Page 63 of Something Borrowed

I start to laugh. “Her dad was shocked when he turned on the taps.”

Silence falls, and it’s so comfortable that I jump when he speaks again. “Your mum is right,” he says, his voice lazy and slightly slurred with tiredness. “These curls are out of control.”

His fingers tug on my hair, and I turn to face in his direction. My hand lands on the slippery album covers, and my arm shoots out from underneath me, landing me squarely on Raff’s chest.

“Ungh,” he gasps.

“Sorry,” I say, trying to get back up.

His hand on my arm stills me. “No, don’t go,” he mutters, his voice dark and sugar sweet.

“Raff,” I protest, but I can’t summon the moral fibre to get up. I also can’t think of all the reasons why he shouldn’t be drawing me down to him. “We shouldn’t do this. Oh god, mmm.” The last is because he’s kissed me. His lips are warm and soft, and the scratch of the stubble on his chin makes my blood spark and fizz.

Joy floods through me at feeling him like this again, and before I know what I’m doing, I give him my weight and then moan when I feel his cock hard against my hip. I grind down into him, panting hard and he spreads his legs. I feel his handson my hips, drawing me closer still, and we both grunt and kiss furiously.

I try to think of why I shouldn’t be doing this, but it’s hard when we’re grinding together, our bodies fitting together as perfectly as if designed to do this forever.

I groan when he pulls away.

“Bennett,” he gasps.

“What? That’s not my name.”

It takes me an embarrassingly long few seconds to realise that he’s referencing my boyfriend. I grimace and sit up, ignoring his grumbled protests. I fall to the side, palming my cock.

“Oh god, don’tdothat,” he says. I hear him stand up, and his shadow blocks the light from the window. “We can’t start this up again, Stan.”

“I know that,” I protest.

“This isn’t me.” His voice is miserable. “I don’t cheat or help others to cheat.”

“I know,” I say again. I never want him to sound sad. He tries so hard to be unlike his parents. It’s essential to him that he not be Saoirse and Rollo, and this situation isn’t helping him.

“You know Bennett and I aren’t exclusive,” I say softly.

He huffs. “Yes, which just makes him even more of a silly tosser.” I smile and hear him give a deep sigh. “I don’t fuck around with men who are inanyform of relationship, and you know it.”

It’s one of the reasons I took up with Bennett. I knew Raff would insist we stop having sex. I’d needed his insistence because I wouldn’t have been strong enough to stop it myself.

Bennett regularly sleeps with other men. He views sex with them as almost like having to take a taxi because you’re late and don’t want to walk. I haven’t done the same. It’s hard enoughbeing in love with one man while dating another without adding extra dicks into the mix.

His footsteps sound, and I feel him press a kiss on my forehead. “I love you,” he says as usual. It’s his way of making sure we’re okay.

“I love you too.”

The words should be easy because we’ve said them a thousand times, but they’re not anymore. Now, they’re weighted by my real feelings, which makes the casually affectionate words unexpectedly serious.

“I’ll be downstairs.”

I nod, and when I hear the door shut, I fall back onto the bed, giving a long sigh. I have to get my life back on track. I can’t fall back into bed with Raff again. My heart wouldn’t take it. My parents bringing up that horrible night with Saoirse and Rollo is an awful, but helpful, reminder that Raff has excellent reasons for why he doesn’t believe in—and doesn’t want to try—a long-term, committed relationship. And that’s exactly what I want with him. So to keep his friendship, I need to keep my kisses and my cock to myself.

But I equally can’t be with Bennett. He’s not for me, and I’m not for him. Which means I have a very uncomfortable conversation in my future. I grimace. Maybe I should have asked the school careers officer about being a monk. It would surely have led to simpler life choices.

Chapter

Eight

Stan

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