Lex and Lu(29)

For a moment, just a brief moment, she imagined telling him, right then, while he was between her legs and he could still taste her. Maybe she’d have a chance to make him understand. Perhaps he could forgive her and they could be a real family. But just as the thought of the three of them appeared in her mind, the bubble of her dream burst around her. He hadn’t thrown words of love at her. Lex had become a typical athlete as far as she could tell. Her observations—and there hadn’t been a lot—were of him with beautiful women, none of them lasting for long. And hadn’t Caroline told her that his attention span was short? She couldn’t get caught up in him. She had known that when she walked out onto the balcony. So she did the only thing she could think of to do. She turned the tables on him.

“So when do you head back to England?”

If her question caught him off guard, he handled it extremely well. “What’s today? Friday? I think I go back on Monday. I have a game on Tuesday. I want to be back for it.”

“Are you going to stay away for another eight years?” she pushed, trying to shift his attention, take the focus off of her.

He looked questioningly at her but didn’t seem to be uncomfortable yet. “I don’t know. I haven’t had time to think about any of this.”

He dropped his head, kissing his way across her collarbone.

She went for broke then.

“So this, tonight, it’s merely a distraction for you?”

Lex’s head snapped up and his body tensed. Lu breathed a sigh of relief. Pushing away she could do.

He didn’t say anything for a moment, merely stared at her. She knew he was trying desperately to frame an agreeable response, even though his face never gave anything away.

“No, Lu. Not a distraction. A homecoming,” he answered, his green eyes deadly serious, boring into hers.

He took her breath away. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t respond. She merely returned his stare, unable to look away.

“I don’t know what that means, Lu. I just know that being here with you, inside of you, feels damn good. And don’t we have a conversation scheduled for tomorrow?”

At her nod, he said, “Let’s leave all this for that time, OK? Can you do that for me?” he asked earnestly. Oh God, she thought, I know this look and those words. Before she could close off her thoughts, a vivid memory of Lex leaving her flashed through her mind. They were standing at the airport, the final boarding call echoing through the small terminal. Lex had pulled her into a hug, shifting so he could lay one hand on her stomach and keep her close with the other. “Take care of yourself and our baby,” he said. “Can you do that for me?” Did he remember too? She felt panic racing through her body. It made her squirm against him and that quickly got him aroused again. He took from her movement what he wanted to take from it and entered her quickly, sheathing himself in her heat.

“God, Lu,” he murmured as he moved inside of her, faster and harder, looking for his release.

She closed her eyes, protecting herself from his gaze, not wanting to get lost in his green depths. For the first time in her life, she wanted, needed, to get away from Lex. She wanted this to be over, she wanted him out of her. She needed their connection to be broken. But this was Lex and he wouldn’t settle for that. All or nothing.

He stopped moving, and before Lu knew what was happening, he took hold of her chin. “Open for me Lu,” he said, “open up and look at me.”

She shook her head slowly, imperceptibly. Refusing. “Lu, please. The only way I can get closer to you right now is to be able to look into your eyes. I need you to look at me.” His cajoling tone, the one he’d teased her with all night, was gone. His last words were a desperate plea. “What can I do, Lu?”

She thought about him pulsing inside of her and how unfair she was being, but she just couldn’t go there again with him. She couldn’t orgasm while staring dreamily into his eyes knowing that tomorrow he wouldn’t even want to look at her. It was all about the depths of his eyes for her. Sometimes, she felt like she could touch his soul. But she couldn’t leave him hanging either.

She pulled back from him, forcing him out of her. Without looking at him, she turned over and invited him to enter her the way he had earlier in the night. He accepted her invitation with a groan and filled her immediately. This way, he didn’t see her tears hit the sheets. And Lu didn’t have to see the look of confusion in his eyes.





13





When Lu felt Lex slip into a deep sleep, she got up. She walked over to the alarm clock on the nightstand in the room, picked it up, and set it for seven o’clock. Then she soundlessly entered the bathroom, grabbing her running clothes out of the stockpile of gear that she left there as she unpacked. Picking up her running shoes, she grabbed her funeral clothes and her makeup bag, and hurried out of the room, down the steps, to her car. She drove down to the next beach access, parked, and began her run. The moon still shimmered on the water and the stars continued to light the night.