Twisted Love (Modern Romance #3) - Piper Lawson Page 0,42
Xbox is set out on the carpet, ready to use, and guilt washes over me.
Daisy’s asleep in the middle of the bed. Her makeup is gone, her face smooth and untouched. Dark lashes brush her cheeks. Her hair is a silky slide over one shoulder. She’s wearing a T-shirt and I-don’t-know-what beneath the sheet pulled up to her chest. Her lips part as if feeling my attention.
It’s less dangerous to study her when she’s asleep. There’s less chance she’ll read something on my face, or in my words, reflect it back in a way I can’t control or manage or anticipate. Less chance she'll see something I haven't let myself see, or acknowledge.
I don’t trust people easily, but I trust her. I’ve let her in—deeper than she knows.
My gaze doesn’t move from her as I strip off my clothes, laying each piece across the upholstered chair before reaching for pajama bottoms.
I crawl in next to her, my body barely fitting in the scant third of a bed remaining given her claim of the center.
What if she was mine? The thought slips into my brain.
Not only playing Fortnite once a week or when we make plans, but the days in between.
Weekends, like this one.
Mornings, when she’s rubbing sleep from her eyes and cursing about the demands from clients coming in the door later that day. Evenings, when we can meet up for takeout and talk.
Nights, when I could hold her until I convinced myself everything is right in the world. Kiss her until she’s breathless. Touch her until she’s blind with pleasure.
I love hearing her say my name in that teasing voice, or the chiding one, or the call-me-on-my-bullshit one.
How would she say it when I’m deep inside her?
I roll over and force my gaze to the wall, the art print outlined in the dark.
If she were my girl, it would complicate things. Be a distraction at best. When it ended, which it would eventually because they always do…
I’d lose my best friend. Part of myself along with her.
The possibility has my gut twisting. I’m not taking that chance with Daisy. She’s not some woman I can date until she decides I’m unyielding or I decide she’s demanding and we cut one another loose.
And then there’s the ghost between us. A memory that feels like more.
I chose her sister once, before I knew them well enough to realize all of the stunning subtleties Daisy alone possessed.
It was a cautionary tale, a lone regret in a sea of bad decisions I chalk up to experience.
I shift, trying to get comfortable on the mattress.
She finds me. Presses her soft, warm chest to my back.
Fuck.
She’s as persistent asleep as she is awake. I don’t know whether to curse or admire it.
Tonight, with no one to bear witness, I give in. My hand drifts back, curls over her hip, and like that, I fall asleep.
In the morning, I wake to find her already gone.
I go for a run then take a shower, and when I get out, she’s pacing the room on the phone, facing away, wearing a bright yellow sundress that makes my dick twitch.
When she hangs up, beaming, I say, "Good news, I take it.”
“The photographer will have proofs for me Tuesday,” she says, whirling to face me. Her smile falls away when she sees me dressed in just the towel.
“That’s great. How’d you sleep?” I ask as I rub a second towel through my hair.
She wets her lips. “Okay, I think."
The moment hangs between us, the realization we shared a bed.
“You talk in your sleep,” she says.
“I do not.” I blink. “What did I say?”
“Not telling.”
Somehow I had the upper hand and lost it, but she continues.
"So we have a free day. Reception tonight and bachelor and bachelorette parties. The girls invited me to tag along. I said no, but Camila insisted she’d rather have me there than take a couple of Aiden’s cousins she barely knows. I was thinking we could rent some bikes and go to Edgartown and enjoy the day? The lighthouses are beautiful.”
“Sure.”
So after breakfast, we set out together.
“Why don’t you do this more often?” she asks me as we pedal our pale blue and green bikes down the road. “You travel all the time, but you don’t enjoy the sights when you’re there.”
I shrug. “I send you pics of Jet.”
“But that’s for my benefit. What would you do for yourself if no one was watching?”
I turn over her question. “I’d pretend to be someone else.”