She gave him an impish smile. “Hmm. Well, Red, you made me come, so if you’re a man of your word you will now fuck me into oblivion.”
He almost choked on his own tongue. The pressure building at the base of his spine got even worse. “Into oblivion, huh?”
“That’s what I said. Get on with it.”
Well, that was him told. He found the strip of condoms he’d packed, ripped one open, managed to roll it on with gritted teeth. Maybe she would’ve done it for him, and maybe that would’ve been hot as hell, but since he wanted to actually get inside her before he went off like a gunshot, he needed to keep touching to a minimum.
Of course, as soon as he thought that, she grabbed his hair and dragged him down, pressing all her soft, lush curves against his body. Her skin was hot and damp from the exertion of her orgasm. Her pussy was wet and open, ready for him, begging for him as she spread her legs and reached down to grasp his erection. In his ear, she whispered, “Hard, please.”
Oh, holy fucking fuck. “Chloe—”
“I mean it.” She squeezed him, then positioned his shaft at her entrance. His eyes rolled back into his head. He felt as if he’d been burned in the best way, branded. Jesus. He grunted something that barely sounded human and thrust, the need uncontrollable, his body reduced to its most basic instincts. She was so slick, she took him all at once, releasing a low moan that sent shivers through his body.
When he was buried inside her, he held still for a moment, sucking down air because he felt almost dizzy with pleasure, running his hands over her thighs because he couldn’t quite believe that he had her. He had Chloe Sophia Brown. And she was fucking glorious.
She rolled her hips beneath him, and he gasped out her name. She bit him again, at the base of his throat this time, and he almost came on the spot. Then she slid her fingers into his hair and dragged him down for a kiss that stripped him to the bone, that destroyed him from the inside out, her sweet little tongue tasting him with shameless greed, her lush mouth frantic. And she whispered, “Please.”
He grasped her soft hips, buried his face against her shoulder, and fucked her. Each thrust was slow, hard, deliberate, wringing gasps and then whimpers and then long, rolling moans from her. He gritted his teeth as his orgasm came barreling at him like a freight train. It would be so fucking good, but he didn’t want this to end. It couldn’t end. Being inside her was undoing him, taking him apart and putting him back together differently, better, more himself than he’d ever been before. So he forced himself to hold off and gave her what she wanted, what she begged for: more of his dick, more of him.
But when she came again, shuddering beneath him, her hot pussy fluttering around him, he couldn’t stop his release. With a growl, he thrust wildly, once, twice—and then everything around him shattered until it was all just colors and light, colors and light.
Neither of them moved for a good, long while, but eventually he had to get up. Had to do something with the condom. Luckily, he’d planned for that, too. When he finished and was relatively cleaned up, he lay back down beside her and gathered her against him, pressing a kiss to her head.
“Would you do something for me?” he asked.
She said, her voice sleepy, “I would do anything for you.”
The words struck him like an arrow to the chest. Like she’d just loved him out loud. Like she wanted him the way he wanted her: completely and impossibly and with ill-advised devotion. Happiness bloomed inside him like a garden. He held her tighter and continued, “If you can’t sleep tonight, I want you to wake me up. Okay?”
She didn’t reply. She was already asleep.
* * *
Red packed up the next day with a silly smile on his face—one he was happy to see reflected on Chloe’s. Those smiles somehow remained throughout the day, despite Chloe’s morning joint pain, and the argument they had over which road was the A46 on the way home. Her sense of direction—or lack of—was the ninth wonder of the world, after King Kong. He understood now why she rarely used her car.
“You really do need me around,” he said with barely hidden satisfaction, his urge to be useful fulfilled. “For camping and map reading and all that shit.”
“I don’t need you around,” she said pertly. “Not for directions, and not even for the list, as I’ve come to realize.” But then her gaze flitted to his and her lips tilted a little. “I just really, really want you around.”
His grin was a mile wide.
They got home at lunchtime, and he knew he was supposed to go to his own flat and give her space and all that crap, but she was a bit wobbly and sleepy-eyed. He wanted to feed her and put her to bed, so he bullied his way into her flat. He cooked. He made her eat. He supervised her shower much more closely than usual, and found another use for the cute little plastic seat she had in there.
But eventually, finally, the heady mix of love and lust that was powering his cock like the greatest battery on earth calmed down, and Chloe’s energy levels dipped at around the same time. So they found themselves back in bed, still slightly damp, in a cocoon of warm, naked skin and pounding hearts and soft, searching mouths, and he thought he’d never felt so purely, completely good in his whole damn life.
She trailed a finger over his chest, then pressed a kiss to his heart. “I rather like you, Redford.”
He tried to turn his grin into a groan. “No one says my full name as much as you do, you know. You throw it around like rice at a wedding.”
“Weddings on the mind, hm?” she asked in that familiar, mocking tone. “Clearly I am excellent in bed.”
Usually, he’d snicker and shoot something back and they’d snipe at each other for a while. But the truth was, he did have weddings on the mind, if that meant that he absolutely planned to marry her arse at some point in the not-too-distant future. And the fact that he even knew that made him feel so weirdly vulnerable, all he could do was mutter something vaguely belligerent and curse his heating skin.
She pulled back, looking delighted and also ready to rib him until the day they died. “Red! You’re blushing. Why are you blushing? Oh, do tell me—”
“Shut up, woman.” He sat up and kissed her pretty mouth quiet, and she leaned into him with a sweet little hum.
Then came a knock at the door that had them both jumping out of their skin. Their bare skin. Which was a problem because, a second later, they heard the rattle of a key in the lock.
“Ack,” Chloe yelped, and leapt off the bed with an agility he had literally never, ever seen from her. She winced at the movement—he didn’t care what she said or what fancy medicine patches she put on, she was definitely hurting after yesterday—then grabbed frantically for some clothes.
“Who is it?” he whispered, sitting up and looking around for—oh, hell. His dirty clothes were stuffed in Chloe’s washing machine, which she seemed to use as a wash basket. His bags were in the living room, which he couldn’t get to without running through the hall, balls swaying in the breeze for whoever just came in to see. Looked like he was stuck in here with his own bare backside and Chloe’s several thousand notebooks. Maybe he could use those to cover his junk if anyone burst into the room.
Or you could use the fucking sheets, genius.
Oh yeah. Chloe’s panic was catching.
“I don’t know who it is,” she told him, hopping around as she stabbed her legs into a pair of pajama pants. “But the options are either my parents—”
Crap.
“Or my sisters.”
Fingers crossed for that option. This wasn’t quite how he wanted to meet Chloe’s mum and dad. Ideally, he’d be, at a bare minimum, clothed for that introduction.
“Chlo!” a cheery voice hollered from the hallway. “It’s us! Hope you’re not dead!”
Everything about Chloe relaxed as she shoved on a pajama top. “Eve,” she said with obvious relief. “And—”
“I know you’re not dead,” called another, eerily similar voice. He realized with a jolt that all three of
the sisters sounded almost identical. He’d never noticed before. “I’d feel it if you died, darling. Which means you’re ignoring us, you bitch.”
“Annnnd Dani,” Chloe finished, rolling her eyes. But then she looked a little shamefaced. “Gosh, I was so distracted preparing for our, um, trip, I haven’t texted them in two days. Maybe three.” She frowned, grabbed her glasses from the bedside table, and told him, “I won’t be a moment.” But then she hesitated, turned back to face him, bit her lip. Raising her voice, she called to her sisters, “I’m fine! Just . . . give me a minute!” And then, to Red, she whispered, “Would you like to come?”
He looked down at himself. “I’m naked.”
“Oh, yes.” She blinked.
“But thanks, love. Really.” He knew what she was doing. The last time she’d tried to ignore his existence in front of a family member, he may have been mildly offended. But this was different. He already knew Chloe would hate to even hint at the fact that she now had a sex life, no matter who it was with.
“All right,” she said softly. “In that case, stay quiet!”
Before he could reply, she hurried out, pulling the door almost shut behind her. Because, he realized with a quiet laugh, his awkward, uptight Button was going to try and keep his presence a secret. Even though his shit was lying all over her flat for anyone to see.
She was adorable.
Shaking his head, he got out of bed and stretched his tired muscles. He was just wondering how to occupy himself in the bedroom of a woman who regularly used phrases like sleep hygiene when a voice drifted in from the hall. Even though it was technically indistinguishable from Chloe’s, he knew it didn’t belong to her. If he had to guess, he’d say it was Dani. “. . . isn’t a particularly believable explanation, sister mine. I do believe you’re up to something.” She managed to make the phrase as darkly ominous as Professor Snape.
“What could I possibly be up to?” Chloe asked, sounding almost bored, but not quite pulling it off. The fact that she was even trying made a laugh bubble up in his throat.
A third voice piped up. “I really couldn’t say, but I will point out that it’s catatonically impossible to believe—”
“Categorically, darling.”
“—that you went camping alone. Not even because of your fibro; we simply weren’t made for the outdoors. And you don’t look traumatized enough to have spent the night in a tent.”
Chloe replied with a thread of fondness in her voice that wrapped around him like silk. “It was a very, very nice tent. A wonderful tent. I will be leaving a five-star review online.”
Oh, he bet she would.
“Hmmm,” someone murmured—he couldn’t tell who. And then, “Do the tent’s wonderful qualities have anything to do with the massive pair of men’s boots by your front door?”
“Oh, those are—ah—I’m sorry, I don’t see—”
He cracked a grin as Chloe spluttered.
“I knew it!” someone cried. “You—”
“Be quiet! He’ll hear you!”
“He’s here?”
“Shut up!”
The conversation dissolved into a chorus of whisper-shrieks. He tried not to eavesdrop, but the walls were bloody thin, and Chloe’s voice was impossible to ignore. Still, he tried. But then he heard a murmur, sharp with amusement, that shattered all his good intentions.
“Maybe I’ll owe you fifty pounds after all, Evie-bean. Meaningless sex and camping were the two items I didn’t think she’d manage to cross off.”
Red frowned. Meaningless sex? That wasn’t on the list.
Then, slow as the blood draining from his face, he remembered: the list he’d seen was incomplete. But, clearly, Chloe had shown her sisters the real thing.
A strange ringing sound filled his ears. His stomach tightened, as if a pound of lead suddenly lined his gut. Was he—did Chloe—?
No. No. He wasn’t going to assume the worst based on an overheard, throwaway comment. How could he? Chloe wasn’t like that. He loved her. And she might not love him yet, but she couldn’t treat him the way she did—couldn’t be so sweet—if she secretly saw him as . . .
Nothing. No one. That’s who you are.
Panic crept over Red’s skin, slimy and cold. He dragged a hand roughly through his hair, searched for an anchor, and found one: the sticky note he’d left Chloe on Friday morning, now taped to her desk. Taped, like she loved it, like it was there to stay. He focused on that sight as he grabbed his crawling, anxious memories by the throat. He wasn’t nothing, not to Chloe or anyone else who mattered, and definitely not to himself.
And then, as if to back him up, he heard her voice. “Meaningless sex is off the list.”
“You mean you changed it?”
“I did.”
His exhale was a rush of dizzy relief. He sagged against the bed as his numb limbs tingled back to life.
“I think that should affect the terms of the bet. She’s making it easier for herself.”
Chloe snorted. “I am not!”
“Fewer items is easier.”
“I replaced it,” Chloe said hotly. “I put Red on there.”
Something strange happened then. His organs just . . . just up and rearranged themselves. Shifted around like they were trying to make room at a full table. His heart was in his stomach. His stomach was lodged in his throat. His skin was tight, like it wanted to turn inside out. His eyes burned. His limbs went numb again. The ringing sound was back. His right hand ached. He couldn’t breathe.
That was a bad fucking sign, wasn’t it? He forced himself to inhale, gulping down air, but he barely felt it in his lungs and his head was light. The kaleidoscope of color that had surrounded him since last night leeched away until his world was gray. He was panicking and he needed to stop but he couldn’t. Fucking. Breathe. He clutched the bedsheets to remind himself of where he was, but all he felt was naked and ridiculous and fooled a-fucking-gain—
“It can’t be what it sounds like,” he murmured to himself, because his brain was rebelling but his mouth was still his.
Then his mind showed him a memory, like a convenient flashback in a badly made film: that first ride on his bike, with Chloe. Back when she’d mentioned her plan to get a life, and he’d assumed it was some kind of bad-girl bucket list. That she was chasing a thrill and trying to slum it, the same way Pippa would.
Only, Chloe was nothing like Pippa. Nothing like Pippa. There was no way she’d use him just to feel alive again. No way she’d see him as an item to cross off a list.
. . . Or a specimen to study through a window.
Fuck.
Chapter Twenty-One
After far too long, Chloe’s sisters took pity on her and left her to her “obvious sex fest.” Her cheeks were still burning when she finally returned to the bedroom. “Sorry about that,” she said. “They—Red, are you okay?”
He didn’t look okay.
He was sitting on the edge of her bed, his fingers white-knuckling the sheets, his chest heaving with each breath. His eyes were flat and lifeless. He stared at the plain, gray carpet with a focus so intense, she wondered if he could see things she didn’t.
That focus didn’t waver when he replied, his voice rough and uneven. “Yeah.”
The single word wrenched at something deep in her chest. He sounded wrong, wrong, wrong. “Are you sure? You seem—”
He stood, sharper than a knife. “I need some clothes.”
Anxiety churned in Chloe’s gut. Her skin prickled hot and cold all over. Something was going on, and she needed to find out what, but she couldn’t ask right now—not when he strode to the living room as if it was an effort not to run. He was upset, and he wanted to get dressed so they could discuss the problem like reasonable adults. That was all. Obviously that was all. She told herself that to stave off the old, terrifying panic that rose as he dragged on his clothes. His movements were jerky and desperate and frantic.
As if he couldn’t wait to leave.
N
o, she corrected herself. As if he couldn’t wait to have a lovely, mature conversation with her.
But when he was dressed, he picked up his bags. Her heart lurched. Just like the night they’d bumped into Aunt Mary, he seemed to be surrounded by invisible spikes, warding off all tenderness with the set of his shoulders and the muscle ticking at his jaw. But she didn’t care. She reached for him anyway. “Red—”
He jerked away from her outstretched hand as if she was toxic.
They stood in silence for a moment, wide-eyed and tense. Soaking in the aftermath of that near-automatic rejection. Then he blinked hard, seemed to pull himself together. Avoiding her gaze, he bit out, “Is it true? Am I on your list?”
Oh, God. He’d heard. That’s what this was about. Mortification hit her like a bullet, ripping through flesh and blood and bone to decimate her composure. He knew how much the list meant to her. Maybe he thought she was pathetic, and clingy, and all the other things Henry had called her before he’d left. But that didn’t sound right. That didn’t sound like Red, so what could be the problem?
“Chloe,” he said, tightly leashed anger singeing his words. “Answer me.”
She might be confused, but she wasn’t going to lie. “Yes.” His face shut down like his power had been cut. Suddenly, he was a cold, distant stranger, and she didn’t understand. “Why are you so upset?”
Just like that, he wasn’t blank anymore. A sort of horrified rage filled him, clear in the flat blade of his mouth and his empty gaze. It even brimmed from his voice. “Are you seriously doing this?” he asked. “What, are you trying to say I’m overreacting?”
“No,” she said immediately. “Absolutely not.” Her mind raced. Things were becoming clearer, but she didn’t know how to fix this tangle sensitively, so she went with plain facts. Obviously, he thought his presence on the list meant something awful. She could explain otherwise. She just had to be patient. “Just calm down, okay? Being on the list isn’t a bad thing.”
Disbelief joined his fury, like kerosene to a flame. He spoke rapidly, his whole body shaking. “Calm down? It’s not a bad thing? I’m not an idiot, Chloe. This whole time, I was—and you were just using me for your fucking—ticking boxes and laughing with your sisters about—”