“For a run.” My smile widens as I look back, seeing the penny drop. Her face. I have to stop myself fishing out my phone and capturing the sight.
“Urh...” She clears her throat. Straightens her back. “How far is it to the parks?”
“Four miles.”
She starts coughing, and I start falling apart on the inside, my earlier troubles fading with each second I’m watching her failing to play it cool. She rearranges her top, and my eyes light up as she paces over.
“It’s eleven, twenty-seven, fifteen,” I say as I press the code for the gate. “For future reference.”
She jogs off, and I grin at her arse as she goes. “I’ll never remember that,” she yells back. I roll my eyes, going after her. And there we have the proof, if ever I needed it, which I don’t, that she purposely challenges me. She’ll remember that number.
I fall into stride next to her, peeking down, checking for any early signs of how this is going to pan out. I won’t tell her I’m one gear off a walk. That would be cruel. So instead of taking my calm from pounding the pavements, I take my calm from having her beside me. Constantly checking me out. Constantly smiling up at me.
It’s another new form of bliss and, unlucky for Ava, I might decide I need this every morning. My mind is clearing, Jake is no longer haunting my thoughts, playing with my conscience, and my heart is beating steady and strong.
“Okay?” I ask, and she nods and instantly realigns her focus on the route ahead, not giving me nearly enough time of her bright eyes. But I still caught the flash of determination. Sheisstruggling now. How long will she hold out? How long will she kill herself simply because she doesn’t want to lose?
We pass through Green Park, and I drop my speed a little more, keeping by her side, waiting for her to break. I silently will her to stop being stubborn and admit defeat so I can ravage her on the grass, and yet she soldiers on, her cheeks red and wet, her breathing loud. It’s doing me no favors, the sight of her like that, all hot and bothered. My dick is starting to fight for room in my shorts.
We approach Piccadilly, a good ten miles in, and I start to think she’s actually prepared to do herself some serious damage to prove this point of hers. And then what? If she pulls a muscle, that’s also going to domedamage. No sex.
Oh no.
But just as I’m about to call a halt on our run, she gasps and takes a sharp right back into the park and tumbles to the grass like a sack of shit. I smile at her splattered form, wandering over and getting the photo I’ve been dying to get all morning. Our first run together. I drop to my knees and crawl up her body. The heat emanating off her is burning through my shorts.
Her lashes flutter open, and she looks at me with a million pleas in her eyes. She’s nothing to fear. I won’t be making her run anymore. Only to the taxi so I can get her home pronto. “Baby, did I wear you out?” I rub my face into hers, spreading the sweat, kissing her everywhere. “Hmm, sweat and sex.” I roll us, getting her on top of me. She’s good for nothing. That needs to change sharpish.
I give her a few moments to find her depleted breath, content just for now, to lie here with her spread all over me. Eventually, she struggles up, straddling me. It’s a vision and a half.
“Please don’t make me run home.”
This is a turn out for the books. She’s begging. I should use this to my advantage. The Manor anniversary stamps its way across my mind. Two weeks.
“You did better than I expected.”
“I prefer sleepy sex,” she moans, plummeting to my chest. I smile. I can’t argue with that.
“I prefer sleepy sex too.” I agree quietly. I should have thought this through. “Come on, lady. We can’t frolic in the grass all day; you have work to do.” I can’t wait to watch her all day. Seeing her mind whirl with ideas, her hand working fast across the page as she sketches. It’ll make being at The Manor today far more tolerable.
She struggles to her feet, and I join her, pulling her into my side and walking us across the road. I spot a cab and wave it down.
“You brought money for a taxi?” she asks, sounding injured as I get us in the back. I pull her onto my lap and give her a taste of what’s to come. Of course, she’s all mine in a second, taking my mouth hungrily. The temptation to stop the cab, throw the driver out, and bomb it to Lusso is too much.Put your foot down!“Enough,” I mumble around her frantic mouth, but she doesn’t let up, rubbing into me in places she shouldn’t be rubbing into me right now.
“Fuck,” I growl, pushing her off me, trying to catch a breath. She flops into the seat beside me, equally as breathless. “You’re seriously getting it when I get you home.”
The corner of her lip lifts as she pulls her running top away, trying to circulate some air. “Can’t wait,” she pants, breathless.
“Don’t goad me, lady.”
“Don’t torment me, then.” She gazes out of the window, and I observe her with untold pleasure as she watches the world go by, my elbow wedged into the door, the inside of my finger brushing across my top lip. Torment? I smile, but it’s sad. She knows nothing of true torment. The sun has always hovered on the horizon of my existence, tormenting me with hopeful light. Now, it feels like it could drop out of the sky at any moment and cloud me in darkness forever. Or, equally as frightening, rise and shine a light on all of my wrongs.
By the time we reach the penthouse, urgency is a vise around my cock, screaming to be relieved. Ava drops to a stool heavily, her breathing still labored, and that urgency throbbing inside subsides at the sight of her so shattered. She doesn’t run like I run. She doesn’t need to.
It would be easy to toss her on the counter and ravage her. Get my fix. Fuck away this unsettling feeling within. But I abstain. It takes everything in me, but I abstain. She looks good for nothing, except maybe a lovely hot bath. She can lie all over me. Catch her breath.
Agree to come to The Manor’s anniversary party with me.
I fill a glass with water and pass it across the counter. “Here.”