Only One Bed: A Steamy Romance Anthology Vol 1 (Romancing The Trope)

by Lucy Eden

  It had never been like this.

  Never.

  The mere touch of his hand made her want more. Need more of the comfort between them that promised sweetness shot with fun and laughter. It made her think of afternoons sat on the beach, eating fish and chips and dodging aggressive seagulls. It made her think of running through summer storms for shelter, dripping wet and yet still laughing. And it made her think of being safe; of being able to just stop and cry in his arms.

  She found herself slipping her hand into his, their fingers intertwining in a dance that ended when he tugged her towards him in one swift movement, bending his head to brush her lips with his.

  His mouth was gentle but firm against hers. A sweet kiss. One that said how much he wanted to have her here, with him, in this moment of their making. And she kissed him gently back, her hand curling up to caress his cheek as she felt herself unwind. The remnants of tension, of the anxiety that had hounded her before she’d arrived, just melting away against the warmth of their touch.

  Then one quick kiss dropped upon her forehead, where it sat, branding her skin with him, as she took her shoes off and they went into the living room.

  It was a relief to realise that she wasn’t going to have to explain her need to shuck cushions off couches before she could sit down, but she still stood, slightly awkward, until he raised an eyebrow in question. And then she sat next to him, bolt upright. All that nervousness edging its way back into the corners of her mind. She could sense him leaning back, finding that spot on his sofa that was his and she felt just so damn lost. Sat frozen like she didn’t want to curl right up against him, to lie her hand against his chest and feel the thud of his heart beneath her fingertips.

  It had been too long.

  Too long since she’d sat with someone like this – shared space on a couch together – and she wasn’t entirely certain that she knew how to do it. How did you go from sitting upright to that casual lean back, where thighs and arms kissed against each other? She didn’t even realise that she was fidgeting, her fingers dancing a tarantella against her knees until his hands reached out to partner them in the dance.

  Looking up, those blue blue eyes caught hers and she smiled shyly, loosing one hand to run it through her hair, the action allowing her to break eye contact for a moment and recentre herself. Allow a little equilibrium back into the moment.

  She breathed in. Once. Twice. And then met his gaze head on this time. She watched as he stretched out one arm along the back of the sofa and she found herself curling inwards against him, the fragility of her trust fluttering against his like a butterfly’s wings. His arm curved around her, and she raised her hand to rest against his chest, just like she’d wanted to do, and breathed out. This was okay. It was okay. They were okay.

  With his free hand, he grabbed the remote and then they settled down to watch a film with less gore than she’d feared but a hell of a lot of jumpy moments. After one particularly startling scene, she buried her face in his shoulder, half-hiccupping with laughter that was not at all in any way covering the fact that she’d squealed far too loudly for her own liking and had almost thrown the glass of water that he’d brought her at the screen.

  It was at that point, however, that he seemed to give up all pretence of watching the film. Moments of stolen glances put aside for a single finger under her chin, dancing eyes meeting her own embarrassed ones, and this time she was the one who kissed him. Who leaned up into his space and captured those laughing lips. And she’d captured his softness as well as his laughter. There’d been a split second where she felt as if she’d fall, Alice-style, into the kiss. Falling down down down until she landed in a space where her heart took up an echoey beat that reverberated around them both, where she became too big or too small to ever really fit back into the real world again. Fuck White Rabbits, this kiss was her pathway into Wonderland.

  And then it had shifted, his hands cupping her face with an urgency that seared her skin. Branded her with fire. Her hands mirrored his until they ran through his hair.

  One kiss. Two. Three.

  It was seamless, the way that they deepened the kiss. Both of them caught up in the intensity of the closeness, of the emotion of it. They paused for a moment, taking shallow breathes that ghosted, the lips were mere millimetres apart and she realised that she was halfway across him in a weird up-on-her-knees and splayed-across-his-front way, without actually straddling him. She shifted awkwardly, almost toppling over until he caught and righted her.

  “I’m a little clumsy,” she explained, brushing her hair from her face and looking away.

  He leaned in and kissed her gently. “You can be clumsy with me any day.”

  The gurgle of laughter that pealed from her made him smile, and he tugged her further onto his lap. “Wouldn’t want you to fall again.”

  She grinned and shifted ’til she was comfortably astride him, trying not to let out a gasp of delight as she felt him hard against the seam of her jeans. “I wouldn’t want to fall off this.”

  There was a momentary pause where they both seemed torn between more intense making out and just full on laughter and before she added, “God I’m bad at this.”

  “Not at all.” He pulled her closer as she put her arms around his neck. “You. Are. Perfect.” Each word punctuated with another kiss until she leaned in and stole all his sentences. There was a slight desperation in their kisses this time, a need to get as close to each other as possible, the freedom of having a private space emboldening them both. His hand skimmed the edge where her shirt met the top of her jeans, and she found herself hitching it up, before pausing and whispering in his ear so he didn’t see her blush, “Can you…?”

  “Can I what?” Each word buffeted against her neck and she gasped once, and then again as he traced the curve up to her jawline with his mouth. “Tell me, what do you want me to do?”

  The words burst from her in a rush. “I need your hands against my skin. Please. If you don’t mind–”

  But before she could even finish her request his hands were cool against her skin, teasing, coaxing little gasps and moans from her as they ran up her side and back. A questioning glance as her top ensnared his hand, and then she reached down to hoist the shirt up and over her head, laughing as it got her glasses got on the way.

  When she’d finally untangled herself enough to look back at him, her breath caught in her throat. The look in his eyes, darkened irises that drank in every single inch of her curves, made her blush and want to both cover up and take more off.

  “What?” she asked, the questioning sounding almost defensive.

  “You’re just so…” That pause seemed like a lifetime. “So beautiful.”

  “Yeah yeah, flatterer.” But she felt warm inside, even if she didn’t know how to tell him how much those simple words meant. That he wanted her, all of her, with her big arse and her big tits and her clumsy attempts at stripping.

  He laughed at – no, with – her, and she leant in to kiss his right cheek. He swallowed and she ran her hands down his front. “Your shirt. I mean, can I take it off?”

  “Of course.”

  One swift motion and it was up and over his head, and as it floated down to the floor beside them, he sat up, shifting so that they were face-to-face, chest-to-chest, the sudden skin contact warm. Almost as warm as her core as she felt his cock rock up against her. She wondered whether her longing was painted in broad strokes across her face, whether he could tell that she just wanted to lose herself in the warmth of his touch until everything blurred together in the slick heat of their longing for one another.

  His hand was tentative against her breast, a searching gaze looking for an acquiescence that he found in her eyes, before his fingers traced the edge of the bra cup, dipping in and grazing against her nipple in a way that made her cry out. Previously, she’d always felt incredibly self-conscious about how sensitive she was, the fact that she couldn’t control or moderate her reactions, but this time was different.
This time she found herself relishing being able to show him exactly how much she liked this. How much pleasure his fingers were bringing her. Because fuck if he didn’t have magic fingers that coaxed all manner of sounds from her throat, his pupils darkening when she reacted.

  And she savoured each moan and gasp he drew from her. Let that tight control over herself go until she was loose-limbed beneath his touch.

  She slipped a hand down between them to feel the hard outline of his cock through his jeans and grinned at the curse he muttered against her neck. It was affecting them both then; this all-consuming passion had hit him just as hard as it had her. There was something very satisfying in that, in the knowledge that this wanting, this need, was mutual. That it wasn’t just her losing her mind over something as simple as a make-out session on a couch.

  Another kiss, more fumbling, and then, as they both came up gasping for air, a slowing down. Not an awkwardness as such, but more a wave of shyness that crashed over them both in a sudden about-turn.

  They laughed softly, averting their gazes before sneaking looks at the other under lowered lashes.

  “I had planned on feeding you before getting into your bra.”

  She snorted. “Well, it’s never too late for food.”

  She wasn’t sure quite whether this was a rejection, or just a postponement, but when they got up to move to the kitchen, he slipped his arms around her, hugging her close, before ushering them through to the other room.

  This was intimacy of another kind, casual laughter together as they heated the food he’d prepared – tasting the sauce for the pasta, grating cheese and grabbing cutlery from drawers. It spoke of an easy comfort between them, and made her realise how much this meant to her. Cooking together, for each other, seemed such a key tenet of affection, proof of something more than people merely passing through each other’s lives.

  When they ate at the breakfast bar, she sat, legs curled up beneath her, and they talked as they ate, spooning warmth with every bite. The smear of sauce across his mouth would have been easy to wipe off, if it wasn’t for the fact that he turned to press sauced lips against the inside of her wrist, infusing that simple action with a heat that took her breath away. Red to match the lipstick she’d left on his neck earlier. She’d muttered something about mess and thrown her paper napkin at him, but she’d been secretly delighted, had wanted to revel in the mess with him.

  Even washing up together had been fun. She’d washed and he’d dried because, as she pointed out, she had absolutely no idea where anything went, but it had been an excuse to flick soap suds at him and then get chased around the kitchen in mock indignation before she let him catch her. Back to the door, arms braced either side of her until she smiled invitingly up at him and he moved in to kiss her again, his mouth stealing kisses she wanted to give him forever.

  Dates like this didn’t happen every day. She’d had enough experience to know that. To know that this comfort and ease with each other, as if they’d been together all their lives, wasn’t the usual. To be able to flit from eating to kissing to laughing to comfortable silence in a space of moments.

  When she’d gone to leave, each kiss of the afternoon a shadowy imprint on her skin, she’d almost told him how happy she was. How euphoric the afternoon had made her feel. But before she could, he’d pulled her in close and whispered how lovely she was against her lips, and how smart and funny and it was all she could do to not mount him right there by the shoe rack.

  Instead, she’d kissed him again. Lingering this time. Slow and sweet and sensual and full of all the words that they’d left unspoken. Full of the promises that she wished she could make, the blossoming trust that she had in this new thing between them.

  But when she closed the front door behind her, and looked out at the seafront, she realised with a crashing sense of foreboding that it was raining.

  Normal rain wasn’t a problem. A light shower, even a heavy shower, wouldn’t be bad. She could drive in those just fine, but this? She swallowed once, twice, as the waves crashed against the shore, the sound of pebbles being dragged back over each other again and again echoing that sound and– She shook her head.

  No. She’d worked so damn hard to move past this; the months of therapy, of developing coping strategies that were meant to help her in moments just like this one. She reached out for the coping statements that she’d worked on as a grounding tool with her counsellor and murmured them to herself over and over. “I can handle this. This will pass. The rain won’t last forever.”

  But it wasn’t until she was stood there, hand frozen on her car door handle, hair plastered to her back as the rain lashed against her skin and every rumble of thunder made her shiver, that she realised that no. She couldn’t. She really couldn’t drive in this.

  It seemed unbelievably unfair. It wasn’t even as if she’d been the one driving the first time around. No physical scars. Everyone fully recovered. But that didn’t prevent a wave of dizziness that overwhelmed her senses and threatened to cast her back into the unending loop of that night, her breathing falling back into that pattern of panic that she hated so. In and out so fast that she could feel her control unravelling.

  Stop.

  A long breath in. Held, then loosed in a barely contained rush.

  She took a second, slower, jagged breath and realised that there was salt water mingling with the rain on her face. Tears betraying her.

  A moment to make a decision. She could get in the car and sit and rock until the storm was done, to relive the sounds of that night until she became a sobbing mess; she could walk to a nearby pub, and to hole herself up in the bathroom until one of her friends could come get her; she could even give herself a ten-minute break in the corner shop across the road and then attempt the drive once more.

  Or perhaps… No. The thought of him seeing her like this, broken and bedraggled, made her want to throw up almost as much as getting in that car did. But he was sweet and kind, and if she really wanted this relationship to go anywhere, then she had to be honest with him, had to show him this. Or at least she could dash the tears from her eyes and ask him if she could wait out the storm at his.

  She shifted from one foot to another, and made a split decision.

  This time, no Schrödinger’s cat of romantic possibilities whilst waiting on his doorstep. Just fear and anxiety and more nervousness than she’d felt in aeons.

  But he opened the door, took one look at her, and gathered her inside. No questions. No “what’s happened?!” Just bundling her into the bathroom with huge fluffy towels and a hoodie that would dwarf even her curves, and a “what hot drink would you like?” question that she hiccupped out an answer to. Then the door closed behind him with a quiet shuck and she was left, just her and the bedraggled figure in the bathroom mirror, mascara painting their cheeks.

  A step forward and she forced herself to meet her own gaze, her own reflection and then, slowly, she peeled back the damp clothes that clung to her, each layer a step further and further away from the feeling of pounding rain drenching her, drowning her in memories and pain and–

  A knock at the door.

  “Hey.” Not quite a question, not quite a statement.

  “I’m okay.” Words gasped out as she felt panic threaten to engulf her. She looked down at clothes pooled around her feet, and a vague sense of bemusement at the starkness of her skin against improbably cheery underwear. Then jagged breaths as she grabbed the hoodie and pulled it up over her head, wet hair damp against the soft material, the hem falling to her knees.

  But he didn’t say anything, didn’t reply, just waited until she pushed the door open and stood there, shivering in the onslaught of her emotions. It was one thing to be at the start of a new relationship, to be open with your feelings, to show that delicate vulnerability that caused a frisson of excitement. This was not that.

  This was more than anxiety and catastrophising, this was drowning in memories and emotion and being a wreck of a person. This was not who
she was. Not who she wanted to be. Not who she wanted him to see.

  So she didn’t look at him. Didn’t look up into his face, didn’t see the pity or the concern in his eyes, didn’t even take a step out of the bathroom. She was stuck. Knee deep in quicksand that was rising fast. Opened her mouth and then closed it. Because how on earth could you explain being in this kind of state after a perfectly nice – a perfectly wonderful – date?

  She almost jerked backwards as a hand brushed against her cheek, and it paused there for a moment. Waiting. Checking. And then it lowered the hood that covered her hair and replaced it with a fluffy towel.

  There was something incredibly soothing about having her hair towel dried by him. She lent forwards unconsciously and found herself so close. His body heat warming her as slow movements, delicate deliberate movements, towel in hand against hair, helped ground her.

  The quicksand subsided.

  She took a shaky breath. And then another. And another. Small jittery breaths until she was slowly but surely breathing again. A little jagged still, sure, but in a regular rhythm that didn’t threaten to throw her off-kilter.

  The towel moved away and he replaced the hood back up over her hair, and she found herself grateful for his understanding that, right now, the last thing she wanted to show him was her tear-stained face.

  She pulled her hands up inside the sleeves, and used the corners to wipe her eyes, her cheeks, head still down, until they dropped, mascara-stained to her sides.

  “I’ve got your hot drink in the living room, if you want to come sit down?”

  A silent nod, and she followed him quietly, small little steps, shadowing his. Her hand reached out instinctively, and she felt him look behind to where she held onto the back of his shirt. Her sudden loosening of her hand and a step back placated with a smile and a nod of approval, before she held on again. And then they were in the living room, and he was curling around her. Arms enveloping, warming, protecting. The aforementioned drink in a mug so big that she cupped it in her hands like a bowl. Small sips. Small breaths. Her world slowly righting itself.