Chapter 10 #2
Eli follows seconds later with a guttural groan, his hips jerking once, twice, before he stills. His weight sags against me and I wrap my arms around him, holding him close. We're both shaking, gasping for air, slick with sweat.
The tavern comes back into focus slowly. The bar beneath me, sticky now. The cooling sweat on my skin. My dress somewhere on the floor. The broken bottle glittering near our feet.
Eli pulls back enough to look at me, his eyes searching my face. His pupils are still dilated, his lips swollen from kissing. A bead of sweat runs down his temple.
"Hey." I cup his jaw, feeling the rasp of his beard under my palm. My thumb traces his lower lip. "I'm okay. More than okay."
His expression softens—something raw and unguarded flashing across his features before he ducks his head and kisses me. Soft this time. Tender. His lips move against mine like a promise, and I taste salt and cinnamon and us.
He helps me down from the bar, his hands steady on my waist as my legs wobble beneath me. My thighs are sticky, my muscles loose and uncoordinated. I grip his forearms for balance.
He retrieves his flannel from where it landed near the beer taps and holds it open for me. I slip my arms into the sleeves, grateful for the warmth and the scent of him—cedar and smoke and something wild—surrounding me. The fabric hangs to mid-thigh, the sleeves falling past my fingertips.
Eli pulls on his jeans, leaving them unbuttoned, the waistband riding low on his hips. A trail of dark hair disappears below the denim. We stand there in the dim light of the tavern, looking at each other. His chest is still rising and falling rapidly. My lips feel swollen, tender.
"I should probably...” I gesture vaguely toward my abandoned dress.
"Stay." He catches my hand. "Just for a minute."
We end up behind the bar, sitting on the floor with our backs against the cooler.
The metal is cold through the flannel. Eli pulls me against his side and I tuck my head into the curve of his shoulder, my cheek against bare skin.
His arm wraps around me, hand settling on my hip.
My body still hums—satisfied, loose, every muscle relaxed in a way I'd forgotten was possible.
I can feel my pulse between my legs, a pleasant ache.
"Can I ask you something?" My voice comes out quieter than I intend.
"Yeah."
"What is this place?" I trace idle patterns on his bare chest. "Why can I taste your food when I can't taste anything else? Why does everything feel different here in Redwood Rise?"
Eli goes still beneath me. He doesn't answer at first, and I think maybe I've pushed too far. Asked for more than he's willing to give.
Then he takes a breath. "You're going to think I'm crazy."
"Try me."
"Redwood Rise sits on ley lines." He says it carefully, like he's testing the words. "Old magic. The kind that existed long before cities and highways and all the modern noise that drowns it out."
I lift my head to look at him. "Magic."
"Sounds insane, right?" His hand moves to my hair, fingers combing through the tangled strands. "But some places hold power. The land remembers things—old rituals, old blood, old bargains. Redwood Rise is one of those places."
Part of me wants to laugh. Wants to tell him he's messing with me, making up stories to explain the unexplainable.
But another part—the part that's been tasting impossible flavors since I arrived, the part that felt something fundamental change the moment I crossed into this town—that part hesitates.
"Magic," I repeat, slower this time.
"The tavern sits right on top of one of the strongest convergence points.
" Eli's voice stays steady, factual. "Food prepared here, cooked with intention, it carries that energy. Most people just think it tastes better than it should. But you...” He pauses.
"You're more sensitive to it. Your loss of taste made you vulnerable in a way that opened you up to feeling things others miss. "
I search his face for signs of deception. For the punchline. But he just looks at me with those steady brown eyes, completely serious.
"Prove it," I hear myself say.
Eli stands, offering me his hand. I take it, letting him pull me to my feet, and follow as he leads me toward the back hallway. Past the kitchen to the cellar door.
He flicks on the light and starts down the narrow stairs.
"The cellar?" My voice wavers slightly.
"Trust me."
I do. That's what terrifies me—how easily I follow him into the dark, how much I've already given him in one night.
The cellar smells like earth and stone and something else. Green and alive, a scent that shouldn't exist underground. Eli guides me down carefully, his hand steady on my lower back.
At the bottom, he stops. "Close your eyes."
Close my eyes, hyperaware of the darkness pressing against my eyelids, the cool air on my bare legs, Eli's presence beside me.
"Now feel," he whispers.
At first, there's nothing. Just the ordinary sensation of standing in a basement, cold concrete under my feet. Then, slowly, I become aware of something else. A pulse. Rhythmic and deep, like a heartbeat in the earth itself.
Warmth spreads through my chest, tingling down my arms, pooling in my palms. Not uncomfortable, just present. Undeniable.
"Open your eyes."
Open my eyes and gasp.
The walls glow. Faint lines of silver-green light trace patterns through the stone foundation, pulsing in time with that subterranean heartbeat. They form geometric shapes that hurt to look at directly, spiraling and intersecting in ways that seem to move even though they're perfectly still.
"What...” My voice fails.
"Ley lines." Eli stands beside me, haloed in that strange light. "This is what runs under everything. What makes this place different."
I reach out without thinking, my hand moving toward the nearest glowing line. The stone is cool under my fingertips at first. Then warmth spreads from the point of contact, racing up my arm.
Sensation explodes through me. Every taste I've been missing floods my mouth at once—chocolate, dark and bitter.
Coffee, rich and bold. Strawberries, sweet and tart.
Salt. Butter melting on fresh bread. Wine, tannic and complex.
Everything. All of it simultaneously, layered and overwhelming and perfect and too much. My knees buckle.
Eli catches me as my knees give out, his arm around my waist, hauling me back against his chest. My hand jerks away from the stone. I'm gasping, heart racing, mouth still flooded with phantom tastes.
"Easy." His voice is low, steady in my ear. "It takes some getting used to."
"That was...” I can't find words big enough. "I don't understand."
"Neither do most people." He helps me back toward the stairs. "But it's real. All of it."
We climb back up to the main floor, and I lean against the hallway wall, trying to process what I just experienced. Magic. Actual magic. The word sounds ridiculous even in my own head, but I felt it. Tasted it.
"Why didn't you tell me before?" I look up at him.
"Would you have believed me?" Eli's expression is gentle. "Or would you have thought I was taking advantage of a vulnerable woman going through a crisis?"
He has a point. If he'd told me about ley lines and magic on my first day, I would have run. Would have chalked it up to small-town weirdness and gotten back in my car.
"I still don't understand what this place is." The admission feels important. "But I want to."
Eli steps closer, crowding me against the wall in a way that makes my pulse jump and heat flare low in my belly again. His hand comes up to brace beside my head. "Then stay. Let me show you."
His mouth finds mine, softer now but no less intense. I kiss him back, my fingers curling into his belt loops, holding him close. He tastes like everything I've been searching for.
When we finally break apart, my lungs burn and my head spins with wine and revelation and the lingering heat of his touch. My lips are tender, swollen. I can still feel the ghost of his hands on my skin.
"I should go home." I don't move, don't release his belt loops. "Get some sleep. Process all of this."
"Yeah." Eli's thumb traces my lower lip, the touch gentle but deliberate. "You should."
"But I don't want to."
"I know." He kisses my forehead, tender and careful, his lips lingering against my skin. "But you need time to think. To decide if this—all of this—is what you really want."
Part of me wants to argue. Wants to insist I've already decided, already chosen. But he's right. I need space to sort through it all.
I gather my dress and panties from behind the bar, the fabric wrinkled and wine-dark in the dim light.
I pull it on while Eli watches, his gaze tracking every movement—the slide of fabric up my thighs, the way I reach back to pull up the zipper.
It catches halfway and he moves behind me without a word, his fingers brushing my spine as he eases it up the rest of the way.
The intimacy of the gesture makes my breath catch.
I smooth down my hair, finger-combing the tangles. Find my shoes kicked under a barstool. My legs still feel unsteady.
At the door, I pause. "Eli?"
"Yeah?"
"I don't regret this." I meet his eyes. "Any of it."
His smile is small but genuine. "Good. Neither do I."
I walk home through the quiet streets of Redwood Rise, wrapped in the memory of his touch and the impossible glow of those ley lines.
My body carries the evidence of what we did—the pleasant ache between my thighs, the tenderness of my lips, the ghost sensation of his hands on my hips.
My dress is wrinkled, my hair a mess, and I don't care.
The streets are empty, the shops dark. Only the streetlights cast pools of yellow on the sidewalk. My footsteps echo in the silence.
But underneath the confusion and disbelief, hope takes root. Tentative but real.
Whatever this place is, whatever Eli is, I'm not running. Not anymore.
I climb the stairs to my room at the Inn, my hand trailing along the banister. The wood is smooth and cool under my palm. I unlock the door as quietly as possible and slip inside.
The bed looks impossibly inviting. I don't bother changing, just kick off my shoes and collapse onto the mattress fully clothed. The pillow is soft against my cheek. Sleep pulls at me immediately, heavy and irresistible, dragging me down.
Tomorrow, I'll have questions. Doubts. But tonight, I let myself believe in impossible things.