Page 15 of The Boy I Once Loved

“Never,” I shout firmly as I attempt to kneel up on one knee to give me more of an advantage. It is stupid to try really as I end up wobbling and falling forward. The sneaky bastard takes advantage and straddles my back with his thighs.

"Admit defeat, Els." Before I can reply he snakes his hand under my vest top and he tickles me.

“Ah, Dyl stop you arse!” He knows I’m super ticklish. I buck my hips up to throw him off me, but the idiot is too strong for me. I freeze when I feel his breath against my ear.

“Admit defeat.”

I scowl to myself. “Okay, you arsehole, I admit defeat. Now get up of me, you’re suffocating me with your weight.”

He laughs as he climbs off my back. “You mean with my lean, muscled body?”

I roll my eyes as I roll onto my back, only to find him kneeling over me. "Bighead syndrome Dyl, it's not attractive."

“Seems to work alright for me.” He waggles his eyebrows. “Got the girls lined up.”

I put my fingers in my mouth and mimic making myself sick. I stop still with my fingers in my mouth when I find him suddenly leaning over me, his arms on either side of my head.

“You don’t think I’m hot?”

I snigger, trying to pretend his nearness is not affecting my body when really all my senses are super aware of how close we are. "An arrogant hot mess."

My stupid eyes betray me and skate over his naked chest. My eyes stop at a tattoo that I hadn’t noticed earlier when I had been shamelessly ogling him. Without thinking, my fingers snake out and stroke the tattoo. “What’s this?”

He flinches at my touch and he quickly leans up away from me and sits himself back against the pillows. “It’s called a tattoo.”

Rolling my eyes again, I throw my pillow at him and he catches it and places it back against the headboard. “You don’t say. It’s an umbrella.” Beneath the umbrella was a line from the song's lyrics. ‘You’ll still be my star,’

He swallows and looks uncomfortable and trains his gaze firmly on the television show. "Yeah, it is."

I sit there for a second with my brows furrowed in confusion. Why would he have that? Is it a reference to me? I mean, he always called me his ‘Ella Umbrella’.

“Are we watching this drivel or not?” He asks, pulling me from my thoughts.

I shrug as I settle back down beside him. “Let’s pick a movie instead.”

I wake in the morning feeling as warm as toast. I nuzzle my nose into my pillow but stop dead still when my mind notices several things all at once. My face is definitely not on my pillow, my legs are also tangled up with someone else’s and an arm is resting across my back. Holy all things chocolate! My leg as I try to move it brushes against something that feels very much like Dylan’s dick. My breath hitches in my throat.

“Probably best not to do that with your leg again,” he says in a sleepy and husky voice. “I’ve got morning wood.”

“Oh, yeah, err, yeah...I.”

He laughs aloud, making his chest bob up and down where my head is resting. “My, my, little Ella is lost for words. It’s just a dick, El. It’s no big deal.”

I decide I need to unwind myself from his body pronto, but he keeps his arm around me, keeping me in place. “Relax, we’re friends. Friends can cuddle.”

Sighing, I relax against him, but then he starts slowly stroking up and down my arm with his fingers and it does crazy things to my body.

“I’ve missed this. Our sleepover movie nights,” he comments.

“I think we are a bit too old for sleepovers now.”

He squeezes my arm gently. “Never. I’ll always want sleepovers with you.”

“I think future girlfriends might have a problem with that,” I say chuckling.

He scoffs. "If I did the girlfriend thing it would, but I don't, so it won't ever be a problem. Besides, you come first El. Bro's before hoes and all that."

I pinch his chest with my fingers.

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