Avoiding Temptation (Avoiding 3)

Lexi brushed off Chyna and stood. She made a full circuit of the living room before making up her mind about what she wanted to say.

“You tell me all of this—you say that I run from what I want, that I deserve more, but I don’t know what else I could do to make that a reality. I’ve pushed myself completely into this relationship. I moved to Atlanta. We moved in together. We’ve gone through highs and lows, ups and downs, sideways and back ways—”

“I don’t need to hear about your sex life,” Chyna said, arching an eyebrow suggestively.

Lexi chuckled but continued on, “I’m just saying that I have tried everything and more to make this relationship work. Doesn’t that prove that’s what I want? Doesn’t that prove that I deserve to have some semblance of peace and happiness?”

“You’ve put everything into this relationship?” Chyna asked softly.

“Yes!” Lexi cried, exasperated.

“Then, just answer my one question,” Chyna said, moving to stand directly before Lexi. “Why haven’t you been able to let Jack go? Through all of this…he’s still here.”

“I’ve let him go. We’re just friends.”

“He told you he loved you and wanted to take you home with him. I don’t have friends like that.”

“Are you trying to push me toward Jack? He got married! He married Bitch Bekah!”

“And now, he’s divorcing her! I’m not saying that you have to run back to Jack…again. I’m just telling you to think about your life, Alexa. I’m telling you to be a grown-up and realize that some of what you’re going through might just be your own f**king fault! You might love Ramsey and have put everything into this relationship, but you’re only fooling yourself when you keep saying that you and Jack are just friends,” Chyna said, pushing Lexi’s shoulder in a rage. “I think that’s what pisses me off the most. You can have it, have all of it, what everyone searches for, but you do everything in your power to fight it!”

Lexi sagged visibly, feeling the weight of Chyna’s words. “I don’t know how to do anything else.”

Pushing open the door as quietly as possible, Lexi eased into the apartment she shared with Ramsey. She had bumped up her flight from New York and taken the red-eye back that night. Chyna had tried to get her to stay longer, but Lexi knew where she needed to be tonight. She had taken off the weekend to work with Chyna on wedding plans, but Lexi really needed to be here, working on things with Ramsey.

She needed to see him, to touch him, to hold him, to remember why she loved him so damn much. She didn’t normally need that reminder. She didn’t have to be around him at all times to feel those three-and-a-half years envelop her like a blanket. But tonight—well, tonight was different. Chyna had made her all topsy-turvy, and she wanted to be right-side up again. She wanted her initial gut reaction, the one she had been saying over and over again for three years, to be instinctual, to always be at the tip of her tongue. She didn’t want to think about anything else. That was what she wanted.

In that moment, she didn’t care if she was lying to herself about it.

She shut and locked the door behind her and then tiptoed upstairs through the darkened apartment. She had left her bags in her car since she didn’t want to have to haul them upstairs in the middle of the night. All she wanted was to see Ramsey.

Her feet carried her to the end of the hallway. She stood in front of the closed door to their bedroom and took a deep breath before pushing it open.

Ramsey was lying on his side of the bed, curled in, facing where her body normally lay next to him. He looked so calm with the covers falling half off his bare muscular torso. She smiled at the familiar picture—one that she had grown accustomed to and taken for granted. She got to sleep next to him every night. Even when she staggered into bed, exhausted, she still felt the warmth of his embrace and the acceptance between them. Those were the things that mattered.

Lexi easily stripped out of everything but her underwear and crawled into bed, next to him. He didn’t even stir as the bed dipped under her weight. Moving forward, she pressed her chest against him and then her whole body. Without even opening his eyes, his arm came around her, holding her gently in place against his body.

She trailed her hand up the definition in his six-pack, to his built chest, up his neck, and then to the strong jawline. At first, her lips landed on his lightly, but then her increasingly demanding kisses began rousing him from slumber.

His fingers digging into her back was the first indication that he had awoken, and then his lower half pressed into her before finally his lips parted to let her tongue inside his mouth. They kissed passionately, desperately, as she fed him every emotion locked away in her body. He didn’t hold back either as he began a slow grind against her. She could feel him stiffening through the thin layer of clothes separating them.

“Baby,” Ramsey growled against her mouth, rolling her over and pressing her firmly into the bed.

“Mmhmm…”

“You’re home early.”

“I needed you,” she said, giving him the most honest answer she had.

She needed the physical connection now more than ever before. She needed the reminder tonight that she was making the right choice.

“I love to hear that,” he groaned. He spread her thighs and eased down between them, continuing to grind against her.

“Make love to me,” she all but whimpered as his c**k pushed against the thin material of her underwear.

Removing their last layer of clothes, Ramsey settled back down between her legs and took her for his own. She felt him pull back and meet her again and again, and she tried to keep her mind in the here and now.

This was what she wanted. She wanted to have this feeling, to know he was hers and she was his. To feel him and know that she was going to have this for the rest of her life…that this was what she wanted for longer than that.

She could feel him straining to release, and her walls were tightening around him, quaking at his measured thrusts.

She loved this man.

She f**king loved this man.

They might have their problems, but every couple had problems. She could get past everything that had happened. She could deal with the problems they had faced, like she had been since the beginning. Because here and now…was the right decision.

She wasn’t going to fight him on this.