See You at the Finish Line (Run, Love, Repeat #1)

29. Paige

Adam is frozen in the hallway, hands clenched at his sides. He doesn’t know what to do. Neither do I, but my body moved before I could stop it and opened the door, his words making their way into my walled-off heart.

“What?” he breathes.

“I’m not stupid, I figured that’s what happened. Actually, Leah was the one who suggested it after she got sick of me going on and on about it. She said maybe you were shocked and didn’t know what to do. It makes sense—I was surprised to see you, and I don’t know what I would have done if it had been the other way around. I probably wouldn’t have pretended to forget you, though. That was really stupid. But I get it. I mean, it sucked and it hurt, I can’t lie about that, but I understand and I’m glad to see—”

“Paige.” He cuts me off, his mouth twitching. “You’re rambling.” There’s humour in his voice and a touch of relief. His enormous body unfreezes as he stalks towards me, taking up all the space in the doorway .

I crane my neck to look up at him, his piercing blue gaze capturing mine and holding me hostage. I swallow and his eyes release mine, following the movement of my throat, catching on my lips.

Out of nowhere, my giant-ass dog slams into me from behind in an attempt to escape through the open door. My body hurls into the solid mass of muscle in front of me and warm strong arms that should not feel as familiar as they do envelop me, breaking my fall.

“Now I see why you’re so clumsy,” he says, his breath tickling my ear as he sticks his leg out to block Q from escaping. I breathe in his scent of sunlight and my brain can’t handle the overload. I lean into his arms as he tightens his hold.

Q won’t let me have this moment, though—she tries to get through on the other side, but Adam is there too. He releases me and I have to fight the urge to protest. He leans down to take Q’s face in his hands.

“I could kiss you right now,” he says to my dog.

To my dog. Not to me, I remind myself. There will be no kissing of any kind. It’s forbidden. My thighs clench together. Uh-oh. There are other reasons we’d never work.

He didn’t text me. And he thinks I’m the wrong choice. Maybe I misunderstood that as well? Ugh.

Q is having none of it and tries to launch herself through the door.

“Q, stop,” I order, but she’s not listening. It’s time for her walk and she knows it. She keeps trying to get past Adam but instead, he scoops her into his arms and carries her inside. She hasn’t been carried like that since she was a puppy and looks just as surprised as I am. She’s 110 pounds and Adam scooped her up like a bag of flour.

His muscles ripple under his T-shirt and I’m officially going to need to change my underwear. I was not expecting to be this turned on and all I can picture is myself in his arms as he carries me like a damn Viking from my favourite fantasy romance series, taking me to his furs to have his way with me.

He places Q down on the floor. I use my last brain cell not occupied by him to turn and shut the door.

The energy in the room is different now. Palpable. It practically pulses in his body, and I see it in his eyes when he straightens up to face me. Five minutes ago I could have skinned him alive. Apparently, it only takes a couple words I’ve been dying to hear to melt me into a pile of goo. Or more accurately, make my lady bits soaking wet.

If only he had texted me back, I might have memorized every inch of his skin by now.

“I’m really sorry, Paige,” he says quietly and just like that, I’m done for.

“Why did you come here, Adam?” I manage to get out, my voice low and husky. His eyes darken.

“What do you mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean.”

He swallows and stares at me hard. “I don’t know,” he whispers, and the disappointment hits me like a truck. The cloud of lust and dreams vanishes, again, and my spine straightens. How many chances am I going to give him?

“Then I don’t know what else there is to say.” It’s not as harsh as I want it to be, but I can see in his eyes that it stings. I want to scream, ask him why he never texted me back, but the words don’t come. I don’t think I can bear to hear the answer anyway.

He doesn’t want me. He can weave all the beautiful words he wants, but when it comes down to it, he doesn’t know what he wants. He’s not the only one to blame. I can’t say the words either. It shouldn’t be this hard.

And I can’t handle giving him any more time, any more of my heart, so I open the door again. When he’s in the hallway he turns back, uncertainty written all over his face.

“See you at the finish line.” His face transforms when he gives me a small smile before he walks away, and my heart can barely handle it. I don’t answer—my body is buzzing with so many conflicting emotions.

I shut the door softly and snuggle with Q.

“You want to tell me what it’s like to be in his arms?” I whisper to her. She licks my face. “Thought so,” I mumble. I lie sprawled on the floor, an existential crisis crushing me like a weight dropped from the ceiling. What am I even doing? Who have I become?

Running again has woken me up. Cleared my vision. Now I can see how much of myself I’ve lost. I’m not the same person Adam met two years ago, and even if he remembers me, he doesn’t know me anymore—too much has happened.

I wish I could go back and do things differently. I wish I had called him instead of texted. I wish I had fought harder to keep him in my life, to apologize for the race .

I wish I had spent more time with my mom.

I wish and wish and wish, but there’s no point. I can’t change anything. And I know my mom is looking down on me right now telling me to get my skinny ass off the floor and stop wallowing

“My ass is not skinny, thank you very much,” I’d tell her.

Then she would say, “Fine, I was trying to be nice, get your fat ass off the ground.”

“My ass is not fat. It’s toned and looking better than ever,” I’d argue.

“You’re so conceited,” she’d say, and if I close my eyes, I can see the face she’d make. My mom and I go back and forth in my mind, and it brings a smile to my face.

I listen to my mom and scrape my perfectly toned ass off the floor to get Q ready for our walk. It’s a beautifully chilly day out and the new jacket I bought is perfect for the weather. It’d better be—I blew my monthly grocery budget on it, but I’m not about to freeze my perfect ass off.

Q is living her best life here, and I feel guilty for making her live her puppy years in the desert when she’s clearly Canadian—it’s in her breed. Wrong coast, but better than the desert, I suppose.

I climb into bed and proceed to fall asleep immediately. I’m wiped and hopeful for a deep and dreamless sleep .

I do not get my wish, waking in the middle of the night from the dirtiest sex dream I’ve had in a long time. Guess who my star player is?

None other than Adam Ashford himself. I’m hot and sweaty and severely turned on. I blindly reach into my nightstand, almost knocking over my glass of water to grab the closest vibrator.

It’s my small bullet and it does the trick to take the edge off, but I need more. So I root around the drawer, eyes still closed to hold on to the dream, to the feel of him, until I find what I’m looking for.

It was my sister’s parting gift to me, and if you’re wondering if my sister giving me my new favourite dildo is weird, the answer is yes. But I push that thought from my mind.

With no one in my bed—a specific no one who I picture pinning me deep into this mattress—I insert the dildo and imagine him stretching me, sliding in so slowly it’s torture.

His jaw clenches as he restrains himself, letting me adjust. With his face in my mind, the two-year-old memory of his mouth on mine, I make myself come over and over until I physically can’t anymore.

I’m going to be so sore while running tomorrow, but I don’t care. All I care about is the fact that I just wrung five orgasms out of myself and still want more. It wasn’t enough.

Nothing is ever enough.