Eric's Edge

by Holley Trent

  “I guess I just hoped she’d let me slide without ripping me a new one, even if I deserved it.”

  “Yeah, you did.”

  She rolled back her tense shoulders and rubbed her neck. “Would it hurt you to lie to me every now and then?”

  “I’ll never lie to you, Maria,” he said softly. “Not even when the truth hurts.”

  She couldn’t meet his gaze. She could only work. She prettied up the bed and left the room eagerly, fleeing to the next bed that needed making.

  Eric followed quietly behind her, pushing the cart along.

  Please, not now. I don’t have the right words yet.

  “Maria—”

  “Hey, Eric?” came Dana’s voice from the staircase. “You’ve got one more down here looking for a room.”

  “What do you mean looking for? No reservation?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Shit,” he spat. “I’ll be right back,” he said to Maria.

  “Take your time. I’ll just…” She pointed to room three. “Fix that bed.”

  “When you’re done with that, could you…”

  “Which room?”

  “Rooms, actually. A and B downstairs. Folks should be ready to check out, and if not…”

  “Go Shrew on them and turn them out of their beds?”

  “Politely.”

  “I’m perfectly polite.”

  He bobbed his eyebrows. “To everyone but me.”

  “Eric…” She took a step toward him, but he turned on his heel and disappeared around the corner. His booted footfalls sounded down the wooden staircase, and she pulled in a much-needed deep breath to center herself. It was funny how a supposed expert at meditation so often forgot how to breathe.

  She didn’t know what to do with him—what to say to him. Tamara had given her a heads-up about what had happened between him and Bryan, and Maria wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do with that information.

  She was used to Eric just being Eric—the laid-back innkeeper. Maybe he was still “just Eric” to her, but for the Bears, he was a linchpin. He was important. Not that he wasn’t important before, but…she hadn’t had so many competitors for his attention before.

  And she wanted his attention, and not just behind closed doors. She was tired of lying to herself and pretending that was all she needed him for.

  Her mind was absolutely clear in that regard, but having the will to keep him didn’t mean she also possessed the way to make it happen. She got the bed in room three made up, carried the vacuum downstairs, and headed around the corner toward the lower rooms.

  Catching a glimpse of Eric leaning onto his podium and chatting toward a tall, gorgeous black woman, she gritted her teeth and, channeling one of Tamara’s irrational jealous rages, looped right back around to him.

  Maria slipped an arm around his waist and he looked down at her and raised an eyebrow.

  “Problem?” she asked.

  “Maybe. I’m trying to figure out how long it would take to get the loft in sleeping condition.” He looked to the woman who was calmly wrapping a large hair elastic around her gathered dreadlocks.

  The locks hung down her back and had to weigh a ton, but they were so pretty with all the silver beads embedded here and there. Maria’s father used to do something similar with his.

  “It’s drafty up there,” he said, “but I can bring you a space heater and move you into a different room when someone checks out tomorrow. Alternately, I could call my friend down the road. I’d hate to send a guest to my competitor, but if you’re not going to be comfortable…”

  “I’m sure your loft will suit me fine.”

  Her voice was low and lilting and…familiar, and her gaze tracked down Maria’s chest to the pedant that hung between her breasts, and then down at her own torso.

  Maria had a pendant the same shape, and Maria had a hunch that if she looked closely, they’d have the exact same designs.

  Who the hell is she?

  Maria couldn’t read anything off her psychically. She usually didn’t have to try so hard to get absolutely no information for the effort.

  “I usually only put groups of skiers and college kids up there because it’s slightly exposed, and those folks always keep weird hours.” Eric sounded like he was trying to convince her to go down the road.

  He’s ashamed.

  Maria gave his waist a squeeze. He was trying hard to keep the place together. Everyone who mattered knew that.

  “I’ve slept in worse,” the lady said, “and it’s just for the night. What do you need? A credit card?”

  He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it until tomorrow. I’m not going to charge you until I get you into a real room.”

  “I’m most grateful.”

  “Just call it Southern hospitality.”

  Just call it flirting with a pretty lady.

  Maria tried to keep her smile on, but gave up the endeavor when it twitched at the corners. Eric was just being Eric, likely due to an absence of a reason not to be.

  “I’ll show you where it is.” Eric gave Maria’s hand a squeeze, and then let it fall from his waist.

  She would have snatched his hand back if there were a chill way to do it. She obviously sucked at the he’s mine, find your own thing. “If you need anything at all, just tell me. If you can’t find me, slap a note onto the kitchen door or something, and I’ll catch up to you.”

  He led the stranger toward the stairs, leaving Maria feeling empty.

  Maria shouldn’t have taken it personally—Eric was just flirty by nature, and he usually didn’t mean anything by it. And usually, it didn’t bother Maria. She knew she was the only person he was intimate with, but there was no reason that couldn’t change at any time. She hadn’t asked for more, and maybe he was going to decide soon that what he’d been offering up to that date wasn’t enough.

  She didn’t know who that lady was, but her gut or her Shrew intuition said be wary.

  She was somehow connected to her, and Maria would have to tread carefully in finding out how.

  Dana pushed the front door open at that moment and carried in two duffels Maria knew contained a variety of weapons.

  “What are those for?” Maria leaned against the podium and rubbed her tired eyes.

  “Tamara thought it’d be a good idea to keep some here just in case, and I agreed. There always seems to be a Shrew here for some reason or another, and I wanted to make sure we’ve got gear everywhere we need it.” Dana set the bags on the bench by the door and clapped her hands clean on her dark jeans. “So…who was the lady checking in?”

  “I don’t know yet. All I know is that the innkeeper Bear thinks she’s pretty.”

  “Well, she is pretty, but he’s not interested. Learn to read your man better. He barely made eye contact with her. And you know, you and that lady have the exact same mouth and jaw. Same foreheads, too. You know I wouldn’t make the observation if the similarities weren’t so notable.”

  Dana was a master of observation. Because of her Shrew mutations, her eyesight could only be called superhuman. She saw things on a level no one else did.

  “If you’re not related somehow, I’ll eat my boot.”

  “She has a pendant like mine,” Maria said softly. “My grandmother Hattie gave it to me.”

  “So, what do you think that means?”

  Maria could put two and two together as well as the best of them, but she didn’t like leaping to conclusions. She shrugged. “Her voice is familiar. She sounds like the woman who called me.”

  “Maybe she’s checking up on you. I would probably do that. I’m protective of my family and would want to know why people are reaching out to them.”

  “What do you think I should do?”

  “I don’t know about shoulds, sweetie,” Dana said. “But what I would do is wait and see. If she doesn’t approach you, you don’t have to approach her just yet. There doesn’t need to be a confrontation unless you want there to be one.�
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  “I don’t want confrontation. I want things to be chill and easy for a little while. I just want some normalcy for a change. I was starved of it growing up.”

  “The ship has sailed on normalcy for us. The best we can get is not having someone try to slice us up or put a bunch of bullets into us in any given week.”

  “How did this become us?”

  “Because there’s no one else who could do it.” Dana held her arms out and raised her eyebrows. “You’re usually the hug initiator, but you look like you need one.”

  “Yeah, I do.” Maria laughed and stepped into Dana’s embrace. “I’m tired of being a mess.”

  Dana rocked her a few times and sighed. “We’re all messes. Every single one of us. The guys do a damned good job of shielding us from other folks. You’ve been going at it alone for too long.”

  “How am I supposed to fix that now? I can’t just make a U-turn and tell Eric, hey, I changed my mind.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because—”

  Because why?

  Maria leaned back and, furrowing her forehead, stuffed her hands into her skirt pockets.

  “Say it,” Dana said softly.

  Maria scoffed at the revelation. “I’d be ashamed. That’s basically what it comes down to. No one likes to invite that feeling.”

  “Is he worth it?”

  “Yes, of course he is.”

  “Well, there you have it. What do you need, some backup?”

  Maria chuckled and dragged her hand across her burning eyes. “Maybe. I think I know just the person who could do it. It think it’s about time I told Astrid what’s going on.”

  ___

  Maria followed Astrid down the path—or rather was dragged down the path by her—toward the innkeeper’s cottage, listening to the hormonal Shrew scold both under her breath and aloud.

  “I can’t believe you two.” Astrid stopped pulling and turned to throw her hands up at Maria. “You’ve kept that a secret for years, and nobody suspected anything!”

  “Sorry.”

  “Ugh! You’re supposed to be my best friend.”

  “I am.”

  “And yet you couldn’t tell me you and my brother were hooking up on the sly.”

  “Put yourself in my shoes.”

  “What shoes? You’re wearing shoes?”

  “Sort of.” Flip-flops counted.

  Astrid got her moving again. “You two deserve each other. You can go be secretive together.”

  “I figured you’d be upset.”

  “I’m not upset that you were hooking up. I’m upset that you kept it a secret. I would have been supportive. You know that.”

  Deep down, Maria did. But she hadn’t known what she wanted—hadn’t wanted the strings of a relationship, and had thought that Eric probably couldn’t handle what she was dishing out.

  She’d made an assumption, and it’d been an unfair one. It’d been unfair for both of them.

  Astrid turned the doorknob of the small cottage and shouted into the house. “Eric, you in here?”

  “Can I not nap for ten minutes?” he responded. “That’s all I want. Ten fucking minutes.”

  Astrid pushed Maria over the threshold. “He’s napping. Go nap.” Then Astrid closed the door.

  Maria watched through the window as the muttering Shrew dragged a lawn chair in front of it and plopped down.

  Apparently, she wasn’t going to let either of them out that door without her say-so, and unfortunately, the only other exit was built onto the little porch over the creek. Maria would have to hop, skip, and jump across stones to get to solid ground.

  “Damn it.”

  “Astrid?” Eric called out.

  Maria took a deep breath and made her way to the hall. She walked through it slowly, dragging her fingertips along the wall and then paused in front of the master bedroom door.

  It was cracked open a few inches—just enough for her to see the jut of Eric’s feet under the covers. She pushed it in a little more, and then the rest of the way after she found her courage.

  He watched her with his eyes narrowed in curiosity as she stepped out of her flip-flops and walked around to the other side of the bed.

  “Astrid said I should nap,” she explained.

  “Did she, now?”

  “Mm-hmm.” Maria crawled beneath the covers and pulled them up to her chin. She stared at the ceiling, aware of his heated proximity but not ready to touch him yet—not knowing what to say.

  Eric rolled onto his side and stared at her. “So, Astrid knows, huh?”

  “Mm-hmm. And Dana.”

  “And did they come and force you to make amends? You know, I’m not going to tell you guys to stop congregating here if you and I aren’t getting along.”

  “God, it’s not about that. Astrid’s sitting outside making sure neither of us leaves until we reconcile or something. She’s doing it not because she’s so concerned about the Shrew-Falk Lodge relationship disintegrating, but because I’m a coward, and I wouldn’t have come back here if she hadn’t half-dragged me.”

  “That begs the question, what did you come back here for?”

  “Don’t make this hard for me, Eric, even if I deserve it. I know I deserve it.”

  “Tell me what you want, and I’ll try to give it to you.”

  She sighed and rolled onto her side, too. “That’s what you’ve been trying to do all along, isn’t it?”

  “It’s the only thing I know how to do.”

  “But that wasn’t enough for you. You wanted more than that, and for some reason, you wanted it with me.”

  “Not some reason. I adore you. I always have. You’re quirky and interesting. A bit wild. Your passion for the things you care about is unfettered and mighty, and you know how to get things done, in spite of your weaknesses.” He picked up an end of one of her locks of hair and twirled it around his index finger. “Actually, I think you often figure out ways to leverage your weaknesses to make them weapons. Worked against me, at least.”

  She groaned. “You could have just moved on. You didn’t need to keep telling me yes.”

  He scoffed. “My inner bear finds that laughable, but I think even before I got turned, I wouldn’t have liked the idea of sending you away any better. Maybe I’m selfish, but I don’t want anyone else to have you.”

  “The feeling’s mutual.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you have to flirt with every person who crosses your path?”

  “It’s good for business.”

  She sat up and gave him a hard poke to the shoulder. “You know what else is good for your business? You being alive.”

  “Is that a threat, Shrew?”

  She crossed her arms over her chest and flopped back down against her pillow. “There’s no good way for me to answer that question.”

  He chuckled and slung an arm across her waist. He pulled her closer, a few jerky inches at a time, and rolled her so her backside was nestled against his crotch.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing,” she said when he twined his fingers with hers.

  “Thanks for telling me.”

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Just let me show you.”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  “It is if you want it to be. If you have any compassion at all for me, please let me rest for a few minutes. My head might explode if I don’t get some REM sleep soon.”

  “Sorry. I’ll just go.” She tried to set up but he yanked her back against him, clearing his throat.

  “Be still,” he said.

  He’d said to let him show her what to do, so she was going to try. At least for the moment.

  And letting him didn’t feel so bad. Actually, it felt good.

  Damned good.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Mmm.”

  The hot wet grip of a skillful mouth tugged at Eric’s cock, and he opened his eyes to the mid-afternoon light to find a dark fall of curls tickling hi
s belly.

  He pushed Maria’s hair back from her face, and she rolled her gaze up to him without stopping her ministrations.

  “Is this a wakeup call?”

  “Mm-hmm,” she hummed around his shaft.

  He ground his palms against his eyes and then grabbed his phone off the nightstand. It was nearly four. The other guests had likely shown up and would need dinner soon, but Astrid had probably checked them in and got them settled. He could spare a few minutes to “wake up.”

  He pulled Maria off him, chuckled at her emphatic swearing, and laid her on the pillow beside him.

  “If you’re going to start something, don’t go at it halfway.” He pulled his shirt over his head and wriggled out of his sweatpants.

  Her gaze latched on the cock—made wet by her mouth— pressed against his belly.

  He chuckled. “Hungry? You gotta eat more meat, honey.”

  She rolled her eyes, but she ignored her mild protest as he pulled down her skirt. Pausing to kiss the wet fabric of her panties at the juncture of her thighs and down her legs, he took great pleasure in her curious expression of what’s he going to do?

  He was going to drive her nuts, one touch at a time, just the way she deserved.

  He tossed her skirt onto the floor and sat her up to peel off her shirt. Straddling her, he mounded her full breasts and kneaded them, dragged his thumbs across the distended nipples.

  Bending to pull one into his mouth, he gently grazed it between his teeth.

  She put her head back and let out a long, shuddering exhalation.

  “You’re always so sensitive there, and you never let me touch,” he said.

  “I’m trying.”

  “Let me make you feel good. Pay attention to what I’m doing for a change and not just the end goal.”

  “I will.”

  Her toes curled against the sides of his calves as he drew the other nipple into his mouth and flicked his tongue over it.

  “Jeez,” she whispered.

  “Like that?”

  She nodded and thrust her chest toward him.

  He pulled more of her breast into his mouth while gently tugging her other nipple. He’d waited so long to just play and explore her body, and he didn’t have very long to do it. He needed hours to do what he wanted with her, and he had a few minutes at most, so he moved on.