Page 87 of From Best Friend to Bride
I reached for my phone.
She stopped. “You saw nothing. I was never here.”
With those words, she scurried off like a naughty teen with her hidden vodka.
Yeah.
The afternoon tipples were a little secret I wasn’t going to share with Deli anytime soon. Since the discovery of Nana’s TikTok obsession earlier today, I now knew exactly what those two got up to in their afternoon soirees.
Vodka and watching ‘gym bros’ work out on TikTok, as they put it.
God, I only hoped nobody introduced them to the world of livestreaming, or they’d probably put it on my fucking tele. The last thing I wanted was to walk into my living room and see half-naked men working out on a sixty-inch television screen.
The thought made me laugh, and I leant forwards, sliding my hand into my hair.
Dear God.
What was becoming of my life?
Deli was spooning me again.
The familiar weight of her body wrapped around mine was the first awareness that filtered through the heaviness of sleep. Unless I was mistaken, she was snuggled against my back, her leg looped over mine, and one arm resting around my torso.
She was not the problem.
That was the part of my body she wasn’t touching.
And thank fuck for that, because I didn’t know what I’d do if I woke up one morning and she had her hand on my cock.
She certainly couldn’t find out about these bloody erections I was getting every morning.
She’d never let me live it down if she knew.
My problem now was extracting her from me without waking her up. She had a horrid habit of staring at me whenever I walked around shirtless—if she woke up now and looked at me, she was going to get an eyeful of my morning wood, and that was the last thing either of us needed.
It took some serious work to untangle our legs. Her foot had somehow slipped between mine and looped itself around my ankle, and she’d mumbled and moaned about five times in the process. I’d had to stop every time to make sure she wasn’t waking up.
She twitched again, this time moving her arm. Her hand came perilously close to my groin, and I delicately snatched her wrist before she could cross the point of no return.
After a moment, she calmed, and I scooted out from under her arm.
I should have an Olympic fucking medal for doing this shit every morning.
That or I was going to ask for compensation when we were getting divorced.
She was still snoozing peacefully, her arm and leg draped over my side of the bed as if I’d never been there. She sniffed a little and turned into my pillow, and the softness of her movement brought a small smile to my face.
She was an idiot.
A beautiful idiot. Never was that more apparent than in times like this. With her defences down, her lightly freckled face bare, and her expression at peace, she was the most beautiful person in the world.
That was what I’d thought when we were eight and she was a head taller than me. The day I’d found a bruise on her wrist froma bully was the day I’d sworn I’d protect her for the rest of her life, and so far, I’d kept it.
I walked into the bathroom and turned on the shower. She didn’t so much as twitch as I did that, and I closed the door, shaking my head.
Moving her was the only thing that could wake that damn woman up, that was for sure.
Not even an earthquake could arouse that sleeping beauty from her slumber.
