“Waffles?” Eli asks excitedly. He looks down at the tray in awe before blinking those wide Bambi eyes up at me. “You made waffles for me?”
“Yeah, baby.”
Eli flushes bright crimson, then quietly digs into the breakfast. We share off the tray and a few times Eli feeds me, and I happily let him. I nibble at his fingers when he slips a corner of a waffle into my mouth, earning me a beautiful laugh. Eli has the best laugh. It’s soft, low, and genuine each time, so I know I’ve really earned it.
“Can I ask you something?” Eli asks once we’ve eaten our fill.
I skip my fingers up his spine. “Anything.”
Eli glances over at me once before looking out the windows at the horizon. “I noticed a tan line on your finger. I encounter a lot of things being an escort, but my least favorite is when I help someone ruin their marriage. Are you married?”
My hand pauses on his back, and my heart pounds painfully in my chest. Eli can’t meet my gaze and I hate it. I hate that even for a moment he’s thought I’m that type of man. I’m a lot of things, but that isn’t one of them.
“I’m not married,” I tell him firmly.
Eli glances back at me. “Yeah?”
“I was married, but I’m not anymore.”
Eli takes that as a good enough answer and some of the tension disappears from his shoulders. I tenderly rub my hand up and down his back, feeling the knobs of his spine against mypalm. His skin is so warm and golden tan compared to my paler skin. He’s only got dark sparse hair on his legs, the rest of him is flawless, golden skin. Except for a nasty scar on his right knee.
“How’d you get that scar?” I ask him, rubbing the scar with my thumb.
Eli hums absentmindedly and kisses my shoulder. “I was in a dirt bike accident as a teenager. Needed surgery on my knee.”
“Dirt bike?” I ask in shock.
Eli laughs, rolling his eyes. “I know. I had a crush on an older guy and wanted to be cool. I spent the summer learning to ride a dirt bike at the track. I got pretty good until … well, my mother wouldn’t let me back on track after that.”
“Do you get along well with your mother?”
A happy smile forms across Eli’s lips. “She’s my best friend. She raised me alone and she’s a tough chick. She immigrated from Russia as a young girl. My nana was a wonderful woman too. Her favorite phrase was ‘tough titties.’”
“I love that.” I can’t hold back from kissing the hinge of his jaw. “Your dad?”
“She met him on vacation in South America. Had a crazy fling. She told him about me a few months later and he then told her he was married. She gave me his last name just to stick it to him. Sometimes I wish she’d given me her last name. Eli Kozlov sounds pretty good, huh?”
He says everything with a laugh, but I hear it in his voice. The wispiness of his tone, the hard cut of his jaw, it’s a soft spot for him. His father. I don’t push any further, instead I kiss his closed eyes, then finally his slack mouth. I kiss him down into the bed until he’s soft and pliant underneath me. Then I give him the slowest, most decadent blowjob I’ve ever given, and afterwards I hold him just a little longer than necessary.
We amble downto the shore and spend the afternoon relaxing by the waves.
“I’m gonna get into the water,” Eli says sometime later.
I follow after him even though he rolls his eyes at me. I don’t like letting him get into the water alone. Not for any particular reason. Ever since Eli walked through those front doors, I’ve been on high alert for him. One look from him sends the protectiveness inside me careening.
He dips under the warm salt water’s surface and breaks back through with a grin. Curls a mess and water dripping down his face, he’s so beautiful. I duck down just enough for the water to crash over my shoulders, which Eli finds as an invitation to cling to my back. He adheres to me like a sloth, arms around my shoulders, legs around my waist, face tucked into the crook of my neck.
“Tomorrow’s the Fourth of July,” Eli mumbles against my neck. He licks me once, making me shiver, before gliding his teeth along my shoulder. “Will there be fireworks?”
I reach back to grip his neck tightly. “Definitely. Do you have another thing on your bucket list?”
“Let’s play that one by ear and see if you can figure it out.”
“Testing me?”
Eli chuckles, sending vibrations through me. “Just a little.”
“I’ve got your number, Elijah Ruiz.”
