Page 92 of Crush

Her eyes lit up as she approached me. I noticed she’d dressed up and my heart sank. Did she imagine I would go back to hers after we’d agreed to call it quits? She was probably feeling needy as Gabriel wouldn’t have been calling her anymore due to his interest in Leonie.

“My you look rough,” she said, wrapping her arms around my neck and standing on her tiptoes. Natalie placed her lips against mine and my hands automatically dropped to her waist to hold her but I kept my mouth closed.

Natalie ran her tongue over my lips to gain entry and I felt nothing, no spark like before. As politely as I could I drew back and looked down at her.

“Thanks for the lift. But that’s all it is Nat, I thought we’d agreed,” I said softly, holding her away with my fingers on her hips. To anyone else, we may look like two lovers talking, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. Natalie wasnothingto me now. Don’t get me wrong, if she ever needed my help I’d be there like a shot. I could be her friend but nothing else.

“Are you sure, we could make a stop off, just one last time?” she pouted and I smiled. She would make some man a great girlfriend one day.

As she lowered herself onto her feet again and slid her arms from my shoulders, I caught a flash of the figure of a woman standing in front of a black car over Natalie’s shoulder.

FUCK! My stomach bottomed out and I pushed Natalie away, feeling as guilty as fuck.

Amber must have gotten my messages and had come to pick me up. She was standing next to her car with the door open and a shocked expression on her face.

She looked between Natalie and me before a cocktail of feelings fluttered over her perfect features. She wore a long Burberry belted mack and brown leather boots and looked as hot as fuck. Her hair spilt over her shoulders like liquid fire and her eyes flashed from shock to hurt to anger. I knew what she was thinking but she was wrong.

I went to move around Natalie, thoughts of her gone. Fuck! Amber had seen me kiss Natalie or should I say, Natalie kiss me but from that angle, it would have looked sincere.

“Amber,” I shouted as I set off at a jog, moving down the steps to the pavement.

There wasnothingI could do as Amber turned and climbed back into the car, clearly instructing Dexter to drive off.

Running the rest of the way, I made to grab the handle as the car pulled away but it wouldn’t open, so Ibangedon the blackout out window.

“Amber, please. You’ve got it wrong. It isn’t what you think.”

The car pulled into the traffic, taking the woman I now knew I cared about with it.

Shit. It hit me like a freight train. I hadfeelingsfor Amber.Massivelyso and the thought that I may have lost the little I had with her was sudden agony.

Fuck, no!

As Natalie appeared by my side I couldn’t think straight. I had to speak to Amber andexplain. Surely it was fixable? The veins in my neck started to throb as tension coiled through me.

That one night to sink my sorrows over the thought of Amber pulling away from me had now helped meto doexactlythat.

“Shit, who was that? She looked pissed,” Natalie said unhelpfully as we both watched the car filter into the busy traffic.

“That was my everything Nat, and now I’ve fucked it up, again,” I explained.

Releasing a deep sigh. “So that’s why you ended things. You’re in love with that girl.”

And it hit me again. The full truth and extent of my feelings towards Amber-Leigh Swift.

“Yes. I think I am,” I said, confirming it out loud.

Natalie moved to stand in front of me which drew my attention. “Come on then. Get in. You can tell me all about it on the way to your place. As friends.”

“Thanks, Nat. That would be good.”

As we drove to my apartment, I offloaded how I felt, to the point that I realised how closed off I had been with my emotions in the past.

It had taken one infuriating female to break down my barriers and get under my skin and I knew at that point that I wanted Amber onanyterms.

Amber

I hadn’t a clue who Max had been kissing but the pain I had felt when I’d seen his hands slide to her waist. What the hell? Why would he be kissing a girl on the steps to the police station when he’d messaged me to pick him up? Was it a set-up so he could end things? Wave another woman in front of me to show me he didn’t give a crap about me.

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