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He couldn’t remember another woman who turned him on and made him laugh so much at the same time. That heart he’d given her all those years ago, that soul, they still belonged to her.
As he watched her eyes close and her mouth open on a gasp, he stole a kiss from her. A kiss she deepened as her body clenched down on his and shook with the force of her second release, causing his to quickly follow.
Tearing her mouth away from his she cried his name as he shouted hers, then he wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. Exalted in the feel of her sweaty body stuck to his as their breathing calmed and their heartbeats slowed to normal.
Normal.
Oliver let himself chuckle at the notion.
Where he and Emilia Caldwell were concerned, nothing would ever be normal again.
Chapter Twelve
The next morning, Mia woke up in Oliver’s bed.
And found his side of it empty.
Turning to look at the ancient clock radio she couldn’t believe he still had, or that still worked, she saw it was only five-thirty. So where the bloody hell was he?
Her best friend turned lover?
Slipping from the bed, she grabbed Oliver’s shirt and pulled it on, then left to use the toilet. On her way back to bed she heard voices coming from the kitchen. Following the sound, she found Ollie and his sister sitting at the big wooden kitchen table, drinking tea and passing a notepad back and forth.
When she entered the room, they both looked up and smiled, happy to see her. Her heart swelled at the simple, familial gesture and she knew she would never regret the decisions that had brought her back here. “Good morning,” she said quietly.
“We didn’t wake you, did we, sweetling?”
“Nah. Army brat, remember? I’ve been getting up before the crack of dawn since I was a kid.”
Ollie shifted in his chair and offered his lap as a seating option. Which Mia readily accepted.
And why wouldn’t she? The man was sex on a stick and he was all hers. He wasn’t wearing his usual uniform of jeans and a T-shirt though, and Mia marvelled at how much longer his legs looked in boardshorts.
She also appreciated the fact he wasn’t wearing a shirt.
Seeing all that naked muscle on display just did things to her. Not that his jeans and T-shirts did such a great job of disguising it for anything other than what it was. And when the hell did he get so jacked anyway? Mia had never wanted to be a punny slogan T-shirt so much in her life, simply so she could lovingly hug and caress his biceps all damn day, stroke his abs. Soak up his heady masculine scent.
Great. Now she was horny again. And judging by the look on Ollie’s face as he watched her approach, and the slight flex of his biceps, he knew exactly where her mind was at. Hell, it was the same place it was at for most of the previous night.
In his pants.
Oliver Bennett had only gotten better with age. Even the man-bun was beginning to grow on her. And as for the beard…? If she’d known how utterly amazing it felt when a bearded bloke went down on her, she might have made more of an effort to eat avocado and date hipsters.
As Mia curled her long frame up in Ollie’s lap, she rested her head on his shoulder and traced her fingertip over the runic tattoo that snaked around his forearm. When she’d asked him about it the previous night, he’d told her each set of runes spelled out the names of his family. Then he’d pointed out a set of three symbols in a contrasting blue ink.
“And this is you. This is Mia.”
“I thought you said these were the names of your family?”
He’d sighed then kissed her. “What’s it going to take for you to understand? Youaremy family.”
Now as she sat quietly in his lap, listening to him chat with his sister as he rubbed circles against her lower back, soothing the mild ache she still held there from the night before, she was beginning to understand.
Oliver Bennett had been looking out for her from the moment she’d met him on the school bus when they were twelve. He’d tried to protect her by pushing her away but she’d forced her way inside his bubble and set up camp. Five years later she’d pushed him away, too scared of her own feelings to even let him anywhere near her bubble.
But when she needed him, he was there. No questions asked. No grudges held.
He loved her.
