Page 53 of On the Run
“Your desperation for chicken is pathetic,” I crooned, scratching her under the chin. “Deplorable. You have no self-respect whatsoever. Do you, hmm? Your weakness makes you putty in my hands, you know that?”
Marjorie made one of her weird cough-barking noises, which I took to be acknowledgement and possibly shame.
The bathroom door opened, releasing a little cloud of steam, and Marjorie and I both turned our heads to watch Beale emerge, bare-chested and rubbing at his hair with a towel in a manner guaranteed to give him split ends, not that he cared about such a thing. He wore another pair of cargo shorts—the man dressed exclusively from Badasses ’R’ Us’s camouflage line—but he wore it so fucking well, I couldn’t complain, and in fact, I had to roll my tongue up in my mouth to prevent it from extending across the counter and the floor to lick up the little droplets of water that dotted his chest.
I sighed.
Okay, so maybe the cat wasn’t the only one with a deplorable weakness.
“I wassupposedto be in the Maldives right now,” I muttered at Marjorie, but she didn’t look nearly as impressed as she should have.
Beale’s head emerged from the towel, and a slow grin spread across his face when he caught us watching him. “You’re gonna need to stop looking at me like that if we’re going to trivia night.”
I thought briefly about denying that I was looking at him in any kind of way… but I figured that ship had sailed.
“Why not? The whole island thinks we’re together anyway. Isn’t this the way your soul mate would look at you?” I fluttered my eyelashes besottedly.
Beale came up behind me, wrapping his giant arms around my chest, and pulled me against his chest. “It’s not the way someone should look at me if he wants to leave the house,” he explained, sidestepping the soul mate issue neatly. “That kind of look is more ‘Let’s curl up in bed, watchLuciferon my laptop, and fuck around,’ and I know that, because it’s the look you gave me last night before we curled up, watchedLuciferin bed, and fucked around.”
“Yes, well, we can’t do that every day.” I sounded a little waspish because I was totes fighting the urge to give in and do exactly that. “I get weak-kneed contemplating the data charges we’d be racking up, streaming shows that way.”
“You do know I have plenty of money, right?” Beale murmured the words against the join of my shoulder, making me shiver… then chased the shiver up my neck with his lips. “And other than donating to charity, buying you a phone with a hot spot is the most worthwhile thing I’ve done with it all month.”
I bit my lip. This reminded me that, in reciting the litany of evidence that I’d fallen into a sex-induced fever dream, I might possibly have failed to account for Exhibit A, the smoking-gun: I’d allowed Beale Goodman to buy me—yes,me—a cell phone.
And yes, I hadmade him pinkie swear I could pay him back for it as soon as I got the replacement credit card that would be arriving the following morning, but still. I did notdogifts. I did notdoloans. And the knowledge that getting good dick three nights in a row made me swoon like a middle schooler with his first case of puppy love and abandon all the principles I held dear was lowering in the extreme.
Aunt Hagatha would be horrified, and for once, she’d be right.
“How ’bout I make you weak-kneed in other ways,” Beale continued, nudging my face toward his. “Or at least try.”
Like he had totry.The very idea was laughable.
“You showed me your ‘other ways’ thirty minutes ago, and you can show me more ‘other ways’ when we get back ho—here,” I corrected, feeling my cheeks flush. Whispering Key was nothome. “But Littlejohn will be expecting us, so I’ve gotta finish getting dressed.”
Beale snorted, but let me go. “Alright. But I think someone’s got a crush.”
I spun in place. It was bad enough that Ifeltlike a teenager; he didn’t have to call me on it. “Excuse you? No one is crushing around here, I regret to inform you. And if you think—”
Beale blinked, all adorably bewildered and held up his two big hands. “I was just teasing, Toby. I meant Littlejohn. You know, ’cause he brought you his SpaghettiO Surprise? And ’cause he’s never invited me or Mase or Fenn to trivia night before? No harm meant. It’s cute.”
Ohhh. He meantLittlejohnhad a crush. Well, I doubted that was the case either. “I think he just wants to beat the Cooter Key trivia team, and he thinks I’m a ringer.” I shrugged. “I know a little bit about a lot of things.”
“Yeah, you do.” Half of Beale’s mouth turned up in a grin. “I wish I did. It’s fun watching your brain work.”
I shook my head and ignored the little leap in my belly. “Nonsense. It’s much better to be an expert at a few things, like you are, but alas, my brain doesn’t stick on any one thing for too long. Anyway, here’s breakfast for tomorrow done.” I grabbed the casserole and put it in the fridge. “Now I just need to get some decent clothes on.” And by decent, I meant my Thom Browne twill shorts and a white button-down, which was maybe the most casual thing I’d brought with me.
I maneuvered past Beale’s outstretched hand and headed for the bedroom.
A second later, I found myself spun around and tacked to the wall by Beale’s hard body.
“Just to say, I have no complaints about your ability to focus this week.” Beale’s voice was a rumble in my ear, and when he rubbed that body idly against mine, my cock perked up with no hesitation. “Also, have I mentioned how very glad I am that we managed to rescue you before Marjorie cat-strated you?”
“Shush,” I said against his lips. “She’ll hear you and feel bad.”
And Beale laughed as he kissed me.
God, every time he touched me was better than the time before, which was amazing and scary and… really amazingly scary. I fuckingyearnedfor him, even when he was standing a few paces away, and let me tell you, darling, Toby Elford did notyearnfor any man. I’d learned early that yearning begat pining, which begat letting myself be taken for granted, which begat drowning my sorrows in copious amounts of Blue Bunny Peanut Butter Party eaten directly from the carton. I’d only had to experience it once… or, alright, fine, maybe thrice… to know that, like gas station sushi, it was a situation best avoided. Since then, I hadn’t allowed myself to be the yearner, I was the yearn-ee. Or something.
