My feet are rooted in place in the sand as she makes her way towards me, my eyes locked to hers like I’m in a fucking trance. She finally stops right in front of me and an ocean breeze flutters through her hair, blasting the smell of her skin right into my face. My knees go weak and I shake myself out of my daze, remembering how pissed I am at her.
“I hear congratulations are in order,” I tell her sarcastically.
“Screw. You,” she replies, crossing her arms in front of her and cocking her hip to the side, almost like she’s gearing up for battle.
I smirk just to piss her off, crossing my own arms and silently wishing she didn’t look so fucking hot throwing attitude at me.
“Awww, thanks for the offer, sweetheart, but I’m pretty sure you have someone else to do that job for you now.”
A muscle ticks in her jaw as she clenches her teeth. I know I’m being a dick, but I can’t help it.
“You are such an asshole,” she growls.
She fucking GROWLS at me and my dick wakes up and takes notice. Why in the hell does her attitude turn me on so much? It’s almost like the anger I’ve worked so damn hard to contain for the last year transferred over to Lucy while I was gone. While I’m doing my best not to completely lose it with her, she doesn’t give a shit. She’s letting her rage flow right through her and apparently has no qualms about directing it at me.
Which only makes me want to fuck it all right out of her.
“Well, you don’t have to worry about dealing with this asshole anymore. You’ll be married to a new one soon enough,” I tell her in a calm voice, even though my emotions are raging out of control.
I want to yell.
I want to argue.
I want to pick her up, toss her over my shoulder and drag her ass back to my cave like a Neanderthal where I can remind her exactly who the fuck she belongs to.
Mine, Goddammit!
Feeling the familiar rage boiling just beneath the surface, I take a deep breath, tamp down the caveman bullshit and settle, once again, on snark. “Did you come down here to show me your ring, Luce?” I ask, emphasizing the horrible fucking nickname I’d heard Shit-for-Brains-Ford call her. What kind of asshole doesn’t realize exactly how that sounds?
She uncrosses her arms, throws them up in the air in frustration and makes a noise that’s somewhere between a scream and a snarl. “Why are you so fucking infuriating? Maybe if you’d stuck around a little longer this afternoon instead of running away like a damn child who didn’t want to share his toys, you would have seen me throw that stupid engagement ring at Stanford’s face!”
I open my mouth in shock and try to speak, but all that comes out are a few unintelligible, stuttered syllables. She doesn’t even give me time to make sense of what she just told me before she’s off on another tirade.
“You are always running away or shutting down when things get hard and I’m so fucking sick of it!” she shouts angrily. “Sending me all those damn journal pages, making me REMEMBER and making me miss what we had and then, what? When things get a little difficult, you just give up? You just walk away without a fight? A-fucking-gain?”
“Lu—”
“SHUT UP!” she interrupts. “Just shut up and let me finish!”
My dick is about two seconds away from ripping right through the material of my black cargo shorts with each word she shouts, so I put my hands up in surrender and let her continue.
“What was the point of coming back here, making me relive all of those fucking memories if you weren’t going to really put up a fight? Do you even want me or do you just hate it that someone else does? You don’t want anyone else fishing in your damn pond, but you seem to forget that YOU tossed me back in that fucking water! You always said you’d find your way back to me and you FUCKING LIED!”
She shoulders past me and storms off, away from me and everyone on the beach waiting for fireworks. Taking Trip’s words to heart, I remove my head from my ass and charge after her. She’s moving so fast that I have to jog to catch up with her, the darkness of the beach practically swallowing her up as she moves further and further away from the bonfires and the crowds of people. She suddenly makes a beeline for the water and splashes into the surf, ignoring me as I shout her name and follow behind her. I stop when the water is up to my shins, but she keeps going until she’s beyond the cresting waves and standing chest-deep in the ocean.
“What the hell are you doing?” I shout to her as she slowly turns around to face me.
“Throwing myself back in the fucking pond, hoping you’ll get the damn hint and catch me!” she yells back.
It only takes two seconds for my brain to catch up to what she’s saying.
I move my feet, wading through the water as the waves crash against my waist until I make it out to her.
“So, you DO have a brain,” she says sarcastically.
It’s my turn to growl. “Shut up.”
Grabbing onto her face, I pull her towards me and crash my lips against hers. She immediately parts her lips and moans into my mouth when I slide my tongue against hers. Moving my hands away from her face, they splash into the water and I reach for her hips, clutching onto them tightly and lifting her up to pull her against me. Her tongue moves deeper into my mouth and her legs wrap around my waist as I palm her ass under the water.
The kiss grows frantic as we move our mouths faster and push our tongues deeper. Lucy’s hands slide through my hair, clenching handfuls in her fists when I bite down on her bottom lip. She rocks her hips against me and I grab onto the edges of her thong, snapping the thin strings and pulling it away from the heat of her. She looks up at me in shock before the heat returns to her eyes, burning stronger than before, and she anchors her body around mine, using the muscles in her thighs to pull me closer as she presses her lips to mine once again.