Page 124 of From Best Friend to Bride
She needed my comfort.
Not my fucking perversions.
I slid them down her legs, keeping my gaze firmly focused anywhere but on her. After I’d removed them from her legs and tossed them to the side, I pulled the covers over her and got in the other side of the bed.
I didn’t know what the time was. My phone was still in the car along with everything else I’d haphazardly thrown in before I’d left Max’s estate in Windermere. None of it had mattered then, and none of it did now.
Rolling onto my side to face Delilah, I propped my head up on my hand, resting my elbow on the pillow. She was still flat on her back, completely oblivious to the mild torture I’d been through having to help her dress for bed.
I knew she slept without a bra, but there was no way in hell I was taking that off her. I’d lose what little restraint I had left if I did that.
It’d only been a few days since I’d left, but I’d missed her. The thought struck me like lightning—an uncomfortable, full-body jolt that made me inhale sharply.
I’d really, really missed her.
Despite my inner torment about my changing feelings towards her, those few days away from her had been hell in away I’d never experienced before. It was hardly unusual for me to have to travel for work or be gone for a few days at a time, but I’d never experienced this aching sense of loss before.
I knew that was what it was because that part of me that held felt so restless was now calm. That itchy little niggle that’d settled under my skin after we’d parted a few days ago was now gone, replaced with a smooth, warm sense of fulfilment that’d appeared the moment Deli had rushed into my arms.
I groaned silently and let my head fall onto my pillow, sinking my fingers into my hair. I was no idiot. I knew what this feeling was, and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t expected it to happen once I realised how attracted I was to her.
But why now?
Why was it when her world was falling apart?
I sighed and brushed some hair from her face. It didn’t matter. She needed me now, so my own complicated thoughts and feelings would have to wait. There would be time to deal with those in the future.
“Fred,” she muttered, turning her face into my fingertips.
“You had hair in your eyes,” I whispered.
“Oh.” She rolled to face me and shuffled in close to me, reaching for me the way she used to when we were kids, and she’d had a nightmare.
Except her nightmare wasn’t in her head. It was real.
“Come here.” I slid my arm under her neck and closed the distance between us. She nestled against my body in my embrace without another thought, and as I rolled onto my back, she moved with me, laying her arm over my waist and her head on my chest.
I stroked her hair, holding her to me. She sighed sleepily and snuggled in a little more, looping one of her legs over mine and slipping her foot between my feet.
As if she’d done this a thousand times before.
She kind of had—we were just usually both sleeping at the time, but I’d never held her like this.
“Thank you,” she murmured, curling her face into my chest slightly. “I was so scared.”
My arms tensed at the tremor in her quiet voice. “I know, baby.”
Shit.
She said nothing, simply hugging me tighter. Her breathing evened out after a couple of minutes, and her hold on me relaxed the tiniest amount.
She was asleep again.
And I could finally breathe.
26
DELILAH
