Page 63 of Wrecked By You

Turning away from him, I closed my eyes, hoping he’d move in and hold me.

He didn’t.

Chapter21

Johannes

Stay in the safe zone.

I wokewith Ella draped over me, her leg thrown over mine, her pussy fused to my hip, and her midnight tresses spilling all over my chest. I’d had a dreamless night, a minor miracle and a major relief. Trying to explain why I woke up drenched in sweat and panting like I’d run the two-hundred-meter sprint wouldn’t have been easy.

I shouldn’t have let her stay, but after the way we’d left things last night, I didn’t want her to think I was punishing her for being curious. Instead, I punished myself by sleeping beside her and risking a nightmare and all the questions that would come with that.

The biggest punishment was lying next to her all night and not touching her.

It was my penance for being a coward.

“Ella.” I eased her off me, and she let out this adorable sound, a cross between a purr and a moan. She stretched and the sheet slipped.

Goddammit.

My eyes locked on her tits, the rosy nipples erect from the air-conditioning. My mouth watered, eager to taste her, to suck the hard buds into my mouth, to explore her smooth skin with my hands and my tongue.

To make her mine.

Her eyelids fluttered, glazed at first, then clearing as she focused in on my face. She smiled. “Good morning.”

A shift occurred in my chest, a dangerous fluttering, a yearning to wake up beside her every morning and have her say those words to me.

I shut it down.

“It’s five o’clock. We should get going. You don’t want to be late for Chloe.”

I went to get out of bed. Her hand on my shoulder stopped me.

“Wait.”

I faced her. She stretched out her arms, beckoning to me. “Come here.”

“Ella.” I sighed.

“Johannes, don’t make me morning-mad. You wouldn’t like morning-mad Ella.”

She was teasing me. I saw it in the twinkling in her eyes, the faint pout to her lips, the way she cocked her head to the side, the move steeped in challenge.

I succumbed. Lying down beside her, I let her put her arms around me and pull me close. God, she felt like warmth on a winter’s night, and despite my reservations, I snuggled closer. Not since Sadie had I lain beside a woman the morning after sex. Of course, I now knew that the intimacy we’d shared and the love she’d showered on me had all been a lie.

Was Ella lying? Or was the way she tightened her hold on me and kissed the top of my head real?

Trust. Such a fragile commodity. So easily shattered.

Not so easily rebuilt.

“I have an idea.”

“It’s too early for ideas.”

“Not this one.”