Page 25 of Marry Me…Maybe?
She raised an eyebrow. ‘You’ve not been sleeping well either?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
He didn’t answer at first, just looked at her with those intensely moody green eyes of his. ‘I don’t know,’ he said finally.
Her stomach sank. She’d been desperate for him to say something else, and she didn’t like the way that made her feel.
The hot pressure was back behind her eyes again. She really must be tired if she was letting him get to her like this.
‘Look, I’ll wait on that armchair in the corner for ten minutes, then I’ll sneak off to one of the guest bedrooms,’ she said.
‘Don’t be ridiculous. My mother might catch you. Just get into bed, Emily,’ he ordered, his voice low and gruff.
She stared at him in defiance for a moment, before accepting that he was right and it wasn’t worth the risk. ‘Okay. Fine. Do you have a T-shirt I can borrow? I don’t want to sleep in my dress.’
‘Yes.’
He disappeared into his dressing room and came back with a soft-looking black cotton T-shirt.
‘I’ll use the bathroom first so you can change in privacy,’ he said, not waiting for her response before striding out of the room.
She sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed, her legs feeling strangely wobbly. How the heck was she going to be able to sleep? Her heart was already thumping like a jackhammer and it was only going to get worse when she was enveloped in the heat and scent of his bed, with him lying right there next to her.
Undressing fully for comfort, she pulled on the T-shirt he’d given her, realising too late that it smelt of the washing powder he used on his clothes. It was pure Essence of Theo.
He came back a minute later, knocking gently on the bathroom door to warn her, before striding back in in a pair of sleep shorts, his chest bare.
Trying not to let herself gawp at the sight of his broad, toned torso, she excused herself and went and got washed in the ensuite too, using the new toothbrush he’d put out for her.
Staring at herself in the mirror, she willed herself to keep it together. It would be okay, sleeping in the same bed with him, even if she was shaking all over from the effort of keeping from either slapping him or jumping on him.
She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of seeing just how much he was messing with her head with his hot and cold behaviour.
Returning to the bedroom, she found him already in bed, the duvet just covering his lower torso as he read one of the paperbacks she’d spied in his drawer the first time she’d been in this room.
She got into bed next to him and fluffed up the pillows to her satisfaction before settling back into them.
‘Comfortable?’ he said, with a glint of humour in his eyes.
The sudden switch from gruffness to jokey camaraderie made her even more nervous. It was easier to deal with his presence right there next to her when she was annoyed with him.
‘Yes, thank you,’ she replied casually, smoothing the duvet down around her and staring up at the ceiling, desperately trying to ignore the low throb of arousal that just wouldn’t die whenever he was in her vicinity.
He leant over to his bedside table, dropping the book onto it before flicking off the lamp and plunging the room into darkness.
It took a minute or so for her eyes to adjust, and she glanced across at him to find he was staring up at the ceiling too. She shifted a little, to get a bit more comfortable, and felt him do the same beside her.
After a few more minutes of restless wriggling, she forced herself to lie still and willed her tense muscles to relax. Theo’s breathing sounded measured and shallow, as if he was drifting off to sleep, and she cursed him for not being even slightly affected by her being there. What was it with this guy? He seemed to have an iron-clad will with a Kevlar coating.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to blank her mind of him. But memories of the incident against the tree insistently crept back into her thoughts and she squirmed as heat rushed between her legs, intensifying the deep, pounding ache of need already there.
Letting out a frustrated sigh, she turned over to face the middle of the bed and found Theo only inches away, his eyes open, looking at her with intense concentration, as if he was trying to rein something in. They stared at each other through the gloom and she realised that his breathing wasn’t steady and relaxed at all. It was short and ragged. Just like hers.
That perpetual frown was on his face again, and instinctively she reached out a hand to touch him there, to see if she could somehow rub it away.
He moved quickly, grabbing her wrist, then rolling over her, pinning her arm against the bed by her head. Then, when she stubbornly tried to touch him with her other hand, he grabbed it and pinned that one too, until she was trapped under him.
