Page 71 of The Match Faker

Ever since we’d met up again, I’d told myself that it was just a crush I’d had when I was a kid and that things were different now.

I was an adult. I wasn’t interested. I’d never go there.

But I was starting to realise that wasn’t true. And even if my mind wanted to tell me that it was, my dick was telling a very different story.

Given the chance, if Mia said the word, whether I had a shoot in a few hours or not, I’d climb on top and bury myself so deep inside her that she’d forget her own name.

Even though I was so tired my eyes burned and my head hurt, I’d use every last drop of energy I had to rock her world.

‘No,’ she said softly. ‘It’s okay. I’m sure we’ll be fine.’

I wished I shared her confidence.

‘Goodnight.’

‘Goodnight,’ I replied, knowing that sleeping so close to her and keeping my hands (and my dick) to myself was going to be anything but good.

27

Mia

‘So let me get this straight.’ Trudy’s hand was suspended mid-air and her eyes widened as I relayed the mortifying story of what happened last night. ‘You flashed Liam? In his bedroom?’

‘Yes! No! You make it sound like it was deliberate. I was trying to reach the T-shirt and the duvet dropped and I wasn’t wearing anything underneath because I didn’t have any clean clothes, so he saw my arse.’

‘That’s hilarious!’ Trudy snorted.

‘It wasn’t! It was embarrassing!’ I winced.

If he’d got the T-shirt out of his wardrobe like he’d agreed, it wouldn’t have happened. He knew I couldn’t reach, but just watched me struggle.

I wanted to call him an arsehole, but after all he’d done to help me, that wouldn’t be true. He could’ve teased me and said to sleep on the floor, but instead he’d tried to find the spider. And when he couldn’t, he’d offered me his bed.

That wasn’t arsehole behaviour. Those were the actions of a caring man. But I couldn’t say that out loud, because then I’d be admitting that I liked him a lot more than I thought.

‘I don’t know why you’re so embarrassed. He only saw your backside. It’s not like he saw your boobs or your flaps! What happened next?’ Trudy leant forward like she was watching a film on the edge of her seat.

‘I picked the duvet off the floor, obviously! And then…’

‘He pulled you onto the bed and made sweet, sweet love to you!’

‘No! I said I was embarrassed and he said… that I shouldn’t be because’—I lowered my voice—‘he thought my body was… amazing.’

‘I knew it!’ Trudy jumped up with excitement, drops of coffee spilling on her desk. ‘I bloody knew he liked you! Didn’t I always say that at school?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘Liar! He likes you! Liam bloody Stone fancies the pants off you!’

‘Just because he complimented my body, it doesn’t mean anything.’ I rolled my eyes.

‘That’s crap and you know it! So come on! What happened next?’

‘I put on one of his shirts, because that was easier to reach, then we went to bed.’

‘As in, you shagged?’

‘Get your mind out of the gutter! I told you! That’s never going to happen. I got in bed, with the shirt on. He said I could put the duvet between us if I was worried we might accidentally touch each other whilst we were sleeping. Don’t…’ I warned, anticipating that she was about to make a comment about the ‘touch each other’ thing. ‘And that was it. We went to sleep. I was so tired I didn’t even hear him leave at four in the morning. Next thing I knew, my alarm was going off. Like he’d promised, there were clothes, shoes and underwear waiting for me. I got dressed and his driver brought me here. End of story.’

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