Page 35 of Putting Down Roots

Dinner stuff is cleared away and we head to the lounge. I feel relaxed for the first time in, well, forever. It feels like releasing a breath I didn’t know I was holding. I lie on the couch with my feet in Anna’s lap. I’d love it to be Jackson’s, but he claims a chair and I’m too tired to sit upright. Anna and Jackson are discussing films and I’m just happy to let the conversation flow over me, occasionally adding something, but mostly content to have my best friend and a guy who I’m seriously falling for, getting on really well.

When Anna gets up to make coffee, I turn my head so I can look at Jackson.

“Will you stay tonight?” I don’t think I can bear him leaving again. This feeling that I have right now can be prolonged if he’s under the same roof. I’m frightened that if he goes, it’ll slip away and I’ll never be able to recapture it.

“I—” he starts, and looks a bit wary, like he’s been cornered.

“No pressure. Separate rooms,” I blurt. I’ve no idea where his mind is going, though he is the one who invited me into the shower. I don’t want him to think that there’s any expectation, whatever my cock might be telling me.

“Okay, sure.” He gives a little smile.

I want to tell him how I feel about him, but Anna’s question of whether I’m ready for him keeps coming back to me. I want to be—I really do.

CHAPTER 31

Jackson

I wake with a start,and it takes me a few minutes to remember where I am. Larchdown House. I don’t know what woke me, but I’m too awake to sleep. I’m surprised I managed to sleep at all, knowing that Luca is under the same roof. It must have been the amount of wine I drank last night.

Thoughts of Luca make me aroused, and I marvel at the effect he has on me. I haven’t really been into sex that much before, but now all I want to do is kiss him, lick him, taste him, fuck him. That thought startles me slightly and I settle in to thinking about how that would feel. How good it had been in the shower, and how tantalisingly close I had been. Part of me wants to head over to Luca’s bedroom, climb in beside him, and kiss him. But I don’t have the nerve, so my hand makes its way to my cock instead, and I indulge in thinking about him. I’m in a strange room and have nothing to wipe myself off with, so I use a pair of my boxers—they needed a wash anyway.

There’s no way I’m going to be able to get back to sleep now, but it’s still dark outside, dawn a little way off. I rise and pull on some jeans and a sweatshirt. Silently I creep down the stairs—well almost, it is an old house and there are a few creaks—and let myself out into the garden. Following the path through the meadow I walk up to the folly. Sitting down on the stone bench I look out over the hills, which are just beginning to show their shapes in the lightening grey of the sky.

I’m lostin my own thoughts, and don’t notice until a figure sits down beside me. I startle, but then see it’s Luca.

“It’s a good spot, isn’t it.” He says it more like a statement than a question and the answer is obvious, so I don’t.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

I hear a tiny laugh beside me, and I think he’s smiling.

“I used to come here a lot when I was younger. I couldn’t sleep then either. I found a lot of comfort in the view when I needed to think things out.”

I don’t know if he’s creating an opening for me to talk, but for once, I want to. I owe it to Luca for him to know the truth.

“There has only been Natasha before.”

“Your ex-wife?” I feel his attention on me now.

“I . . . I haven’t been with anyone else.”

He waits patiently, and I take a deep breath.

“I’d never been interested in sex. I considered myself straight as well—that was the only option open to me. But I didn’t find women attractive.”

“But you got married.” I sense his curiosity.

“I was flattered that Natasha was attracted to me. At twenty-one, I hadn’t exactly had a lot of experience. My brother introduced us. She was really nice and easy to be with at first, just friendly like. One night when I’d drunk too much, I let my guard down and we had sex. She told me she was pregnant and so I married her.”

“And was she?”

“No. It was a classic case of naive guy and entrapment.”

“How long were you together?”

“Five years.”

“Five years! That’s a long time. Why did you stay with her?”

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