“You’re so beautiful,” he says, almost in disbelief, and his reverence makes my heart skip a beat. I’m not sure why it’s affecting me so much to feel solustedover. But maybe that attention is what Eli has always done to me, like he sees pieces of me that no one else does. All his charisma and surety beam right into me. Even when we were at odds, it was powerful—being an adversary instead of always the solver; a rule breaker instead of a person who toes the line; surprising and seductive instead of dependable.
His hand smooths across my thigh, and I shiver. His eyes drink in the movement, and he kisses me in the spot right where his hand was. Then he stands up, tall and imposing now, gently removing my undone shirt and sliding it off my shoulders. He comes closer, bracketing me in, his mouth next to my ear.
“I need to admit something,” he hums quietly.
“You’re secretly married to the cats?”
He snorts out a laugh. And it makes me want to keep going.
I continue. “The accent is a ruse to pick up women?”
“I wish I’d known Americans were that easily won over years ago,” he muses.
“You didn’t actually bake the cookies?”
“A sacrilege. I would never.”
“Esther’s still alive but faked her own death for the insurance money?”
I adore the mischievous smile that bursts out of him at that thought, as though nothing would be more delightful. “I wish,” he says with a sigh.
“Okay, I give up,” I declare, now hungry to know what secrets he’s holding.
“I think about you too much,” he finally says, planting a kiss behind my earlobe and making me shiver even more. “Even when I was mad at you, I wanted you.”
We’re so close, his hands on either side of me on the counter, his words a whisper, since his mouth is still next to my ear. And since I can feel him even without seeing him, it makes me want to admit things too.
“You threw me off the first time we met in person,” I concede. “I didn’t understand how I could be so attracted to someone I disliked so strongly.”
He barks out a laugh and puts his forehead to my shoulder, wrapping one arm around me to steady himself from the amusement of my own admittance.
“Yeah, I felt that way too,” he says with a sigh.
“So why did you keep antagonizing me?” I ask.
He pulls back, and I can see the glee written all over his face. “I was having too much fun goading you.”
I close my eyes and shake my head, trying not to laugh at what should’ve been so obvious. But he holds my chin and stops me from moving. When I open my eyes, he’s watching me intently again. “But only until I was having more fun just getting to be your friend.”
“Is that what we are?” I ask, unsure, wondering how much I’ve inadvertently let this antagonizer turn into a confidant.
He rests his forehead on mine, breathing me in, eyes closed and peaceful. I can’t tell if he’s considering the question or simply letting the obviousness of it pass by.
But then he starts talking again, quietly. “I think I told you about my one friend who I can tell everything to.”
I nod, moving us together, surprised that in the midst of all this, he’s suddenly getting serious. But I’m curious to know where he’s going with it.
“In the last few weeks, going on walks with you and hanging out ... you make me feel that way too. Like I can be myself. It’s just ... I feel freer when I’m with you. Does that sound crazy?”
“No,” I admit, thinking that, as much as I haven’t wanted to see it, he’s done the same for me.
I know I don’t owe J anything, but the realization makes me feel a little disloyal, since it’s almost the same exact language I used just tonight to describehim. How can I have felt unconnected to anyone for so many years, and now there are these dueling, different presences in my life, both somehow emerging at the same time?
But before I can question it, before I can let that confusion nestle its way in, Eli’s mouth is on mine again, and I can’t think about anything else. It’s immediately frantic, as though his words have removed the last burden from his mind, and now instinct is the only thing taking over.
He grabs my thigh and pulls one leg around his waist. Then the other, until I’m completely wrapped around him, and he’s got his hands under me again, lifting me up while I grip, unable to do anything but press myself into him, harder, needier, a tangle of limbs and mouths, the urge to get closer pulsing through me.
He walks away from the counter with me in his arms, and I hang on, the feel of him holding me so effortlessly only making me want him more. He kicks open his bedroom door and collapses both of us onto his bed, the weight of him on top of me a welcome tranquilizer to any other thoughts.
