Page 58 of Little Devil

“Xan!” I screech, squeezing my eyes shut when he almost clips the side of a Bentley, but he just laughs some more and keeps going.

He drives like he’s late for a dentist appointment, reckless and fast and fucking stupid, and even though I’ve gotten through several rides in the car with him without dying, I still fear for my life every single time.

“Why can’t you just drive in a straight line and wait your turn like a normal person?”

“Where’s the fun in that?” he jokes, reaching into the cup holder to pass me an iced coffee with a purple straw.

“Did you ask for extra syrup?”

“And crushed ice instead of cubed,” he adds, smiling to himself when he catches me slurping it up like a coke fiend.

He likes buying me treats I can’t have and I like having them, mostly because they taste good but also because fuck it, what my mother doesn’t know won’t hurt her.

“I bet if you sucked my dick like that I could come before we get there.”

I choke on my drink and cut my eyes to his, quickly grabbing a napkin to wipe the spit from my chin. “That’s not a dare, right?”

He snorts and shakes his head at me, casually resting his hand on my lap to run his thumb over my thigh. I’m wearing a tight pair of skinny jeans and the faded black hoodie I stole from him the other day, my hair tied up in a thirty second bun and my face free of makeup. I wouldn’t usually look like this outside of the privacy of my own bedroom, but Xan has this weird ability of making me feel beautiful no matter what I wear. I’m pretty sure I could walk around with a brown paper bag shoved over my head and he’d still tell me how bad he wants to hold me down and fuck me stupid.

We get to the beach and he chooses a spot in the almost empty parking lot, then he climbs out to open the back door for Bear. He smiles at me while he grabs what he needs and I chew my lip, nervously running my finger over the strap on my camera. He told me to bring it and I told him I would, but now I’m feeling a little unsure.

No one’s ever taken an interest in me the way he does and I don’t know whether to love it or hate it.

The passenger side door suddenly opens and I look up, finding Xan standing over me with his arm resting on top of the door frame. He eyes me and I clear my throat, climbing out to hold my hand out to him.

“Can I walk him?”

He hides a grin at my obvious distraction tactic and hands me the leash, falling in line beside me while we walk down to the beach. “How fast can you run?”

“What?”

He takes my camera and opens his mouth to explain, but then Bear yanks me forward and makes a beeline for the ocean like a bat out of hell. I scream and stumble to keep up with him, tightening my grip on the leash to ensure I don’t lose this fucking dog. He pulls me along to the edge of the water and I’m officially panicking, attempting to dig my heels into the sand to get him to slow down, but it doesn’t work. He’s too damn strong and my stupid legs won’t move fast enough.

“Oh, shit!”

“Baby, just let him go,” Xan calls from behind me, and I drop the leash to the ground, leaning over with my hands on my knees to catch my breath.

He appears at my side and I feign a glare, smacking his abs when I catch him laughing his ass off.

“You’re not fucking funny,” I bite out, straightening up to snatch my camera from his hand.

“I tried to warn you,” he chuckles, heading over to Bear to unclip the tangled leash from his collar.

As soon as it’s off, he sprints along the shoreline to get his paws wet and then ventures in a little deeper, swimming right into the ocean until the water reaches his neck. We walk along the beach to keep an eye on him and I lift my camera to take his picture, grinning when I realize how good he looks with the sun setting on the horizon behind him. I feel Xan watching me the entire time but do my best to pretend he’s not there, taking about a hundred pictures from every angle I can manage. We let him do his thing for a while and then Xan whistles to call him back, sighing when he runs out of the water and soaks us both with a full body shake.

“Thanks, man,” he mutters, crouching down beside him to clip the leash back on.

I laugh quietly and take a picture of his back, biting my lip to hide my enjoyment while I snap a few of the two of them together. He stands up to his full height and I back away from them, secretly loving the way he walks towards me with his purple hair falling over his forehead and the chain wrapped around his hand. My camera likes him almost as much as I do, and I already know my followers are gonna lose their shit when I post these on my account later. He keeps moving towards me and I keep moving back, but then he steals the camera from my face and holds it out to the side.

“Hey.”

“Kiss me and you can have it back,” he teases, leaning over me to brush his nose against mine.

I shake my head at him and press my lips to his, blinking when I hear the click of my camera on my left.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Showing you how happy you look right now,” he says simply, turning the camera around to show me the picture he just took of us together.

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