He tore his eyes open and found her smirking at him. She’d pasted on an evil one, but it didn’t match the light still flickering in her eyes.
“You really do have a stupid O face,” she shot at him before she slid away, jumped up, and was gone. She went screeching and laughing, shrieking and hollering, down the grassy hill.
He could only watch, astounded, as she flew over the lawn, her golden hair streaking out behind her, her pale skin flashing in the moonlight, lithe limbs pumping, a harmonious vision. She burst onto the thin strip of sand and dove into the warm black waters.
He’d thought about skinny dipping with her, but not like this.
He was up and running before he even fully realized that his muscles were capable of working and his legs would hold his weight. Lexi was running from him, running away. He was the one chasing. He’d been the one chasing for a very long time, even if she wasn’t fully aware. He’d keep chasing for as long as he needed to.
Because he knew that one day, and one day soon, she’d stop running.
CHAPTER 18
Lexi
It was just supposed to be sex.
Insanely good sex, but sex just the same. She wasn’t supposed to feel anything. Not the crazy stirring in her chest, not the swelling that threatened to burst her heart or explode some other vital organs. Not pleasure so intense, so right, so pure, that it was going to ruin her for anyone else after. No one before Curtis even came close. She was pretty sure that no one after him would either.
It was a depressing thought. She’d needed to detach. She’d had the insane thought that if she could just get it done and over with, she could move on. Truly, move on. Move on when she didn’t even know she needed to. She’d truly thought she could forget all about her steamy, smoking hot, jerk ass of a boss and move on to other pursuits in life.
There really weren’t supposed to be real feelings attached to it. But her hormones and heart were fucking with her. The orgasms he gave her with his sinfully skilled tongue were one thing. She’d climaxed the second she’d felt Curtis seated fully inside of her and almost bit her tongue clean off not making a sound. She knew that he didn’t know that she’d come. She wanted to safeguard it like a secret. When he’d come inside of her, she hadn’t been watching his face. She was too busy trying not to be ripped to shreds. In her heart and other areas.
It wasn’t supposed to feel like… like she was transcending time and space.
It wasn’t supposed to feel like they were made to be one person.
She’d tried everything she could to make it terrible because she needed it to be terrible.
It wasn’t terrible. Not even the seconds she made it awkward. Not the getting naked in front of a stranger for the first time. Not seeing Curtis equally as naked. Not touching him. Not letting him touch her. Not the exploring. She wasn’t supposed to enjoy his body. She didn’t want to enjoy it. She’d wanted to have sex with him to prove to herself that he was just another guy in the albeit brief string of guys before him who couldn’t satisfy her. Who couldn’t find her clit to save their life.
Yeah. Frickin. Right.
She’d loved every single second.
And that was dangerous as hell.
So she’d detached. She needed distance. She needed to cool the hell off. She needed to cut it the hell off at the pass. The feeling. The sensation. The boiling in her blood, the light blooming behind her eyes, the pain and the fire in her stomach and the new horrible lightness in her soul.
She was a fool to think Curtis wouldn’t come after her. She hit the water and swam hard. She was a good swimmer. Her parents enrolled her and her brother and sister in swimming from an early age. She hadn’t been to a pool in a while, but it was obviously a skill she hadn’t lost.
She was still no match for Curtis.
Even past her own breaths torn from burning lungs, the splashes made by her arms and legs, which were quickly becoming fiery and tired, she heard him. He neared and she could just imagine his powerful body cresting the water, and then he passed her, and she didn’t have to imagine it anymore. She stopped just to admire what a work of art he was. He was truly a vision. Big and powerful everywhere. Her entire body turned into a raging inferno when she realized how sore she already was, how her lady bits still felt like they were on fire, even below the water. He’d just been inside of her. He’d finished inside of her. That was beyond intimate. And she’d let it happen. Worse, she’d enjoyed every single sensation.