Page 20 of On the Run
I wokeup to bright sunshine streaming in the window on my closed eyelids and the smell of warm sunshine, salt water, sweet lime, and spicy pepper in my nose. I took a deep breath and sighed sleepily. I’d never found one of Gloria’s scented candles so intoxicating before, but apparently this one triggered something in my brain, because my morning wood was particularly woody. I buried my face in the pillow and pressed my aching dick against the mattress.
“Mmm,” the mattress moaned. “Go ’way Zamboni.”
My eyes flew open in a panic as several impressions flipped through my brain one after the other like one of those old silent movies—Toby’s yell in the darkness, Toby’s cock, Toby’s intelligent brown eyes, Toby’s naked cock, Toby’s smooth chest, Toby’s impressive cock, Toby’s flirty smile, and once again Toby’s cock—which had been naked and impressive and right the heck there, when I hadn’t seen any but my own up close and personal in ages—before finally processing the fact that I was clinging to Toby like a life preserver in a flood.
Worse than that, the two of us were surrounded by a puddle of tangled blankets that suggested we’d each fought our way to the center of the bed over the course of the night so we could… cuddle.
Oh, shit.
I’d never cuddled anyone in my adult life, and certainly not a naked someone. It felt so good, I could almost convince myself to just enjoy the sensation of having someone warm and comfortable in my arms… but I couldn’t quite get there.
This was not supposed to happen. Not like this. Not with Toby, a man who casually propositioned a perfect stranger because he couldn’t stop staring at my dick and—oh my God, stop thinking about that, Beale!
My heart stuttered and the only thing that kept me from going into full-on panic mode was the fact that Toby’s breathing was still soft and steady and his eyes were fully shut. I needed to extricate myself before he woke up so I wouldn’t have to try to explain our actions to Toby… mostly because I had no excuse for mine. He’d made it pretty damn clear what he wanted from me, but I’d made it clear what I didn’t want. And still, here we were.
Removing myself from the bed without waking him was torture. I guess I’d wrapped myself around him at some point before deciding to lie on top of him, because both my arms were stuck between him and the mattress in a way that could not have been comfortable for him. But when I started to pull my bottom arm free, he frowned and muttered something like, “Jebediah, no!” and clung to me more tightly—which was thrilling and also wrong—so I had to take extra care to move away super slowly. Whoever Jebediah was, Toby sure seemed passionate about him.
When I finally managed to roll myself off the bed, I took a second to stare down at him, just to check that he was still deeply asleep, of course. His smooth, tanned skin—and there was a lot of it, since he was fully naked—flowed like honey against the white of the sheets. His dark hair stuck out from his head like he’d been electrocuted. His forehead was puckered in a concentrated frown, and his full lips pursed in displeasure.
He was really, ridiculously good-looking, even asleep. Heck, especially asleep, when he was all warm and soft, with the sheet hanging on the curve of his—wow. I really, really needed to stop thinking about this.
I wasn’t even sure that I liked the man. There was zero excuse for me noticing him this way.
I headed out of the room, closing the door gently behind me. As fast as I could in case Toby woke up, I grabbed one of my boxes from the closet, exchanged my cargo shorts for gym shorts, and slid my feet into my sneakers. I took a quick look at my horoscope, which seemed annoyingly obscure today, then set out food for Marjorie, who hadn’t appeared yet, and headed out for a nice, excruciating run that would punish my body and hopefully reset my mind.
At the last minute, I hesitated. Toby was alone with no transportation, no money, and no phone. I had to assume since Mason and Fenn weren’t here, he’d want to catch the next flight back home or… wherever else he might go. I didn’t want him to think that I’d run out on him—even though I was literally running out on him—so I grabbed a scrap of paper from the kitchen drawer and left him a note that said I’d be back in an hour if he needed a ride to the airport, and then I escaped into the early morning.
My body was amped up to an unreasonable degree. The air felt muggier than usual against my skin, the early morning sun felt hotter, and even my vision felt sharper. For the first time in maybe my whole life, I felt a kind of arousal I couldn’t shake off or ignore. I didn’t like it one bit.
It wasn’t like I’d never been attracted to someone before, because I had. Plenty. Like the actor Tom Welling fromSmallvillewith his kind eyes. Oh, or my adorably dorky roommate Martin, the summer my grandmother had paid for me to go to Adventure Camp. And the guys I’d hooked up with in my early twenties, who’d all seemed so exciting. Heck, even Silvio with his cute smile and fine ass. Good-looking guys were everywhere.
But I’d figured out years ago that a few minutes of happy release was not worth the major letdown I’d feel when I realized the person I’d shared an amazing, mind-blowing experience with had no feelings for me at all. I knew most people didn’t feel like I did—they were able to separate the physical from the emotional, and that was cool. Sometimes I even envied it—but I wanted more than an uncomplicated orgasm, I wanted connection. Someone who understood me, maybe better than I understood myself. I wanted the first time I fell for someone to be the only time I fell for someone. I wanted a soul mate.
And even after twenty minutes’ acquaintance, I could not imagine anyone less like my future soul mate than Toby. He was hot and he knew it. His snarky humor and aggressive flirtation were annoying, and the opposite of my soul mate’s soothing, patient spirit. He was quicksilver fast in all things—his retorts, the play of emotions over his face, in amping up drama from zero to a billion. All in all, Toby was like a candle flame—pretty to look at but dangerous, and impossible to hold without harming yourself.
So why was I still thinking about him, two miles into a four-mile run?
I forced myself to run faster and headed down toward the beach, where the horizon was still tinged pink. I pushed myself until I was breathless and dripping with sweat, and only when I was pleasantly exhausted did I allow myself to run back to Mason and my cousin’s place, where I dropped to the ground beside the pool house and forced myself to do three sets of sit-ups and push-ups for good measure.
I was nearly done my second set of push-ups when I heard the clink of china through the open kitchen window, and then a voice muttering, “Who the hell, in actual America, has a cabinet filled with twelve kinds of herbal tea and no coffee?”
I told myself Toby’s outrage was not amusing and spread my hands wider, increasing the burn on my muscles.
“Oh ho! So we meet again, nemesis.”
I paused with my chest in the air and my hands still flat on the ground.
“Don’t you look at me like that, hussy! How dare you just sit there grooming yourself after what you put me through.”
Oh, God. Marjorie. I started to scramble to my feet to rescue one of them—I wasn’t sure which—but a second later, Toby hmphed.
“Nothing to say for yourself, then? You’re just going to try to stare me down? Fine. Fine. You won’t win this round, I assure you. I can out-stubborn the stubbornest human, so I can sure as heck out-stubborn you. In fact, I hardly notice your existence.”
Oh, God. Was he using reverse psychology on my cat?
“Also, I adore cats. I am thrilled that you’re sitting there on the floor watching me with your freaky eyes. I am in no way put off by your presence or—motherfucker!—by the way you’ve jumped on the counter to stalk me. I am perfectly sanguine. Sanguine, I tell you!”
I lowered myself to the ground and just lay there for a second, chest to the concrete, breathing deeply. Toby was talking to my cat like she’d know what sanguine meant when I wasn’t entirely sure what sanguine meant, and shit, I really, really, really needed to stop thinking about him.
