Always Remember (Memories #2)(27)
Author: Emma Hart

Lexy smiles at me, a cheeky, playful smile, and shrugs a shoulder. “Basically, I know it because I’m the shit.”

My pursed lips transform into a smile, and I let out a giggle. Trust her to the only person to take me from angry, to sad, to happy, all in the space of twenty minutes.

She exaggerates a wink to me across the table, snapping a bite of prawn cracker off.

Some things in life are priceless – and true friendship is one of them.

Chapter Eleven

JEN

“Okay, did you use my hairspray?” I yell, looking around the bathroom.

“Why would I use your hairspray?”

“For your sexy just-got-out-of-bed look.”

“So you agree I have sexy hair?”

“I’m not sure hair is something I could describe as “sexy,”” I reply dryly. “Perhaps soft, or messy, or even silky. Sexy, not so much.”

Bing leans against the doorframe, that sexy smile on his face. Yes, the sexy smile that matches his not-sexy hair. “Why? You agree the rest of me is sexy.”

“I don’t remember ever saying that. Aha!” I extract the hairspray from a cluster of cans behind my pot plant. “How did that get there?”

“Because you’re scatty?”

“I’m not scatty, Samuel. I’m just always in a rush, so forget where I put things.” I shake the can and begin spraying it on my hair. “And that was a rhetorical question. That means you weren’t supposed to answer it.” I put the spray on the sink.

Bing coughs, waving his hand in front of his face. “I know what a rhetorical question is, Jennifer. I went to school, you know.”

I turn to him, mischief in my grin. “I don’t think sex school counts.”

He saunters into the bathroom, stopping in front of me. He looks down at me, his brown eyes burning into mine, and his hot breath flutters across my cheeks. I feel my body heat up, my blood pumping around my body quicker as my heart pounds a little.

Shit the bed, he isn’t even bloody well touching me! He must be a sex god reincarnated. It’s the only explanation for his crazy ass sexual voodoo he pulls.

I swallow, and his lips curl upwards. “Sex school not necessary, Jennifer,” he whispers huskily.

I inhale, putting a hand on his chest. “Debatable.”

He takes my hand, slowly lowering it. He slides his hand onto my hip, cupping it, and leans his upper body into me.

Ice. Ice. I need ice. Someone. Anyone?

“Want me to prove it?”

Can’t breathe. Oosh. “You’re okay,” I manage, knocking his hand from my hip. “Really. You’re all right.”

He smiles slowly, his eyes shining. “Sure about that?”

“Yep. Sure. Perfectly.” I mutter, grabbing the hairspray again. “One. Hundred. Percent.” Sure I’d like it to be proven, that is.

He chuckles low, and I suppress the shiver that’s threatening to run through my body. His hand closes around mine, and he pries the hairspray from my grip. His fingers slip between mine, his palm hot, and I catch my bottom lip between my teeth. My eyes flick to our hands and how dainty mine looks encompassed in his.

His other hand rises to my face, his thumb tracing down my cheek to the dent below my ear. It ghosts along my jaw, tracing the shape of it, and finally settles on my lower lip. He tugs it from between my teeth gently, and the pad of his thumb strokes across it.

My eyes rise to his, our faces inches from each other.

“You know it’s you, don’t you?” he says softly, uncertainly.

I nod silently, unable to form any words.

“I mean it, Jen.” He cups the side of my face. “Whatever she tries to say, it’s all lies. Even if she hasn’t said it yet, I can tell you it’s a lie.” He dips his face towards me, resting his nose alongside mine. I let my eyes flutter shut, feeling the realness in the moment.

“I know,” I whisper. “But that doesn’t mean-”

“Don’t. Say. It,” he orders in a hushed voice. “I just got you, Jen. I waited for too long to have you, but I do now, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let her get in between us. I told you, didn’t I? I told you that if anyone doubts us, if you ever doubt us, to come to me.”

“Yes.”

“Then do it. Come to me, babe. Don’t let her get under your skin. She’s nothing to me. She never was anything. Not like you.”

I run my free hand along his arm until it rests on his hand cupping my cheek. “What am I, Sam?”

“Everything, Jen. You are everything. Don’t ever doubt that.”

I tilt my face slightly, pressing my lips against his. He kisses me gently, creeping his hand around to the back of my head. I let my arm drop to his waist and grip his top, bunching it in my hand. His lips move across my own slowly, words unspoken with each little kiss.

“Come on,” he says reluctantly. “We better go. If we’re not at home soon, Lexy will kick our asses.”

I sigh, stepping back from him. “I can’t believe she’s making us have a date night.”

“We could always say I’ve been suddenly struck down with a deadly disease and need immediate nursing?” The grin on his face is infectious, and although I swat his arm, I’m smiling.

“Unfortunately for you, Samuel, the nurses outfit is in the wash,” I tease, strolling past him and grabbing my coat. “So I’d have to do that particular job completely and utterly naked.” I open the front door, and hear his footsteps against the wooden floor. I turn to look at him, and he fake coughs. He puts a hand against the wall.

“Jen. It’s no good. I’m too ill to go,” he croaks.

I laugh, grab his coat, and throw it at him. “Not today, sailor.”

He follows me out the door. “You wouldn’t happen to have one of those outfits, too, would you?”

~

“If I knew all we were doing was watching a movie and eating a shit load of crap, I would have come in my onesie,” I grumble.

“You have a onesie?” Alec looks at me across the room.

“Of course I do. It has penguins on it. Why are you surprised?”

“I have no idea.”

I chuck some popcorn across the room at him. “Living in the city has given you an attitude, surfer boy.”

“Oh, and it hasn’t given you one?”

“I always had an attitude. It was just highly supressed in Devon. Lilac Bay wouldn’t be able to handle my badass.”