Page 24 of Only Ever You

“Hm?”

“Stay here for a second,” she repeated, at a guess, before floating past him.

Bash had zoned out for too long to know why he wasn’t supposed to move, but the aches in his legs were on the verge of making them give way, so he propped himself down on the arm of the couch.

The light in the bathroom clicked on and a cupboard door opened and closed.

“Here.” Faye padded her way towards him with a tub of—was that cream? “It’s good for things like cuts and grazes,” she said.

“Oh, right. Thank you.” He went to take the small tub but she stopped him.

“Let me.” Faye slotted herself between his knees before Bashcould count his blessings and his thighs automatically opened wider for her. His heart rate doubled its pace, too.

She popped off the lid of the tub, shifting both halves to hold with one hand in some sort of female witchery, and examined his cheek. “Wow, it’s really gotten red.”

Not because of the graze.This was too close. Bash hadn’t had a woman near him like this in a few months, which was some kind of record for him.

He clutched the armrest under him as if it was a life raft. Itwasthen, the only thing stopping Bash from pitching forwards and closing the two inches of space between them. The skin of his arms rose with goosebumps and it wasn’t from the lack of heating.

In this position, they were eye to eye, Faye’s decidedly upon his cheek. The press of her finger with the cream to his graze made Bash hiss as the sting zapped to his spine.

“Sorry,” she said softly, wincing. “I’ll try to be quick.”

Bash’s nerves for this lack of air between them got the better of him.

“It’s alright,” he said as he shifted his gaze over towards the kitchen and began mentally listing random implements and utensils which caught his eye;anythingto stop how his leg had decided to come alive and bounce under his self restraint.

They’d been physically close before, but it’d been a long while since Bash had felt the warmth of Faye’s breaths upon his lips –mug, spoon, whisk –even in this completely platonic situation. She was being kind and dabbing the cream over his cheekbone, but the lack of warmth in the room made the heat between them all the more prominent – the mango scent of her mixing with the crisp outdoors scent of him.

Spatula. Egg cup. Fork.

Something new awoke in Bash with each press of Faye’s gentle fingers, how she curled her lip between her teeth in concentration and tilted her head just slightly. Pulling on his hoodie had mussedup her hair and she looked … like the missing piece of him. Like he imagined she’d look on a morning after sleeping at his side.

“All done.” She backed out of the space between his thighs and Bash finally looked at her again.

“Thank you.” Relaxing his grip upon the sofa and breathing more easily than he had a moment ago, he gave her an appreciative smile.

Faye’s small smile at him in return broke as she yawned into the sleeve of his hoodie.

“Go back to bed,” he murmured, earning a tiny nod before he moved to about-turn around the end of the couch. “I’ll sleep on your sofa.”

“No way.” Faye reached for his wrist, snatched her phone from off of the couch, and tugged him along with her through the flat. “You complained for a week about your neck after the last time you did that.”

The heart in Bash’s chest definitely missed a beat as he realised where he was being willingly dragged. A thousand thoughts all scattered and flew in his mind. “I wasn’tthatwhiny.”

“You absolutely were. You were insufferable.”

In the next second, Bash found himself in the doorway of Faye’s bedroom, which made him fight to keep down any excitement he’d normally have for standing in a woman’s bedroom at night. He’d been to this flat too many times to count but rarely had he ever crossed this threshold.

A lamp on a nightstand cast a yellow glow around the room, and the corner of his mouth rose at the fluffy, pink sherpa duvet cover and the stack of pillows on the bed. The room was chaotic in the good sense, with various open sketchbooks and pencils lining the top of a stack of drawers, Faye’s books all leaning over in her bookcase.

None of the wood grains or shades of white of her furniture matched, which for once, didn’t set off the critical sirens in Bash’sinterior designer mind that usually made him twitch. Not where Faye was concerned.

Everything in this flat washer.How could he ever wish to change that?

Faye curled herself beneath her duvet and looked at him expectedly. The invitation was clear in her eyes, if not a little shy, but Bash still toed off his shoes and sneaked forwards like he was a fox and she, the doe.

“Do you mind that I'm in outdoor clothes?” A few flecks of dirt from how he’d ran here had dried near the hems of his navy chinos. He could take them off to leave himself in just his briefs, but that might perhaps cross a line that hadn’t ever been breached before.

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