Page 15 of My Mistake To Make

‘Mmm.’ I moan aloud at the sensation of the warmth wrapping around my body as I lean my head back and close my eyes.

What do I need to do today? I think, unable to fully switch off as I reach for my pen from the side of the bath and add another header on the other side of the page.

To Do.

Get American sim card.

Find the bank.

Familiarize myself with the town.

Find a contractor.

I find my brow furrowing at that last one, and I press my lips together. What was grumpy Doug’s problem? I mean, granted, he wasn’t exactly friendly before that part of our short conversation. He didn’t say hello in the bar, didn’t even want to look up from under that cap of his, and definitely didn’t want to carry my bags, but his already standoffish demeanor dropped to downright anger when he heard the farmhouse was mine.

I wonder if it’s my accent. Maybe he doesn’t like outsiders in his town. I remember Doris’s words,you’re one of theirs, and I suppose, technically, I have a small claim to this place, to that house, but not really. I’m not from here, and I guess I have to accept that they have no idea who I am or what I’m about.

He was very nice to look at, though. Even with that permanent scowl on his face, perhaps more because of it. I would never have imagined I’d look at a grumpy, bearded, muscular man and like what I see, but I definitely do.

I don’t generally find myself looking at men with those sorts of thoughts. There aren’t that many men to look at in my little village. The boys I grew up with were awful to me and definitely not the thing of teenage fantasies, and the older men in the village are like surrogate fathers or even grandfathers to me. Jamie moved there for work and was the first new face any of ushad seen in years. He was handsome enough to catch my eye, but part of me wonders if it was just his newness that attracted me.

I drop my head back and close my eyes. Arousal is unfamiliar to me. I’ve been having sex semi-regularly for almost a decade, but it’s never been the knock-your-socks-off experience you read about in books or see on TV.

The number of times I’ve read a romance novel and the woman talks about her knickers getting wet at the mere sight of the man. I’ve always rolled my eyes and tutted. That doesn’t happen, not to me, at least. My body knows how to get to the right point to make sure sex doesn’t hurt too much, but I always knew without a doubt that all this talk of wetness and throbbing was for dramatic effect—to make it all sound more appealing than it is.

Until a couple of months ago, I was having missionary sex a maximum of three times a week on my back, without foreplay, until my ex had finished, and never, ever completely naked. I truly believed I was incapable of getting turned on. Sex is fine, but I can go without.

I can’t lie, though, when grumpy Doug looked at me for the first time, I felt something in the pit of my stomach I’d never felt before. When I watched his backside in those jeans as he walked me to the cabin and his muscles as he carried my bags, I liked that a lot. And when he tilted his head and scowled at me, God, I…wait, what is that?

I press my thighs together, and my eyes snap open. I pressed, my thighs,together! Another cliche I always followed with an epic eye roll after reading, and now I’m doing it, without even meaning to, but I felt it again, that drop in my stomach—more than that, Ifluttereddownthere, just remembering him. What is wrong with me? It wasn’t even a nice memory—it was him being mean.Oh god, there it is again.

‘What are you doing?’ I say, looking down my body toward my lady parts. ‘You just decided twenty-nine years old is the perfect age to start doing what all those books say you can do?’ I shake my head, thinking back to the things I’ve read, and start making a mental list.

Arousal:

Flushed cheeks.

Racing pulse.

Feeling of dropping/twisting in lower belly.

Flutters/throbbing.

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