Wrapped Up in You - Talia Hibbert Page 0,31

a good friend to me, Will.”

“I’ve been halfway around the world,” he replied. “I send you pictures, and I don’t call too much because I know you hate it. I’ve been letting you push me away, push us all away, and I shouldn’t have.”

“That’s not true,” she insisted, and it seemed urgent that he believe her. That he see who he really was to her, what he’d done for her. “You’re the kind of friend who respects me enough to give me the space I need, and loves me enough to stay present at the same time. You didn’t overwhelm me, didn’t put all your worry on me when I had enough of my own—but you spoke to me every day. You sent me sunshine through the phone. You made it your mission to keep me smiling, and I have to tell you, Will—there have been days, over the years, when your messages were the only thing that kept me smiling. Don’t dismiss that. Don’t belittle it. Because it—it meant the world to me.”

Her words grew quieter as she trailed off, her breaths cold and unsteady. She was kind of shocked by how much she’d just said, but the thing was, she couldn’t ever let him think badly of himself, not when it was in her power to disagree. Not even if it meant speaking with the kind of emotional honesty that usually made her want to crawl into the ground.

Right now, she felt as if she might say almost anything to keep this look on Will’s face—this dawning pleasure, this aching affection. This. Fucking. Look.

He gazed down at her the way he had this morning, as if he’d give her the moon if she could bring herself to ask for it. Then he said, raising his voice over the wind, “Abbie. Tell me not to kiss you right now.”

She found she had conveniently lost the power of speech.

* * *

A sober little voice in the back of Will’s head told him that standing so close to Abbie, wanting her so obviously, wasn’t right at all. But that voice was very, very quiet under the roar of alcohol and adoration.

She looked so pretty in the cold, with her cheeks and her nose gleaming, and her glasses dotted with moisture. And she sounded so perfect, telling him their kiss wasn’t a mistake, that she’d meant it, that she’d had a reason—

The very best reason.

“I kissed you because I knew it wouldn’t hurt.”

He was only going to hurt himself, courting rejection like this, but still, he said the words. “Abbie. Tell me not to kiss you right now.”

She didn’t. She didn’t. Instead, she released this shaky little breath and then oh dear fucking God she closed her eyes.

So he kissed her, and it was like a firework show in his gut.

It wasn’t the first time they’d done this, not technically, but oh God, it was. Because two years ago, when they’d touched almost by accident, she’d looked immediately horrified, and Will—Will had been fucking furious. Abbie was black-and-white, Abbie was loyal, Abbie kept her word and was a stickler for the rules—so if she’d kissed him while she was married, even the teeniest tiniest bit, it had meant things were worse than he’d thought.

And he’d already thought things were pretty fucking bad.

So, yeah. His memory of that midnight kiss was eighty percent rage and twenty percent deadly frustration, which was the name he used for that feeling when you wanted to kick someone’s husband in the nuts until they threw up their own spleen. But this? This couldn’t be further from the last time. It couldn’t be any more different. It couldn’t be any better.

This was Abbie, pressed up against him like she’d crawl inside him if she could, her body warm and soft, temptation wrapped in comfort wrapped in sin. This was Abbie, one of her thumbs stroking the top of his right ear, this tiny millimetre back and forth as if she couldn’t stop herself from touching him, from adoring him in the same tightly restrained way she did almost everything. This was Abbie, her mouth desperate and uncertain on his, the hibiscus scent of her hair swallowing him up like a heavenly cloud, until she suddenly pulled back and gasped, “Oh God, sorry, I’m so sorry—”

“Nope,” he said, and pulled her close again. “You do not get to be sorry. I kissed you. So whatever guilty moment you’re having at kissing someone you don’t care about, I would love