It’s hard to believe how fast time flies by as you get older. Adam and I have had two wonderful years together as husband and wife and four years together as an official couple, but it seems like only two minutes since he turned up on my doorstep on that rainy night to profess his love for me.

Oh, the way he looked when I opened the door. It still sets my pulse racing when I think about it. His rain-soaked hair almost black, slicked back from his gorgeous face. A face I had loved for so long. The transparency of his shirt where the droplets had seeped through to his skin meant that the outline of his pecs and abs were clearly and mouth-wateringly visible. The passion in his eyes as he admitted that he had loved me all along but had just… never realised it. It’s still a little hard to fathom that this is my life now. That I’m with the man I’ve loved for what feels like forever. Sometimes I get scared that I’ll wake up and it will be one of those Bobby-Ewing-in-the-shower situations and none of it will have really happened. But nevertheless, I still shiver when I think back to the night and the following morning that changed my life forever…

* * *

I awoke with a splitting headache. I was staring into the blackness of my lonely bedroom. All the crying and the wine from the night before had really taken their toll. It had been such a difficult night to bear. I’d finally had to let go of all hopes of Adam and I ever becoming more. He had met someone who sounded perfect for him, and it was clear he was besotted. It was time to move on regardless of how agonizing I found it.

I didn’t dare move my head lest the pain should worsen and so I lay as still as was humanly possible, intent on remaining there all day if I had to. Alcohol and strong emotions aren’t a great combination, as I had discovered to my peril. And wow. What a powerful dream I’d had. Adam turning up on my doorstep like that to tell me he actually did love me.

So bloody cruel. If my subconscious were a person I would have punched it in the face for doing that to me.

I had discovered throughout my life that the subconscious could be so very damned evil. Mine appeared insistent on taunting and teasing me with what I could never have. On the one hand I wished I could erase the memories of the dream from my mind, but on the other I clung to them with both hands, desperate to know—for a short while at least—how it would feel to be loved by Adam as much more than just his best friend.

A snuffly snore and movement to my side made me jump, and I almost gave myself a heart attack as I twisted my throbbing head around to the direction of the noise. I reached down and flicked on my bedside lamp.

Shit! It’s Adam! He’s in my effing bed! Oh shitty shitty shit! It wasn’t a dream? It was real? Nonononono. Not possible. Surely not possible?

I sat bolt upright and yanked the sheet up to cover my naked breasts, inadvertently uncovering Adam’s bare torso. I was ogling his delicious sculpted abs when my actions caused him to stir and wake. He gazed up at me silently for a few moments with a half-smile tugging at his lips. I presumed he was trying to figure out where he was.

I waited, holding my breath and wondering how bad the fallout was going to be. I expected him to clamber out of bed and scurry around grabbing his clothes, apologising and chastising himself for his utterly ridiculous mistake. But instead he reached up and trailed his fingertips down my arm, leaving shivers in his wake.

“Hey… you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Lil,” he whispered tenderly, his brow furrowing in concern.

“I… I… I… I think maybe… Maybe we should’ve known better than to have let that happen.”

He chuckled as he pulled himself up to prop his head on his hand. “Who do you think you are, Jim Diamond?”

I whacked him on his naked, bulging bicep… I seriously have it very bad. “This is no laughing matter, Adders. Apparently we had… sex last night. Sex!” My voice went up an octave as my eyebrows lurched upwards.

He frowned and pulled himself up to face me. “There’s no apparently about it. And yes, I remember it vividly. It was amazing. Didn’t you think so?” He leaned and kissed my bare shoulder, and I closed my eyes to relish the feel of his lips on my skin.

I sighed deeply, almost in a swoon, but then fell back to earth with a thudding bump. “But… what the hell do we do now? This…” I waved my hand back and forth between us. “This changes everything,” I whispered as my stomach knotted and I waited for reality to sink in. Waited for him to bolt.

He cupped my cheek and ran his thumb tenderly over my heated skin. “Well, I certainly hope it changes everything. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to do it again. And again… and again… and again just to be sure it was as wonderful as I remember.” His luscious mouth turned up at one corner, and the urge to kiss him was almost overwhelming. But I reined myself in just in time.

His sultry, husky tone made me swallow hard. Was this for real? Was it April first and I’d forgotten? Should I pinch my skin to see if I would awake from yet another cruel dream?

I took a deep, calming breath in the hope that my heart wouldn’t cease to function, seeing as my brain clearly had. “I don’t understand. Why? Why now? Why me?”

Pulling himself to his knees, he slipped both hands into my hair and the sheet fell from his waist to reveal his thick erection. My gaze was drawn to his crotch and my nostrils flared. He ducked his head to meet my eyes again, a knowing grin on his handsome, stubbled face. Well, I had just been staring at his penis.

“What don’t you understand, Lily? That I love you? That deep down I’ve loved you since the day we played tennis as teenagers, you fell on top of me, and we shared that intense moment, remember? Or is it that you don’t understand how I was too terrified to let myself admit I had feelings for you in case I lost the best friend I’ve ever had?” His eyes pleaded with me to understand—to get it. But my heart and my brain were in some kind of denial. Or conflict. I wasn’t sure, but they were definitely not on the same page.

His mouth brushed over mine gently and confusion continued to niggle at my brain. Until his kiss gained fervour and he moaned into my mouth. The resulting sound was one of desperation, and I lifted my hands to clutch his forearms.

This was really happening.

After pulling the bed sheets away from my naked body he laid me down and covered me with his own, settling himself between my thighs. I gasped as shivers of delight travelled the full length of my spine, and I ran my fingertips down the smooth skin of his back.

He rested his forehead on mine and gazed at me through hooded eyes. “Let me put your mind completely at rest so that I can make love to you again, okay? Listen to me. Lily, I love you. I’m in love with you. What can I do to make you believe me? I’ll do anything. Whatever it takes. And if you love me too, then I want to make you mine. What do you say?”

My heart at this point was willing to surrender, but my head was still in what-the-feck? mode. Eve had been gone for so long now, but it hadn’t been me he turned to when he was ready to move on. “It’s just so… sudden, Adam. Last night you were out with Emily and—”

“And all I could think about was you.”

Really? Oh my goodness! “But… but I’ve loved you for so long and you didn’t feel the same. And so you can surely understand why this doesn’t seem real to me.”

He pulled back and something inside me—maybe my subconscious again—bellowed that I should grab him and never let him go.

He moved to sit astride my naked body and gazed down at me; a groove formed between his brows. “Lily, I sat there the whole night playing and replaying conversations you and I have had since Eve passed away. Thinking over situations and experiences we’ve shared throughout our lives. The fact that each and every time anything good has happened… or bad, come to think of it… you were the one person I wanted to tell.” He rubbed his hands over his face and back through his messy hair. “Losing Eve was…” Sadness clouded his eyes. “It broke me. But you… you fixed me, Lily. You glued my fractured heart back together and made me realise that I could love again. It just so happens that it’s turned out to be you that I love.”

My eyes welled with tears and I let them spill over and trickle down my cheeks into my hair.

He moved again, this time to lie beside me, and propped his head on his hand as he trailed his fingertips down my chest and rested his hand over my heart. “You are my missing piece. You. Can you forgive me for only realising this now and for wasting so much time? So many years have gone by when I could have been with you.”

I closed my eyes and let his words sink in, soul deep.

“Lily, please look at me. I feel like you’re shutting me out. Like you’re telling me no, and that scares the shit out of me,” he whispered.

When I opened them and locked my gaze on him, his eyes were glassy and my heart ached. “I’ve loved you since we were six, Adam. I never thought… never imagined I’d get this chance to know what being with you feels like. And I’m scared.” My voice cracked and my lip trembled. “I’ve never given my heart to anyone because I only ever loved you. That’s why there have been so many meaningless relationships. No one could match you. No one could make me feel the way I felt about you… feel about you. What if you realise in a month’s time that you’re wrong? What then?” What if I change my whole life for you now and I give up London to stay in Scotland with you… but then you realise you don’t love me at all? What will I be left with? I thought, afraid to utter the words aloud.

He reached out to caress my cheek once again. “That won’t happen. I promise you it won’t. And yes, I do understand. I’m angry with myself for wasting so much time. For not taking the risk and kissing you at the tennis court that day.” He sighed and closed his eyes as if remembering the same incident that had stuck with me for so long. When he opened them again, a look of determination took over his features. “But… I’m guessing that it maybe just wasn’t our time back then. Maybe if we had got together all those years ago, we wouldn’t have lasted? I don’t know. But this feels right. To me it does anyway. But we’ll take things slow. Your pace. Just… please give me a chance to show you that I’m serious about us. Please?”

I had waited all of my adult life to hear those words. And despite the fact that the offer of an amazing new career in London had been given to me on a silver platter, the last thing I wanted was to take things slow. I wanted to rush full pelt, head first, straight in at the deep end into a relationship with this wonderful, kind, sexy, funny man. My career had always been my saving grace, and I wasn’t sure how I would adapt to that not being the case if I gave in to my feelings. But taking things slow wouldn’t sate the passion inside of me; the deep burn of love that had marked my soul for so many years.

“No, Adam. I don’t want to take things slow. I trust you. Make love to me again and make me yours.”