Eligible Receiver: A Second Chance Romance Novella

by Haley Pierce

  Abel knew he shouldn’t drive, but restraint and judgment had never been his strong suits. The town was small enough that there was no real traffic on the road at this hour. He turned up the radio and sang along with Unchained Melody.

  He barely knew where he was going until he realized that he had pulled into the parking lot at Lacey’s crappy apartment complex. “I’ve got to get her out of here,” he mumbled to himself. “She’s a…she’s too special for this place.”

  Abel started honking his horn in a jaunty rhythm, hitting the console with the heel of his palm. Someone leaned out a window and yelled at him to shut up.

  “You shut up!” shouted Abel in return. “This time I’m not going away! I…want…ANSWERS!” He got out of the car and stumbled across the parking lot. He threw his head back and bellowed drunkenly at the sky, and then began shouting Lacey’s name. Windows started to open in all of the apartments and people started looking out through their drapes at him, upstairs and down. Abel was waking the whole place up. But as he looked from window to window, he still didn’t see the once face he wanted. Where was she? She wasn’t going to ignore him. Not this time.

  Then she was there, looking pretty damned mad. “Abel, shut up! What are you doing?” Even at this hour—he realized he had no idea what time it actually was—she looked indescribably beautiful.

  “Lacey, I love you! I want you! Come down here, tell me everything that’s wrong. I’m sorry for whatever I did. I’m sorry. I don’t know how else to say it, so all I can do is say it louder. SORRY! What do I have to do?”

  “Accept his apology so we can all get to sleep!” someone yelled.

  “He’s right!” said Abel. “Listen to whoever that is!”

  “No,” said Lacey, yelling at them all. “Don’t encourage him! Abel, go home and sleep it off. You’re embarrassing yourself, and me.”

  “I can’t,” he said. “I’ll never sleep again. Lacey, do you hear me? I’ll never. Sleep. Again. And it’ll be your fault!” Then Abel had a brilliant idea. There was a car underneath Lacey’s balcony. He gauged the distance and then sprang into action. He got a running start, stepping up onto the hood and then leaping, reaching for the railing. His fingers closed over it just in time. The whole thing creaked and groaned as he pulled himself up over the edge.

  “That’s it!” screamed Lacey as she disappeared from the window. He wondered dimly why he hadn’t just taken the stairs. Before he could knock on her door, it flew open. Lacey stood there, huffing and puffing as if she had just finished sprinting.

  Abel threw open his arms and prepared to say something romantic when he saw the little girl behind her. She had two blond braids and was rubbing sleep from her eyes. Abel was stunned. Why was Lacey babysitting at this hour? Was she that hard up for money? It made him want to reach into his wallet and give her everything he had.

  “Mommy?” she said. “What’s wrong with him?”

  Mommy? thought Abel. Since when is Lacey anyone’s mommy?

  “Nothing, baby,” said Lacey. “This is an old friend of mommy’s, but he’s going home soon.”

  “Who’s that?” said Abel. “She’s adorable. Hey little lady, what’s your name?”

  “Dana.”

  “I’m Abel. It is very, very nice to meet you. I think your mom is the most wonderful thing in the world. I bet that means you’re pretty great too.”

  “I am,” said Dana.

  Lacey held her arm out and kept Dana behind her.

  “Wait a second,” says Abel, pointing at Lacey. He was slowly sobering up. There was a timeline falling into place. Something was threatening to click, illuminating the edges of the mystery that had plagued him for so long. “Just wait, wait, Lacey. Hey, who’s her father. Honey, who’s your daddy?”

  “That’s it,” said Lacey. She picked Dana up and carried her back into the apartment. She reappeared seconds later and shut the door behind her. “You’re scaring her to death! What the hell is wrong with you, Abel?”

  Abel leaned down, nearly putting his forehead on hers. “You tell me straight; is she mine? Did you have a baby with me? Is that why you broke it all off with me? If I had a daughter this whole time and you kept it a secret, I don’t know what I’m going to do.” He paced back and forth on the balcony. The drapes in the apartment next to them opened, then closed quickly.

  “I’m going to talk if you’re willing to listen,” said Lacey. “Show me that you can be quiet and listen.” She folded her arms and waited.

  Abel put an imaginary key to his lips and locked them. He stood as still as he could, but he was wavering a little. He couldn’t even remember how many drinks he’d had.

  “She’s not yours,” said Lacey. “That’s the only time I’m going to say it, and the only time we’re going to talk about it. Understood? She is not yours. I need to know that you get it.”

  Abel couldn’t decide what to do. He wanted to look at the little girl again. Dana. Such a beautiful name. And something about her reminded him of how he and Sasha had looked as children. Maybe he was just drunk. Maybe he was just confused. So many women had tried to have his baby, just to get a share of his money. Maybe he’d gotten so arrogant that he assumed everyone wanted him, and when they didn’t he fell apart. If Lacey tried to ask him for money she’d never want for anything, and yet here she was, living in Cockroach Manor with her daughter, so she must have been telling the truth. Otherwise, why would she be here? Or in Palmera, for that matter?

  Either way, the world was spinning and he didn’t know what to think. The longer he stood there, he wasn’t even sure that he was still capable of rational thought.

  “Abel,” said Lacey, “Before you fall off of this balcony and kill yourself, I want you to come in and sleep it off. It’s not safe for you to be on your own tonight.”

  “All right,” he said. Abel took her hand and let her guide him into the apartment. Within minutes he was snoring on the couch, facedown.

  Chapter Nine

  Lacey lay in bed staring at the ceiling. She had never been so frustrated with herself, or felt as if she had so little control of her life. She had just lied to Abel, and it wasn’t the first time. Back in high school she had been intimidated by his ease with girls, with all relationships in general. Sometimes it had felt like she was the only one who wasn’t desperately looking for a match. Lacey had usually been so happy with her own company, and with her music, that most of the time boys just hadn’t been on her radar.

  She’d never been a very competitive person, but on one of their earliest dates, Abel had quizzed her about her romantic history. Lacey had felt defensive and inexplicably nervous, although she had hidden it. She had told him that she’d had lots of lovers. She had even used the word “lovers,” despite the fact that she was a virgin who hadn’t even finished high school yet. Then she had gone home and kicked herself, wondering why she had needed him to think that she was more experienced that she actually had been?

  Their relationship had started with lies built into it, and so it had continued. Even if he wanted her now, could there really be anything real in a relationship that she had brought such deceit to?

  “He deserves better,” she said to herself. “Whatever he is, or isn’t, he deserves better.”

  Lacey fell asleep and dreamed that she was wandering through a dark maze. Every time she gets to a corner someone said, “Choose wisely.” But every time she made a choice, rounding a corner or taking a fork in the road, it leads to a dead end. At one point a path opened up and she heard the faint sound of piano music. It was a tune she did not recognize. It was a lovely, bold piece. As she walked towards it the music got louder and louder. In the dream, she grew warm and happy. Tears began to roll down her cheeks as she saw Dana sitting at a piano, playing her mother back to safety. Back from the lies and the apartment and all of the doubt of the past few years.

  She opened her eyes in the dark and let out a long slow breath. The piano music was still in her head, as if it had followed her home.
Lacey hummed it so that she could preserve it while she and reached for a notepad that she still kept by her bed. It wasn’t the first time that a snippet of a song had come to her in a dream, and there had been many times when she’d wished that she’d been able to transpose a piece of music as soon as she woke up. A musical idea that she could not commit to memory often made her feel like someone had robbed her of something precious.

  After recording a few bars on the page she realized that there was another sound in the house.

  Abel was in the shower. That man was in her shower. She felt like a voyeur, even though she was on the other side of the hall behind a closed door, but she shut her eyes and listened to the sounds of the water, imagining what was happening in there as he washed himself.

  You are not allowed to fall in love with him. Nope. Not tonight. Not ever. But he’s in there. Naked. Soapy. Maybe he’s thinking about you. Or maybe he’s just trying to sober up and he’s embarrassed about the scene he caused.

  Lacey had never been much of a drinker. One thing Emily had told he was that alcohol always amplified character. It didn’t make people more fun: it made fun people more fun. Belligerent people got even crankier. Jokesters became insufferable and thought they were way more hilarious. Melancholy people got depressed. Sentimental people grew maudlin. The impulsive became reckless, and so on.

  She put her hand over her mouth and giggled, thinking of Abel in a drunken sprint, just before he had jumped off of that car and scaled the balcony like Tarzan.

  “He said I love you,” she said to herself in the dark. “He said that to me tonight.” He’d been a drunken buffoon, sure, but if his mom was right, didn’t this mean that he loved her already, but he’d just gotten intoxicated enough that it had forced him to bellow it from the rooftops? Well, it had been the parking lot, but close enough.

  The shower stopped. Abel was rustling around in the bathroom. She heard the bathroom door open, but did not hear any footsteps. She expected him to go to the couch and lie back down in a stupor, but suddenly he opened her door, his massive shadow filling the frame. The white towel around his waist stood out against the shadows and his tanned skin. There was enough moonlight creeping through the slats in the blinds that she could see every cut muscle in his abdomen.

  “Hey,” he said. “What’s going on in here? Sleep or something?”

  “Hey. Something like that. Not really.”

  Abel walked in and sat down on the edge of the bed with his back to her. “Sorry about earlier. I’m really embarrassed, Lacey.”

  “It’s okay. You were just drunk.”

  “No,” he said. “I mean, I was, but it wasn’t just that. I wasn’t so drunk that I can’t remember what I said. I meant it all.”

  “I believe you,” said Lacey. “And I’m sorry I was so awful to you.”

  “You weren’t awful. You’re just protecting your daughter and no parent ever has to apologize for protecting their children.”

  “I don’t mean that. I meant before tonight. You know, way back when,” said Lacey. “You deserved better.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay as in, you accept my apology?” said Lacey.

  “I guess. I think I’d prefer an explanation, though.” Abel sighed.

  Lacey stared at the ceiling, trying to ignore the heat of his body, and the fact that she was flat on her back, inches away. It would be so easy…

  To hell with it. Lacey sat up and put a hand flat on his back. The muscles rippled beneath her palm. “I want you to know that I always cared about you. It wasn’t easy for me to do what I did. It wasn’t right either, but I hope you can believe that it never had anything to do with you.”

  Abel took a deep breath. The muscles of his back flared like the hood of a cobra. “How could it have nothing to do with me? Back then it felt like you had everything to do with everything for me. It still feels that way. I kind of wish it didn’t. It would certainly be easier on me, kiddo. But I can’t help it.”

  Lacey realized that her heart was pounding hard that she wondered if he could hear it. “Please believe it.”

  “I can believe it,” he said. “But I want to feel it.” He turned around and gently pushed her down onto the bed. He lay on top of her and kissed her neck. His weight settling onto her made her gasp, but it was a weight that she was all too happy to bear.

  “I can show you,” said Lacey, wrapping her legs around him. “But you might need to take that towel off.”

  He rose up on his elbows to look at her. His lips curled into a sweet smile, but his eyes looked wolfish. “Will she hear us?”

  “Dana sleeps like the dead,” said Lacey. “But I guess it depends on how good at this you are. I might not be able to stay quiet. Maybe we should just take our chances.”

  Her body was a raging inferno. Lacey had never felt such animal need, not since the last time they had been together, so long ago. She arched her back, rubbing herself against him. She was instantly wet. A small moan escaped her. It had been such a long time.

  “You’re beautiful,” said Abel, looking down at her. “Actually, you are an insult to the word beautiful. You know that if anyone could describe you, it would be me, wordsmith that I am and all that. But you’re beautiful.”

  “Prove it,” she said, putting her hands in his hair and pulling his lips onto hers. Their tongues chased each other, remembering how good this had felt the first time.

  Abel pulled back after a few moments, intending to take his time. “I’ve got to slow down. I want to remember all of this.”

  “Hurry,” she said. “I need it. I need you inside me.”

  “I’ll get there,” he said. “But the last thing I’m going to do is hurry. I’ve been waiting for this since…well, you know.” He began kissing her neck…small, hot kisses that left a trail of desire on her skin. He ran his fingers through her hair and traced the tips lightly over her scalp. His lips moved up and down her arms, then onto the tops of her shoulders.

  “Take this nightie off,” he said. “Slow.”

  Lacey sat up and grabbed the hem of her nightie. She started to raise it.

  “I said slow,” said Abel. “Tonight I think it’s best for us both if I’m in charge.” Even in the dark room she could see how hard he was, how massive his lust for her had made him.

  “I think you’re right,” she said in a hoarse voice. “But I need it. Come on, don’t do this to me. I can’t wait.”

  “You’ll have it. Now keep going. Take it off.”

  Lacey pulled her nightie up, up, and finally over her head, as slowly as she could make herself. She watched his eyes narrow with every new inch of skin. He licked his lips and once again she couldn’t believe that he was here in her bed.

  Abel put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her back down. He grabbed her wrists and pulled her arms up so she was stretched out as far as she could go. “Hold that position,” he said. “If you move, I’ll go even slower.”

  He kissed down her neck once more, arriving at her breasts. Gently, he rubbed her nipples with his thumbs, and then flicked them lightly with his tongue. He traced lazy, gentle circles all around them, finally taking them into his mouth and sucking lightly.

  Lacey’s hips rose into the air again, as if she had no control over them. She breathed faster and faster.

  Abel spent a couple more minutes on her breasts, then made his way down her stomach. “Are you wet?” he said.

  “Yes.” Lacey gasped when he began kissing her inner thighs.

  “I’ll know if you’re lying,” he said, laying him palm flat on her pubic bone. He applied a little pressure, and then moved his hand in a circle. She thrust herself against his palm, her mouth hanging open. She thought she might go mad with need. It was as if the years of disappointment had all been stored up until this moment and this was the only way to release them.

  He withdrew his hand and she raised her head to protest, but just as quickly, he slid a finger inside of her and began a tender exploration of the t
iny ridges and folds that make her shake with a wonderful anguish. Abel watched her every move and facial expression, adjusting what he was doing to make it more intense for her.

  He put his other hand under her thigh and lifted her leg into the air. Lacey shivered with pleasure when he spanked her gently, still working inside her with the other hand.

  “You disappeared,” he said. “You disappeared for years. I feel like I owe you a few spanks.”

  “You’re probably right,” she said. “Give me another one.” She was so wet that when he put two more fingers inside her, it was easy. She grabbed his wrist and worked his hand, showing him what she needed. He kept giving her light swats and she rolled over on her side to give him more skin to work with. It felt like penance, but also like a reward.

  When he was ready for something different, he spread her legs with his hands and began licking her. Lacey had figured he would be good at this, but he was an artist. It felt so good that she kept raising her head to try and see exactly what he was doing with his tongue and fingers, but then he would do something so new and delicious that she would arch her back, close her eyes, and squirm with pleasure.

  When she came, the force of it surprised her. The orgasm was so hard that it was almost like an out of body experience, a total loss of self. As soon as she had finished, it began building again.

  “Abel,” she said. “Oh my god. I think that nearly killed me.”

  He lifted his head and smiled. “That would make for some sort of great quote on your tombstone.” Abel went back to work.

  Finally, she simply couldn’t stand it. She grabbed his hair and pulled away from him. Then she sat up and licked her lips, slowly and slyly. “Let’s see how you like it,” she said, getting on her hands and knees and crawling across the bed towards him.