She made a warm, undone sound in the back of her throat and just let herself be kissed. There was no fighting it. No reason to at all. Eli’s mouth was strong and demanding against hers and her body went tight with the electricity of it.
What was meant to be a happy, friendly, satisfied kiss instantly transformed into a desperately hungry one. Eli’s hand traced down her back and suddenly he was laying her down on the colorful rug laid out over her golden hardwood floors.
He was vaguely aware that he was moving faster than he meant to. That he’d meant to come over here, flirt with her and kiss her goodnight. Maybe they’d rub up against one another on the couch again. But he knew that he really didn’t want to push her. She’d said they wouldn’t be sleeping together, and though Eli wasn’t exactly stoked about that, he wanted to respect it.
But then her legs were clasping around his hips and he was lying on top of her on the floor. His lips were suddenly clasped to her pulse point, his tongue tasting her warm skin, still damp from the shower. She moaned for real now, nothing but ragged desire in that sound.
She wanted. She wanted him. And it sent explosions of triumph and yes! and thank god all the way down his spine. He couldn’t believe what it felt like to be wanted by her. He was gasping against her collarbone, one of his hands traveling the whole damn length of her body and the other cradling her head against the floor.
And her hands too, were busy. One curled into the collar of his button-down shirt and the other was somehow underneath his shirt at the back. Her soft, sure hands were dipping into the muscles that lined his backbone.
He licked along the collar of her shirt and Tia arched back, the cradle of her skull pushing into the palm of his hand. Her legs tightened around his hips and he felt the heat of her, even through his jeans.
Something woke up inside Eli. And part of it was known and familiar. Lust, pure and raw. But the other part of it was something new. Something untrained and live and he wasn’t sure he liked it, but he knew he needed it. The feeling rode him the exact way that he wanted to ride her, demanding, consuming, and desperate.
A rapid thump, thump, thump on the floor beside them had both of them turning their heads. And there sat Ham, fat pink tongue lolling to one side as he eyed them through bug eyes and wagged his tail against the ground.
Tia and Eli burst out laughing at the same time.
“Wow,” Eli murmured. “Some guard dog you’ve got here. A strange man can eat you for dinner on your living room floor and he’s a cheerleader.”
Tia, still giggling, reached out to pat Ham’s friendly head as Eli helped her to her feet.
“I think Ham’s just really receptive to my mood.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, he could tell how much I was enjoying that.”
“Oh yeah?” he repeated, this time with a lascivious grin and a waggling of eyebrows.
Tia rolled her eyes but couldn’t help smiling. “If I wasn’t so hungry, I might drag you back to the ground and prove how much I liked it.”
Eli cleared his throat. Work. Talk about work. Something that was safe and innocuous. He was really trying to respect these damn boundaries. Boundaries she’d set but was barely respecting herself. “You didn’t get a chance to eat at work?”
Tia grabbed mismatched dishes out of her cabinet, some iced tea from the fridge for both of them and slid the newspapers on the breakfast table even further to one edge. Eli brought over the Chinese food and they both sat.
“No, today was absolutely crazy. I was in surgery all day.”
“Did it, uh, go well?” He served her some fried rice and then himself. He was hungry, but his stomach turned a little bit at the thought of the surgery not going well.
“It did,” she said. “But you don’t have to ask about that. I know it makes a lot of people uncomfortable.”
He nodded, grateful that she understood. “So it was just busy? That’s why you called it the shift from hell?”
“Yeah, and…” she speared a shrimp and pushed it around her plate.
“And what?”
She took a deep breath. She obviously wanted to tell him about Owen. She trusted herself to know that there was definitely a reason that she’d brought this topic up in the first place. “And my ex-boyfriend cornered me and we had to rehash the past.”
Eli stopped eating. “He came to your workplace?”
Tia waved her hand through the air, swallowed a huge bite of egg roll she’d just taken. “No, it’s his workplace too. He’s also a surgeon at the hospital.”
“Oh.” Eli couldn’t say, exactly, why that piece of information was so deflating. But for some reason it annoyed the shit out of him. The errant thought crossed his mind that her ex wouldn’t mind talking about how her surgeries went over dinner. In fact, he’d probably be able to add insights here and there. Unpack the intricacies of it. He cleared his throat. Get your head in the game. “What do you mean, rehash the past?
“Oh, he wanted to know why I haven’t been returning his calls or texts.”
“Why haven’t you?” Maybe it made him a dick. But he wanted to hear her say it out loud.
“Because it’s so completely over. And he’s kind of a give-him-an-inch-he-takes-a mile-type of guy.”
“What ended it?”
“Oh. Well.” Tia served herself some sweet and sour chicken to buy herself a little time. This was about to be a whole lot of information all at once. If she chose to give it to him. Or she could go loose and vague. “I realized that we weren’t right for one another. For a lot of reasons.”
“Like…” he prompted. Again, he knew he was being a dick. But he really, really wanted to hear her point out all the reasons her surgeon ex-fiancé wasn’t the right guy for her.
She smiled a little half smile, like she knew exactly what he was doing. “Well, for one, a lot of the… thrill had gone. We weren’t super, I don’t know, compatible in that way anymore.”
In that way? Did she mean in the bedroom? Eli tried to imagine not being compatible with Tia sexually. It just did. Not. Compute. He could make love to her knees and be sexually fulfilled. The woman just did it for him.
Tia’s eyes dropped, with something that looked suspiciously like shame, and she pushed her food around her plate. “But also, I’d had a really hard time before we broke up. I don’t know if I mentioned it, but both my parents are in a home for people with dementia or Alzheimer’s. And it was a really tough decision to put them there. And it was even harder to pack everything up and get them there. And then we had their whole house—mine and Laura’s childhood home—to deal with and pack up and sell. And god. It was so much work.”
“And he didn’t help?”
Tia scoffed. “God no. He didn’t help for any of it. And honestly, he was resentful of all the time and energy I took to arrange everything. He said it took away from our relationship. Which was true. It was definitely true.”
“Of course it was. Because you have to be able to lean on your closest relationships in moments like that. You know how much of a dick I was to Jay and Marcus after my mother died? They didn’t hold it against me. They helped me through it. And then when it was time for me to shape up and stop being a dick, they helped me with that too.”
Tia nodded. “Right. Well, that’s how I knew we weren’t fit for each other. Because of all that. The break-up was hard. It didn’t drag out, but it was a terrible day. I think I put it off for so long because he’d met my parents when they were still a little bit with it. They knew him and knew I was serious about him. So I think a part of me wanted to stay with him as a way of staying connected to what my parents wanted for me when they were well.”
Eli nodded. What was that feeling spearing through him like white hot lava? Was that jealousy? Was he actually jealous of this prick for getting to meet Tia’s parents before they got sick?
“And it must have been hard because you were engaged.”
Tia cocked her head to one side in surprise. “You kne
w?”
“Yeah,” Eli smiled sheepishly. “Jay’s mom’s hairdresser used to be your next door neighbor.”
“Marty Hightower?” Tia gave a delighted little laugh. “Figures. She always had a big mouth. But a good heart.”
Part of this story was still really bothering him. “You said he cornered you?”
“Not physically. But yeah. He pulled me away from a patient’s family and started in on the whole thing, wanting to know if I was still serious about not getting back together. And then you called.”
“And I’ll bet he didn’t like that.” Eli tried to keep the smug tone out of his voice.
“No. I thought he’d leave me alone after that, because I went in my office and closed the door to talk to you.”
“But he didn’t?”
Tia shook her head and swallowed another bite. She’d been shocked when she’d opened the door to see that Owen was still out in the hallway, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall. And absolutely staring daggers at her. “No, he waited for me. Wanted to know more about you.”
Eli sat back. “Did you tell him?”
Again, Tia shook her head. “No.”
Why? he wanted to ask. But didn’t. He was pretty sure he wasn’t going to like whatever the answer was and he didn’t want to spoil the effervescently happy thing they had going on that evening. “So he just wanted to keep talking?”
“Yeah. And then I realized that he was probably trying to intentionally make me late leaving the hospital. And I left.”
Eli didn’t like it. He didn’t like it one bit. But she was a grown woman. And she was highly intelligent. If she wasn’t too worried about it, then Eli figured he would keep his thoughts to himself on that one.
“Tia?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad you realized he wasn’t right for you.” Eli grasped her hand across the table, a tight and sure grip that had her heart skipping.
“Me too.”
CHAPTER NINE
Jay floated on top of his surfboard, bobbing over the waves as the sky turned silver gold with the rising sun. He’d had to drag himself out of bed this morning, which was unusual for him. Usually he was up like a shot.
He couldn’t deny that he was physically exhausted. So was Marcus. Eli’s accident had weighed on both of them more than they’d ever want Eli to know. Those first two weeks had been absolute hell. A terrifying amalgamation of moments that were now burned into Jay’s brain.
Jay’s hand absently rubbed over his right thigh, where a thick, twisted, ten-inch scar was right under his wetsuit. He hated hospitals. He never wanted to go back to one as long as he lived. And every day that he’d spent with Eli in the recovery room had cost Jay greatly. But he knew what it was like to lay in a hospital bed, terrified and in pain and alone. He would never do that to his best friend. So he’d gone. He and Marcus had gone every day.
Unwillingly, Jay thought back to his own turn in the hospital all those years ago. The terror of thinking he might lose his leg. His horror at the hospital bills piling up. Because he was a young, dumb kid with no health insurance. And worst of all, he was alone. She hadn’t made it to the hospital.
He watched the orange in the sky deepen and thought, again, of the moment he’d thought of a hundred thousand times in the ensuing years. Her gorgeous face, her hair tangled and whipping around her in the tornado that the med-evac helicopter kicked up. They were safe, he’d thought. Finally, after all those days of thinking that the hurricane was going to kill the two of them and no one would ever know what had happened. They were being rescued. Already there were medical professionals working on his leg. The exhaustion had caught up to him. He’d fallen asleep holding her hand.
But when he’d woken, the helicopter was landing at the hospital in Miami. And she wasn’t inside. She hadn’t come along. There wasn’t enough room in the helicopter for her and all the medical personnel that he’d needed, so she’d volunteered to stay, to wait for the next helicopter. And that’s the last he’d seen of her.
Jay sighed and stretched on the board. Same old story. He’d have thought that after all these years the pain of it would have lessened a little by now. But it was as sharp and potent today as it was the day he’d lain in his hospital bed and realized that the two of them had given each other absolutely no way to contact one another. That they’d been separated. Permanently.
And then he thought of the days following that horrible realization. Of looking up to his hospital room door and seeing Eli standing there, grinning. He thought of Marcus flying down the next day. And then his mother. And then Eli’s father. He thought of his family surrounding him and pulling him up in every way possible. But Eli had been there first. He’d been the first face that Jay had seen that he’d loved. And that moment was forever imprinted on his mind.
Not to mention Eli had immediately paid all of Jay’s hospital bills. Without even asking. At first, Jay had been insulted, a little outraged even.
“We’ll just subtract it from whatever I leave you in my will, okay?” Eli had said, a shit-eating grin on his face.
And Jay had had nothing to do but accept it. Accept the generous gift and accept his friend’s hospitality. Jay sat up and traced a hand over his face as he checked out the set of waves rolling in.
Not stellar, but definitely good enough to catch a ride back in to shore.
***
“I’m in love.”
Tia’s head snapped right up from where she was resting it on the steering wheel. They were just driving home from another visit with their parents and honestly, Tia was beat. She kept waiting for it to get easier. The blank expressions on her parents’ faces when they walked in the room. But no. It felt like a horrible rejection every time.
Maybe someday she would get used to it. But for now, she figured it was safer not to hope. This was just how it was going to be. A vacuum where her parents’ love used to be.
Both Tia and Laura had been quiet as they left the home. Tia had automatically gone into older sister mode, sliding into the driver’s seat. Even though Laura had driven them there.
Now, she stared at her sister with wide eyes, jolting when the car behind them honked. She accelerated through the green light. “Run that past me again?”
“I’m in love,” Laura repeated. She had a funny look on her face, happy and sad. Excited and terrified all at once. It was the complicated expression that had Tia believing the words coming out of her sister’s mouth. Laura had had big, romantic feelings a million times before. She often proclaimed them to be love. But she’d only ever looked thrilled about it. Now she looked like she was feeling everything about being in love.
“With Jace Overshire?” Tia scrambled to catch up.
Laura blushed and Tia gaped. Laura never blushed.
“Yeah. With Jace.”
“Wow. I—Wow. It happened so fast,” Tia marveled.
“I know.” Laura bit her lip and stared out the window of the car, watching the trees roll past. “I wasn’t expecting it. Just hit me like a Mac truck. All the sudden, BANG.”
“How does he feel?”
Laura leaned her head back on the seat. “I’m not sure. We haven’t really talked about it yet. But I know he doesn’t feel nothing. It might be too much to hope that he fell in love with me as fast as I did him, but there’s no mistaking that he’s really into me. You should see the way he looks at me sometimes. Seriously, it’s really something.”
Tia nodded. “You don’t sound altogether happy about being in love.”
“Well, it’s terrifying, isn’t it? I mean, being in love at all is pretty scary. It’s like handing somebody a knife and baring your neck.”
Tia swallowed. Was that how she’d felt about Owen? No. Not at all. Loving him, when she had, hadn’t really felt scary. It had felt expected, normal, a natural progression of their relationship.
“And you know what it’s like, starting a relationship with one of these allstar football players. It’s pretty m
uch asking to get cheated on.”
Tia snapped to attention at that. Her throat got thick and her hands started sweating on the wheel.
“What do you mean I know what it’s like?”
“Well, you’re obviously in a relationship with Eli. And I’m sure you’re worried about what happens when the season starts, right? When they start traveling?”
“I hadn’t thought about it,” Tia responded in all honesty. “And I wouldn’t say that Eli and I are in a relationship. We’ve gone on a few dates. Kissed a few times. That’s it.”
Laura scrunched up her face. “What? That’s all? You haven’t slept with him yet?”
Tia shook her head.
“Why the hell not?” Laura exclaimed. “Tia, the man has had more sex than cupid!”
“Um. Yeah. That’s kind of part of the reason, Laura. I’m not all that interested in being added to his mile long list of sex partners.”
“Again. Why the hell not? T, I think you’re thinking of it the wrong way. It’s not a ‘list’ of sex partners. It’s a resumé.”
Tia laughed outright at that one.
“No, seriously, T. The man must be good at sex by now. Why wouldn’t you want to give that a shot? Especially after years of bad sex with Owen.”
Tia winced. She really regretted the infamous night of tequila shots and brutal honesty with her sister. It was only a few days after she and Owen had broken up and everything kind of came tumbling out.
“Owen wasn’t bad at sex, Laura. We’ve been over this.”
“Well, I refuse to believe that you’re bad at sex, Tia. I mean, after all, you’re almost my genetic twin. And I’m a sex goddess.”
Tia bit back her smile. “I’m not trying to belittle myself here. I’m just saying. I’ve never had good sex. And the one thing all my sex partners have in common is me.”
“I’m gonna pretend you didn’t say that.”
Bachelors In Love Page 11
