Page 27 of Three's a Crowd
Daisy felt a swell of disappointment that they weren’t going to carry on with the conversation he’d started to broach.
‘Yes, very happy, thanks,’ she said automatically. But even as she said it, she knew she didn’t sound as convincing as she should have. If she was being honest with herself, their relationship had felt a lot more like friends with benefits for a while now. And even then, they’d both been so busy and tired from work recently they’d not actually had sex much.
But they definitely cared very deeply about each other and treated each other with respect. They were good together.
Unlike her and Zach.
She looked at him sitting there and thought how much she still wanted him, but how much of a mistake it would be to get involved in any way with him again.
He was wrong for her.
She needed stability.
Someone she could trust to look after her.
And she had very little self-control whenever he was around, which made her nervous.
It seemed similar thoughts were going through his head too, because he appeared to give himself a little shake and stared down with a frown at the sofa cushion between them.
‘Look. I really just wanted to apologise for how I acted on that holiday in Fowey. I was completely out of order and I treated you like shit,’ he said. ‘You’re a good friend and I miss you.’
He glanced up to see how she was taking this admission.
In all honesty, she was stunned. She hadn’t expected such a heartfelt apology from him.
‘It’s okay,’ she whispered, her voice seeming reluctant to work now. ‘We were both a little out of our minds, I think,’ she said with a grim smile.
‘Can we have a friendly hug and move on from it?’ he asked gently.
The thought of touching him right now set her head in a spin, but she couldn’t refuse if they really were making up as friends. And she did want to be his friend again. She missed him too – so much it ached.
‘Of course.’ Moving closer to him, she let him gather her up in his arms, trying not to breathe in the delicious, intensely familiar scent of him.
‘Thank you,’ he murmured into her hair, as if it genuinely meant a lot to him that he had her forgiveness and her friendship back too.
She felt him kiss the top of her head, then down near her ear, smoothing his fingers over her hair as he did so.
It was a strangely intimate feeling. Like he cared for her. Like he loved her.
Her body gave an unaccustomed throb and she pulled away from his grip to look him in the eye.
He looked back at her with an unreadable expression.
The air was still around them, like time had frozen.
Daisy felt her breath catch in her throat.
Then, without warning, Zach brought his mouth down against hers.
An immediate wave of longing ripped through her.
She opened her lips a little to draw in a shaky breath and he took the opportunity to slide his tongue into her mouth.
The taste of him wasdivine.
He kissed her hard, running his fingers back into her hair and holding her head so she couldn’t move.
Not that she wanted to.
