthew leaned over me and kissed me, immediately running his hand up my thigh. There was a whole layer of denim between his palm and my skin, but it didn’t make the blindest bit of difference. My body reacted, and desire immediately flooded my veins.
I was completely and utterly powerless to his touch, and it’d been less than twenty seconds.
The man was a magician.
I rested my hands at the sides of his neck, pulling him in closer for a deeper kiss. My legs moved and shifted, and he dropped to his knees on the sofa between my thighs, pressing his body on top of mine.
It was all too easy, the way my body responded. The way he touched me was like second nature now, and it was almost as if my nerves remembered the exact movement of his fingertips as they crept down to my side and under my t-shirt.
“There’s not a lot of room here,” I murmured against his lips.
“And to think, you haven’t even said hello to me yet,” Matthew murmured right back, slowly drawing his lips down to my neck and kissing a trail down to my collarbone.
“I’m not here for a historical debate, am I?”
He laughed against my neck and pushed up off the sofa. “You are not. Let’s go, then.”
I let him pull me up, and we backed into the bedroom, kissing again before we’d barely stepped through the door. The tumble back to the bed was swift, and we moved in a rhythm we had so many times before.
It was familiar and easy, and our clothes quickly came off. His skin was hot against mine, and he kissed his way down my body, from the hollow of my neck and over my breasts, all the way down until he parted my legs and pressed his lips against my inner thigh.