Chapter 10
This was starting to get old, Eli thought. Finding her with a man twice in one day—no matter how innocent it was—irritated Eli. No, irritate was too simple a word for what he was feeling. He knew it was stupid. Truthfully, if anyone he knew reacted this way to a woman, Eli would tell him to fuck her or walk away. At the moment, he knew exactly which option he would take.
For his part, Aiona was completely oblivious to Eli’s anger. Or if he wasn’t, he sure played it cool. He offered Eli a welcoming smile.
“Hey, boss. I was telling Crysta about my grandfather. He’s been pretty active lately, if you know what I mean.” He wiggled his eyebrows.
“It’s getting late.”
Aiona shrugged. “Guess so, but then, I’m young.” He rose. “I guess I probably won’t see you until you get back, Crysta. Good night.”
“Good night, Danny.”
He slipped out the door still unaware that he’d upset Eli. Silence filled the kitchen and he wondered what she was thinking. Instead of asking, and because he was feeling rather agitated, he said nothing. He leaned against the kitchen counter and watched her. She didn’t fidget at all. He knew he looked mean, but the woman just didn’t give an inch. And again, in his head, he knew it was stupid. He was feeling territorial about a woman who wasn’t his.
“How was your meeting?” she asked.
He was still pissed. From the first, he and Jerry had made it clear that the men show Crysta respect. Eli thought about the altercation in the barn and knew he didn’t have any room to talk. And, for the most part, none of the men had given her a problem. Aiona was a problem though. He needed the job, but only for the summer. And, he didn’t seem to be scared of Eli.
Worse, he knew why he was mad. He wanted her. He wanted to have the right to get angry if a man was flirting with her.
“Eli?”
He shook his head trying to move away from those thoughts. “Boring.”
“Oh?”
It had been. He’d sat in the back and listened to some of the discussions and then his mind had drifted. Daydreaming about Crysta had been a mistake. Now, he was beyond horny.
“Yeah. But, there was talk of a scholarship or something like that in Joe’s name.”
She smiled and his heartbeat kicked up a notch. “Joe would have liked that.”
He nodded. Then as casually as he could, he asked, “What was that about you being gone for a few days?”
“I told you I wanted to hop over to Oahu. I talked to Micah today and decided to go. I’ve never been to Honolulu other than the airport.”
He blinked. He knew what she was going to do. She was going to Rough ‘n Ready where some other Dom would touch her, taste her, hear her moan when she came.
Dammit.
“You can’t do that.”
She shook her head as if she were trying to understand. “What?”
“I mean, do you think you should go after being here less than a month?”
She shrugged. “I figured it was better before I got too busy here.”
It was hard to argue with that. “What was this with Danny?”
Her brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Tapping the help, Crysta? I didn’t think that was your kind of thing.”
The moment he said it, Eli wished he’d kept his mouth shut. Shit, he kept making mistakes with her. He had to learn to control his mouth, which hadn’t been a problem until he met her.
For a second or two, he thought he might have gotten away with it. Then her eyes narrowed.
“You think I was hitting on Danny?” Before he could answer, she plowed ahead. “What does that matter? If I want to go up to my room and have hot, animalistic sex with him, I can. I’m a grown woman, he’s old enough and I do whatever the hell I want.”
She turned around and marched off but he stopped her by grabbing her arm.
“How are you getting to Oahu?”
She drew in a deep breath as if trying to calm herself. “Micah’s brother-in-law is having his plane flown over.”
She looked down at his hand on her arm and he released it. Then, without another word, she left him alone. Although, he did hear her stomp up the stairs then across the floor upstairs.
He sat down and leaned his head back. Closing his eyes, he tried to pull a breath and control his temper. He’d lost his cool. It wasn’t like him. If a woman wasn’t interested, he had no problem letting her be. There were plenty of other women and an unwilling one was unappealing to him.
So, why couldn’t he just walk away from Crysta? True, they were living together. That made it hard. And owning the ranch made it even more difficult. Still, he normally wouldn’t sit and fantasize about a woman. With Crysta, he did things he hadn’t done since he was a teenager. He felt out of control and that was something he couldn’t handle.
Well, there is one thing he knew. Crysta wasn’t going over to Oahu with Micah’s brother-in-law alone. And she’d just have to deal with it.
* * *
Eli renteda car when they got to the island. Micah had offered his truck, but he didn’t want to deal with that. It was bad enough they were now driving out to the Rosses’ for dinner.
“If you’re going to be so grumpy, I don’t know why you agreed to go eat with your friends.”
He glanced over at Crysta and ground his teeth together. He was having a hard enough time keeping his hands off her. When she had walked down the stairs back at the ranch, he had wanted to drag her back upstairs. The yellow sundress was sexy in its simplicity, seemingly hugging her curves but not revealing too much. They had gotten a convertible and had the top down. She’d worn her hair up, but left a few strands to dance in the air. She looked like she’d just risen out of bed in that sexy, mussed up way.
“I didn’t really have a choice,” Eli said, passing a slow-moving sedan. “Micah told me to bring you to dinner.”
She laughed. The sound of it danced over the air to him. Damn. His cock twitched, his body heated.
“Yeah, like big, bad Eli St. John wouldn’t say no to Micah.”
At one time, yes, but now, he wasn’t so sure. The truth of the matter was that since Joe had taken a turn for the worse, the crew at Rough ‘n Ready had sort of adopted him. Joe’s chemo treatments had been horrible and while Eli couldn’t leave the ranch that long, he’d pop over at least once a week to check on him. No one else in his family would have done it.
Because of that, the ladies had started to look out for him. They would show up at Joe’s hospital room throughout the week and email Eli with how he was doing. That had been a little too much to take at times, but it had given him solace to know that Joe wasn’t spending every day in the hospital with no one to talk to.
Worse, they made sure Eli had home cooked meals while he was there. Now, he felt obligated to go and that was something he didn’t like. The only person on earth he’d felt he owed had been Joe. But little by little, this group of friends had dragged him into their circle.
He took the exit to Micah and Dee’s house.
“So, tell me about these people. I met Micah, and you said Evan was going to be here tonight?”
“Yes. They’re old friends. I gather they grew up poor, but they moved to the islands together. Now, they own Rough ‘n Ready in Honolulu.”
“Damon taught there for awhile.”
She said it casually enough so he felt okay with asking about it. “So, you and Damon broke up. Why?”
“It was a long time ago.”
“But you still talk, apparently.”
She shrugged. “We loved each other, but not...well, we weren’t in love. We were comfortable. And some of it was that he had been my first Dom. So, I was attached to him. You know how that goes. Truth is, we sort of grew apart. Plus, he’s never going to settle down, and I wanted that. At least at the time.”
“But not anymore?”
“I’m not sure I’m built for a long-term relationship or even the life anymore.”
For some reason, Eli didn’t like hearing that. It was insane to argue with a woman who said she didn’t want to get serious. Usually, when they did, Eli headed for the door. So, the idea that this woman, a woman he shouldn’t have any kind of interest in, says she doesn’t want to settle down shouldn’t bug him. But it did.
“And I take it Ashton has something to do with that?”
She didn’t say anything for a moment. “Maybe. It was a feeling I had for a while though. I knew there was something wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then when I caught him cheating, I knew I hadn’t been crazy.”
“You caught him?”
“Indeed,” she said chuckling. “And I guess I got completely over it if I can laugh about it.”
“So, you’re over him?”
He felt her glance. “Maybe. Sadly, I think it was a blow to my pride more than anything else. I was engaged to him and I was mostly embarrassed, which is kind of sad when you think about it.”
He nodded as he pulled up to the curb. Feeling better because she didn’t harbor any feelings for her ex was normal for any guy, right? Okay, not any guy. In the past, all he cared about was that a woman wasn’t married at the moment. Now he was worrying if Crysta was attached to her ex-fiancé.
“Are we ever going to talk about the kiss?” she asked.
Of course, she brought that up right before she was going to meet everyone. Women always did that kind of shit. This is why he never got into long term relationships.
He shrugged, refusing to look at her. “What’s there to talk about?”
There was a beat of silence. “Not much, in my opinion.”
Before he could respond, she slipped out of the car.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, getting out of the car himself and trying to keep up with her.
“It wasn’t all that great of a kiss,” she said, tossing the barb over her shoulder. “I mean, in a barn, St. John? Like I hadn’t had someone put the moves on me like that before in a barn. Talk about redneck. Not very smooth.”
He knew she was joking but it dinged his pride a little bit. He joined her on the front step of the house and gave her a frown.
“Is that so?”
She nodded smiling at him. He didn’t know what did it. It could have been her challenging him with her words, or that damned sparkle in her eyes, but he couldn’t keep himself from backing her up against the wall right by the front door.
“I think we need to test that theory.”
She snorted and opened her mouth to challenge him, but he didn’t give her the chance. Instead, he slammed his mouth down on hers like before, letting all his frustration take control. It was stupid and immature. It was so out of character for him, but damn, it felt fucking good.
She slipped her hands up over his shoulders, her fingers slipping through his hair at the base of his head. He moved closer, pressing his entire body against hers. He knew she wouldn’t doubt his arousal. He was fully cocked and ready to go. She moaned against his tongue and he almost lost it. Right then and there, he was ready to strip her naked and fuck her against the wall.
Again.
He didn’t even hear the door open, but he did hear Evan Chambers yell, “Hey, Micah, Eli’s out here sucking face with a hot woman.”
Reality crashed down on him as he pulled away and growled at Chambers. Before he could say anything, Ross’ head popped up behind Chambers.
“How rude. Maybe he’s not classy enough to eat with us.”
“You two leave him alone,” Dee said. He didn’t see her, but there was no mistaking that voice.
“Eli,” Crysta said pushing at him a bit. He realized he still had her pressed against the wall of the house and his hand had hold of the skirt of her dress. Her lips were swollen from his kisses, and her face was flushed.
It made him want to kiss her even more.
Her frown turned darker, as if she could read his mind. “Move.”
With regret, he moved away and ignored the snickering from Chambers and Ross.
“You’ve met Micah, and this is his partner, Evan Chambers. This is Crysta Miller.”
“Nice to meet you,” Evan said smiling at Crysta. She smiled back and Eli wanted to scream. It wasn’t like him to be territorial about a woman like this.
“Both of you move the hell out of my way,” Dee said from behind them. Both men moved to reveal Dee. She might be small in stature but she had a presence bigger than a four-star general.
“There’s my girl,” Eli said.
“Your girl isn’t happy you’re mauling my guest.” Then she turned her attention on Crysta. “Sorry about that. You must be Crysta. I’m Dee. I’m married to idiot number one.”
“Woman, I’ve said I don’t like being called an idiot.”
“Then don’t act like one. Come on in.”
As soon as she finished the sentence, there was a baby crying.
“Oh, you just had a baby.”
“Two months ago. May is taking care of her right now. Come on in so we can get acquainted.”
Oh, Eli didn’t like the sound of that.
She followed Dee in and they disappeared before he could stop them.
“Come on, Eli. We want to give you shit and drink beer,” Evan said.
Micah shook his head. “He really just wants to give you shit.”
Eli glanced down the hallway then followed the guys in. He knew there wasn’t any way around it.
When he caught up to them in the kitchen, Ross leveled him with a look. “So, you want to tell me about all the excitement at the ranch?”