Page 49 of Beneath the Surface

“They did.” Her smile grows. “You don’t really blend in.”

“I’m glad you came by.” I lean against the doorframe, my eyes glancing behind her. “Where’s Chase?”

“He’s with Susan.”

My heart stutters. “Susan, the babysitter?”

She nods, and it’s in this moment—in the way her confirmation is a straight shot to the chest, that I realize how attached I’ve become. I shouldn’t be upset about Susan being back.

But I fucking am.

I open my mouth to respond, but the words stick on the back of my tongue, my brain registering her words. It’s just her. My cock twitches and I straighten off the frame, stepping into her, the heat of her small body sparking off my skin, her neck craning to maintain eye contact.

“You telling me you came here all alone?” My voice is deep, a rasp that reveals how enticing it is to finally have her to myself, without the worry of a kid that’s asleep or someone seeing who shouldn’t.

“I did.” Her eyes flash with her smile.

My heart kicks against my sternum as I step forward, my arm wrapping around her waist before she can protest, dragging her into me. She blows out a breath, and then my mouth is on hers, stealing the air for myself. Who needs nicotine when my new favorite vice has shown up instead?

I walk backward until we’re in the room, closing the door and shoving her up against it, the lightweight jacket she’s wearing slipping off her shoulder from the impact. My hands go under her ass and lift, her legs wrapping around my hips, her hot center pressed against my growing erection. One hand runs up the center of her chest, reaching behind and tangling in the strands of her hair, the other keeping her locked around my waist, my lips never leaving hers.

Our kiss is messy. Teeth that bite and lips that slip. But we’ve never really done soft and sweet. My cock grows as I imagine her mouth slurping on my cock the way she’s sucking on my tongue.

Fuck.

I lose all sense of myself with this chick, but I can’t help it. Ineedher. This isn’t about logic, it isn’t even about satiating a carnal desire. This is about deep-diving inside of her and never coming up for air. An addiction I can’t seem to kick. All I can do is surrender to the moment. Let myself become so lost in her I forget there was ever a reason to be found.

I pull back, my eyes drinking every delicious inch of her in. Her lips are puffy and red, her chest heaving with deep breaths. She looks like sex and sin and just fuckingeverything.

“My kiss looks good on you, little bird.” I lean in, running my nose along the expanse of her neck, wanting to smell her skin and commit it to memory. Collect every piece of her like a snapshot for rainy days.

She giggles, smacking my chest and pushing me back. I allow her, enjoying the carefree energy she’s bringing into the room, a stark contrast to two hours ago, when I found out the man who created me is running for President of the United States.

“I actually came here to talk,” she says.

I groan, adjusting my hard-on, a smirk creeping on my face. “That sounds ominous. I thought you came to ride my dick.”

She scoffs. “Jesus, with an attitude like that, who can say no?”

My grin widens. “As if you’d have the option.”

Her smile dips the tiniest bit, heat flaring through her eyes.

“What are we doing?” she blurts, pacing in front of the bed.

“I thought that was pretty obvious.” My brows wiggle.

She huffs, her arms crossing over her chest. “I mean... are we like, together?”

I force my body to stay relaxed, even though my heart is beating my chest like a battering ram, and I walk to the corner, sitting down in the desk chair. “Do you want to be?”

“I mean... I don’t know.” Her fingers scratch at her wrist. “Iwantto, but Alex. I don’t even know what you do for a living. I don’t know where you live. I don’t know how long you’re staying or...” She trails off, her arms raising before falling helplessly to her sides.

My heart twists and tangles around the lies that sit heavy in my chest, and I know this is it. This is my opportunity to come clean. Tell her I’ve known her far longer than she can imagine. That I was hired by her brother to hunt her down. That even though she may not know everything about me, she’s uncovering all the parts that count. That every second spent in her presence is a second farther away from where I don’t want to be.

But if I tell her, I’ll lose her. And the thought of that is a serrated knife slicing through my middle, carving out a hole for my bleeding heart to break on the floor.

So I bite my tongue instead.

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