Page 46 of On the Run
“You’re just going to, what? Know how to find his prostate instantly and psychically, because your soul-matey-ness will make it so?”
His face turned red, and his nostrils flared.
“Oh, my poor Beale. I assure you, precious, that is not how it works. If you think it’s all jump, jab, and jiggle… well, you’re not too far different from most of the men I had sex with in my twenties.” I shuddered delicately. “Aspire for better.”
He frowned.
“Besides which, you have this idea that your soul mate is fated, right? Like, every step you take is another step on the path to finding him? So why isn’t this a step?” I motioned between us. “Unless I have gone utterly blind and insensate, you are attracted to me. You kissed me. Quite thoroughly. So maybethatwas fate. Maybe I’m the final stepping-stone before you meet your one true person.”
“That’s not how it works!”
I threw my hands up in the air. “How do youknowhow it works when you haven’t experienced it? Half an hour ago, you thought Hagatha was a middle-aged woman from Lebanon, Kansas, who likes Shasta daisies and romance novels, just like it says in her bio, and right now I’m telling you, I picked Lebanon off a map because it’s the geographical center of the lower 48 United States and the conceptamused me, so recognize that there are mysteries in the Universe that you haven’t solved.”
“Are you yelling at me because I don’t want to have sex with you?” he demanded.
“No!”Or was I?Shit.
I cleared my throat and moderated my volume. “No. I’m just recognizing that you are, indeed, quite stubborn.” I blew out a breath and turned resolutely toward the far side of the island. “Okay. More plovers. Onward.”
I marched insistently toward the birds on the far side of the dock.
“I like you, Toby.” Beale hurried up behind me. “You seem like a great guy.”
I whirled to face him. “You’d better not say ‘but’ unless it’s to compliment the perfection of mine.” And not fuckingSilvio’s.
“However,” Beale said instead with a little quirk of his lips that made his blue eyes flash. “I don’t really know you. And you don’t know me. True?”
Weirdly, this didnotfeel true. I felt like we’d been through several wars together. I figured this was just because I was overwrought and needy, though, so I nodded.
“I’ve tried hooking up with guys I don’t know a couple of times, and it didn’t work. I mean, itworked,” Beale added quickly with an impatient gesture at the front of his cargo shorts that made me snicker. “It just didn’t feel right or easy. It made me feel bad after. Disconnected and anxious, like when you’re super hungry and you eat a candy bar, and then your body starts to feel gross and jittery. That’s why I’ve been waiting until I meet the right person to have sex. You with me?”
I shook my head sadly. “Not even a little, sweetness. Candy is delicious. If I didn’t have to be ruthless about my carb intake, I’d eat it every day. If I looked like you, I’d eat it twice a day. I think you’re going about this wrong.”
“I am?”
“You definitely are.” I tapped my lips thoughtfully. Poor Beale lacked all the confidence a man as smart and funny and hot as him should have. He’d also saved me from grievous injury multiple times in twenty-four hours, and I felt that debt keenly. Now I knew exactly how I could repay him. It might not be thesmartestthing to do, given the real reason I’d come to Whispering Key, and the whole thing might end in tragedy, but it still felt like therightthing to do. Not coincidentally, it was also the thing Iwantedto do.
“Now, here we go. Ahem. Dear Virgo the Virgin.” I batted my eyelashes at him.
“Oh, no.”
“Not every person you have sex with will be your soul mate, Virgo.”
He gave me another “you’re ridiculous but enjoyable” glance, this one slightly lighter on the “enjoyable,” but it still warmed me from the inside in ways I didn’t want to think about too much. “I know, Hagatha.”
“But you’d be foolish to turn down a fake soul mate you’re attracted to who’s gonna be sharing your bed for a week anyway. Love, Auntie H.”
“And that’s your professional advice, huh?”
I blinked. In truth, my professional advice would probably be more like, “run away from the man trying to peer pressure you into sex.” But we’d already established that Hagatha was totes incompetent.
“I don’t think I can make an unbiased judgment since I have a vested interest in the outcome. But weren’t you the one who said learning new skills made you more confident?” I fluttered my eyelashes.
“I was talking about audiobooks!” he said a little desperately.
“Sex is better than audiobooks.”
“Maybe you need better audiobooks.”
