AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her eyes popped open when she realized that it was because sometime during the night she’d snuggled up to Mark, and he’d wrapped his arms around her, spooning with her from behind.
She smiled. She should be horrified and should struggle to get over to her side, but... She liked the way it felt.
“You’re awake,” he said, his voice a little rough and gravelly next to her ear.
“Yeah. Have you been awake long?”
“For an hour or so.”
“For an hour?”
“I didn’t want to get up. Sorry. This just feels...good.”
His words made her smile. “I agree. You’ve really been awake for an hour? What about work?”
“I’m the boss. If I don’t show up for work today, no one’s gonna care except for me. And I feel like this would be an enjoyable, if not profitable, way to spend my day.”
“All right,” she said, knowing that they weren’t going to spend the entire day in bed, but wanting to enjoy this just a little bit longer. Tonight, her mom would be gone, and possibly his sister too, and she’d probably be back over in her own bed. The thought made her sad. She wouldn’t wake up tomorrow morning with Mark’s arms around her, his legs twisted with hers, and his solid heartbeat against her back.
So, even though she knew she probably shouldn’t, she closed her eyes and enjoyed the feel of the solid, honorable man behind her.
She didn’t know how long, didn’t have a watch, couldn’t see a clock, and her phone was over on the nightstand. Way too far for her to reach over. Plus, doing that would break the spell that seemed to settle around them, and that would mean it was time to get up.
“I’ve been thinking about tonight.”
Like he could read her mind.
“Yeah?”
“I enjoyed last night. If you ever decide to move in for real, I just want to let you know that would be fine with me.”
It made her happy but also made a slice of panic tear through her. Could this be a permanent thing? She liked it, but change was always hard. And this was a huge change. A change of monstrous proportions.
“All right. Maybe we can think about that? For now, I better get up. I’m going to run downstairs and go over to my room.” She wasn’t running away. Not really. “Hopefully, my mom won’t be up, and I can change my clothes over there with no one the wiser.” Probably she should have gotten up earlier, hopefully Paulette slept in this morning as well. She wasn’t known for being a morning person.
She didn’t want to, but her anxiety drove her to slide out of his arms, grab her phone, and make sure she was covered in all the proper places with his T-shirt pulled down and his sweats pulled up before she stood up and hurried to the door without looking at him.
She didn’t need to look at him to feel his eyes on her, with her bed head and her droopy T-shirt and baggy sweats. She probably looked like a bag lady. Or homeless.
She had her hand on the knob and was just about to turn it when he said, “Pam?”
He said her name the same way he’d said it last night, the way that made shivers run down her backbone and something warm twirl around her heart.
She stopped but didn’t turn around. It was embarrassing to stand here like that. Even if she were twenty years younger, her best look was not the moment she got out of bed in the morning.
“I just wanted you to know that you’re beautiful.”
Her toes curled, and her fingers tightened on the doorknob.
His words made her throat tight and her heart feel like it was soaring free from her chest.
She smiled, but it also made her tear up because she knew it wasn’t true.
“I can hear you thinking you don’t believe me. And I’m just telling you, when I look at you, I see beauty. Inside and out.”
She didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to thank him for that, how to tell him that he had to stop saying things like that because she was already so close to falling in love with him. And that would ruin everything. Their good friendship, the camaraderie they shared, the easy companionship that lay between them. Didn’t he know that she was on the verge of throwing it all away? Just because he made her feel like so much more than just a friend.
She turned the knob quickly and hurried out of the room, knowing she should say something but knowing she couldn’t.
