Chapter 15 #2
“The only problem is, my father will never retire and would rather poke his eyeballs out than move to Florida. So, really, the option I have is to abandon them for my own selfish wants while they get older and struggle to keep up. I guess I do have options, but at what cost?”
He’s looking at me, but he isn’t really looking at me. I can read from the look in his eyes that he also isn’t looking for an answer or any input at all. As he did for me earlier, I sit with him. I let the silence soak up all the emotion that is in the air, and then we send it away with the breeze.
For the next hour, our conversation stays light, something I think we are both thankful for.
We eat, sharing stories from the hotel that have me snorting with laughter.
When he lets it slip that Rhonda has a secret obsession with Justin Bieber’s music, I can’t control myself.
The fit of giggles that erupts from me is endless.
I fall back onto the blanket, looking up into the sun as my body shakes and tears stream down my cheeks.
Every time I seem to have calmed my uncontrollable laughter, I picture my crotchety boss belting out the lyrics to “Love Yourself,” and it starts all over again.
But then a rough but gentle hand cups the side of my face.
Hux runs his fingers first over my wet laugh tears and then lightly brushes my lips with the moisture.
I can taste the salt mixed with the faint aroma of dirt and pine from his skin.
An overwhelming urge to open my lips and suck his fingers into my mouth enters my mind, followed quickly by a large dose of embarrassment which causes my face to heat.
Instead, I lie perfectly still; the laughter replaced only with the sound of my own heart pounding in my ears.
His fingers continue to delicately trace the lines of my face.
They lower to my jaw and then trickle down my neck.
I don’t open my eyes for fear of him stopping.
I want nothing other than his fingers to continue to touch me.
The mixture of want and nervousness churns low in my belly, and the feeling is so intense I have to will myself to breathe.
As his hand trails down my body, my chest involuntarily rises to meet him.
Goose bumps cover my skin as my breathing gets heavier, and I tilt my face back to the sun, exposing my neck even more.
I don’t even recognize myself. Here I am, lying in the middle of a field, letting a man who has proven to not like me all that much touch me in the most intimate way I’ve ever been touched.
I should sit up and crush the tension between us, the tension that is building like a tsunami and threatening to destroy me.
But I physically can’t. I have never wanted something more.
I can’t get enough, and even knowing that nothing good can come from this, I can’t stop myself from wanting him to consume every part of me.
He works his way down to the bottom of my shirt, pushing it up just a smidge to burn my skin with his teasing touch.
There is no way he doesn’t know what he is doing to me, no way he is questioning my consent, but his speed never picks up.
It’s torturous yet also incredibly assuring that he is enjoying my body.
He has me in the palm of his hand, literally and metaphorically, yet he has asked for nothing from me.
It’s foreign, nerve-racking, and exhilarating.
I hear the snap of the button on my jeans before I notice that his hands have slipped below the waist of them.
I lift my hips just slightly, giving the okay for him to lower them down, exposing my bare thighs to the sun.
His fingers graze the edges of my lacy underwear, and my breath catches in my throat.
My skin is on fire; a mosaic of colors dances against my closed eyelids and my lips part.
My breathing becomes a hungry pant as I feel my hips move up to greet his hands involuntarily.
“Do you have any idea what you do to me, Everly?” Hux whispers against my thigh, sending shivers down my body. “No matter what I do, I can’t get you out of my fucking head.”
I feel as if I could explode from his touch alone, but I’m held utterly captive by him. I fumble to push my jeans down farther, just as I hear the sound of heavy feet heading up the trail and the faint voices of people approaching.
Hux hears it too and quickly assists me as I pull my jeans shorts back up.
He lies down next to me, his eyes closed, his breathing a bit ragged, and a flicker of a smile across his lips.
We lie there, basking in the sun and pretending to be innocent, as a group of hikers make their way into the field.
They drop their packs and pull out water bottles and sandwiches.
Hux props himself up, glancing their way, as he gives a small wave and exchanges a quick “What a gorgeous day, huh?” before lying back down beside me.
Understatement of the year.