Avoiding Commitment (Avoiding #1)(53)

"How did you know I didn't go for a walk?" she asked curiously.

Finally, he turned his head towards her, and by the light of the moon, she got a full look at the beautiful face she had been dreaming about. His eyes traveled over her flimsy sleeping clothes, and then rose back to her intrigued face. Finally, he shrugged and answered, "I just knew."

"You didn't come down at once and check on me?" she questioned him not understanding.

"No. I waited to see if you were just going to come right back in, but I soon realized you weren't. So I came to find you. I just knew you'd be here Lex. I just know you," he said reaching out and cupping her cheek in his hand as he had done earlier that afternoon.

At his touch her breath instantly quickened, and her lips parted. How did he do that? "I've missed you so much," he said his voice lowering intimately.

"Jack," she whimpered as he trailed his hand down her neck, "you...you can't touch me like that."

He pulled her by her neck towards his waiting lips. Just as they were only an inch apart, he broke her steady gaze and began to kiss down her supple neck. She moaned deep in her throat, and then ripped herself out of his enticing grasp.

"I said no," she cried standing in a fit of anger. He remained seated and rested back on his elbows again not even looking back up at her. "Why are you here? What do you think you are doing? I don't want things to be like that again. My boyfriend...your girlfriend...our friends...everyone is up there right now and could see you doing this. Don't you care about anyone but yourself?"

Ignoring her other questions, he coolly said, "Lexi just sit down."

"No! I'm not going to just sit down. Why do you have to be so demanding all the damn time?" she cried her hands resting on her hips. She was glaring daggers at him.

"If you don't stop using that voice with me, I'm going to take you right here on the beach," he told her evenly. "You're so much sexier when you're angry."

Lexi immediately stopped her argument and openly gaped at him. Was he serious? Was he really going to try to calm her down by claiming she was in any way sexy by yelling at him? The whole concept just infuriated her further. "I told you to stop telling me what to do. I will do whatever the f**k I want. And I want to know why the hell you're here. You grab me in public and then completely ignore me. Then, just when I'm accepting that, you start kissing me?" she squealed. "What kind of game are you playing? What kind of..."

She was cut off by him standing so swiftly it hardly registered on her radar. He snatched her up in his arms and tossed her gently back onto the towel. From his standing position, he immediately moved over her pushing his body flush against her. She gasped feeling every inch of his hard body just as his mouth crushed against her own.

All thoughts left her at that point. She hadn't been aware how much she wanted him...how turned on she already was from being close to him. Her body was aching all over with him tight against her moving suggestively from her lips to neck to ear and demandingly back to her hungry lips. He was hardly giving her enough time to breathe as he let his tongue slide around in her mouth. She let her free hand, that wasn't twisting around at the nape of his neck, run down to his hips and pulled him closer to her.

Groaning, he continued his assault on her lips. "I want you right now," he said his hands fumbling to reach down her cotton shorts.

"Jack, no. No I can't," she whispered pushing him away.

"Lex, goddamn it, you're killing me," he growled sitting up and straddling her.

"Well, if you'd listened the first time, we wouldn't be in this situation," she said through her heavy panting.

"If I'd listened?" he asked in disbelief. "I told you I'd take you right here if you didn't stop being so damn sexy. You are the one who didn't listen."

She sat up and shoved him into the sand away from her. "Fine whatever, it's all my fault. It's always my fault! It has nothing to do with you being here when you're not supposed to be or you coming down to the beach to find me. It has absolutely nothing to do with you kissing me, for Christ's sake! Taking advantage of me, when you know I can't control myself around you," she spat.

"You can't control yourself?" he whispered into the gusty night, his words almost lost in the wind.

"Don't play with me Jack," her dark brown eyes were nearly black in fury at this point.

"I'm…I'm not playing with you. What do you mean you can't control yourself? We've been in social situations for the past two or three years, and you've never given me more than one glimpse of your so called lack of control. I think you have perfect control. You hardly look at me. You definitely don't speak to me. God forbid, we have a normal conversation. So, yes Lexi, what the f**k are you talking about?"

She'd never thought about it that way. She figured by avoiding him as much as possible that she'd in some way be able to regain the control she lost when suckered into his enticing thrall. But it didn't work. All her efforts were futile, and even worse was she had avoided his wonderful presence and wasted a friendship…relationship for over two years.

"I did those things because of my lack of control. When you touch me Jack, I completely succumb to you. I give into your ever whim."