Goddamn that felt good. I fought the urge to sink into his dominating hold.
‘Fallon, stop,’ he said, firmly. ‘I’m not leaving you here in a flat with no heating and no electricity. Even if the dark wasn’t a problem for you, you can’t stay here in the middle of winter. You’ll freeze.’
His tone had lost all its usualOliverness.No sarcastic lilt softened his words, only the truth which some part of mybrain knew. It was the other stubborn part that wasn’t being entirely logical about this situation.
‘So, we’re gonna pack you a bag of clothes and stuff you’ll need for a night or two, then I’m gonna take you to my house, okay?’
‘Y-your house?’
Oliver had staunchly refused to let me anywhere near his house. He protected that address like a child hides halloween candy.
He inhaled sharply. ‘Yeah, my house.’
Without letting me think any longer on what that meant, he dropped his grip on my head and leant down to pick up the duffel bag and flitted around my room packing various items. Never once letting go of my hand.
34
OLIVER
Ten minutes later, I managed to wrangle Fallon into my car with the heating on full blast. Her fingers were frozen around mine, making the organ in my chest thud violently against my ribcage. Every time she shuddered from the cold, or the dark, I wanted to tug her to my chest and not let her go. My self-control should be studied because I deserved a fucking medal when it came to this woman. I’d kept my distance in the last couple of weeks. I’d done as she asked and kept things professional. Even when she asked probing questions in that soft voice that gutted me, I gripped the sofa cushions until my knuckles turned white until my need for her died down.
She wanted to pretend that night didn’t happen. Fine. I could do that. I’d had years of practice when it came to women.
Like she had been doing since she first barrelled into me on the street, Fallon continued to surprise me.Shewanted to pretend it never happened. The best goddamn sex of my life… and she wanted to act like we could go back to normal. But I’d done it.
And I’d continue to do it.For her.
My pulse sped up when I considered the lengths I would go to for her. And tonight held all the proof you needed to see I’d lost my mind.
When she called me, I was halfway through eating a frozen lasagna my brother had shoved in my freezer, and watching Blue Planet. But even the dull soothing tones of David Attenborough and hypnotic ocean waves couldn’t take my mind off her.
My night hadn’t followed its usual script; not two hours earlier I’d received a call from one of my old teammates, Jason, one of the few that still kept in contact with me. He’d started talking about a fundraiser that was happening in a couple of weeks. He’d extended the invite, thinking that I could get back into the rhythm of things again, maybe smooth talk my way back on the field. The thing with Jason, and most of my teammates, is that whilst they knew that most of the tabloid stuff was bullshit, I had punched their coach. A man many of them viewed as family. They probably could have forgiven the drugs. But punching Cole? That was a hard line. Jason was one of the guys who embodied the essence of easy going. It ran through his veins like water flows through rivers. Nothing ever bothered him. So, occasionally, he’d flick a text to me asking how I was doing and generally checking in.
He wasn’t a close friend, but I didn’t have many of those, so I’d take what I was given.
As I ate dinner and watched whales splash around in the water. My phone had vibrated on the coffee table in front of me. Seeing Fallon’s name pop up made my body lurch towards the device so quickly the plate sitting in my lap tumbled to the floor, splashing food everywhere, leaving red stains and bechamel sauce on my carpet.
She’d only utter a few words and I knew something wasn’t right.
Nyctophobia—Excessive fear of the dark.
I’d googled it after her panic attack a couple of weeks ago. It’s a fear you expect in children whose imagination runs wild with unrealistic possibilities of monsters under the bed. But the wide eyed terror I’d seen exude from Fallon wasn’t some childish fear. I’d seen her try to control it when the light flickered. Seen the beginnings of what I knew was anxiety blink into those rich brown eyes.
Hearing her voice on the phone, small and terrified, made me spring into action. I’d barely hung up the phone when I’d flown out of the house to drive over to her flat.
‘This is where you live?’ Fallon leaned forward in her seat to gaze out of the windscreen.
‘This is it.’ I swung my car into a private underground garage I paid a pretty penny for.
I got out of the car and opened the boot to lift out her bag. I’d rushed around her room flinging various items of clothing into it without looking at them; how this woman found anything in her life was a mystery. She was a bundle of chaos wrapped in a curvy, sassy coating.
I slammed the boot closed, finding Fallon by the back door bouncing on the balls of her feet, glancing awkwardly around. The colour still hadn’t returned to her face. I could see the lingering effects of her anxiety. Her fingers tapped incessantly on her thighs, and eyes darted from one side to the other, like they were searching for danger.
I had the urge to pull her close and tell her everything was going to be okay. That she could stay here as long as she wanted and that I’d do anything to make her feel comfortable and safe. For some guys that urge wouldn’t be unusual, but for me…
I might as well have turned the world on its axis and saidthat I preferred to watch cricket over football. I suppressed a shudder.
Fucking cricket.
