Chapter Twenty-Nine
Eliot
Parker’s headlights flash in the living room window. I open the door, watching as she pulls a small crossbody bag from the passenger seat, runs her fingers through her long blond hair, and locks her car.
“You beat me here,” she says, a hint of amusement in her tone. “I’m not used to being the slower driver.”
Sliding my arm around her waist, I pull her against me. “I knew where I was going. You had to follow my directions.”
“I followed my phone’s directions. Your directions had me turning left on a street that doesn’t exist.”
“It exists. You didn’t trust me.”
She tips her head up, narrowing her eyes. “We’ll see about that. When it’s light outside and I don’t have anywhere in particular to be. I wasn’t about to risk gettin’ lost tonight.”
The slight rasp to her voice is about to do me in. If I don’t put some distance between us, my zipper could do serious damage before we make it into the bedroom. Taking a step back, I wait for her to make the next move.
Parker’s gaze trails over the small space I’ve called home for the past five years. The couch, the TV, the chair no one ever sits in because she’s the only person to walk through my door who wasn’t a repairman here to fix something I couldn’t.
She turns in a slow circle, cataloging the exits—living room window, the front door, the window over the sink—and the hallway.
“It’s...very you. Practical. Neat. Nothing unnecessary.”
I’m not sure how to take that comment, so I gesture to the hall. “Bathroom’s the first door on the right if you need it. Bedroom’s the second.” As soon as the words leave my lips, I cringe. “Shit. I didn’t mean to imply— We don’t have to do anything. We can just talk. Or—”
“Eliot. Stop.” Her hand settles against my cheek. Against the beard I’ve let grow the past few days because shaving has been too much to handle. “We’ll get to the bedroom. I want to get to the bedroom. Tonight.”
I’m suddenly parched. Or maybe I just need a moment to believe she’s here. That my past—my damage—hasn’t scared her off yet.
“Water?” I ask. “Or I’ve got Shiner and Dr. Pepper.”
“Water. Thanks. Still hotter than blazes out there.” She takes another look around as I pull two glasses from the cabinet. “You don’t have anything on your walls.”
“I have a calendar.”
Her side-eye must make even the most hardened suspects squirm. Hell, I want to squirm, and she’s made it very clear we’re gonna knock boots before the night’s over.
“It’s from a feed store. You don’t have any reason to go to a feed store that I can see. Unless there’s a chicken coop in the bedroom. In which case, we should move this to my place.”
“No chickens. No pets at all. At least none I know of. And that’s a perfectly good calendar.”
That pulls a laugh out of her, and she wanders over to the kitchen table.
“Oh, come on,” she says, standing over the puzzle.
Half the border’s done, and the middle’s a massive pool of blue, everything from azure to sky to what might be turquoise bleeding together with nothing but bubbles and the occasional bit of coral to orient by.
“This looks like someone scooped up a box full of ocean and dumped it out onto your table.”
“It’s a reef. There’s a turtle in it somewhere. At least one fish, too.”
Bracing her hands on the table, she studies what little of the puzzle I’ve managed. “I don't see a turtle.”
“It’s under—” I jab my finger at a pile of pieces I haven’t sorted yet. “Well, it’s supposed to be.”
“You bought a two-thousand-piece puzzle that’s ninety percent water.”
I shrug. “It was five dollars at the thrift store and wasn’t missin’ any pieces. Seemed like a good deal at the time.”
She makes a small sound, contemplating the large pile I haven’t touched, then shakes her head. “How long does something like this take you?”
“I can finish a thousand-piece in a couple of weeks.” I come around to stand next to her, close enough that our shoulders almost touch. “Then I give it away and start another. This one…I might die of old age first.”
She nudges me, a hint of disbelief in her tone. “You don’t keep any of them?”
“Nope. It’s not about the picture.” I frown, suddenly worried what I’m about to say will be one more mark against me. But I sure as shit can’t lie to her. “The puzzle’s somethin’ to do with my hands—and my brain—when I can’t sleep.”
She looks up at me, and I can tell she’s turning that over, filing it next to everything else she’s learned about me tonight, but she doesn’t push. “Like the knitting.”
“Yup.”
A wicked smile curves her lips. “Where is it? The knitting.”
Dammit. I was hoping she wouldn’t ask. I nod toward the end table. "Under there. I usually work on it after dinner for an hour or so. Sometimes more in the middle of the night if the puzzle’s not doing it.”
“Can I see?”
I retrieve the glass of ice water I left on the counter, pass it to her, then carefully lower myself down on my good knee to pull out my project box.
“Wait. Are you showin’ me the blue blanket? Or the ‘put this on the runway during a blackout so planes can land’ blanket? Because if it’s the latter, I’ll need to run out to my car to grab my sunglasses right quick.”
I cringe. “The blue one’s done and gone.”
“Gone?”
Shit.
I never explained what I do with the blankets once I finish them.
“I donate them to shelters. Halfway houses. Transitional housing organizations. If I didn’t, I’d have blankets stacked all the way to the ceiling.”
“Eliot. Show me the neon.” She doesn’t comment on my admission, accepting it like she’s accepted everything else she’s learned about me over the past week.
I avert my eyes as I pull out the bright monstrosity. I’ve only managed a dozen rows so far, alternating between eggplant purple and surface-of-the-sun yellow.
Parker takes it carefully, running her fingers over the thick edging. “This is amazing. My mama tried to teach me when I was a kid, but nothin’ she made ever looked this good. I don’t even hate the colors. How’d you learn to do this?”
“One of the nurses in the hospital. She said I was grumpier than a two-dollar mule, and if I didn’t let her teach me to knit, she’d make my life a living hell. Since I was already in Hell, I listened. Took a month or so before I realized knitting took my mind off some of the pain.”
The look she gives me is equal parts understanding and amusement. “Grumpy? You?”
We share a laugh, and she sets the blanket back in my project basket. “Have you shown Marlene yet? It is Marlene, right?”
My brows lift, and I brace my hand on the arm of the couch to stand. “It is. She’ll see it tomorrow. You paid attention.”
“I always pay attention.” Something flickers in her eyes for a moment—an emotion I can’t place—before she picks up her bag and grins at me. “I should put this somewhere other than the middle of your floor.”
“Top of the dresser in the bedroom. I’ll check the locks and be right there.” I watch her saunter down the hall, her flowing pants framing her ass perfectly, and the reality of what I saw in those blue depths hits.
She pays attention to everything. All the time. And it’s wearing her out.
I find her standing by the bed, a flush staining her cheeks that wasn’t there a moment ago.
She smiles, an unspoken invitation to close the distance between us.
Warm vanilla, citrus, and cinnamon wind their way through me.
Her hand fists in my shirt, pulling me down, and she seals her mouth to mine.
Sliding my fingers into her silky locks, I flick my tongue against her lips, and she opens for me. Sweet Jesus, she tastes like home.
Gentle hands slide up my arms, over my shoulders, and the tender, slow tease of her tongue almost does me in.
My knee buckles when I shift closer, and we land on the mattress off balance enough, she’s on top of me. The curve of her breasts through the silky tank sends my dick to half mast in seconds.
“Sorry,” she whispers against my lips.
“Don’t apologize.”
Taking advantage of the separation, I trail kisses along her jaw, memorizing all the places that make her moan or clutch at my arms, at how she angles her head so I can continue tasting her skin all the way to the shell of her ear.
I slide my fingers under the hem of her blouse and press my hand flat to her back. Her skin is warm against my palm, and she arches into the touch, her breath catching in her throat.
As I trace patterns along her spine, the moans turn into whimpers. Fuck me. I want to hear that sound every day for the rest of my life.
Side by side now, legs hanging off the bed, neither of us seems willing to let go long enough to take the next step.
Until she reaches for the top button of my shirt, and I realize I can’t hide from her a second longer.
“Wait,” I grit out. “Before anything else happens…I have to explain some things.”
Parker stills. “What…things?”
Carefully, I help her sit up, then unbutton my shirt, my hands shaking the whole time.
Parker waits for me to explain, her gaze locked on my face. Not my chest. Not my ruined abs. Not the scars and grafted skin that wrap around my obliques to cover almost my entire back.
I scoot closer, take her hand, and press it to the center of my chest. The sensation’s muted, but I can still feel her warmth.
“My left side is the worst. From the top of my shoulder, down my torso, all the way to my hip. Got some isolated burns to my thigh. More to the back of my left knee. My femur was shattered in multiple places. Pins, metal rod, the whole deal.”
“Does it still hurt? Your leg? When you get out of the car sometimes… Am I imagining your limp?” There’s no pity in her voice. Curiosity, but not pain.
“It stiffens up on me. Doesn’t fuss much unless I’m kneelin’.” I huff out a laugh. “Makes workin’ a scene difficult sometimes. But I deserve that.”
“Eliot—”
I guide her hand to the ridge of scar tissue below my collarbone. Easier to talk about the physical than the reason I won’t complain about my body failing me. “Feel that?”
Sparks of pain shoot along my shoulder as she touches me. “Yes.”