Cock & Bull - Laura Barnard Page 0,49

if I’m being honest with myself.

‘Ella snuck off to bed?’ he asks with a nod of his head while he locks the front door behind him.

‘How did you guess?’ I retort. If it wasn’t for him, I’d be doing so much more on my own.

‘She’s not made for this pub game,’ he says, leaning over the bar, those beautiful tattooed forearms on display.

‘No, she’s just not made for any kind of hard work.’ I scoff a laugh, instantly feeling bad for slagging her off. Sisters before misters and all that.

He smirks. ‘You two did well tonight though, eh? Hopefully we’ll get a few more back when the lights are back on.’

He starts blowing out the candles on the tables and then stacking the chairs on top. It’s easier for us to hoover in the morning this way.

I copy him, starting on another table.

‘Yep, just got to earn a cool seven grand before we can break even.’ I hate that I’m so negative these days. I used to be such an optimistic person.

He rolls his eyes but ignores me, carrying on tidying away the tables. With every candle blown out the place gets darker, but my emotions get more heightened. When they’re done, we work at opposite ends of the bar, blowing out the last few remaining candles.

Without any actual electricity I can start to feel another kind of current passing between us. Being alone like this, in the dark, well, it’s doing strange things to my lady parts. Even my tongue feels like it’s quivering, attempting and failing to come up with something to fill the awkward silence.

Not that Clooney’s awkward. Far from it. Sometimes I honestly wonder if he has any idea how affected by him I am. I can be such a bitch to him, but it’s just easier for me to push him away. I can’t be doing with any complications right now and me making a fool of myself in front of a gorgeous guy is high on the list to avoids.

I glance up at him as he saunters closer to me, almost in slow motion. His broad muscular shoulders look even sexier in flickering candle light. My mouth dries at the thought of being so close to him in this dimly lit room.

Before I can reason with myself to run the other way, we’re both going to blow out the same candle. He stops and laughs.

‘After you,’ he offers, curling his hand in a polite circle; his usual smirk licking the edges of his lips.

He makes me giggle like a girl when he pretends to be gentlemanly. Something in me knows he’s anything but. I bet he’s a beast in bed, throwing you down and yanking your hair to get you in any which position he wants.

‘No, you go,’ I manage to say, my voice hoarse. Like I work on a sex line kind of hoarse. I clear my throat, hoping he didn’t notice.

When I meet his eyes, I know that he did. They’re aglow with recognition and something I haven’t seen before in his dark wide pupils. Is that lust? He licks his bottom lip, swallowing, causing his Adam’s apple to bob up and down. God, how I want to feel that neck beneath my fingers. That olive, clear skin covered in sexy stubble. To have the heat of his body beneath me. Or above me. Or behind me. Jesus, Phoebe calm the hell down.

‘No, I insist,’ I whisper, my voice barely audible. ‘You do it.’

He looks down at the candle and then back at me, his eyes hooded with a question. What it is I don’t know, but all I do know right now is I’d give up all my limits and self-respect just for a small kiss from him. I’d take all the awkwardness, the rejection, all of it, just to know if he wants to kiss me back.

He lowers himself over the candle, his dark eyes still locked on mine. He puckers his lips and blows out the candle, plunging us into pitch black.

Our panted breaths are more noticeable now that I can’t see. His breath is coming closer to me, now so close I can feel it on my forehead. I suppose he is taller than me.

I wait, praying to God for him to make a move. To put me out of my misery.

His lips lower until his breath is on my own. This is it. He’s leaning down to me. It’s happening. Our lips are going to connect.

A clicking