Free Tormenting Lila by Sarah Alderson

 
    My eyes flew open.
    Alex’s lips stilled instantly against my neck. ‘What?’ he murmured, his hand reaching automatically for his gun, which was lying on the nightstand.
    I shook my head. ‘Nothing,’ I said, forcing myself to smile at him, all the while trying to throw off a gnawing sense of disquiet.
    Alex paused for a moment, studying me. I turned away from his scrutinizing gaze and focused on the semi-automatic he was gripping in his hand. With a quick flick of my eyes the gun went skidding
out of his palm and tumbled into the drawer of the nightstand. I slammed it shut and turned my attention back to Alex.
    He raised an eyebrow at me, his blue eyes sparking in amusement.
    I had tried arguing with Alex about the need to carry a gun. We were no longer being hunted by the Unit after all, and he was no longer a Marine employed by said Unit to hunt people like me down
and
contain
them. Therefore, my reasoning went, a gun was no longer a necessary part of our lives. But old habits died hard. And Alex refused to be parted from it. He kept it on him night
and day, and I’d caught him several times lovingly oiling the parts and checking the firing mechanism when he thought I wasn’t looking.
    It had reached the point where I was seriously starting to envy the gun.
    Although Alex hadn’t said anything I was beginning to wonder if his keeping the gun to hand was less out of habit and more about something else. The thing was, I didn’t want to
contemplate what the
something else
could be. The Unit was out of action as far as I was concerned. Richard Stirling, the man behind it, was missing, hopefully blown to smithereens along
with all his
research.
His daughter was behind bars – something which made me smile from ear to ear and do a little happy dance every time I thought about it. The world was full of
rainbows and unicorns and Alex loved me. Why focus on the negative?
    Alex’s gaze fell to my lips. I cut my eyes in the direction of his hand, still resting on the nightstand and tugged it towards me, directing it to land squarely on my waist.
    Alex laughed under his breath, pulling me closer against his chest. ‘We’ve talked about this, you don’t need to force me to do anything involving you, Lila.’
    I gave him a look. That wasn’t strictly true and he knew it. But I’d given up trying to argue with him. There was only so much rejection my ego could take.
    With Alex’s body warming mine and his hands starting to move of their own freewill along the length of me, my ego and every other part of my body felt soothed. I gave myself into his
kisses, letting them consume me.
    It had been precisely eighty three days since our first kiss in that seedy motel near Palm Springs, and the feeling I got each time Alex’s lips came near mine (OK, when
any
part
of his anatomy came near mine) still persisted. It felt like all the air in the universe had been switched for a combination of helium and laughing gas.
    But then it was back . . . just as I was starting to feel a groan building in my throat the niggling sensation returned – a prickling of the skin, a tightening of the scalp – that
served to distract me from the very awesome pleasure of running my fingers along the hard slab of muscle that was Alex’s stomach.
    With a sigh I rolled out from underneath Alex and glanced up at the ceiling. ‘He’s here. I
know
it.’
    Alex groaned and rolled onto his front, pressing his face into a pillow.
    I couldn’t help but smile triumphantly at his back. It was infinitely satisfying to see Alex’s self-control finally starting to erode. Up until now his resolve had been
nuclear-bunker tight. There was no chink in it (believe me I’d searched). After spending six weeks sailing the Mexican gulf on a super-yacht and trying to find a way past it, I’d
finally resigned myself to the situation. I was going to be a virgin until I turned eighteen. Alex had started off by claiming it was to do with California State