Page 42 of Never Date A Player
My fingers slip and I’m falling away.
My mouth parts on a scream a second before a strong hand grabs my wrist and I’m being lifted like a helicopter basket. I scramble over the top and roll onto my back, heaving for air.
My gaze cuts to Lewis, his breaths slightly elevated, eyes wide, crouching on his toes beside me. He pulled me up like I weighed nothing.
“You’re not supposed to help,” I croak, my throat dry and sore. I could have seriously injured myself—so I don’t know why those are the first words out of my mouth.
Lewis reaches into his backpack, unscrews the top off a stainless steel bottle, and hands it to me. “I won’t let you fall.”
I sit up and gulp water until my throat constricts and I cough. I gasp in air and take another swig. My head clears. “I have to do it on my own,” I tell him. Doesn’t he get it? I need to save myself. That’s the point of this stupid race. To prove I can.
His jaw flexes. “I won’t let you get hurt.”
No, he’ll simply torture me with early morning wake-up calls and muscle-tearing exercises, not to mention the emotional strain his presence puts on me. Who does he think he is? Not my brother, not my father—oh right, because I don’t have either of those—and he sure as hell isn’t my boyfriend.
“You will if I want.” On an unrestrained impulse, I shove his knee.
Carelessly crouched on his toes, he’s not expecting it. His face blanks as he falls back, catching himself on one hand.
I jump up and lean over him, because apparently dehydration has made me insane. “You’re not the boss of me.” I poke him in the chest. “You’re not going to tell me what to do, or walk all over me because you’re bigger.” I realize how crazy I sound, but it doesn’t seem to stop the insanity.
Lewis’s eyes flash surprise, then anger, and then they do the worst thing imaginable: They fall to my mouth, his chest rising and falling more rapidly than it was a few seconds ago.
I lean down until our breaths mingle. He smells so good; even his breath is minty and clean. He doesn’t clear the half-inch to my lips. He waits, like he’s giving me permission to make the first move.
My gaze drops to the scar on the corner of his mouth. I know what I want. It’s what I’ve silently obsessed about ever since he told me Mira wasn’t his girlfriend, and what I’ve imagined since we first met.
I feather the scar with my lips. Puffs of Lewis’s choppy breath brushes my skin. I kiss his bottom lip, then the top, slanting my mouth over his.
His response is immediate and devastating, his tongue inside my mouth, his lips running over my chin, my neck. He could sit up, grab me, but he doesn’t, he keeps his elbows locked, holding himself up.
So I climb on top and straddle his waist.
Lewis moans, the deep sound sparking fire through my belly. Hard angles below my ass and bare legs, his length swelling against my thigh—it conspires to drive me nuts.
I grip his shoulders, run my fingers up his strong neck and through his soft hair. His mouth covers mine, deliberate, sensual, the rest of him wound tight. His body beneath me, the way he tastes and smells, and because he’s holding back when no other guy I’ve known would have, sets my body on fire. I rock my hips.
Another growl tears from his throat, but he still doesn’t grab me. I run my hands down his shoulders, his sexy forearms, to his wrists, and pull until he releases his hold on the ground. He sits forward and I place his hands on my hips.
The restraint breaks. Lewis winds his arms around me, leans me back, and runs his mouth down my throat, over my chest. “Genevieve.”
My brain halts. What?
He called me…
No one calls me Genevieve, except my mom—and Drake.
I push and shove and scoot off Lewis’s lap, frantic to get away like that day in the suite. I stare at him like he’s the wild animal and not me—the instigator of this seduction. My reactions are all wrong, but it’s unavoidable, the shock of unwanted memories so sharp, I can’t catch my breath.
Lewis holds up his hands, the question on his face obvious. What’s wrong?
“Don’t call me that.”
He looks away and breathes in deep. Rolling to his feet, he runs tense fingers through his hair, his gaze flickering to me. “We should go.” He holds out his hand.
I attempt to rise without his help, but with my sexual adrenaline doused, I’ve lost all energy, and by energy I mean my muscles have called it quits. My legs give out and I land on my ass with a soft thump. “Give me a minute… I need a minute,” I say on a shaky exhale.
Lewis slings on his backpack, squats, and helps me up, securing my weight with his arm wrapped around my back and holding my waist. I should have a problem with him helping me—it goes against everything I’m trying to do these days—but I’m too screwed up in the head to care. I freaked out because he called me by my birth name. What the hell?
