Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
ELI
Iwas oddly nervous as I opened the door to the safe house apartment. I hadn’t seen Sylvie since our argument in the office hours ago. An optimistic part of me hoped we were past all of that.
Just in case, I’d come home bearing gifts in the form of the sushi Sylvie had mentioned craving. A wiggle of anxiety in my gut told me it wasn’t going to be that simple. But hey, I could hope, right?
She was sitting at the table, her laptop in front of her, eyebrows pulled together. A deep line grooved between them; her teeth sunk into that full, pink lower lip.
“Hungry?” I asked, grabbing her attention.
Her eyes flicked up, landing on mine, and a wall came down. I’d never seen the hazel of her gaze so flat. Usually, there was something going on in there. Humor. Ambition. Curiosity. Intelligence. Sylvie was never flat.
Her spine straightened, shoulders sliding back, a polite smile on her mouth, and I knew sushi wasn’t going to be enough to fix this. Not even close.
“I could eat,” she said neutrally.
I held up the bag. “I got sushi,” I said unnecessarily, considering the giant illustration of chopsticks and a sushi roll on the side of the bag.
“Great,” she said, her tone not communicating any true enthusiasm.
I’d prefer she was angry and throwing things at me. I didn’t know what to do with this polite chill. She wasn’t mad. She wasn’t trying to score points. She’d just cut me out neatly, bloodlessly. She was a blank slate—not my Sylvie.
She couldn’t keep it up, I assured myself, laying out the boxes of sushi and grabbing plates. “I figured we’d split everything,” I said, arranging chopsticks, napkins, and packets of soy sauce.
Soon enough, our meal was set up, and we were eating in what might look like friendly companionship. But I knew what our meals had been like before this. We’d never run out of anything to talk about.
I tried anyway. “Did you make any progress finding a second case to focus on?” I asked.
“I think so,” she said, nodding and chewing thoughtfully.
“Did you pick one?” I probed. “Or did you narrow it down?”
“I think I picked one,” she said and popped another piece of sushi in her mouth.
Fuck. This was like pulling teeth. Before, just the first question would have been enough to get her going.
She would have spilled everything, interested in a second opinion, or what I thought of the details of the case.
But now she didn’t care what I thought. She didn’t particularly want to be talking to me at all.
I figured she would break before I did. She couldn’t keep up this pretense.
I was wrong. She could, and she did. Dinner stretched, silence punctuated by my barely answered questions.
I was the one who broke, my hand shooting out to grab her wrist as she moved to stand and clear the table after dinner. I had a sudden vision of her disappearing into her room with her laptop and not seeing her again till morning.
“Sylvie,” I said. “Wait.”
“No.” Her voice came out flat, like a smack to the face—worse for its lack of emotion.
“I’m sorry.”
She sighed. “Do you know what you’re sorry for?” She yanked her wrist out of my hold, picked up our plates, and circled the table to put them in the dishwasher.
I followed her into the kitchen. “I should have told you about Silas,” I said. “About who he was, that he was missing, and how that connected with Emily Shaw’s death.”
“Her murder,” she reminded me.
“Her murder,” I said. “I didn’t do anything differently because of Silas.”
Sylvie’s eyes narrowed on me, and she gave an abrupt shake of her head, rejecting my statement. “You can’t know that. And that’s not the point.”
“I don’t know what the point is,” I said. “I don’t know how to apologize.”
“It’s fine,” she said. “Look, I wouldn’t expect you to prioritize someone you just met over your boss, who you’re worried about. It’s fine.”
The words were right, but the tone was all wrong, because it wasn’t fine. And I realized I had a choice between two worlds.
One was the world where Sylvie let me off the hook, because of course I wouldn’t have told her. We barely knew each other. Our search for Silas was protected by the NDA, but still top secret. And it was important. I was worried. Sylvie wasn’t even a client. Worse, she was a journalist.
But in that world, Sylvie wasn’t important—and that wasn’t the world I wanted to live in.
I wanted the world where she was furious and throwing things at me, because even though we’d only known each other a few days, she mattered.
I should have told her what was going on with Silas.
Not just because it impacted our search for whoever had killed Emily Shaw and tried to kill Sylvie, but because she was important to me.
In that world, I was a raging asshole, but I’d take it if we could both agree that Sylvie mattered.
“Look,” I said, “I handled this all wrong. I just… I kept thinking I’d talk to you about it later, and then?—”
“Later came sooner than you thought,” she said, looking past me so she didn’t have to meet my eyes.
“Eli, I told you it’s fine. Emmett said we’re getting closer.
We’re going to find the guy who blew up my van and killed Emily, and then I can go back to my life, and you can go back to finding Silas and whatever else it was you were doing.
No harm, no foul, okay? Let’s just let it be that. ”
I stood in front of her, hands at my sides, utterly without words.
Maybe I’d been reading this all wrong. Maybe while I was lying next to her, putting up picket fences, she was just enjoying a few orgasms during an otherwise very inconvenient phase of her life. Maybe she wasn’t yelling and throwing things at me because she truly didn’t care.
And then I thought of her coming to stand next to me in the cemetery. Sylvie putting her head on my shoulder for comfort. The way she unraveled in my arms.
No, I wasn’t reading this wrong.
“Eli,” she said. “I’m just going to?—”
She moved as if to walk past me, and I broke, closing my hands over her shoulders. I stopped her. “We don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” I said.
I kissed her.
And here, finally, was Sylvie. Her mouth moved under mine.
Hands coming up to sink into my hair, fingers curving, holding me tight, her tongue sliding against mine.
I wrapped my arms around her, holding her as close as I could get.
I wasn’t having any luck with words, but maybe I could show her how I felt.
Dragging my mouth from hers, I scooped her into my arms and carried her down the hall.
She twined her arms around my neck, craning up to close her teeth over the side of my jaw.
“Hurry up,” she breathed against my skin.
I practically flew to the bedroom we’d been sharing, setting her on her feet only long enough to pull her shirt over her head, shove down her jeans, and lift her.
I tossed her on the bed and pulled the jeans from where they’d puddled around her feet.
She lay back, lifting her arms above her head, arching her back—her full breasts sliding to the sides, round and plump.
She looked at me with hot eyes, no longer flat or polite in the least.
“Get undressed,” she ordered.
I was happy to follow that command, dropping my clothes in a pile on top of hers. I dove onto the bed, kneeling on the end, running my hands up the insides of her legs. I pushed them up and back at her knees, spreading her wide.
And then I feasted.
I already knew I loved the taste of Sylvie—salty and sweet—but it was the sounds she made as I licked and tasted. The surprised gasps, the keening cry. I sucked on her clit, sliding a finger inside, then a second, stroking her slick heat until she came in my mouth, crying out my name.
She panted for breath as I worked my way up her body, dipping a tongue in her belly button, dropping feather-light kisses along her ribs.
Stopping at her breasts, I filled my hands, squeezed, sliding my thumbs over her nipples until she writhed against me.
I tasted her collarbone, the hollow behind her ear.
Finally, kissing her. Taking her mouth in slow, long kisses. Letting the heat from her orgasm fade and then building it again until she was turned on her side, a leg hooked over my hip. My hard cock was between us, my mouth on her nipple, her name on my lips.
“Eli,” she breathed. “Eli, please.”
I pressed inside her, shuddering at her tight, wet heat, the rock of her hips. She urged me deeper, but I wasn’t going to rush, no matter how much I wanted it.
I filled her, sliding my arms under her back, holding her close. Her nipples were hard points against my chest, her legs locked around my hips, her head tipped back. And all I could say was “Sylvie. Sylvie. Sylvie,” like a chant.
All I wanted was this woman as close to me as I could get her.
How could she not feel what we had? How could she not want more?
She convulsed around me, orgasm taking her almost by surprise, given the way she shouted my name.
I couldn’t hold back. I followed her, the pulse of her body around my cock sharp with bliss.
When I got my breath, I rolled out of bed to take care of the condom, hoping things would be back to normal when I returned.
I came out of the bathroom to find the lights out and the bed empty.
Her clothes were missing from the floor at the foot of the bed.
I tugged on my boxers and strode across the hall, suddenly furious, ready to bang on her door and demand an explanation.
But the hitch of her breath on the other side of the door stopped me.
Was she crying?
I stood there holding my breath and leaned my forehead against the door. I heard it again—a low, faint whimper followed by a hitching sound.
Fucking hell. She was crying.
I lifted my hand and pressed my palm silently against the wood, wanting more than anything to open the door. I couldn’t leave her like that. The idea of walking away while she wept alone in the dark was not going to fucking happen.
I knocked lightly. “Sylvie. Talk to me, please.”
She drew in a breath. I caught the rustle of sheets, and then, “I’m tired, Eli. Just go to sleep. It’s better like this.”
“The fuck it is,” I said. “Will you please talk to me?”
“There isn’t anything to talk about. Let it be, okay? This was a bad idea.”
“The only thing that was a bad idea,” I said through the door, “was me not telling you the truth about Silas. I can’t go back and fix that.”
“I know, Eli. I know you can’t. Look, it’s fine. This will all be over soon, but for now, I want to get some sleep. Please, just let me go to sleep.”
I tried the handle. Locked.
I let out a long breath and straightened, staring at the door. I didn’t really have any other options besides breaking it down, which I considered.
The problem was that Sylvie didn’t trust me anymore. I didn’t know how to win back her trust, but breaking down her door when she’d asked me to let her sleep in peace didn’t seem like a good first move.
I turned, made my way back to my now very empty, very lonely bedroom.
I pulled the covers up and stared at the ceiling, wondering if I’d be able to sleep.
I thought about Sylvie, so close despite the locked door between us, lying in her bed alone, crying herself to sleep. Because I was an idiot and a coward.
I had to figure out how to convince her to trust me again, to take a chance on what we had between us.
But as I stared at the ceiling, no solution appeared.
This was out of my realm of experience. There had been plenty of women, but no one woman—no one who really mattered.
There had been work, the team, but no one who stood out above the rest of it.
I had no idea what I was doing with Sylvie. If I had, I wouldn’t have fucked everything up so badly.
I knew she had feelings for me. So I had something to work with. I was supposed to be good at puzzles. I could figure this out. I had to hope, because the idea of losing her was untenable. It had only been days, but everything had shifted.
Losing Sylvie wasn’t an option.