Page 19 of Releasing Reenie

She looked at her watch. “How’s twenty minutes? I’ll meet you out back. There’s a lake behind us.” She jabbed a finger toward the back of the university. “We can meet by the benches.”

“Okay.” My eyes narrowed slightly, remembering that she left me for almost an hour last time we were supposed to meet.

She held up her hands. “Twenty minutes. No more. I promise. But let’s exchange numbers in case either of us get waylaid.” She put her hand in her pocket and pulled out her cell, handing it to me.

I nodded, grinning that she’d read my look so well. “Twenty,” I repeated, and pulled up her messages to text myself.

“I usually do about five miles. Around the little lake, to the big lake, around that, and then back again. Can you handle that?”

Was she trying to give me an excuse to back out or was that challenge in her eyes? My grin turned into an easy smile. “Five miles is perfect.” I handed her back the phone and mine chirped the text I’d sent myself.

I watched her eyes narrow a fraction. “Good. See you in twenty.”

I wondered if she thought I’d be petty and show up late, so I gave her a reassuring nod. “Looking forward to it.”

Maureen waved a hand to usher me out of her classroom, so I left, not waiting for her to pack up her things when she clearly didn’t want me to. I just hoped she didn’t change her mind in the next twenty minutes.

I arrived first, so I stretched while I waited. She was a few minutes late but I said nothing about it, not wanting to trigger her. She obviously had a problem with Doms, or at least me as a Dominant and I was happy to keep that side of me on lockdown,for now, knowing she didn’t appreciate it.

Did that mean I stopped wanting her? Hell, no, but I wasn’t willing to push her away either. Being friends was better than nothing at all, wasn’t it?

“Thanks for waiting,” she said, acknowledging her tardiness without apology. “I really didn’t intend to be late.”

“No problem.” With my hand on my elbow which was pointed skyward, I tugged, stretching my tricep.

“I stopped by Mira’s room. Her roommate said she had left the Ranch for the night.”

I stopped stretching to look at Maureen. “Does she do this often? Do we know why she’s so desperate to graduate?”

“I don’t know, is the answer to both of those questions.”

“Hm.” We needed more information because what I knew now was worrying me.

“Ready?” she asked and I nodded.

I let Maureen take the lead because I wanted her to set the pace so she didn’t feel like she had to prove anything to me. Being on equal ground with others seemed important to her. I saw the other advantage once we took off.

Her sculpted legs were long and smooth, and her running shorts hugged her ass. I could be a gentleman and look at the gorgeous Montana scenery instead, but my feral side won out.

It was a long run, with a lot of elevation changes, but as we rounded a group of trees and the small lake came into view, Maureen picked up her pace. I followed suit until we were sprinting toward it. With my longer legs, I could have passed her, but I didn’t. I matched her but stayed ten paces behind instead.

I was rewarded with a brilliant smile when she made it to the bench by the lake and spun to watch me. And then, just as I got to a spot near her, my foot landed on a patch of damp grass and I slid.

There was some pinwheeling, some unmanly grunts, and several curses, but despite it all, I went right into the lake in a graceless splash. The water was cold, the kind of cold that took your breath away for several seconds.

When my head popped up, Maureen’s eyes were wide and her mouth open in an O of shock. I raised a hand in a wave.

“That was totally intentional,” I said, the cold and my need for oxygen making it more of a stammer.

Maureen blinked, then doubled over, clenching her knees and laughed. She was still out of breath from the sprint, so it sounded more like gasping wheezes.

Recovering from the shock, I started to swim. “It’s rather refreshing.”

More laughter. “I don’t think that’s the word I’d use.”

“Oh, downright balmy then? Come on in.”

She laughed again. “I think I’ll pass.”

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