by Tara Sue Me
“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “I have everything under control.”
“What does that even mean?”
He pops the last bite of buttered biscuit into his mouth before answering me. “Trust me when I tell you it’s going to be fine.” I must still look unconvinced because he leans in and brushes my cheek. “It’s my responsibility to take care of you today. Let me prove I can take care of you. After all, you’re all mine today.”
My heart almost stops and as I look into his eyes, those eyes I know so well, and I want nothing more than to be his. And not just for a day. “Okay,” I manage to say through the cotton that has taken up residence in my mouth.
“Thank you, Darc.”
It's at that moment the private serenity surrounding us is broken by our waitress asking if we need a refill of coffee. Elliott is nothing but utter calmness telling her that we're fine and thanking her for asking. I on the other hand, am nothing but chaos and wondering how I'm going to make it through the next seven hours.
* * *
I nearly laugh when Elliott pulls up to our next stop. “You really did bring me to a park.” I get out of his car and I’m grinning from ear to ear and I don’t even care.
“Did you doubt me?” he asks. “How long has it been since you’ve been to one?”
“So long that I can’t remember exactly. Years, I’d guess.” I look behind my shoulder to watch him walking as he catches up with me. His hands are empty and that doesn’t make sense. That’s when I notice the backpack he’s wearing.
“How long are we staying here for?” I ask him. He won’t tell me what we’re going to do if I ask him directly, so maybe this indirect approach will help.
“Until it’s time to get ready for lunch,” he answers, proving he knows what I’m trying to do.
“It might have worked,” I mumble under my breath.
What did work is this, what he’s set up. Almost an entire morning, all to myself, doing anything I want. It’s unheard of. And I love it. Elliott spreads a blanket under one of the leafy trees off of the center of the park. He sits down and holds out a hand, offering for me to join him. I don’t hesitate, and he pulls me into his lap.
I’m hoping he’s going to kiss me, but that seems less and less likely. He sitting there with his eyes closed, and his face is tilted up slightly in order to feel the sun. Taking his hint, I lean back into him, and do the same. After a few minutes, I begin to wish that had brought my e-reader along. Reading in the park is one of my favorite pastimes, one I haven’t done in ages.
“Are you okay?” Elliott ask, which makes me wonder what I did to make it appear as if I wasn’t okay.
“Did I say something?” I ask, because I don’t remember saying anything.
“No.” He shifts a little bit to reach for his backpack and get something out. “I was wondering if you’d like this?” He’s holding my e-reader.
I’m sure I look like a fish, with my mouth hanging open and trying to close it the way I am. “How do you… what is…” I’m so shocked, I can’t get a sentence out.
Elliott places the device in my hands. He brings his fingers to my mouth and gently presses his forefinger against my lips. “Shhh…. Just read, Darc. I knew you’d want it."
Of course he does because he knows me so well. It’s what I told him that night right before the whole dare thing even started and exactly what he confirmed and told me in return. That was part of why I wanted to see what it would be like if we could end up being something more than friends. But I don’t think that’s going to happen.
For today what we have will be enough. I turn on my e-reader and it opens to the book I was last reading. I lean back against Elliott and start to read. I’m not sure how far I’ve gotten when my eyes start to feel heavy. I try to keep them open, but it’s a useless battle. Closing my eyes, I finally succumb and drift off to sleep.
In my dream, there is no one with me other than Elliott. It’s just two of us and he is kissing me finally. His lips are just as sweet, and his kisses are just as addictive as I remember. Maybe even more. He holds me tight against him, so tight I can feel his heartbeat. It is racing, matching mine.
I mumble his name over and over. Each time the only answer I get is his hand stroking me. But that’s not enough. It’s not even near being enough. I want him closer. So close he can feel me burn for him. I want him to touch me where I ache for him and to fill me where I’m empty.
“Darcy.” He calls my name softly and there is nothing in his tone that sounds urgent or needy. It’s way too gentle for what I want. “Darcy.”
It’s not dream Elliott speaking to me, it’s real Elliott. Shit. I open my eyes and find him watching me with a curious expression.
“What?” I ask.
“Sorry I had to wake you up. You were having a dream.” He glances around the area we’re at. I hear the faint murmurs of people nearby, but not with enough clarity to determine where they are sitting or how close they are to us.
Elliott leans down and whispers in my ear, “You were getting a bit loud, and even though it sounded like an amazing dream, I don’t think this is the best place for you to be having it at.”
It’s hard to concentrate on his words, especially when my mind is more interested in his breath against my skin and heat of his body so close to mine. He exhales, and I shiver as the warmth crosses my neck. My nipples pebble because his teeth are right there and I remember the way they felt on my neck. I want them on me again.
I may actually verbalize that thought.
Elliott jumps up as if something bit him. Even when I stand up, he keeps his distance.
“What in the world, Elliott?” I ask, trying not to show how personal I took his action or how much his current actions hurt.
“I’m sorry,” he says, and I know my attempt to cover up my hurt failed. “I had to, or else….” He sighed, but doesn’t finish his sentence.
“Or else what?”
“Damn it, Darcy.”
“Tell me.”
He walks the few steps it takes to stand in front of me, totally obliterating my personal space. There’s a hunger in his expression that finds its twin in me. It’s so much, it makes it hard to look at Elliott and I dip my head so I don’t have to.
But he won’t let either of us ignore its existence and he lifts my chin with one hand to ensure I hear what he says next. “I had to move. Being so close to you…fuck, I don’t think I can control myself right now. And I don’t think you want half of Atlanta to see me ravage you.”
Oh God, yes. “I’d prefer not to do it front of half of Atlanta,” I manage to get out.
He nods as if I’d proven his point and turns to walk back to the car, but in fact, he has no idea how wrong he is.
“Not the first time anyway,” I add.
He stops and turns around. Slowly. “What was that?”
“I don’t believe I stuttered,” I say, making my voice as flat as his was when he delivered the same line the night we spoke about O2.
My words pull him to a dead stop, and his face dissolves into something a lot lighter, but somehow just as intense. He’s actually smiling when he says, “We need to go if we want to eat at that French place and not get turned away at the door.”
If he wants to drop the subject there, I’m not going to pick it back up. At least not yet anyway. Although, if he thinks it’s going to remain that way forever, he better think again. I’m allowing us both the opportunity to have some fun, no matter that I’m fully aware how miserable I think he is beneath that mask he won’t take off. Even for me.
But that’s okay, let him think he’s hiding something from me. Let him think I don’t know the different masks he uses. I know him so well, I can get him to take them off without him even knowing he’s doing it. That’s how well I know him and how good my plan is.
There’s only one problem with my plan.
I know everything about him, except for how he really feels about me. And I have no plan on ho
w to get to the bottom of that question once and for all.
Maybe I don’t know him as well as I thought I did.
* * *
I’m looking at my jeans when Elliott pulls into the shopping center where the French Bistro is we’ll be having lunch at. He said to trust him and I’m trying, but we’re here now and my clothes are not acceptable for where we’ll be dining.
Elliott is oblivious. Or at least it appears that way. There’s a lightness and a joy to him that I haven’t seen in a long time. Seeing it today has proven just how long it’s been since he’s looked so carefree.
He opens the car door for me and I'm getting ready to remind him about our clothes, when what he said to me the first time I brought up what we were wearing comes back to my mind. About him taking care of me because I was his for the day.
Those words stunned me the first time I heard them with their mix of confidence, possession, and protectiveness. Even repeating them in my head makes me aroused and longing for his touch in a way I’ve never experienced.
It’s for that reason that I don’t mention our clothes when he takes my hand and leads me…in the complete opposite direction of the restaurant. I can’t believe he doesn’t know where it is. There are a number of signs pointing in its direction.
I catch a glimpse of myself in a window as we walk past and I cringe when see my hair. Damn, and I don’t have a brush in my bag because I distinctly remember taking it out the weekend I went to Tate’s camp. I’m not able to hold in the sigh that escapes my lips.
“Almost there, Darc,” Elliott says, and I bite my tongue so I don’t reply back with, “Going where?”
Just as well, because even if he’d told me, I probably wouldn’t have believed him. I’m speechless when he leads us into an upscale spa, almost hidden away in the park-like landscape.
He walks right up to the prim and proper woman working the reception desk and says, “Elliott Taber and Darcy Patrick,” when she asks for his name.
Within seconds, we’re ushered into the back and met by another woman.
“Mr. Taber,” she says, “I believe you know where to go?” He nods his confirmation and she turns to me. “Ms. Patrick, if you’ll follow me, please?”
Before I can move to go with her, Elliott takes my hand and pulls me into his embrace. “I told you I’d take care of you, didn’t I?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“I would always take care of you,” he says, or at least that’s what I think he says. He kisses my forehead and adds, “Go get ready for lunch. I’ll be in the lobby when you finish.”
I turn to the woman quietly waiting for me with a smile on her face.
“He’s something else,” she says with a hint of wistfulness.
“That he is.”
I’m led to a dressing room in the back of the spa and told I have an outfit waiting for me in the closet. Once I’m dressed, I’m to head to the room next door where I’ll have my hair and make up done. I’m going to have to hand it to Elliott, he’s really hit the ball out of the park on this one.
I glance at the garment bag in the closet and decide it’s best to wait until I see what’s inside before making a call on whether he’s hit a home run or not. Is the outfit something from my closet at home or something new altogether? I’m thinking it’s probably from my closet. Elliott has never gone clothes shopping with me and I doubt he even knows what size I wear.
I would have thought wrong. The sundress hanging in the garment bag is definitely not from my closet. But I recognize the cut and the fabric of one of my favorite designers. This is all proof that men are listening and paying attention more than what we give them credit for. There is even more proof when I take the dress out because it’s my size exactly. As are the shoes in the bottom of the closet.
After dressing, I stand in front of the full length mirror in a corner of the dressing room. I need to go on to the next door to get my hair and makeup done, but I had to check out myself first. I’m not one to gloat, but I have to admit I look pretty fabulous. The sundress must be from the designer’s new line because I haven’t seen it. Which leads to one question:
What’s Elliott really up to?
I know what I want him to be up to, but I fear I’m too close to the situation to be objective. I can’t let myself believe it’s what I want it to be and I can’t fathom asking Elliott. Not after the way he’s acted the last few weeks. Especially when you pair it with a few of the things he’s said today. He’s the king of mixed signals. This entire situation is crazy wild.
What’s even more crazy wild is the way my heart is racing after my hair and makeup are complete and I’m standing at the door that leads into the lobby, trying to work up the courage to open it.
I tell myself it’s stupid and that it’s only EIliott and that we’ve been friends for years and years, and there is no reason to be nervous at simply seeing him. I’m not sure I totally believe it, but it’s enough to give me the strength to push open the door.
He’s standing and looking out of a window on the far side of the room. I push the door open fully and walk into the room. My heels click against the marble floor. Elliott lifts his head at the sound and he slowly turns around.
The suit he has on is one I haven’t seen before and the shirt is almost a perfect match of the blue in my dress. His hair is casually messed up in a look relatively few men can get away with, but that makes him look like sex on a stick. But best of all are his eyes and the way he’s looking at me.
“Darcy,” he says, with a shake of his head. “You look incredible.”
I give him a sultry smile. “You should know since you picked everything out yourself. I had no idea you had it in you.”
His smile is genuine, but that doesn’t stop his words from stealing my breath.
“There’s a lot about me you don’t know.”
I’m trying to wrap my brain around this new side of Elliott and it hits me. He’s flirting with me.
I’m such an idiot I could smack my head. Seriously, had it been anyone else, absolutely any other man on the planet, I would have picked up on it instantly. But it’s an action I’m not expecting from my best friend, so I’m slow to recognize it for what it is.
Now that I have, the question becomes, will I flirt back?
Duh.
I walk to where I’m standing in front of him and I put my hand on his bicep. His muscle tenses under my touch, but I don’t stop. I let my fingers traill up his arm, and I ask, “Are you offering to tell me these things I don’t know?”
His eyes flash with a combination of need, want, and surprise, but he doesn’t answer. That in and of itself is a surprise. However, his silence only spurs me on. I lift up on my toes to whisper in his ear. “Or would you prefer to show me?”
Chapter Twenty: Elliott
“Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.” Hermen Hess
She’s trying to kill me. Or at least give me a heart attack.
Do I want to show her? Can she not feel my dick? Does she not notice how my hands are in tight fists so I don’t grab her and show her? Hell, yes, I want to show her. In great detail. Several times. And then repeat.
But here’s the funny thing. Okay, funny’s the wrong word, but at the moment, it’s all I’ve got. The thing is, the longer this date goes on, the worse I feel. I can’t explain it, and it doesn’t make any sense to me. But as we keep on progressing closer and closer to my big surprise at the end of the night, I keep feeling like I’m doing something wrong. That spending all day with Darcy the way I am is wrong.
I should be happy that Darcy is flirting back with me. Heaven knows I like her hands on me. For some reason, however, it seems like something we shouldn’t be doing. It’s a different feeling than the one I had when I was on her couch kissing her, although it has the same vibe. Except in this case, I also feel that feeling in the pit of your stomach you get when your mind is trying to tell you to stop doing something.
&n
bsp; I’m fighting it. I’m fighting it with every damn thing I have. Because I want this, I want Darcy. And the way she’s looking at me right now? She wants me just as bad. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to give her mixed signals. Not now, not when we’re so close to becoming everything we can be. Not when we’re so close I can almost taste and touch it.
“I’d love nothing more than to show you,” I say, lowering my voice in case anyone is listening. “Unfortunately, we have lunch reservations.”
She groans, but takes the hand I hold out to her and we make our way outside. Maybe after I eat, that unsettled obnoxious feeling in my stomach will go away. I doubt it, but hope sprigs eternal.
Lunch does not settle my stomach. In fact, it actually feels worse than it did before I ate. Probably because it has food in it now. Food that tasted like cardboard and has dropped to the bottom my stomach like a pile of rocks.
Fortunately, however, Darcy seems unbothered by my ailment. She eats everything put in front of her at the French restaurant. With a laugh, she tells me that she would lick the plate if she wasn’t in a public. Just as well, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea for me see that live and in person based on how body parts further south than my stomach reacted just hearing her talk about it.
I’m glad she’s feeling well, glad she’s laughing, and having a good time. I don’t hesitate before bringing out my next surprise for her. Tickets to her favorite play, currently showing in Atlanta. I didn’t buy any when they went on sale because Darcy’s usually traveling this time of year. But as I was planning the day and saw it was in town, I knew we had to come see it together. Good luck with that, everyone told me.
Like I ever give up that easily.
The owner of the Storm is good friends with the gentleman who owns the theater. This is a tidbit I’ve known for years, but never worked it out to my advantage. Until recently. After a recent meeting, I mentioned my quandary to him, namely, that all the tickets for today’s show were sold out. He patted me on the shoulder and said not to worry. An hour later, he was able to hook me up with the owner, who not only got me tickets, but a pair of seats in the orchestra section.
