19. CHAPTER 19
Locke
Her sound against my throat does it.
That’s all it takes, low and involuntary, her control vaporized. A groan that rumbles through her body and I’m gone.
I drive my hips hard, thrusting so very deep one last time, and hold there while it moves through me.
Every muscle in my body locks for what seems like an eternity while an orgasm shreds me from the inside out.
My world narrows, reduced to just this room and this soft woman and the way she feels underneath me.
I collapse onto Livia and she takes my weight without complaint, her hands sliding up and down my sweat-sheened back.
I suck in a breath and roll off her, staring at the ceiling.
The early LA morning peeks in beneath the curtains and I consider with brutal clarity that I stayed the entire night in Livia’s bed.
I drove her douche of an ex off that sidewalk, walked her upstairs, and fucked her.
Then I slept in this bed with her and woke up and fucked her again, and it was even better. Now I’m lying here staring at the ceiling, wondering how I never knew how good morning sex could be.
I’ve been with enough women to know the difference between wanting someone for a release and wanting someone for an experience. The latter is the inconvenient one.
I turn my head and look at Livia.
She’s flat on her back, sheet low on her belly with full breasts bearing red marks from my mouth. She too is staring at the ceiling and I wait for it.
I wait for her to pull the sheet up and for the bright light of day to bring back her professional composure. I even wait for her to give me the guilt speech, how she should have never crossed the line with me. I know she’s been chewing on that since that very first time she kissed me.
But she doesn’t say anything. Whatever is moving behind her eyes, causing that slight curve to her mouth that looks a lot like repletion, it certainly doesn’t resemble the guilt spiral I was bracing for.
“What are you thinking about?” I can’t help but ask.
She huffs out a breath but not at the question. “I want to go for a run.”
Well, that wasn’t what I was expecting.
She twists her head on the pillow to look at me. “But I don’t know what’s around the next corner. Or who, rather.” She lets out a dramatic sigh. “And I hate running on a treadmill. I hate everything about treadmills.”
I look at her, not sure what to say. Not sure I’m following.
Where’s the guilt I was waiting for, and yes, preparing to argue against?
She hasn’t uttered a syllable about crossing a line, nor has she invoked her professional ethics or even lamented that she might have let Patrick Rowe down by sleeping with a team player.
Instead, she sits up and I get sidetracked by her amazing breasts I thoroughly worshipped last night and this morning.
“Oh well,” she says with a shrug. “He’s not going to do anything in broad daylight. Grant’s reckless but he’s not stupid.”
She rolls out of bed and starts pulling clothes out of her bag and I watch this for approximately two seconds before it hits me all at once what the fuck she’s talking about.
She’s worried that her ex could be waiting for her again, and she’s going to go for a run despite that.
Oh, fuck no.
“He can absolutely make a move on you in broad daylight,” I growl.
She glances at me over her shoulder. “I’m not going to live in fear, Locke.”
“I’m not asking you to live in fear. I’m asking you to run on a fucking treadmill for one morning.”
She frowns at me. “You can’t order me around.”
“You were shaking like a leaf last night. Terrified. Remember that feeling?”
I watch that hit her hard and she inhales a sharp breath of remembrance. She seems to consider the danger, but then straightens, turning to me with her shirt in hand.
“True,” she says with a bright smile. “But that was last night. This is this morning.”
“Absolutely not,” I say, scrambling out of bed and coming toe to toe with her.
Her eyes travel down the length of my body and had I not just had the mother lode of all orgasms a minute ago, I might try to fuck some sense into her.
Her gaze lifts to meet mine and she tilts her head. “If you’re so worried about it, come with me.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Run with you?”
“Yeah… it’s only five miles,” she says. “It won’t wreck your legs for the game.”
This is the moment.
It’s where I can take a step back and put space between us. It shouldn’t matter to me that she wants to go running, potentially facing a dangerous stalker who could be lurking out on the sidewalk even as we fight about this.
I could let her go and put that wall back firmly in place.
But yeah… it fucking matters. “Give me five minutes to get my gear on.”
Admittedly, the run was nice and there was no stalker ex-boyfriend waiting to jump her. Or maybe there was and I just didn’t see him. I was on high alert as we ran along the city blocks around the hotel and I never fully relaxed into it.
Even as we walk to cool down, my eyes shift left and right.
“Want a juice?” she asks, veering into one of those health food stores that serve quinoa bowls and wellness shots.
I follow her inside, studying the seventeen options on a chalkboard, all of them with names like Morning Clarity and Green Reset. They all sound horrible.
“Get the one with ginger and turmeric,” Livia says from beside me.
“Sounds disgusting,” I say truthfully.
She smiles up at me. “It’s good for inflammation.”
Well, she is the director of Human Performance and who am I to argue, so I order the one with ginger and turmeric.
“I’ll have the same,” she says.
I lean forward to pay and Livia tries to object to me buying hers but I ignore her and tap my phone on the terminal, the chime indicating the payment was successful. We take our drinks outside and find a table with an umbrella to shield us from the LA sun.
Livia puts the straw in her drink and I note the run has her color up. She looks even more vibrantly beautiful.
I take a drink of the juice and… it’s actually good, but I don’t tell her that.
“What are you going to do about Grant?” I ask.
She looks at the table for a moment. “I don’t know yet.”
“Has this happened before? Him showing up out of the blue like that?”
“No.” She wraps both hands around her cup. “It’s been calls and texts and a card that showed up at my apartment, which I still don’t know how he got that address. But showing up in person…” She shakes her head. “That’s new.”
“Then it’s escalating.”
“Maybe.” She says it like she’s hoping it isn’t true. “Or maybe it was a onetime thing. He was drunk. He made a bad decision.”
“He made a bad decision the night he put his hands on you the first time.” I reply evenly. “Drunk just makes it easier.”
She looks at me, and I know I’m not telling her anything she didn’t already know.
“You could get an order of protection,” I say.
“Based on what? He grabbed my arm on a sidewalk.” She shakes her head. “That’s not enough and you know it. I’d have to document a pattern, get a lawyer involved, and even then—”
“Talk to Patrick.”
The shift in her face is immediate. “No.”
“He has resources, Livia. People who can—”
“No,” she says again, quiet and final. “He’s my boss. I’m not bringing my personal problems to my boss barely a month into the job. I’m not that person.”
I look at her. “You’d rather handle it alone.”
“I’d rather it go away on its own. If I ignore him, he’ll get the message.”
“And if it doesn’t go away?” For some reason, it’s tearing me up, the thought this guy could come after her again.
She doesn’t answer. She takes a long drink of her juice and looks out at the LA street, so I let it go.
For now.
The silence extends as we watch people walking by. It’s weirdly comfortable and I’m not sure what to make of it. The morning sex, the run, the juice… it all feels unreasonably normal.
“Where’s the guilt?” I ask abruptly.
She frowns at me in confusion. “What do I have to feel guilty about? Breaking up with Grant?”
“No, not him,” I say with an impatient wave. “Where’s the guilt over us sleeping together?”
Her frown deepens and she traces the condensation on her cup with one finger. “I have it. It’s pushed down low.” She taps her sternum once. “I’m not sure what to do with it yet so I’m leaving it alone currently.”
“Reasonable approach.”
The corner of her mouth moves. “So, what is this?” She gestures between us.
She doesn’t appear to be anxious over the question, merely curious.
I think about it for a second. “It’s fun.” I hold her gaze. “Does it have to be more than that?”
I watch as she mulls it over before she finally says, “No, not really.” Her eyes lock onto mine and she smiles. “That helps. I can compartmentalize fun. I can work with you and keep the rest of it in a separate box.”
“So that alleviates the guilt?” I ask.
“Maybe. Maybe not. But we’re discreet about this, okay? Nobody knows. Especially nobody on this team.”
“Agreed.”
“And I still get my third session when we’re back in Portland.” She holds up a finger. “That’s nonnegotiable. A deal is a deal.”
“I know.”
“I’m serious, Locke.”
“I said I know.”
She studies me, perhaps gauging the truth in my tone. Finally, she picks up her cup and leans back in her chair.
“This juice is really good,” she says.
“Yeah,” I admit with a small smile. “It is.”
We people watch for a bit more in companionable silence. I consider the separate box she just described, which seems to have alleviated the guilt. It still doesn’t negate the fact that Livia Cross is a very specific problem, one I have apparently decided to stop trying to solve.