by Banks, R. R.
Then I saw Eleanor.
Seeing her had been a stark shock of what reality really was for me now. In that moment, I knew that there was no way I was ever going to be able to put her behind me. I was never going to be able to see her as a distant, abstract memory. She was always going to be at the front of my mind, right there with me even as I went through each day without her.
I felt gutted as I rushed down the stairs from her office and back down into the party. The revelry around me felt out of place and I wanted to get out of it as fast as I could. As I made my way across the room toward the door, however, I felt a hand grasp my arm. I turned around and saw Snow looking at me imploringly.
“Please don’t go,” she said. “I don’t know what just happened up there. I don’t know what’s happening with all this at all. But I know that it means an incredible amount to Eleanor and to Noah. If you can’t stay here for her, please stay for him.” I pulled out of her hand and started toward the door again. “And you really don’t have a way to get off the island without us.” I stopped and felt my shoulders drop. “Feels pretty familiar, huh?”
Shit.
I turned back around slowly and gave Snow a tight-lipped smile. She walked up to me and wrapped her arm around my shoulders, giving me a little squeeze.
“Thank you, Hunter,” she said in a singsong voice that almost made me not want to poke her between the eyes.
Almost.
I wriggled out of her hold and started across the room toward my brother and the well-stocked bar that was set up beside him. Before I could get to him, though, Philip stepped away from his table and disappeared through a door at the back of the room. I sighed and grabbed a drink from the bar before dropping down into a chair at one of the tables set up around the open floor in the center of the room. I looked up and saw that the domed ceiling was glass, allowing me to see the stars overhead. My heart clenched.
“I have no idea what I’m drinking.”
I brought my attention down from the glass dome and saw Edwin settle into the chair beside me. He was holding a coconut filled with pink fluid and dotted with what looked like chunks of various fruits.
“I don’t either.”
He took a sip and nodded.
“Tastes good.”
I followed his gaze onto the dancefloor and saw that Sophie had built up more of a gathering for her conga line. She glanced over at her husband and slithered the line toward the table. I laughed as she performed a conga drive-by, snatching the drink from Edwin’s hand and leaning down to press a kiss to the top of his head.
“That woman,” he said, shaking his head.
“You really love her, don’t you?” I asked.
“So much that we had to move into international waters because it just might be illegal otherwise.”
I smiled at the sentiment.
“She’s certainly unique.”
Edwin nodded.
“Potentially another reason why we had to move into international waters.”
I laughed and slid the drink I hadn’t yet sipped across the table toward him.
“Well, after forty years together, at least you know all about her past.”
“Sixty-five years and ppppffffffff.”
I jumped slightly at the sound that he made by biting his bottom lip and blowing hard through his teeth.
“What?” I asked.
“I said ‘ppppffffffff,” he repeated. “You said that I know everything about Sophie’s past and I say a big old resounding ppppffffffff on that.”
“You don’t?”
“Of course not. What’s the point in that? Do I sometimes wonder how she made the ten thousand dollars that she brought home from Vegas the summer I had the ague that let us invest in our first company? Sure, I do. But when you’ve got the ague and your wife gallivants off, but then comes back, you don’t question the money that she brings with her. Or the glitter on her ass. Or the forged birth certificate in her luggage.”
“But doesn’t it bother you that she lied to you?”
Edwin looked at me for a quiet moment and for the first time I really saw the years in his eyes.
“Son, sometimes a person lies to you because they are really lying to themselves. You have to ask yourself if what they lied about really matters. Then you have to decide which is more important, the lie or the person.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Eleanor
I was reaching for the handle on my door, ready to stalk down into that party and confront Hunter, when it flung open and he rushed in, nearly knocking me over with his body.
“I’m sorry,” he said, reaching out for me, but I stepped back away from him.
“I’m not trying to buy you,” I snapped at him. “I did something horrible. I know that. I admit that. I’ve said I’m sorry for lying to you, and I’ll say it again. I’m sorry. But that doesn’t mean that I’m trying to buy you. I thought about you and the time that we spent on this island every single day, and I kept coming back to two things. One was the peace that I found here, the happiness that I found with you. The other was how Lucille destroyed this area. When I found out that the damage was so much worse when they came and took the helicopter out, it broke my heart. I hated to think about it. I didn’t want to imagine this place forever scarred by her. It needed to be a place of beauty again. So, I created this. I took what you said, what you taught me. I took what you made me feel when we were here together and I designed a resort, a retreat where people could come and experience the tiniest taste of the pleasure that we had here. There are two suites. That’s it. Two. Guests won’t be allowed to damage the island in any way. They will come here only to enjoy it.”
“That sounds wonderful,” Hunter said.
“Apparently it’s not enough for you.”
I pushed past him and out of the office. There was a party downstairs that I was hosting, and even if the reason for the celebration was crumbling around me, I had to be there for the people who had been there for me.
I had just stepped out of the office when Hunter reached through the door and pulled me back inside. I gasped in surprise as he closed the door and pressed me back against it in one smooth movement. His eyes burned into mine for a few moments before his mouth crushed down over mine and his tongue forced its way past my lips. In that instant, everything crashed around me and I lost myself in the overwhelming blend of desire and love that filled me. Our tongues tangled as I pressed into Hunter’s kiss, sweeping my arms up around his neck and using it for leverage so that I could lift my back away from the door. This allowed me to touch my body to his, bringing me close to him again and revealing to me with unquestionable power that he wanted me as much as I did him. Hunter pushed me back against the door with the pressure of his chest, flattening me so that I felt like he was enveloping me. I accepted it hungrily, welcoming his possession of me.
My mouth was swollen and hot with the power of his kiss when Hunter stepped back just enough to allow us to undress one another. Our hands clawed at each other with abandon, pulling away clothing until we both achieved the bare warmth that we sought from one another, reconnecting us to the blissful wild the island instilled in us. We moved with even greater urgency and desire than we had, but now we didn't slow down. The luxury of time, privacy, and proximity were no longer with us and now we both felt as though we were reaching toward one another through the endless days and painful, aching nights that had separated us. Hunter reached down and wrapped his hands around the backs of my thighs so that he could scoop me up. My legs embraced his hips and I rocked mine against his, seeking release from the pressure already building in my core. He turned us around and carried me toward my desk. It had been custom designed and crafted from wood and stones sourced from the island, acrylic panels displaying pieces of debris from the crash and the storm found when combing the beach before we started construction. It was one of my favorite things that I had helped create for the resort.
Hunter set me down on the edge of the des
k and drew my legs from around his waist. He slid his hands up the tender insides of my thighs and pressed my legs apart. I rested the tips of my toes on the two chairs I had positioned in front of the desk, allowing my knees to fall open. The air brushed against me and I felt my body ready for Hunter with a slick rush of hot fluids. Hunter groaned as he leaned down and drew his tongue through my folds one long, unhesitant time. I gasped, reaching down to bury my fingers in his hair as I arched into the sensation. He lifted his head and looked up at me, making a hushing sound.
I nodded breathlessly. I didn’t want to draw the attention of anyone outside of the office by letting them hear me.
“I’m going to have to get used to not being able to be as loud as I want to,” I whispered.
Hunter grinned and got to his feet.
“I’ll help you.”
He captured my mouth and thrust his tongue in against mine to muffle any sounds that I might make and further the connection between us. He pulled me closer to him as we kissed and pressed one hand onto my lower back to hold me against him. I didn’t want to wait much longer. I pulled away from him and lay back, reaching to open the top drawer and withdraw a condom from the stash that I had optimistically tucked there. I tore it open with my teeth and slipped it into my mouth as I sat up. I reached forward and wrapped my hand around his cock to hold it in place and dipped my head down, using my lips and tongue to roll the condom into place.
I sucked his intoxicating erection for a few more seconds and then took my mouth from him, running my tongue up the center of his belly and chest until I could kiss him again. Hunter held tightly to my hips and sank into me, and I had to bite into his shoulder to stop myself from crying out.
There was nothing gradual or slow about his pace. Kissing me with breathtaking passion, Hunter thrust into me fast and hard. The transcendence of the rhythm our bodies created together had me whimpering into his mouth and digging my fingernails into his shoulders, back, and waist. Suddenly he pushed me backwards so that I stretched out on the top of the desk. Hunter planted his hands on either side of my head to give himself more leverage and I lifted my legs, bending my knees up to rest my toes on the edge of the desk. The effect buried him more deeply within me and I felt my body responding to his in an almost involuntary, primal way, lifting my hips in tiny pulses to meet every one of his thrusts. I was feeling the delicious pressure building through my hips, thighs, and belly, and could hear Hunter grunting in time with his deep, intense thrusts, filling my office with the sound of our mutual, euphoric pleasure. He pulled me up to a sitting position in front of him again, grasping the back of my head to look into my eyes as he plunged inside me one final time, going as deeply as my body would allow, and growled as his cock throbbed within me.
The feeling of his thick cock pulsing wildly within me, spilling out the powerful pleasure that we had created for one another, was enough to cause me to lose all control. I grabbed him close to me and kissed him deeply to muffle the cry that bubbled up my throat as all of the pressure within me shattered and my walls clenched around Hunter’s cock still buried within me. I clung to him, holding him as close to further enhance the waves rushing through me. Our breath synchronized and our hearts seemed to beat to one another in time. He nuzzled me with the tip of his nose, touching his lips to mine in a gentle, tender kiss that reached a place within me that had been waiting what felt like my entire life to be found.
After a few minutes, we knew that we couldn’t hide in the office forever and needed to try to sneak back down to the party. We climbed reluctantly down from the desk and got dressed. I was tying my top back into place when I noticed Hunter looking at the desk strangely.
“What?” I asked.
“What’s that?” he asked, pointing at one of the acrylic panels.
From the angle where he was standing I could see that it was difficult to decipher the larger piece of debris proudly displayed on the side of the desk. I guided him around so that he could look at it directly.
“I found it when I was going over the beach while I was designing the resort,” I told him. “It’s my shoe.”
The party carried on through the night and the pink streaks of early morning sunlight were visible through the glass dome in the ceiling by the time that Snow and Noah went to one of the suites, Philip, Robin, and a few of the other workers went to crash in the other, and the rest of the guests left. Sophie and Edwin had been the last to dance their way out of the resort and I could still hear their seaplane humming in the distance when I turned to Hunter.
“Are you tired?” I asked.
“I don’t want to sleep,” he said. “I don’t want to miss even a second. Besides, both of the suites are taken.”
“Not ours,” I said.
“Ours?” Hunter asked, his eyes brows raising.
“Mmmm-hmmm,” I said. “Do you really think that I would design a resort without having somewhere for us to stay in it whenever we wanted?”
I stood and reached for his hands to pull him to his feet, planning to bring him to the room, accessible only by a concealed entrance, that I had had carefully built into the cavern where we spent of the night of the storm. Instead, Hunter pulled me to him so that I sat down in his lap. I giggled and he kissed the tip of my nose.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
I cocked my head at him.
“For what?”
“For hurting you. For pushing you away. For caring more about what you hadn’t told me than what you had.”
“I told you a lot of things,” I said.
Hunter laughed and nodded.
“Yes, you did,” he said. “By the way…. I’m having trouble figuring out what my next career move should be. Can I make an appointment with you tomorrow afternoon, or are you only a guidance counselor on Tuesdays?”
I swatted him playfully in the chest and he grabbed me, turning me so that he dipped me back over his lap and kissed me.
“I love you, Eleanor McIntire,” he said.
“I love you, too,” I said.
He looked at me quizzically.
“What’s wrong?” he said, straightening me up again.
“I really hate that name,” I told him. “I need to look into changing it.”
“Well,” he said, looking at me with a sparkle in those hypnotic green eyes. “I happen to know a way to go about that.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Eleanor
One year later…
“I’m not really sure that I’m comfortable with this, Auntie.”
I looked at Noah and laughed, shaking my head.
“The last time that I heard that at a wedding it started all this,” I said, gesturing around at the people who were scurrying around trying to finish the final preparations.
“Well, at least that was at a proper wedding.”
“What happened to you?” I asked, looking at him quizzically. “What happened to the nephew who I know who never fit in with all of the expectations, turned your back on the family business to be a baker, and married someone in a station beneath you?”
“Someone at a station beneath me at the company that I took over ,” he pointed out. “See? I didn’t completely turn my back on the family business.”
He was arguing with me, but I could hear the levity in his voice and knew that he knew he had been caught.
“Alright,” I said, wrapping my arm around his waist to give him a hug. “You are a good boy.”
“I know.”
I smiled and watched as two men rushed past me with white chairs to set up at the ceremony site. I looked up at the sky, monitoring the clouds that had started forming on the edges of the horizon that morning and were gradually creeping in.
“This is what Hunter and I want,” I told Noah. “He doesn’t like all of the fuss and formality of big weddings. It makes him uncomfortable.”
“But you love all that fuss and formality,” Noah pointed out. “I’ve seen you turn your nose up at an entire marriage bec
ause the bridesmaids’ shoes weren’t dyed at the same time and one of them came out a slightly different shade.”
“That’s not necessarily a wedding requirement,” I pointed out. “That’s just tacky. Besides, I went through enough of that with my first wedding. I guess falling in love with Hunter changed me.”
“I hope not too much.”
“You hope not what too much?”
I turned and saw Hunter approaching us. He leaned down to kiss me before shooting a grin toward Noah.
“We were just talking about how much you’ve changed my life,” I said.
“Oh, really?” Hunter asked, wrapping his arms around my waist and sweeping me up against him. “Want to tell me?”
I hugged him back, but shook my head.
“I think that I’ve told you enough,” I said with a laugh. “I wouldn’t want you to get full of yourself.”
Hunter leaned down and kissed the soft spot beneath my ear.
“I’d like you to be full of me,” he whispered.
I gave a gasp of mock horror and then giggled, and Noah shook his head.
“I don’t think that that was something that I wanted to hear,” he said. “So, I’m really glad I didn’t. And on that note, I’m going to go find Snow. The last time I saw her she was wandering through the trees with Robin reminiscing about when we met. I think that she is considering purchasing controlling interest in the Enchanted Woods.”
“Is Fawn selling?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Noah said. “But I think that I, too, changed my partner a bit. She has learned the ways of the takeover.”
“I don’t think that she’d do that to Fawn,” I said.
“I do,” Hunter said with a laugh. “You two didn’t see Snow kick down Lucille’s door when she fired her. That woman is capable of anything.”
