I pressed my hands to my sides and slid them down from my ribcage to my hips, imagining they were Lucas’s. I wondered what he would be like in bed. I thought he would continue as he always was; considerate and kind.
I kept my movements soft and slow as I ran my hands over the tops of my thighs, then across my stomach and up to my nipples. A breathy moan coasted over my lips. I pressed myeyes shut and imagined it was Lucas’s work-roughened fingers playing across my chest.
Biting my lip, I reached over to my bedside table and pumped lube into my palm. Trailing one hand down to my cock, I coated the fingers of the other in slickness and reached back.
Lucas hadn’t been with a man before. I wanted to be his first. I wanted to teach him how to touch another man, how to bring pleasure with his hands and mouth, how to press his fingers inside.
I groaned as I traced circles on the sensitive skin, not pressing in yet. I wanted Lucas to learn how to be with someone of the same sex with me, to learn how to bring me to the edge and hold me when I tipped over it.
I pressed a finger inside to the first knuckle and pumped my other hand over my cock. I hoped Lucas would want to top. I didn’t mind doing it the other way, but I wanted to watch his eyes widen with wonder as he slid into me. I wanted his hips to thrust as he chased his pleasure, feel his hands grabbing as he spiralled with release.
Easing another finger in alongside the first, I arched my back and gripped myself tighter. I wondered if Lucas would like watching me do this, if he’d lay beside me as I sought my own pleasure.
The thought of his eyes on me – seeing me, always seeing me – was enough to hurl me over the edge. My orgasm ripped through me.
I tried to drift, to remain in the wonderful delusion that Lucas was here, but an aching hollowness fell over me as my hands stilled. It was wonderful to imagine Lucas touching me while my orgasm built, but the truth stormed in and shattered the dream too quickly as the pleasure faded.
I reached for the tissues on my bedside table and hurriedly cleaned myself. I pulled on my pyjama bottoms and a well-worn T-shirt from the brewery. Then I curled onto my side and pressed my face into my pillow.
Screwing my eyes shut, I breathed deep against the tears burning hot behind my eyelids. I knew how monumentally stupid it was to fall for a straight guy, but I couldn’t seem to help it. Lucas might not be good at sticking up for himself and often finished a day of vet duties smelling like every animal he’d come into contact with, but his negatives weren’t enough to deter me from wishing he would look at me for one second and feel anything other than the warmest friendly regard.
I’d thought it a curse that so many people looked at me and only saw someone hot, someone they wanted to have sex with. Now the curse had morphed. I had someone in my life I desperately wanted to kiss and touch and be with, someone who saw the best parts of me, and all they wanted was to be my friend.
I turned my face further into the pillow and breathed into its musty warmth. Friendship with Lucas was wonderful. I wanted more, but I was used to restraining myself. I’d lived almost a whole lifetime without the touch I craved from those I loved, and this was just another version of that.
I could live with this. Lucas would be my friend and nothing more. I’d enjoy the closeness with him and ignore the howling inside of me demanding more.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
LUCAS
Finishing work had become my favourite part of the day since moving to Doughnut just under three weeks ago.
It had been a time I’d dreaded when I lived in London, especially while Aster was away. At work, I was competent and efficient, I felt valued and time flew as different animals padded through my examination room door.
After work, I’d returned to the house I’d shared with my mum, who had devised creative ways to show off her readiness for her adult son to move out. When Aster was in London my evenings were enlivened by seeing him, but while he was on Doughnut I’d sat in my bedroom alone, waiting for his next call while Mum practised her trumpet in the next room.
Since moving to Doughnut, I wouldn’t say my social life was thriving, but I certainly had friends beyond the bestie who stole half my cookie when we were five and had been stealing significant portions of my food ever since. Bonnie and Joshua regularly invited me for delicious meals at their cottage, even when Callum and Aster couldn’t make it down for undisclosed reasons I was later assured were humping related. Captain Errolnodded at me when I walked past his boat and Louisa demanded my opinions on the latest TV shows she was bingeing.
My whistling bounced off the walls of the narrow alley as I locked up the surgery. All of that was good, but something even better painted a smile across my face each time I said goodbye to my last patient of the day.
Kit.
Depending on when I finished work, he would be chatting with customers in his bookshop or scowling as he counted the day’s takings, humming as he stirred something on the stove upstairs or snuggled up with Kat and a puzzle on the sofa.
I’d finished early enough today that Kit would still be down in the bookshop. I exchanged casual greetings with the people I passed during the short walk between the surgery and Island Books, but none of them waylaid me to ask for out-of-hours pet advice. Word spread quickly on Doughnut. I suspected the gossip about the new vet was that if you bothered him when you didn’t have an appointment, the nice man from the bookshop would ask you to go away with such gentle persistence that you had no choice but to obey.
The bell over the door rang as I stepped inside. I’d just cleared the dinosaur/dragon window display when Kit rushed over from behind the counter and threw himself into my arms. Being the person he was least afraid to be physically affectionate with gave me a weird sense of pride.
‘I love it when you’re happy to see me,’ I mumbled into today’s scarf; dark purple with tiny yellow stars. Even my continuing inability to say normal things around Kit couldn’t dampen my good mood. I looped my arms around his waist and breathed deep of his bookish-tinged warmth.
‘I have incredible news,’ Kit said close to my ear.
He’d turned his head to speak. As he stepped back, his lips brushed across my cheek.
My stomach swooped. In a good way. Like when you drive a car over the top of a hill and for a second you feel like you’re flying.
For no known reason, my cheeks flamed. My heartbeat kicked into overdrive and sweat prickled down my spine.
