Page 65 of Not That Complicated

I languidly reached back to slide my fingers into his hair. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

He sighed, kissed my wrist, and rolled off me. He dragged me into the cradle of his long, solid body and spooned me like I’d never been spooned before.

I had a falling sensation in my chest.

I thought that perhaps he really did like me. And maybe I could admit that I liked him back.

More than liked.

I pushed into his warmth. His arm tightened around me. He murmured something indistinct into my neck as I drifted off.

He was gone in the morning.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I woke up alone witha headache, an erection, and an impending sense of doom. I took care of the headache (ibuprofen) and the erection (in the shower) but I couldn’t shake the doom.

Along with the general horror and stress of finding a body, and then semi-willingly accompanying an almost-ex to the police station for a ‘friendly’ chat, I had low-level, queasy feeling of discomfort.

I’d exposed all my vulnerable parts to Adam. I’d exposed more to Adam in one night than I’d ever exposed to anyone. Ever.

I’m a private person, and I’d handed it all over to Adam without even realising it. With ten hours of sleep behind me, I was realising the hell out of it.

I was just grateful that one of us had been grown up enough to keep sex out of the mix.

I was disappointed, and yet unsurprised, that it hadn’t been me.

Every time we ran into each other, I liked Adam more. For god’s sake, I’d slept in his arms.

I am a terrible sleeper. I fidget, I talk—or so I’ve been told—and I once sleep-punched a guy and gave him a nosebleed.

The sheet and dented pillow where Adam had slept held a faint, lingering echo of his warmth when I ran my hand over them. He’d stayed with me the whole night.

This all obviously had to stop.

I didn’t want a fling. I was done with short-term relationships. I’d been done for a while, which was why I’d asked Fraser to move in with me. In retrospect, that had been too fast. We’d only been dating for a few months.

I’d thought that I was making a statement: share my space. This is for the long term. I’m serious about us.

Fraser had read something else into it. Something along the lines of: hey, man. Want a sweet pad with a roommate dumb enough to give you a pass on the rent, regular sex, and not nag you about chipping in for groceries while you’re busy seducing all the hot boys?

Starting anything with Adam had a short expiry date at best. Men like him didn’t stick around. He was an ex-model who’d graduated from Cambridge University, and was temporarily working at the Premier Lodge to put together enough money for his future.

It was doubtful that Adam’s dream future included a highly strung, thirtysomething graphic designer with trust issues that ran as deep as the Mariana Trench, and a serial killer house.

It had been a big deal for me to put down roots in Chipping Fairford. I’d researched the area, the pros and cons of buying versus renting, of buying an old house versus a new house. I’d read blogs and articles, listened to podcasts. I had a Pinterest board. I collected advice on what to do about rising damp, black mould, leaky roofs, and anything else a new homeowner could want to know about.

I never once came across any advice on what to do when dead bodies show up.

Should I Google it?

No, nope,no. With my luck, Liam Nash would find out, I didn’t know how butsomehow, and before you knew it, I’d be back in the station having a chat. It wouldn’t be remotely friendly. And there would definitely be handcuffs.

I moaned in despair as I sat on the side of the bed and dug the heels of my hands into my eyes.

Coffee.

Coffee always helped. I eyed the coffee-making facilities on the desk across the room. This might be the luxury suite, but the set-up was the same. A tiny kettle on a dinky tray with cups and biscuits and freeze-dried packets of coffee. The only difference was, the kettle was shinier, and the cups had roses on them.

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