“Everything,” I breathed.
Elliot’s lips crashed against mine, hot and sweet, as his hand tugged my hair to tilt my head back. He groaned into my mouth, his tongue languorous against mine, and while one hand remained holding the carousel pole, the other snared my waist to tug me against his body and I cursed the layers of fabric separating me from his skin. For years, I’d thought the casual encounters with conveniently available men had been enough to sustain me, but Elliot’s kiss was a thunderous wake-up call to the fact that I had been starving my whole adult life. I’d wanted this man’s touch for so long and now it burned me just as much as it thrilled me. His hand drifted under the hem of my top to graze my torso and the feeling of his rough fingers against my bare skin sparked a trembling deep in my core, pooling electricity between my legs. We came up for air, breathing heavily, foreheads pressed together.
“We should stop,” he murmured into my hair.
Dazed, lips swollen, I shook my head. “It was getting so good.”
Elliot gulped. “Too good.” He clasped me tighter and I felt his arousal dig into my thigh.Jesus Christ. There was a hedonistic part of me, pulsing with blood and fire, that sorely wanted to find a dark corner of this place so he could have his way with me, but we remained in this clinch, our breathing hard and desperate for the remainder of the ride.
The carousel stopped and Elliot helped me off the horse, keeping hold of my hand as we disembarked, observed by the smirking operator. “Hey, man, maybe next time book a hotel room.”
Elliot didn’t even deign to reply, and we emerged from the carousel onto the brightness of the boardwalk. My legs were shaking as around me people just carried on their business of pleasure in the sun and I tried to act as though I wasn’t being driven mad with desire.
“That was …” Elliot gulped.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Can we do that again?”
He smiled slowly, sweetly and grabbed my hand, raising my knuckles to his mouth. “Oh, we’re doing that again.” He glanced around and laughed. “Maybe not in the presence of so many children next time?”
I laughed. Some of the families on the carousel with us were passing, shaking their heads in disapproval. “It got inappropriate.”
Elliot locked eyes with me, his lips drifting over the back of my hand. “I don’t care.”
“Me neither.” His lips were now brushing the tips of my fingers and when his tongue gently brushed the pad of my thumb, I thought I might detonate. “What happens now?” I asked breathlessly.
He grinned wickedly. “What do you think?”
“It’s the middle of the day!” I said, mock-scandalized.
He checked his phone for the time. “It’s almost – ah, shit.”
“RJ?” I guessed, with a sinking feeling.
“RJ,” he said. “We have some feedback. I guess playing hooky is over. Back to work.” He sighed.
“Oh yeah.” I scowled. “Stupid work.”
“We can be professional,” Elliot said hoarsely, gazing hungrily at my mouth. “We can get the work done before we focus on anything else.”
“Right.” I nodded unconvincingly. “We just need to avoid temptation.”
The subway journey back to Manhattan was torture; there were delays on the line, so the train was packed, and we had to stand the whole way, wedged up against each other surrounded by noisy, chattering people. We finally emerged from underground, sweaty and unbelievably turned on, but as I tapped my phone to pay the fare, I noticed I had several missed calls from Bex. I fired off a quick text:
Can I call you later? BIG news re Boner Rage
As we approached the RJF building I tugged on Elliot’s arm to stop. He paused, raised my hand to his lips. “What’s wrong?”
I had no idea that knuckles could be an erogenous zone, for a start. I swallowed and forced myself to speak. “How are we handling,this, in there?” I pointed towards our building. “RJ’s feelings about workplace romance aside, quite frankly I don’t want to be judged by anyone. Sadie has only just stopped seeing me as a liability.”
“We can be discreet,” Elliot said. He gave my knuckles one last kiss and then let go of my hand, gesturing to the office entrance. “After you.” We began to walk but then he stopped me and lowered his mouth to my ear. “You should know, the server password is CoppolaLumet65.”
“You’re finally trusting me with it?” I said, shivering as his lips grazed my neck.
He pulled back, eyes on mine. “Oh, I’m going to make you earn it.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
If the subway journey had been torture, then sharing the writers’ room with Elliot and not touching him with was the next level of hell. He was inches away, his huge presence filling the tiny room and I was overwhelmed by him to the extent I could barely type. But we soldiered on – there was no way I could allow this inconvenient yet wonderful lust to hold back our progress – and we worked through RJ’s notes with efficiency. The edits flowed as if they had been in our heads all along and as he read the last line of dialogue with a satisfied grin, I thought back to my first reading of the script, the inconsistency of it. How some sections read like pure poetry, while others were stolid and wordy. Something occurred to me as I scrolled through the document on my screen, remembering Lin telling me how bad RJ’s early drafts were.
