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“I am not. If you must know, he looked into the whole 28-day thing you told me about, so we’re going to book our wedding tomorrow,” I reply, stroking the little white kitten on my lap, who’s finished her milk and is blinking at me sleepily.
“Hmm,”
“Oh, no, no, no. Don’t give me that judgemental hum, Sam.” He sits across from me with his arms over his broad chest and those dark eyes challenging me.
“I give you two weeks before you end up in his bed,” he says matter of fact, like he’s just read the weather.
“Two weeks? No chance, I reckon ten days max,” Lloyd chimes in.
I place the kitten down gently, watching her fall back to sleep in the blanket filled box. “You’re both fired.”
Lloyd laughs, but Sam just stares at me with indifference and damn, that annoys me more.
“You can’t fire us,” Lloyd argues, then flits his eyes to his husband, who’s still glaring at me. “Can she?” he whispers.
Sam shakes his head. “Zoey needs us. She’s just being defensive. Maybe because she thinks we’re both being generous with our time frame for the bet and she thinks she won’t even last the night.”
“Seriously, get out. Both of you. You’re awful humans who have no faith in me at all. I will not sleep with my fake future husband.”
A chorus of sarcastic agreement makes my irritation soar. My skin itches with the desire to be right and for both of these dickheads to be wrong.
Except, they really might not be wrong because Harrison Clarke is all kinds of irresistible.
Chapter 22
Zoey - Three weeks later
So,itturnsout,when you’re trying to abstain from sex, you notice it everywhere. Several of our male dogs have been nonstop humping the females this week. Luckily, they’re all neutered. I see happy couples eating each other’s faces on the tube. It’s annoying and frustrating. As though a siren has gone off to tell the world, ‘Hello, Zoey isn’t having sex of any kind at the moment, so please remind her of that every minute of every day’.
If I wasn’t so hellbent on keeping this quiet until we’re married, I’d insist my brothers had set all this up to torture me, but alas, they’re none the wiser. For the last three weeks, we’ve managed to keep everything secret from both our families whilst still living together, and that suits us until we’re ready to tell them we’re married and there isn’t anything they can do about it.
I worry if my brothers found out earlier, they’d want to kill Harrison. At least, this way, if he’s my husband, their anger is easier to dismiss. Well, it isn’t, but it’ll be impossible for them to stop it at that point.
Harrison has successfully set my body on fire with every little touch, graze, or heated stare we’ve shared. Last night, he passed me the saltshaker. Our fingers brushed against one another, and I swear, I had to clamp my mouth closed so fast to stop a moan from escaping. He’s so big and imposing, I’m hyper aware of him and if I don’t get some kind of release soon, my will to stay in my own bed will dissolve pretty fast.
And it’s not just his physical effect on me; he makes me coffee every morning, he texts me about dinner, he asks about my day without fail, he’s attentive and sweet and… completely off bounds. And I’m incredibly frustrated.
“Zoey?” Nora asks, staring at me from across the booth we’re sitting at. I met her after work in an attempt to avoid my future husband for the night, but the reality is all I’ve done is think about him.
I shake my head. “Sorry, you were saying?”
“I was saying you look like shit.”
Get best friends, they said. It’ll be fun, they said.
“You know I’d be offended if that wasn’t the stone-cold truth.”
She smirks, patting my arm patronisingly. “There, there. Tell me all your woes.”
Narrowing my eyes, I also sigh because I need to talk to someone about this. “I look like shit because I’m not getting sex.” My arms flap around me as I carry on, spilling my frustration. “And I live with a man who is arguably a walking advert for every woman’s fantasy, but he’s off limits and I’m—”
“Horny?”
“Fuck yes, but even that’s an understatement. I’m the queen of Hornville. I live in a world where everyone but me is allowed to have it, and it sucks so fucking bad. Help. me.”
Nora laughs. “Help you have sex?”
“No, I mean yes, but no. I don’t even know. I’m hot all the time, I can’t control it, and now it’s affecting the way I look, according to you.” In my mind, I probably look like that Cruella DeVil meme where she’s driving the car with bright red eyes, like a mad woman. The reality probably isn’t that far off, either.
