Chapter 03 ELI
“Remind me why I agreed to this?“
I complained.
Nearly every shirt I owned was laid across my bed—plus a few of Nate’s on the floor. I’d burn them later. Or maybe pour bleach on them. Or pour bleach on them, then burn them.
“Because you love me,“
Cherry shot back over the phone, “and I absolutely need these pictures to turn out.”
I snickered. “You just want visual inspiration for your next romance novel.”
“Semantics.”
Cherry’s day job was a registered nurse, but she wrote in her free time. Her name was officially Charlene, but the one time I called her that, I nearly lost my life. Once murder was off the table, she became my closest friend. My only friend since I moved, really. Residency and a medical career didn’t provide much time for socializing. My coworkers became my friends and the best family I’d ever had. Then again, it didn’t take much to outshine what passed for my family back in Georgia.
As penance for letting her full name slip, I signed up to do this stranger photography session for a friend of Cherry’s. She’d been one model short for her session, and since it was last-minute and nearby, Cherry guilted me into accepting. Now, she sat on the phone with me, talking me down from the looming panic attack that threatened everything I’d promised.
I shoved a pile of clothes aside and dropped onto the bed, thoroughly questioning my life choices. After meeting Zach, the last thing I wanted to do was play couple with some stranger. Maybe if I imagined my partner was Zach. Fuck, he just had to be hot, didn’t he?
He’d captivated me instantly. Long black hair fell just the right way into bright, shining blue eyes. When he rose from his seat to fetch me that glass of water, my eyes skimmed down his long legs, admiring everything from his tattoos to his distressed jeans, right down to his heavy boots that thudded against the floor with each step.
He was one thousand percent my type.
Groaning, I dropped my head into my hands. “Cherry, I don’t know how to do this.”
“You don’t have to do anything. You show up, cuddle with a hot guy for a few hours, then we binge eat and watch the new season of Secret Lives until we can’t stand it anymore. Now put on the dark green Henley that makes your eyes pop, spritz on some of that cologne I love, and go make me proud.”
My eyes fell to the shirt in question. It draped over my desk chair, near a pile of graphic tees and my favorite sweater that it was way too hot to wear. The Henley was the only semi-nice article of clothing I had, with everything else being either too big or so old that it was falling apart. I lived in scrubs. I didn’t have a need for other clothes. For a moment, I considered braving the sweater.
“Eli Hodge,“
Cherry scolded, as if she could read my mind. “Don’t you dare put that sweater on.”
Damn it. “All right,“
I relented, tugging the forest green shirt over my head. “But dessert is on you tonight.”
I could hear the smile in her voice. “Of course it is!”
“And dinner,” I added.
“I expect all the dirty details.”
Heaving a sigh, I ended the call and fetched the bottle of cologne Cherry mentioned from the shelf next to the sink in my bathroom. I’d had it for years. It was a bribe of a Christmas present from my uncle in the hopes that I’d reconcile with my parents. To my credit, I tried, but that was the year they asked me what I was doing with my life; as if slowly killing myself in med school wasn’t enough, I was expected to take on the family business instead.
There was no way in hell.
But the cologne was nice, and my uncle was a decent person. I couldn’t fault him for the pressure that my grandfather put on him, and on my dad too. It took a long time to undo fifty years of trauma. My uncle just didn’t take his out on his children.
I applied the cologne, the woodsy scent catapulting me back to my first shift at Woodland Park General. New job jitters had me reaching for the bottle, and it was Cherry who chased after me asking what it was and whether I was single. Unfortunately for her, she wasn’t my type, but that didn’t stop her from latching onto me like a spider monkey. She didn’t accept shy or quiet as acceptable qualities. From neon scrubs to hair the color of her namesake, Cherry was my polar opposite.
Things worked that way.
Nerves churned my gut, and I wondered for the hundredth time whether I could back out of this whole thing.
No, that wasn’t fair. The photographer was counting on me, and it would be a waste of everyone’s time if I didn’t show up. Well, that was one thing I inherited from my father: I hated wasting people’s time.
I stood over the sink, taking deep breaths until the nausea subsided. I could do this. I’d uprooted my entire life and started over in another state—twice. I could get through a damn photo shoot.
It was hot outside. Really hot. My friends in Vegas would have laughed at me, but at least their city had AC. The only air conditioning to be found in Woodland Park was in the car. As I drove to the meeting location, I blasted the cold air, already regretting not grabbing a bottle of water on my way out.
There was one—very creepy—upside to this photo shoot: the set was a local cemetery. This place was the stuff of legends, and I’d heard them all. I’d treated teenagers who trespassed in the graveyard in the middle of the night to explore the so-called Thirteen Steps to Hell. The only thing they ever found was Three Steps to a Concussion and a Broken Arm, considering they Thirteen Steps had been removed decades ago. The grounds, dark and uneven, were dangerous at night, leading to more injuries than ghost sightings.
The photographer, Sadie, was waiting for me at the gate, though I didn’t know it was her at first. Her car was black with tinted windows, and I couldn’t quite see who was inside, only a silhouette. When I pulled alongside her idling vehicle, she killed the engine and climbed out. A long brown ponytail fell over one exposed shoulder. She wore high-waisted cut-off shorts and a black crop top that showed off her bronzed skin. She waved and smiled, accenting the smattering of freckles across her sun-kissed cheeks.
Okay, she seemed nice. My nerves relaxed, just a little. Leaving my phone behind, I braced myself for the sweltering afternoon heat.
Sadie approached, gravel crunching under her sneakers. “You must be Eli,“
she said cheerfully, extending a hand. “I’m Sadie.”
“It’s nice to meet you,“
I returned, already feeling the sun beating down on me. Hopefully this session wouldn’t take very long. At least the cemetery looked shaded.
“Thank you for doing this. I was close to canceling the session when I got your application.”
“It’s not a problem.“
I crossed my arms over my chest. “So who’s my, uh… partner for this thing?”
She opened her mouth, but the rumble of a motorcycle cut her off—and sent a shiver down my spine. “There he is now.”
I followed her line of sight to the road. No way…
A shining, deep blue bike came into view, glittering in the relentless, late-afternoon sun. I recognized his Harley immediately, along with his long legs as he came to a stop in front of us. My heart pounded. Heavy biker boots thudded to the gravel at our feet. My eyes trailed up his legs, to the familiar tattoos peeking through the rips of his distressed jeans. A leather jacket was zipped over a black shirt, and when he took off his gloves, I saw his fingers were tattooed with skeletal bones, like I was looking at the x-ray of his hand. Then the hand raised his helmet off his head and his black hair tumbled free.
Zach.
When his eyes landed on me, his lips quirked into a casual grin that made my heart skip a beat. “Hi… again.”
“Do you two know each other?“
Sadie asked.
I actually flinched. I’d forgotten that she was there. I swallowed against a dry mouth. “You could say that.”
“We’re neighbors,“
Zach clarified, hanging his helmet off the bike’s handlebar. “We’ve spent months smiling and waving from across the street.“
He swung one long, muscular leg over the bike to dismount, and I squirmed. Why was that so hot? “It’s nice to officially meet you, Sadie. Julie’s spoken so much about you.”
“If it involves tequila shots, she’s lying through her teeth.”
They laughed, but I was too busy staring at Zach to join in. Now that we stood side by side, I had to look up at him. He towered over me, with my head barely reaching his shoulder. Damn, he must have been at least six-foot-five. And that smile!
Sadie’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts. “Eli?”
“Sorry, what?”
“I said, ‘I guess we can skip the formal introductions and get straight to it.’”
Feeling eyes on me, I returned my attention to Zach. He smiled down at me, unzipping his jacket and shrugging it off his shoulders. Tattoos cascaded down his arms from beneath the sleeves of his T-shirt, barely leaving any skin exposed.
I shook my head to clear it. “Yeah.”
“Great.“
Sadie ducked into the back seat of her car and rummaged through her things.
While we waited, Zach shuffled closer to me. “It’s okay,“
he murmured. “We can get through this, and you’ll never have to see me again if you don’t want to. I promise. When I see you in the neighborhood, I’ll dramatically turn away and pretend I never saw anything. Eli who? I don’t know an Eli.”
“Shut up,“
I laughed. “It’s fine.”
“It will be.”
Sadie straightened again, a camera in hand and an equipment bag thrown over her shoulder. Ducking into her car one more time, she emerged with water bottles. “Here,“
she said, offering one to each of us. “It’s important you stay hydrated.”
“Thank you,“
I said with some relief, accepting the bottle.
Sadie moved to the entrance of the graveyard and we followed. “So this is a small, family-owned cemetery. I got special permission from the owners to be here, so you don’t have to worry about trespassing. They only asked we stay away from the Steps—they’ve had enough injuries from kids rooting around in the woods looking for them.”
“I’ve treated enough of them,“
I said. “I’d rather not be the next one.”
“That’s right.“
Sadie peered over her shoulder. “You’re an ER physician, aren’t you?”
I nodded, painfully aware of how close Zach was to me. His arm brushed against mine with each step, sending a fresh wave of heat through my body.
“Are you okay?“
he asked me.
Another nod, and I cracked open my water bottle and brought it to my mouth. “What do you do?”
“High school teacher.”
I choked, and as I tried to clear my airway, I tripped over a tree root. Or, what I thought was a tree root. I cursed and stumbled, but Zach caught me before I fell over. I studied the object at my feet and found that it wasn’t a tree root, but a small rectangular stone. Another sat a few feet ahead, and more were scattered to the left and right.
Realization hit me, and I gulped, all but clinging tighter to Zach. They were grave markers.
Sadie wordlessly stared at me.
“I’m okay.”
Her eyes dropped to Zach’s arm around my waist, and with a smirk she continued walking.
The farther we advanced onto the grounds, the more it looked like… well, a cemetery. The small, flat markers turned into raised headstones, then foot-high ones, becoming larger and larger until they transformed into stone monuments nearly as tall as I was. It wasn’t lost on me that Zach’s large hand still rested on the small of my back like a security blanket. It was so damn comforting, and exactly what I needed.
“All right,“
Sadie said, coming to a stop next to a “No Trespassing“
sign. “Why don’t we start here? I’ll move around you two to start, just do what feels natural. If you’re comfortable with it, we can go further from there. Any questions?”
I had a thousand: What the hell am I doing? How do I get out of this? And most importantly: Why do I like having his hands on me? I should hate this man. The second I realized who he was, I should’ve turned around and booked it straight out of the state.
But I didn’t want to.
Zach watched me with a raised brow until I shook my head. Only then did he respond to Sadie, setting his water bottle aside. “No, I think we’ve got it.”
“Great. So gaze longingly at each other and pretend I’m not here.”
Easier said than done. My heart began to race again, but Zach’s fingers pressed into my back. He leaned in, whispering in my ear, “Eyes on me.”
The breath whooshed from my lungs. My eyes traveled up his chest until they landed in his bright blue ones gazing back at me. His attention flickered between my eyes, the raging storm in his irises sucking me into a cyclone of whirling emotions.
“What are you doing?“
Heat crawled up my skin, prickling under my collar and bringing a flush to my cheeks.
“Just setting the scene.“
His voice was still low. Sadie’s camera shutter clicked around us. “Now come on, Eli. Give me a smile.”
He tugged me closer, and I planted my hands on his chest. Zach’s hand slipped, dipping beneath the hem of my shirt.
I giggled and squirmed. “Zach, stop!”
“Gotcha to smile.”
“Asshole,“
I teased. But it felt good. And when his attention dropped to my mouth, my cheeks lifted higher.
“Oh, look—you’ve got dimples on both sides!”
Heat rushed to my face. “I do not!”
“Yes, you do.”
Sadie’s voice shocked me. I had forgotten she was there. “Keep it coming, guys. You two are naturals.”
I kept my eyes on him, rolling my bottom lip between my teeth. “You don’t have to do this.”
His brows furrowed, deepening to a color so dark that they nearly appeared black. “Do what?”
“Be nice to me. I don’t need any pity on my sad, pathetic—”
I gasped, suddenly feeling Zach’s hand beneath my chin. He firmly pinched my jaw, forcing me to look at him. “Don’t you dare let one cheating dickhead determine your self-worth,“
he growled with such conviction that my eyes began to burn.
I swallowed hard. “Two.“
Zach said nothing but tilted his head. He blurred in front of me as tears welled in my eyes. I blinked, trying not to let them fall. “I’ve been cheated on twice now.”
His eyes darkened further. “Oh, sweet boy,“
he cooed, his nose trailing a path up my neck and coming to a stop behind my ear. “I know we don’t know each other very well, but one thing I do know is that you’re far from pathetic.“
His arm tightened around me, drawing me in until we were fused together from shoulder to hip. Surely he could feel my heart beating against his chest. “I am so sorry you haven’t met someone who knows your worth.”
Sadie’s voice intruded on our moment. “How would you two feel about a kiss?”
I willed the tears away and looked to Zach. I didn’t want to make that decision for him. Or at all, for that matter.
“You can say no,“
he told me.
My next words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. “I don’t want to.”
His thumb stroked my cheek. His eyes softened again, and his tongue darted out to wet his bottom lip. Like a dog tracking a bone, I followed the motion. My heartbeat was thunder in my ears. I hadn’t taken a breath in forever. My lungs burned, aching for oxygen.
I fisted his T-shirt in my hands and hauled him down to me. Zach was quick to take over. His lips pressed against mine, arms enveloping me. My whimper that escaped the kiss was involuntary, but he eagerly swallowed the sound. My jaw dropped and our tongues met in a clash of lust, bursting through the kiss and zipping through my veins.
Zach gently pulled my hips to his, but it was enough to feel him harden against my thigh. I drew back with a gasp, panting for air. My cheeks were on fire. Sweat beaded across my hairline and threatened to drip down my forehead.
“I can walk away and cool off if you need me to,“
Zach said, low enough that Sadie couldn’t hear. Not that she was paying much attention to what we were saying anyway. All she cared about was her viewfinder, and she darted around us, capturing this mind-blowing moment from every angle.
“No. I’m just, uh…“
I fanned myself with the collar of my shirt. “I’m a bit warm.”
“I’m fine with you losing your shirts,“
Sadie offered. “As long as your boy parts stay covered, you have full rein here.”
More heat rushed to my face. Boy parts? I hadn’t heard that since I was twelve.
“What do you say?“
Zach asked, distracting me. He curled the hem of my Henley in his fist, lifting it to expose my stomach.
I took a moment to study the tattoos peeking under the collar of his shirt and crawling down his arms. When I met his eyes again, he arched a brow at me.
“I will if you do,“
I said. “You’re looking a bit warm yourself.”
Zach and Sadie glanced at each other over my shoulder. Zach winked at her, then took the collar of his shirt in his hand and lifted it over his head, letting me admire the ink scrawling across his body. A tiger climbed his chest, deep, slashing claw marks creeping toward his neck. Cartoon characters danced up his right arm, and roses sprawled down the left. He reached over me and when his hand entered my field of vision again, he held his water bottle. I expected him to take a sip, but instead…
What the hell is he doing?
He uncapped the water and tipped it over his head, leaning back to wet his hair. I could only watch, slack-jawed, as water ran down his chest, the tiger tattoo shimmering wetly in the sunlight. Rivulets trailed over his soft stomach, absorbed by his jeans at his waistline.
“You okay Eli?“
Sadie asked, though I could hear the amusement in her voice.
Another exchange over my shoulder, and Zach uncapped a second bottle, gesturing to me. “Lose the shirt.”
I’d never whipped a piece of fabric over my head so fast. I couldn’t even find it in me to be self-conscious, despite standing next to him, big and tall enough to bend my scrawny ass in half.
If I was lucky.
Zach nudged me, forcing me to take a few steps backward until my back hit the trunk of a tree. He raised the bottle over my head. “Ready?” he asked.
Between the summer sun beating down on us and the man in front of me sending my body into overdrive, I was more than ready to cool down. I closed my eyes and tipped my head back. Cold water hit my hairline first. I gasped, only for Zach to lean in and whisper into my ear, “Breathe for me.”
His command nearly had the opposite effect, but I forced myself to take a deep breath. I swore he muttered a “good boy“
right before tipping the bottle of water over my head.
“Oh, fuck,“
I cursed, coughing to clear my airway as the cold seized my lungs.
Finally the water stopped, and Zach’s finger underneath my chin had my eyes fluttering open. I blinked water from my lashes and when he came into focus, I couldn’t help but smile.
“You okay?“
he asked, blue eyes searching mine for any hesitation.
“I’m great,“
I answered, and I truly was. I hooked my finger behind his belt buckle and tugged, bringing him flush against me. The camera shutters snapped around us.
“Would you two feel comfortable undoing your jeans?”
“You know I’ll try anything once,“
Zach said, then turned his attention to me. “But I’m not the only one here.”
So much for cooling off…
“If I do it,“
I asked Sadie, “can I kiss him again?”
“You two can do whatever PG-13 activities you want.”
My eager hands fumbled Zach’s belt open, his button and zipper following.
I’d overthink it all tomorrow.