Page 62 of Ace My Heart

“Okay, this conversation is officially getting too weird,” I said sharply, sitting up, forgetting that I was just about naked.

Joel stood up, and surprisingly his eyes didn’t stray from my face to my breasts. “Are you sure you don’t want me to keep going? I could do the front for you,” he offered, waggling his eyebrows at me suggestively.

And just like that we were back in familiar waters, safe waters. I gave him a withering look.

“I’ll take that as a no then. Have a shower and go to bed,” he said.

“I hope I don’t wake up sore in the morning,” I said, standing and walking over to the door of the bathroom. I didn’t bother to hide my almost nudity. He’d just rubbed down every inch of the back half of me, what was the point in hiding?

Joel smiled at me, softly, sweetly. I found myself staring at his full bottom lip. My insides fizzed.

“Have a little faith, Mel – you’ll be fine tomorrow and you’ll play your heart out.”

I closed the bathroom door, showered very quickly, and when I opened it again to get into bed, Joel was gone.

Feeling a little put out for no good reason, I turned the light out and very promptly fell asleep.

“Mel, it’s okay!”

I startled awake, sweating, my breath coming in gasps. I turned. Joel was sitting on the bed beside me, his hand on my arm.

“It was just a bad dream,” he whispered soothingly to me.

For a moment I felt like I was still suspended in my dream. The ache between my legs intensified as his fingers stroked the length of my arm. I shook my head to try and rattle free the sudden desire to drag him into my bed, to seek comfort in the best way I could currently think of.

I sternly told myself that this was real life. And in real life I wouldneverfind myself wrapped around Joel Herbert, his hard bodyrocking against mine. But in my dream it felt pretty damn good, until I rolled over and saw Steve on the floor, and it all turned to shit.

I took a few deep breaths to calm myself down.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” he asked me.

I shook my head. “It’s pretty much the same nightmare I’ve been having since …” He knew what I was talking about.

“Did it always start out with you moaning and rocking against your mattress?”

I grimaced into the dark. “No, that’s a … recent development.”

Thankfully Joel didn’t press me for more information. “Are you okay now? Do you need me to stay?”

“No, I’m fine now, thanks, Joel,” I murmured. The mattress moved as he stood up. In the darkness all I could make out were his white teeth as he smiled at me.

“Any time, Stink.” He reached over, pushed a strand of hair out of my face and walked to the door, pausing for a split second before he walked out and closed it gently behind himself.

I shut my eyes and slept a dreamless sleep for the rest of the night.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Perspective

The plane jerked and I stiffened, clutching the arm rests. Joel glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, looking amused.

“With all the flying you do, Mel, I would have thought that you’d be desensitised to turbulence by now.”

I glared at him coldly. The plane rattled around in the sky some more, and I gasped, ruining the effect. Joel laughed.

When we’d passed the rough weather, and the seat belt light flicked off, the man in front of me turned around and smiled. He was in his mid-fifties, I would have guessed, with a thick head of wiry salt and pepper hair that looked kind of like steel wool. His eyes were crinkled with laugh lines.

“You’re Melanie Black, aren’t you?” he asked me, flashing his teeth at me. He had an Aussie accent.

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