More Than Friends (9 page)

“It’s not gonna work, babe. You can pretend to ignore me, but I know you’re hearing every word.” He continued with his explanation. “So that’s where I was. Working on a commercial for peanut butter bars. But you know what? When I got home, I discovered I wasn’t interested in peanut butter, wasn’t interested in work. Wasn’t interested in anything besides…besides taking a fucking bath.”

Lucy turned the chocolate upside down and viewed it from another angle.

“Instead of working, I ran a bath. Filled that sucker with hot water, got inside and thought of you. Couldn’t stop thinking about you. I obsessed about you. About everything you’d said. Everything you’d done, everything we’d done together. I relived every minute of your confession, and every minute of watching you fucking yourself. And then I relived every minute of touching you, tasting you and sucking you. It made me so fucking horny, I masturbated in the bath, thinking of you. I touched myself thinking about you, wished it was your hand on my dick, not mine. I fucking came, in the bath, fantasizing about you.”

Ever so slowly, Lucy dropped her hands to her lap until the Aero lay there forgotten. Her gaze snapped from the ceiling to his face, and she gaped at him.

“Do you have any idea how many baths I’ve had since Sunday? How many times I’ve come thinking about you? I don’t even like bathing, for fuck’s sake. I’m a shower type of guy.” He scrubbed a hand over his chin, surprised to find a good few days’ worth of hair growth there. Jesus, he’d been so obsessed with the woman, he’d even forgotten to shave.

“I almost missed the deadline. Had to stay up the whole of Sunday and Monday night working on it.” Thankfully, Jason, his colleague, had phoned regularly to keep him conscious enough to finish the damn spec. “I’ve been so consumed by you, I even had the fucking peanut butter bar jumping into the tub at one point.” He’d had to toss the sketch of that one away. Peter’s would not be happy advertising an energy bar sporting a huge erection.

“I lost track of time. Lost track of work, lost track of everything besides you. You’ve been the only conscious thought on my mind. The only thing I’ve been able to concentrate on.”

She smiled an empty smile. “Gee, it’s nice to hear you’ve been thinking about me. It might also be nice if every once in a while you could think with something other than your dick.”

“Oh, no, babe. You don’t get to blame me for that. In six years of knowing you, I never once thought about you with my dick. Then
you
changed the rules.
You
told me you were in love with me. Until then, our relationship was purely…cerebral. Platonic. I never had to think about you with my dick, because I never had reason to. But when a beautiful woman, whom I love madly, tells me I’m her every sexual fantasy, my dick wakes up and joins the party. Like it or not.”

“As we’ve established, I liked it. And not. Alas, the not is winning at the moment, so what I’d like most is for you to leave.”

“And I’d like to shake some sense into you, but I won’t. So it seems neither of us is going to get what we want now. You might as well shut up and listen to me, because I am not finished talking.”

Lucy popped the last piece of Aero in her mouth and didn’t shut up. “She’s very pretty.”

“Who’s very pretty?” Jesus, the woman could talk circles around him.

“Your girlfriend. Sarah.”

Ah, right. “She is. She’s a stunner.”

“Which explains why you like her so much. Do you also think about her with your dick? Or is it more…cerebral than that?”

“I stopped thinking about her the minute I stepped into your bathroom on Sunday night.”

“Well, of course you did. And her presence at your flat tonight just confirms that.”

He stopped arguing for a second to look at her face. Even though her voice was calm, her expression no longer belied her feelings. She was livid. And hurt. And doing her absolute best to pretend everything was just fine.

His heart clenched at the jumble of emotions she couldn’t hide, only confirming what he’d slowly come to realize these last few days.

“Did you know your eyes flash when you’re jealous?”

She blinked twice, shuttering all that emotion. The next time she looked at him, it was through blank eyes. “Did you know it’s impolite to outstay your welcome?”

“I phoned Sarah earlier, after I met my deadline. Asked her to come around because I needed to see her.”

“Gee, Seb, is this how you try and save all your relationships when they’re falling apart? By rubbing the problem in the other person’s nose?” Her brown eyes flashed again.

“I had to see her before I saw you. Had to explain that in the three days we hadn’t seen each other, I’d fallen crazily in love with a friend I hadn’t considered falling in love with before. I thought it was only fair to tell her the truth, so that the next time I saw you there would be no one else complicating our relationship.”

“You…uh… Oh.”

“You rang my bell twenty minutes before Sarah was supposed to. I wasn’t expecting you.”

Lucy jumped from the couch and marched toward him. “I was mad at you.” She no longer tried to hide the hurt in her eyes. Every bit of her misery was right there, staring at him.

“I know, Loo.”

“You…” She jammed a finger into his chest. “You came on my foot. Then you left. Without even kissing me. And you never phoned. Or came to see me. Or ran with me. You never even texted.”

“I never phoned because I was really busy with work. And with thinking about you. And with putting my world back together. You blew it apart. Changed all the rules. And when I began picking up the pieces and fitting them back into place, they didn’t fit where they used to. I couldn’t jam the round pegs into the square holes. There were never square holes before Sunday night. I never had to fit round pegs into them.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Are you comparing me to a square hole?”

“I could never compare you to something so mundane. All I’m saying is that you changed the rules. You changed me, and I needed time to reconfigure my life. My emotions.”

Something in her expression softened. “You have emotions?”

“I have a ton of them. Sitting right here.” He patted his chest. “Pressing on my heart. And every one of them revolves around you. I love you, babe. I’m madly, wildly, totally into you.”

She pursed her lips. “Have you been drinking my wine?”

“No. Unless it’s escaped your attention I haven’t been here for the last couple of days.”

“You keep red wine at your place. For me.”

“I hate the stuff. I’ve been drinking Earl Grey.”

“So when you say you love me, you’re not drunk?”

He shook his head. “I’m stone-cold sober.”

“Do you love me, or are you in love with me?”

He smiled then. Couldn’t help it. “I love you, and I’m in love with you. Bowled over by both and still coming to terms with them myself, but yeah. There you have it. I love you, I’m in love with you, and I kinda wish we were both in the bath right now, so I could stop fucking fantasizing about you and start making this love real.”

She stiffened. “You didn’t kiss me. And you came on my foot.
My foot
. Do you have any idea how that makes me feel?”

“Ah, but when I did kiss you tonight, I never wanted to stop. Never wanted to let your mouth go again. And as for coming on your leg?” Seb had the grace to blush. “I haven’t lost control like that since I was sixteen. Since the first time I had sex.” He held his hands out, helpless. “I lost control with you. You turned me inside out. I’m twenty-nine, and I responded to you like the clueless teenager I used to be. I couldn’t hold back. Watching you come, watching you respond to my touch, my tongue? Fuck.” He grabbed his dick, which had stiffened painfully at the memory. “I could come now just thinking about it, just remembering how fucking hot you got me.”

The color in Lucy’s cheeks deepened and her chest heaved unevenly. “Do you really love me?”

“Yeah, Lucy-Loo. I really, really love you. Like, heaps.”

“I love you too.”

“That’s good.” He smiled. “That’s real good. Now do you think you could maybe stop talking and stop asking questions so we could make up for all those missed hours of kissing on Sunday night?”

“I think I could try. But I must warn you, I—”

Seb didn’t give her the chance. He just wrapped his arms around her, pulled her into him and kissed her.

And for once, Lucy shut up.

About the Author

Apart from her family and friends, Jess Dee loves two things: romance and food. Is it any wonder she specializes in dee-liciously sexy romance? Jess loves hearing from readers. You can email her at
[email protected]
or find her at
www.jessdee.com
.

Look for these titles by Jess Dee

Now Available:

The Tanner Siblings

Photo Opportunity

Ask Adam

Circle of Friends

Only Tyler

Steve’s Story

A Question of…

A Question of Trust

A Question of Love

Fire

Winter Fire

Hidden Fire

Three of a Kind

Going All In

Raising the Stakes

Full House

Bandicoot Cove Anthology

Exotic Indulgence

Island Idyll

Speed

See You in My Dreams

Colors Of Love

Office Affair

Bandicoot Cove: The Wedding

Afternoon Rhapsody

Two To Tango

A Touch Of Confidence

Print Anthologies

Risking It All

Three’s Company

Red Hot Winter

Three of a Kind

Tropical Desires

Red Hot Weekend

Coming Soon:

More Than

More Than Lovers

More Than Words

Print Anthologies

Bandicoot Cove:
Tropical Haze

Speed:
Rhythm Of The Night

Two To Tango

A second chance at love is worth fighting for.

Afternoon Rhapsody

© 2012 Jess Dee

Bandicoot Cove: The Wedding, Book 1

Bianca Rogers is one signature away from finalizing her divorce. And she
will
finalize it just as soon as she gets home. But for this weekend, she’s putting her troubles aside and enjoying the gorgeous, sunlit luxury of Bandicoot Cove, the resort where her brother is getting married. The last thing she expects is to be knocked off her feet—literally—by gorgeous Brody Evans.

The fireworks are instantaneous. Brody is just her type: sexy, warm, friendly, and in the same boat as her: in the process of getting a divorce.

Spending time together is a mutual no-brainer. Attraction quickly grows to full-blown lust. But flying sparks come with increasingly personal conversations, and soon neither of them can ignore their past mistakes or the circumstances that have led them to the island.

Now it’s time to determine whether old hurts and sudden doubts will prevent love from leading them to a whole new happily ever after.

Warning: If you don’t believe in second chances, never thought it was possible to fall in love again and aren’t interested in scrumptious, hot love scenes, then this story probably isn’t for you. You’d be missing out—big time—but yeah…it’s probably not for you.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Afternoon Rhapsody:

“I have a beachside bungalow, not far from where we met this morning,” Brody told her as he quickened his pace.

She needed no encouragement to match his steps, although she had to take two for every one of his. “Me too.” Excitement fizzed inside her. “Whichever one we get to first, we go into.”

“Deal.”

Dripping wet, they scooted through the gardens, their steps increasing in speed from a brisk walk to a gentle trot to an all-out run. Bianca was about to shift into sprint mode when Brody took a sudden left and nipped behind an oasis of trees. He took her with him.

“What the…? What are you doing?”

He pressed his finger to her lips. “Shh.”

That was when she heard it. Footsteps and animated chatter. She couldn’t identify the voices, there were too many of them, but the words
wedding
,
groom
and
bachelor
party
drifted her way, and she was suddenly jolly appreciative of Brody’s quick thinking.