“Eliza, we’re done with the shiplap.” That guy’s voice is too close. He doesn’t have any self-preservation instincts.
“Dinner is at seven. Don’t be late.” I kiss the corner of her mouth and Eliza leans in, searching for more. “Mr. Foreman better be keeping his hands to himself. While I’m still here, I don’t share. Understood?”
Eliza pulls out of her lust-induced daze and when my words settle, she snaps the mask back on, squaring her shoulders. She pushes me and slips away, stomping the ground, shaking her head.
The satisfaction I get from staking my claim is as new to me as acting like a possessive boyfriend.
Rationally, I know I shouldn’t. I might return home before the three months are up. My mother is pleased with my progress and as much as I trust Jackie, I don’t want to leave all the pressure on her.
This complicated tapestry of intimacy and lust we’re threading is ill-advised. I’m drawn to her and crave her presence. I’m a normal person around her. Her touch makes me feel alive. Present. Makes me want things I have no business imagining.
Even considering accepting the extra month is proof she is messing with my head. I never hesitate when it comes to my duty. And yet, I keep staring at the flowers she drew on the calendar, at the end of the bonus month.
Eliza comes home in the evening and changes before she sits next to me at the kitchen counter. What I said today swarms in my head, but she doesn’t push me to talk while we cook together. The tension is a floating ball of energy between us. The spark ignited a month ago is now too big to be ignored. We don’t mention it because it leads to questions without answers.
We move around each other with the naturalness of long-term partners and this familiarity puts my mind at ease in a way that makes my heart tremble with fear.
When dinner is done, she threads her fingers through mine and leads me to the bedroom. In the dark room, she strips herself and then peels the clothes off me without a word, her eyes unwavering.
She kisses me tenderly until I let myself melt under her lips. Then her palm envelops me, and I let her stroke me until she pushes me onto the bed and guides me against the headboard then she slowly begins to roll her hips, coating me in her arousal. Eliza lifts her hips and without hesitation takes me in a swift move that leaves me breathless.
“Fuck, you feel so good.” I bring her down, pressing her against my chest.
Her forehead pushes against mine.
“More, please,” she moans.
Her movements pick up speed and I anchor myself to her hips, digging my fingers into her. I chase the sensation bubbling in my lower back and press heragainst me so I can control the rhythm. Closer. Deeper, as her walls squeeze me.
Eliza screams my name and shudders, fingers clenched in my hair. I hold her tighter.
It’s more intimate, the air charged with what we both don’t want to admit out loud. Her pants drive me wild, and my thrusts become erratic until I fall into the void, murmuring words of praise in her hair, tattooing the imprint of her body on my nerve endings.
Eliza is soft and malleable on top of me, only the rustle of the trees and the night crawlers breaking the heavy silence.
She slowly lifts her head from the crook of my neck and her hot breath slides above my collarbone, over my pecs, and rests at the top of my scar, the tips of her fingers tracing the line. This is not the clinical touch of my doctor. I tense. Nobody else has touched the scar. Warm lips brush against it and it shakes me to my soul. I can’t wrap my head around the way her touch brings the sort of pleasure that resonates to my core.
“I hate it,” I find myself confessing. “It reminds me how weak I am.” I feel exposed, even in the pitch-dark room, but her next words lack any judgment or pity.
“It makes you look like somebody who went to hell and back and survived to tell the story.” She traces the scar with her finger and it warms my entire chest, coating my heart in a cocoon. “If anything, it makes you look like a warrior.”
A strangled laugh rushes out of me, and I say the stupidest thing without using any brain cells. “Then stay here. I need a princess to protect.”
I know it’s a mistake even before she stiffens in my arms.
“This is not a fairy tale, Carter,” she says softly, without reproach, but the distance she keeps slices through me, even if I know she’s right.
The night rushes past faster than I wanted. I don’t leave her bed. Why torture myself?
It’s just temporary.
The next morning the bed is empty, and it leaves this hollow feeling in my chest.
The foiled breakfast plate on the kitchen island is such a bittersweet reminder of something so quintessentially Eliza. There’s also a note with a ridiculous sketch of a female stick figure, with what I guess is a painting brush in hand, near a toddler-level drawing of a house. The silly note makes me smile, imagining her hunched over the island, the tip of her tongue peeking out.
“I’m so screwed,” I mutter to myself, digging the heels of my palms into my eyes, hoping for a reset.
The walk to her cabin clears my head, so I won’t put a damper on her enthusiasm. Even though I know helping her brings the day she’ll move closer, I’m compelled to support her.
