Page 31
Story: Persistent (Adrenalin #3)
Chapter nineteen
Lennon
“ A ll he wanted was a jersey?” I watch Axel pull one from his small duffel, along with a Sharpie.
“So he said.” He scrawls his name in scraggly, slanted letters across the red fabric.
“You don’t think that’s the end of it?”
He caps the marker and tosses it back in his bag. “Probably not, but my mom thinks it’s worth a shot in case he really is trying to turn things around, especially since he’s not asking for money.”
“That jersey could be worth money though, right?” I hate to contradict Axel’s mom, but based on how he warned me away from his dad with a single look, and the way his dad leered at me after the exchange, I don’t hold out a lot of hope for the good guy act.
“I thought the same thing. But it’s the fastest way to get rid of him, and I don’t want him hanging around here. That’s why I need to leave tomorrow, too. If he sees me leaving there’ll be no reason for him to stick around.”
“Tomorrow?” I suck in a mouthful of air and hold it, which almost masks the sharp pain that spears through my chest. Almost .
“Yeah. He’s never been good news, but he seemed more off than usual today.
My mom wants to take that as a good thing, but I’m not buying it.
” He picks up his shirts from where they’re draped over a chair in the corner and stuffs them in his bag.
“I think leaving will draw him away, and I don’t want him anywhere near you.
Besides, I still have to swing back through Utah to get my trailer before heading to Arizona, so leaving earlier gives me more time for that. ”
“Makes sense.” I can barely hear the words over the pounding of my heart. Is this it? Is it goodbye?
Something about my tone must give me away even though I tried to hide it. Axel crosses the room and pulls me to his chest, enclosing me in his arms as he rests his head against mine. “I’d feel a whole lot better about leaving if I knew you were going to meet me there.”
I wrap my arms around his waist. “You think knowing your next orgasm is imminent will make you ride better?” I borrow a page from his book and try to make this dirty instead of serious.
He cups my jaw so I’m forced to look at him. “I think I’ll ride better if I’m not wondering if or when I’ll see you again, yeah.”
“You can see me whenever you want. You know where I live.” I close my eyes and exhale as he kisses along my jaw.
“You haven’t invited me back.” He works his way to my neck.
“I didn’t invite you this time.” I tilt my head to give him better access.
“A lot has changed since then.” He tugs the neck of my T-shirt aside and kisses along my collar bone. “Ask me.”
“Will you come back?” It comes out more raspy and needy than I intended, but he’s making me feel too good to care. I tilt my head back as he pulls my shirt over my head and grips my waist as he kisses over my pecs .
“Yes, I’ll come back.” He flicks his tongue over my nipple. “On one condition.”
I hold his head to me as he sucks it into his mouth. “What?”
He lets my nipple go with an audible pop. “Come to Arizona. Two days, then you can come back here.” His fingers ghost over the bulge in my shorts.
“You’re using sex to get me to say yes?”
“Is it working?” He nuzzles my neck as his fingers slip inside them and stroke over my crown.
“Fuck.” I exhale.
“That’s the idea. I’ll bury myself inside you and stay there all night if you say you’ll meet me in Arizona.”
I want to, not only because he’s got me on the brink, but because just once I want to be the face he searches for in the crowd. The one he wraps in his arms and holds tight after the competition, whatever the outcome. I want it so much it terrifies me.
“And if I don’t?”
“If you don’t, I leave you just as desperate as you make me.” His finger stills, and while I don’t think it’s just physical desperation he’s referring to, I let myself believe it is. That will make it easier to move on when he doesn’t come back to Katah Vista, which I don’t expect him to do.
I don’t think he’s being deliberately misleading when he says he’ll come back, but I suspect that once Axel resumes the routine of being on the circuit, he’ll find he doesn’t have time to make detours back here.
And I don’t have time to go to him. Pretending otherwise is only delaying the inevitable, although I can’t quite bring myself to admit that yet.
The realist in me knows this can’t continue—long distance never works out—but I still want a taste of his life, even if that’s all it can be. So, I’ll do this one trip, something both of us can hang on to once this thing between us is over. I won’t hold any expectations beyond that.
Axel’s finger slips off my cock as I step away and put my hands on his chest, pushing him to the bed. “It’s gonna be a long night.” I follow as he falls onto the mattress, freeing his dick from his shorts before I drop mine to the floor.
“Thank god,” he groans as I pull his dick into my mouth, which he gives me all night long, just as promised.
***
My stomach drops, and not from the turbulence outside the plane, or the fear of something going wrong at Murphy’s when I’m not there to fix it. This queasiness is courtesy of the man I foolishly agreed to meet at the worst possible time for my career. What have I done?
Damn his sinfully sexy body which I know as well as my own. Damn his soulful amber eyes and full lips, which make me say yes when I should say no. Damn him for making me want what I can’t have.
I was perfectly content before he came along.
Fulfilled by work, I never thought twice about choosing my career over my social life or coming home to an empty house.
I’d crave sex from time to time, but even that I could usually find, and those trysts would hold me over for months.
Now, my old existence seems empty, and it’s all his fault.
I’ve been denying it to everyone, denying it to myself, but the truth is I don’t want my old life back. I want Axel. But how can I have him without giving up everything I’ve worked for?
I’m smarter than this. I knew getting involved with a man would probably result in a broken heart, although I never thought I’d be the one to do the breaking.
And I will be. I don’t know when, I don’t know how, but I do know it’s coming.
The longer this goes on the more likely it becomes that Axel will view my career as a hindrance, something that keeps me from going where he goes. And he’ll want me to give it up.
That thought doesn’t piss me off as much as it used to.
In fact, I can see the logic in it. After all, it’s what happened to my parents.
Dad earned more so Mom stayed home with me.
It worked until he traded her in for a younger model.
But I will never put myself in the position where I have to rely on a partner to support me.
Which means, I will never give up my career.
That’s why—when he inevitably asks me to follow him around—I’ll be the one to end this.
My stomach plummets again, and not because we’re making our final descent.
Axel and I are flirting with the impossible right now, pretending that there’s a future where we make sense. The longer we do it the worse it will hurt when it ends. I know that, yet I still got on the plane.
I’m not ready to give him up. I don’t think I can, at least not until he forces my hand. And if I’m being totally honest, there’s a part of me that hopes he never does.
He knows why I’m so committed to my job, and if he respects that he’ll never ask me to sacrifice it for him.
I want to believe that could happen. Then I think about how much I’ve missed him after only three days.
If he missed me even half as much, he’ll try to convince me to travel with him.
That means there’s a very real possibility this weekend will be our last together.
I don’t want that thought in the back of my mind, hanging like a cloud over us, but I’m a realist not a romantic.
My mind won’t get swept up in fantasies of happily ever after, no matter how much my heart wants it to happen.
I’m not wired that way. It doesn’t stop me from racing toward him as soon as I spot him at the passenger pickup.
Axel wears a sexy grin as he spreads his arms so I can collapse into them. He picks me up and spins us around as he fuses our mouths together, erasing my earlier thoughts with the gentle swipe of his tongue.
A groan rumbles up from his throat as he sets me on the ground and cups my face in his palms for a soft, achingly tender kiss. “I could get used to that. Hello, little devil.” He breathes into me.
My brain drifts into panic mode while my heart picks up tempo. ““We’re back to that nickname?”
“Well, you do look sexy as sin right now.” He brushes his thumb over my bottom lip and gives me another sweet kiss. “Let’s get out of here.”
He takes my bag off my shoulder and slings it over his own as he links our fingers together, pulling me toward the parking lot.
A few heads swing in our direction as we pass.
Is he that recognizable? If he notices, he doesn’t acknowledge it.
When we stop at a large pickup, he opens the passenger door and helps me climb inside.
“I didn’t know you could drive anything with more than two wheels.” I can’t help grinning at my little joke.
“I’ve gotta pull the trailer somehow.” He grins right back. “Plus, I wasn’t sure if your bag would fit on the back of my bike.”
“How much stuff did you expect me to bring for two days?”
His face turns a faint shade of pink as he backs out of the parking space. “The guys said women don’t travel light, and I think since you wear skirts, they assume you have other feminine traits like overpacking, and in case they were right I figured I should be prepared.”
“Who are the guys? The ones that came to Katah Vista? ”
The pink spreads higher on his cheeks. “Them… and pretty much everyone else.” My jaw drops.
“I had to get you a visitor pass to access the pit area where we park the trailers, and I usually never have a reason to get another pass, so everyone was asking who was coming, and…yeah.” He presses his lips together and stares out the windshield.
I’m well aware that Axel tells me things he doesn’t share freely, mostly because he doesn’t look me in the eye when he’s making those admissions, but I’ve never known him to ramble.
It’s adorable, and endearing, and almost makes me want to go back on the promises I made to myself about not giving up my priorities for his. Almost .
“Just so I’m clear, no one is expecting you to show up with a woman though, right?”
“They shouldn’t be.” I didn’t think it was possible, but the pink in his cheeks intensifies. “Although I’m pretty sure a few of them assume I’m fucking with them since I said my boyfriend looks sexy in a skirt.”
“Boyfriend, huh?” My voice is surprisingly level considering I can feel my heartbeat all the way in my fingers.
“Too soon?” He tightens his grip on the steering wheel, knuckles going briefly white, before he seems to forcibly relax his fingers.
Despite my racing heartbeat, a sensation I’d normally associate with panic, there’s an uncharacteristic warmth in my chest. A sense of calm amid the chaos of being so outside my comfort zone, far from home and sitting next to a man I sometimes want to prove me wrong when I think this can’t work.
“It’s as good a label as any, I guess.”
Axel exhales slightly—it’s not the resounding yes he probably wanted, but not a no either—and nods without taking his eyes off the road .
“Tell me, what’s going on with Murphy’s?” He rubs the bridge of his nose like he needs to do something with his hands besides holding the steering wheel. “Did you make any progress on your expansion?”
Though I’m grateful for the change of subject, it serves as a reminder of just how well Axel knows me. “The lease is signed, and I’ll take possession next month, so all that’s left to do is figure out the menu and hire.”
“Wouldn’t you just have the same menu?” He pulls up to the booth and slides his card in the slot so we can exit the parking area.
“I thought so at first, but if the menu is the same there’s no reason to visit both locations, and I don’t want people to avoid coming to the spot in town because they feel like it’s a repeat of what they had on the mountain.”
“Makes sense. What are you considering?” He puts his card back in his wallet and pulls into traffic.
“That’s the question.” I watch the buildings whiz past as Axel drives us toward the track.
“I’d love to expand beyond the typical American fare but can’t see Italian or Chinese or even Mexican having a universal appeal.
Smoked meats are popular lately, but the prep time on those is a hindrance.
And turnover will be key in that location since the rent is pretty steep. ”
“Sounds intense. Is it too late to get out of your lease? A food truck seems like it would be way less expensive and take less maintenance.”
“Bite your tongue.” I turn and glare at him only to find a mischievous smirk on his face, which makes me settle down. And he calls me little devil. Before I can think of a witty retort, I realize there’s a smile on my face. A big one.
Table of Contents
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- Page 31 (Reading here)
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