Not until Amelia said, “Get some sleep. I’ll speak to you tomorrow.”
They had so many things to discuss, but Jo knew exactly what Amelia was doing. She was giving Jo space to process whatever the hell had just happened. So she simply smiled and whispered, “Okay, goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Jo.”
The call ended, and Jo lay there in the dark, her heart still racing and her soaked fingers resting gently over her bare stomach. She didn’t know whatthathad been, but she did know that she was in deep.
And getting out wasn’t going to be easy.
Amelia staredat the screen as the call ended, her hand still wrapped tightly around her phone as though Jo’s voice may somehow whisper through again if she held it long enough. But the silence that followed was absolute. She swallowed and set her phone down on the coffee table, her fingers trembling as they released it. Her chest was rising and falling in slow, uneven breaths, like she’d just run a mile uphill without stopping, so she leaned back on the plush couch cushions and closed her eyes.
Whatthe hellhad just happened?
Her thighs were pressed together tightly beneath the robe she’d changed into when she got home, the soft black silk still clinging to her skin. She hadn’t even taken off the lingerie she’d worn at Satin. Not after seeing Jo. Not after that look in Jo’s eyeswhen she’d walked in and caught her with another woman on the bed.
Amelia had spent the rest of the night trying to pull herself back together. To…try and stay cool. And then Jo had answered the phone like that. Breathless, shaky, and undeniably aroused. She’d known straight away what Jo was doing. Or rather…what Johadbeen doing before she’d picked up.
But she hadn’t expected the honesty. She hadn’t expectedthat. Jo’s voice in her ear—panting, desperate, raw—was now etched into her mind.
I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I tried to forget. But it’s just…you. It’s always you.
Amelia pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes and forced down a groan. Her entire body throbbed with arousal, but she didn’t move. She couldn’t. She was too caught up in everything the moment had meant.
Because it hadn’t just been phone sex. It had been Jo, and it had been real.
That woman—that complicated, tender,brilliantmess of a woman—had spent over an hour talking about Lia with Amelia…and Amelia, she was just sitting there holding the mask, pretending it wasn’t burning her fingers every time she slipped it into place.
She sat forward and rested her elbows on her knees, dragging a hand through her hair. She couldn’t stop thinking about Jo’s voice. The way it cracked as she fell apart. The whimper that had slipped out before she’d tried to swallow it back.
The way she’d whispered,‘because it was you.’
Did she mean it? Did she know? No, she couldn’t possibly. Jo still thought she was chasing two women. She still thought Lia was the escape, the freedom, the release.
But it was Amelia’s mouth she moaned for whenever she was in that room. It was Amelia’s hands that had made her comein the dark. And it was Amelia’s voice in her ear…her breath against her throat.
All this time, Jo hadn’t really been falling for Lia.
She’d been falling for her.
Amelia stood up abruptly, needing to dosomethingto silence the rush of emotion building in her chest. She crossed the living room and paced into the kitchen, flicking on the kettle with more force than was necessary.
This couldn’t keep happening. She couldn’t keep showing up at Satin, she couldn’t keep hoping that Jo would look at her like she meant something more, and she couldn’t keep holding her breath every time her phone lit up with a message.
And yet…she didn’t want to stop.
She braced herself against the counter, her fingers gripping the edge tightly. Her eyes burned, her body ached, and her heart…God, her heart felt full.
She wanted Jo. Not in the dark and not with secrets. Just…Jo. Maybe that was the most terrifying part. Because if she told the truth, she could lose her forever, and if she didn’t? Then maybe she could keep her. But at what cost?
The kettle clicked off behind her, but Amelia didn’t move. She stood there, her arms braced on the counter, and her head bowed. Then, for the first time, she whispered out loud into the silence of her kitchen, “I’m in love with her.”
Those words hung in the air, dangerous but undeniable.
And with them came the smallest, most brutal truth of all.
Loving her doesn’t make this right.
Chapter Fifteen
