Page 104 of The Bad Wedding Date

Unable to stop myself, I turned over in bed to look at Fraser’s sleeping form, taking in the strength of his shoulders and arms before I let my eyes drift up to the blond, perfectly-formed beard I loved so much before I settled on the heavy lashes that rested high up on his cheeks.

Such a giant laid before me, yet he had the ability to make me feel like I held all the power between us. That whatever happened would be at my say so.

He’d never hurt me, use my body as his own, or make me feel like I had no say in my future because that wasn’t who he was. It wasn’t what he believed in.

He was, by all accounts, too good to be true.

The soft vibrations of a phone disturbed the silence of the room, and it took me a moment to realise it wasn’t mine but Fraser’s on the nightstand beside him. He was so deep into his sleep that the vibrations didn’t rouse him, so I let the phone ring out, only for it to start up again, and then again after that.

“Fraser,” I whispered, my hand on his bicep as I tried to wake him. “Fraser, your phone is ringing.”

His eyes eventually fluttered open, and it took him a dazed moment to realise where he was and who he was with. A slow, sexy smile rose on his face, and his arm curled tighter around my waist, pulling me to him. “Hey,” he said, his voice raspy. I lived for that ‘hey’. Such a simple word had come to mean the world to me. No one else said it like he did.

“Your phone.” I raised a brow, smiling. “It’s ringing.”

“I don’t care.” He moaned, his eyes closing again.

“It seems urgent. It’s rung three times now.”

At that, his eyes popped open, and despite his obvious reluctance to let me go, he eventually did, reaching back for his phone and pulling it to him. Whatever he saw on the screen had his lax body stiffening until he sat upright in bed and threw his legs off the edge.

“Shit,” he hissed.

“Everything okay—”

I didn’t get a chance to finish before he’d brought the phone up to his ear and stood up to head to the window of my bedroom, the softness of our intimacy pouring out of him, the workman of the night taking its place.

“What’s wrong?” he said down the phone, no greeting beforehand. I couldn’t hear the person at the other end. All I had to go on were Fraser’s reactions. “Shit,” he said again. “And she’s safe now? At home? Good… good. I know. Tell her to stay calm. I’ll be there in an hour. Yep. Okay. Do whatever you need to do.”

With that, he ended the call, immediately turning to look for his discarded clothes in my room.

I sat up in bed, the hairs on the back of my neck standing to attention as I watched him. It was hard to believe his eyes had been so soft and relaxed only moments ago. Now, Fraser’s anger oozed out of him, intimidating the air in the room until it felt so still, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to take a breath of it into my lungs.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

He pulled his T-shirt over his head, tugging it down to cover that stomach and chest of his I loved so much. “I have to go.”

“I can see that. Will you be safe?”

He looked up at me sharply, a small scowl creasing his brow as though my question had caught him off guard. “I’m always safe,” he answered, fastening the waistband of his shorts before he pulled on his shoes. “You don’t have to worry about me, Charlotte.”

“I’ll choose to, anyway, thank you very much.”

Fraser ran a hand through his mussed-up hair. “It’s my mum, that’s all. She needs me.”

“Oh.” I nodded. “I understand.” I didn’t need to know anything else. I wanted to, of course. I wanted all the details of Fraser’s life laid out before me, whether good or bad, but I had this trust in him that even I didn’t understand, and I knew that when the time was right and if he wanted to, he’d share his private matters with me. “Go,” I said.

Fraser seemed to study me for a moment like he couldn’t believe that’s all I had to say, and before I could open my mouth to say anything else, he marched across the room, crawled over the bed, and he gripped the back of my neck with one hand, pulling my lips to his for a kiss that held no tenderness in it. That kiss was fire. All need, desire, and affection.

It took my breath away.

When he pulled back, he dropped his forehead to mine and closed his eyes. “If the world was full of people like you, I’d fall for every one of them.”

I swallowed, unable to control the rapid beating of my heart.

Fall for them?

Was he… falling for me?

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