Page 52 of Broken Heart Syndrome
I was so warm and snuggly. I couldn’t remember ever being this warm. My pillow was radiating heat like a furnace and I was wrapped in something soft. As my eyes fluttered open I realized that my pillow was breathing and I could hear its steady heartbeat. The room was dimly lit and my face was snuggled into soft blue cotton. I looked up and was confronted by a stubbled jaw.
Cripes. I tried to be as still as possible whilst I thought about how I could extract myself from my position entwined with Tom on the sofa without waking him up. This, I knew, would not be an easy task. My back was pressed into the cushions, and my front was plastered against the length of Tom’s side and partially sprawled over his body, like I was attempting to pin him in place. I slowly started withdrawing my arm, which was draped over his chest, and I felt his body still. Looking up, I saw his blue gaze was fixed on me. He smiled a sleepy smile and I watched in fascination as his eyes warmed.
‘Hey,’ he rumbled. ‘You okay?’
Was I okay?
I pondered this. The last thing I remembered was attempting to sit in the middle of the sofa without touching Tom, pushing my pasta around for a while to appease Lou, and drinking my coke. When I’d finally finished, Lou had stood up, grabbed my feet and pulled them to her side of the sofa before she sat herself down on them, causing me to nearly careen straight into Tom’s side, my arms having to strain to keep me semi-upright.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked horrified.
She frowned at me in mock confusion. ‘You love a good nerdle.’
I tried to yank my feet free but she grabbed my ankles and kept them stuffed under her bum. ‘Lou,’ I hissed. ‘You hate me nerdling you. Give me my feet back.’
‘What’s nerdling?’ Tom asked as he threw out his arm and pulled me into him. I tried to pull away and sit up, but he kept his arm tight around me, and Lou kept a tight hold of my feet.
‘Oh, Frankie has this little habit of shoving her freezing feet under my bum when we’re watching telly to warm them up,’ Lou told him, and I felt my face flame. ‘We call it nerdling.’
‘I’m not comfortable,’ I gritted out, pushing against Tom’s chest and glaring up at him.
‘Sure you are,’ he countered smugly, giving me a hard tug so that I did an undignified face-plant into his chest. I spent a few minutes stiff with tension, but then, as Tom’s warmth began to seep into me and my nerdled feet heated up, exhaustion took over.
Hence this latest awkward episode.
‘No,’ I replied. No, I was not okay. I would only be okay once I had extracted myself from Tom’s warmth, made him leave the flat post-haste, and maybe emigrated. The mood I was in, I thought Russia would be a good choice; the cold would bring me back to my senses, and there would be plenty of vodka to drown my sorrows whilst I tried to forget about gorgeous men with the capability to hurt me.
His brows drew together. ‘No?’
I looked down at our interlocked bodies in horror and fascination. Somehow in my sleep I had manoeuvred myself to lie mostly on top of him, with my leg thrown over both of his, and my arm stretched across his chest, much like a human starfish about to devour a clam. My subconscious mind must have decided it liked where I was and wanted to hold onto it for dear life. I couldn’t believe I had slept through Dylan leaving and Lou going to bed. Neither of them was quiet, ever.
‘I’ve got to get up,’ I said, pushing against his chest. He swiftly moved his hand, the one that was resting on my hip, up to my shoulders and pulled me back into him.
‘Stay, I’m comfy,’ he rumbled. ‘Let’s talk.’
‘Well, I have a radial nerve palsy now,’ I said snottily, flexing my other arm, which was pinned to his side. Suddenly we were going up, and then I was lain back down on the sofa with Tom’s body covering mine.
‘Better?’ he asked with a cheeky grin. The feeling of Tom above me was amazing. He was hovering slightly, supporting his bulky frame with his arms.
‘No,’ I squeaked; my arms were folded under the hard warm planes of his chest and I pushed both hands against him in a futile effort to shift him off. My heart was hammering and I was hyperventilating, my whole body felt achy and shivery. I was either coming down with flu or more turned on than I had ever been in my life.
‘You’re squashing me,’ I complained breathily.
‘You’re not taking any of my weight,’ he countered, and his eyes dropped to my mouth. I was full-on panting now. His warmth, his citrusy musky smell, the feel of his breath against my face was all too much for me and I lost what self-control I had left.
My hands slid up from his chest to his neck and into his gorgeous, thick, messy hair, and I pulled his face down so that I could cover his lips with mine. His body locked in shock as I kissed him. I had time to press my lips to his, open my mouth slightly and push my tongue against the seam of his lips. He reared his head back for a second, his gaze sweeping my face.
I was about to think that maybe I’d embarrassed myself, when he must have seen what he was looking for in my eyes, and he fell forward again, this time taking control of the kiss. One of my hands remained in his hair and the other explored the hard muscle of his back. He slid one of his arms underneath me to arch my back to him, and slid the other hand into my hair at the back of my head.
In a weird way, through the lust-filled haze, I had this huge feeling of relief. It was as if it had been causing physical pain to exert the restraint required not to kiss him for the last few months, and at long last the tension had broken. It felt absolutely and completely natural, as if we had both been designed for this all our lives.
After a few minutes Tom lifted his head and stared down at me. We were both breathing heavily. His pupils were dilated and his hair more messy than his normal rumpled style (no doubt due to my thorough exploration of every available cuticle).
‘That was amazing,’ I whispered. Yes, I admitted that straight out. I had officially lost my mind.
‘Too bloody right,’ he replied firmly, and I blinked. He looked stunned for a moment, and then smiled.
‘Glad we got that all straightened out,’ he said bizarrely. What exactly had we straightened out? I was gradually coming back to full lucidity, and beginning to register exactly what had just happened. Jeepers, I’d practically jumped him! What was I doing?
