Relief flooded her. “Thank you.”
His eyes narrowed on hers. “I’m sorry I’ve been behaving like a dick.”
“You have. Do better.”
“Don’t hold back, Will. I’m going to bed for a few hours. Don’t worry about noise, I sleep like the dead. Come get me around two o’clock. We’ll go shopping. For paint and whatever else we need for you to feel comfortable.”
“Thank you, Luke. I’ll try to make this—”
“We’ll talk later, yeah? I’m knackered. See you in a few.”
She watched his broad shoulders disappear down the hallway, heard the toilet flush, and a few minutes later heard the muttered groan as he obviously lay down in bed.
He hadn’t signed the contract.
And what if he’d not been polarised or magnetised, or whatever it was he said had happened in the nightclub? What if he’d stepped up to that woman and kissed her? It would be impossible to spin a happy reunion story if a woman popped up in the media twenty-four hours later saying he tried to hit on her in a nightclub.
Willow stepped over to the sofa and flopped down on the cushions. It felt like they’d made a step. Maybe they had. She just wasn’t sure whether the right thing was to push him to make the next one or let him come to terms with it on his own. Grabbing her phone, she messaged Riley.
He agreed to the deal.
Luke shot awake to the feel of a hand on his skin, and the edges of a dream where he’d been back in the hotel room with Willow.
“Fuck me,” he gasped, his dick harder than tungsten rod.
He took in his surroundings. His room, his duvet cover, and Willow sitting on the edge of his bed. In his dream, he’d been balls deep in her, pushed up on his forearms, looking down into those fucking doe eyes of hers, all wide as she came.
“Sorry,” she said softly. “It’s two o’clock, and you said to wake you if you were still in bed.”
Luke dragged his hand over his face as his pulse beat wildly.
God, how easy would it be to reach for her now, to pull her body to him. To slide his hands to her arse and grind her against his dick, which, given the way it twitched beneath the covers, was thirty seconds away from coming.
She’d been busy while he’d been asleep. Gone was the track pants, messy bun, and clear skin. In its place was a fitted white T-shirt, a calf-length black skirt, and a snug pale-blue denim jacket. Her face was perfectly made-up. Still her. Still stunning.
Her hair fell in soft waves, and he had to beat back the urge to pull on it, to tug her into his chest. Because it would be a pretty spectacular way to spend the afternoon. In his bed, her naked, the two of them exploring their physical chemistry.
But he knew it wouldn’t stop there. And before he knew it, he’d be living in Didsbury Village with her and their kids, and his plans for travel and a more adventurous life would be gone.
“Guess I passed out hard.” He pushed up so he was sitting, fluffing the duvet to avoid obvious tenting. “Let me just get a shower and we can be on our way.”
When she didn’t move, he noticed she was fixated on his chest, and yeah, while it did wonders for his ego, it did very little for the problem he had going on beneath the covers. He tipped his chin towards the door because there was no way he was getting out of bed in his boxers with a boner that could cut glass. “Willow?”
“Oh, right, sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “I’ll be in the living room. Do you want a quick bite to eat before we go?”
“No, I’ll grab something while we’re out.”
He waited until he heard her footsteps disappear down the corridor before he jumped out of bed and pulled on some joggers to make the one-minute hike to the bathroom. It took another minute to lock the door, get the shower going, and strip. He groaned as he stepped under the steaming hot water that eased the muscles in his shoulders.
Without wasting a moment, he fisted his dick. His abs flinched at how good it felt. He squeezed it firmly, a slow and steady stroke from root to tip, a slight twisting at the end. His other palm hit the shower wall, and he leaned his body beneath the spray and continued to pump. The water battered his scalp, bounced off his arms, and flowed down his face as he put himself back in his dream.
Willow, arching beneath him. The way she’d gasped and told him she had no idea it could feel that good. How she’d whispered against his ear that nobody had filled her like he did. Soft breath against his cheek, her fingernails dragging along his skin.
Nothing had felt that good before or since.
He sped up, his hips pumping into his hand, and he caught sight of himself in the glass shower screen. Fuck, what he wouldn’t give to have her in front of him now, like they had in her hotel room. How good it would be to have something soft and warm to thrust into, to lose himself for a few minutes.
He imagined his palms pressed up against his shower wall as he bent his knees and slid into Willow.
The visual sent the telltale tightening to his balls, that electric spark that shot down his spine and tightened his abs to the point of cramps. “Fuck,” he hissed as he violently came.
“Shit,” he muttered, easing himself down again. Squeezing the last of his cum out of his dick as his heart rate finally lowered.
If this was to be Day One of their agreement, he couldn’t think of her like that again. She was a roommate. Nothing more.
She’s the mother of your kid.
Okay, so she was more than a roommate. But if they were to survive the year, that was all she could be. And he’d need to cut down on the partying. Certainly, it couldn’t happen here in his home. The thought of quitting coke hovered between a good idea and an almost immediate need to do a line.
But bringing things like that home would not only be disrespectful to her, but potentially harmful.
He washed and conditioned his hair, soaped the rest of himself and rinsed off. The nap and wank helped take the edge off how he felt when he’d walked in and seen her smiling and drinking her coffee.
In another fifteen minutes, he was dry and dressed in a black shirt and jeans. Dressy considering they were going to a paint store, but he knew Willow was just itching to get on with their subterfuge.
“Ready when you are.”
Willow was on her laptop. “One second. Just finishing building the content calendar for this month for each of the platforms. I took a bunch of photographs of each of your rooms for before and after images. I came up with an idea that we just moved in here, so it’s a renovation project, rather than me moving in and making you decorate, if that’s okay. And then, I’ve got a theme for each week. So, this one is ‘travel’ right up to our reunion. Would it be too much of a pain in the ass to go back to Manchester Airport so I can create a video of me arriving and you being there to pick me up?”
Luke shook his head. “But you’re already here.”
Willow stood. “I know, but I have this cool video for Shamaze. Watch.”
Luke looked down at her phone. Some song he wasn’t familiar with was playing about coming home to you. Willow, packing in a huge bright white room. A spin on a balcony capturing a beautiful white and glass house and an expanse of beach. Willow grinning and waving goodbye. Footsteps with a passport and ticket, a time lapse of a plane going into the air. The same of one landing.