Page 62 of Locke

My brain, which has been helpfully absent, tentatively stretches into awareness.Terrible thoughts await.Professional, complicated worries with implications I’m going to have to sift through.But I push them away and force a distance because I don’t want to lose this amazing feeling I have right now.

I feel unbelievably close to him and I snuggle in tight.

Locke doesn’t say a word, but his hand moves slowly up and down my spine.

I close my eyes and decide the thoughts can wait five more minutes.

Chapter 19

Locke

Hersoundagainstmythroat 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.