I wiped his spit from my mouth, my clit hating my guts for believing in this fumbling loser and his promises.
Even Seb had given more of a shit for my pleasure.
“I’ll be more up to it in the morning,” he said, and buried himself down under my covers. “I had a bit too much beer. So damn excited it made me nervous. Your fault for being so hot.”
Sure it was. Yeah.
Even my glass half full mentality didn’t give me faith in this guy’s morning potential. I rolled over on my own side and stared at the wall, just like I had done so many nights of my life with Sebastian, and my thoughts were still going there. Heart, pussy and tummy still screaming out for the passion I’d felt from that couple in that club.
The passion I’d felt in anything.
I wanted that so badly.
I needed that so badly.
I was seriously fucking desperate for that. Just one night. Just one taste of who I was.
The light was streaming through the front window next morning, and I was still awake when he stretched out his arms and headed back over for another go. I shied away, and told him I had stuff on I needed to get to, and he shrugged before slipping out of bed and pulling his jeans on.
“Some other time then,” he said. “That was really damn hot last night.”
I didn’t have any words, just a weak little smile as he smoothed down his hair and said he’d ping me later. Sure thing, can’t wait.
Super-hot Trojan was a big buzzing fly in my optimism ointment. A let down that had me collapsing like a starfish flat under my bedcovers as soon as the front door slammed shut after him.
Fuck you, Trojan. Fuck you.
I was tired and scuttling towards a day of potential seizures. Tired and zany and still reeling. Tired and zany and desperate when I scrolled through my phone to the very depths and found his number. The man who’d burned me up harder than diving straight into Hell.
I had no idea if it was even still his number as I wrote out the text message at eight a.m. on a Sunday morning and fired it off.
Hey, it’s Anna. Long time no speak. Was just wondering how you’re doing.
Damn fucking fuck, I regretted it as soon as the sent tick flashed up.
I consoled myself with the hope that maybe he had indeed got a different number this past decade. I mean that would make sense. A decade was a long time.
I consoled myself with the hope that he was probably busy with a whole new world, with no time or thought to even read my message, let alone fire back a response, as cringeworthy as that may be.
But I’d heard… just the faintest scrap of a whisper at the very edges of our extended social circle… I’d heard he might be single…
I consoled myself with the chatter of my brain telling me I really had been insane and really would come to my senses and return to boredomville and Seb with a smile on my face, resigned to my fate forever.
But then it came.
The ping.
The ping from him. The poison in my veins, even after all these years.
The ping that changed my whole fucking world.
Chapter Two
Lucas
The buzz of my phone was enough to drag me out of my slumber.
I blinked at the sun streaming through my gaping window like a piece of shit to burn my retinas. My mouth was parched, bedsheets crumpled underneath my sprawled nakedness. Anything but a lovely way to greet the morning. Still, a regular one.
I coughed and stretched, and my arm landed on two empty wine bottles, cast away like fallen soldiers. The usual deal. The usual shit.
I scrabbled around for my phone, expecting it to be the alarm bleeping at me, but it wasn’t. My gut did a thump as I saw the text icon, no doubt a spiteful whinge from Maya and a cancellation of me having Millie. Another usual deal.
Only it wasn’t Maya’s flashing name that greeted me, it was number unknown. One that had my attention on full alert as I propped myself up and opened the message.
Hey, it’s Anna. Long time no speak. Was just wondering how you’re doing.
My eyes scanned that message over and over before my brain would accept I was really conscious. I considered it must be a joke. Or a balls up. Some kind of crazy cockup in the communication ether.
It had to be.