The charge had nowhere left to fill. It was cresting, all of it, everywhere, my body shaking as wave after wave crashed through me, and he drove me through it, his mouth at my ear.
“I’ve got you, baby. Show me what you’ve got.”
The orgasm was like being swept up in a tidal wave.
The lamp blew with a pop as golden light filled the room, lighting up every ridge of muscle in his chest and neck. Chase groaned my name into my neck and followed me over, his arms locked around me like I was the one charging him, and for one long, glowing moment the entire Seaview Motor Lodge ran on us.
The bottles came down, soft thuds in the dark. Outside, the EAVIEW sign buzzed back to life with, I’d find out tomorrow, its S miraculously restored.
We both lay there, panting slowly.
“So,” Chase said finally into my neck, “same time tomorrow, or do the turtles only need you Tuesdays and Thursdays?”
“I hate you.”
“You’re still glowing.”
I glanced at my hand. Gold to the fingertips, enough power humming through me to do a lot more than surface a few buried pipes.
“It’s for the turtles.”
“Mmm.” He rolled us and pulled me into his chest, and the truly unforgivable thing was that I let him. “Tell them I said you’re welcome.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Chase
She leftat 4:40 in the morning.
Sharks don’t sleep so much as idle, and something inside her had the shark in me surging, keeping me from my proper human sleep. I’d been idling for an hour with her back tucked against my chest, her breathing slow. I wasn’t sure if she had fallen asleep or if the orgasm-magic combo had just put her into a small coma, but I spent the time observing her more than I should have. I traced the freckle constellation on her shoulder, listened to her heart never fully slow, like even semi-unconscious she was keeping a foot on the gas, and watched the faint gold shimmer still coming off her skin in the dark.
At 4:39 she woke with a start, and at 4:40 she was out of bed and into her clothes.
“You can use the shower,” I offered, tracking her in the low light.
“I have my own shower.”
“Mine’s closer.”
“Yours probably has ridiculously branded RipTide shampoo in it. I’m not touching anything in this room that’s sponsored.”
“You touched me an awful lot.”
A pause that I enjoyed enormously.
She didn’t say anything and grabbed her hoodie, struggling toget it on in the dark. At the door, her hand rested on the handle. Whatever she was negotiating with herself, the other side won, because all I got was, “The dunes above the showers, be there tomorrow night. Wear something you can run in.”
“Is that a threat or an invitation?”
“Yes,” she said, and was gone.
No goodbye kiss. Second time. I lay there in the wreckage and considered how I felt about being a man whose presence a woman fled twice after using him like a beachside calisthenics park.
Great. I felt great. The chase had just begun.
One of themany unfortunate side effects of being the face of an energy drink was that you’re expected at things. The next morning’s was a “site walk,” which was what Derek called standing around the compound pointing while two production guys followed him with iPads.
“Chase!” Derek slapped me on the shoulder, as he always did. “Glad you’re here. We’ve got a situation, and I want your read on it as my guy.”
