Chapter 24
24
Elliot Crane
Are you still at work?
He’d sent the text the night before around eight. I had, in fact, been at work. For the rest of the night and into this morning. I wasn’t at the moment—it was almost seven in the morning, and I was absolutely exhausted, having just parked in the lot behind my apartment. We’d gotten called in to a barn fire—the very same barn where they’d found the kidnapped shifter. It had clearly been arson. The owner, who’d inherited it from his grandfather only to find first a bleeding shifter and now a burnt-down wreck, was both freaked out and furious. Smith was just furious. Colfax wasn’t having anybody’s shit.
Adding insult to injury was the fact that the fire had revealed five bodies concealed under the floor boards, which I was certain would take up most of the next three or four weeks, if not longer.
At least we probably now had the bodies to go with all the blood we’d sent out for testing. It would be a good thing, if it brought closure to the families of the victims, but it wasn’t going to be easy to identify them—Shawano didn’t have a medium, and the closest one, who was based in Green Bay, wasn’t even remotely in the same league as Ward Campion. I didn’t pretend to even begin to understand the rules governing contact with the dead, but even I knew that the rules for Ward were dramatically different than for almost anyone else.
So we were going to have to do this one the hard, medium-free way.
I looked back at my phone and thought about texting Elliot back, but decided to deal with it later. Preferably after I managed to get an hour or two of sleep, although I was doubtful about how well that would work out. I climbed out of the cruiser, limping as I walked toward the stairs, but then I stopped.
I hadn’t noticed the brown Tundra when I’d pulled in—but I saw it now. Elliot Crane, wearing dark jeans and a heavy fleece jacket, was getting out of the driver’s side door, a brown bag in one hand and an honest-to-God bouquet of flowers in the other.
I gaped at him, my overworked brain incapable of actually forming coherent thoughts.
“Hi,” he said softly, a worried and uncertain half-smile on his lips.
“What are you doing here?” my mouth asked him, not bothering to consult with my brain about whether or not that was the right question to ask. My brain caught up with me, and fear hit. “Did something else happen?” Did another skinned animal corpse get left at your house?
The smile faltered. “No, nothing happened.” Then his eyes narrowed. “Seth… Are you just getting home from work? From yesterday ?”
I nodded. I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I just stood there, joints aching and muscles on the edge of trembling from sheer exhaustion.
“Fuck,” he breathed. “I—I’m sorry.” Then he thrust the bag towards me. “I just—I wanted to bring by a few more of Dad’s remedies. Henry helped me put some of the compounds together, and I thought…” He trailed off.
“Thought what?” I asked, confused. Was this a thank-you for me having stayed over? He’d already given me some of the tea and the cream Henry made.
He shrugged. “Maybe something will help your knee. Or your back.”
Emotion hit the back of my throat, and I had to swallow several times. It touched me—a lot—that he wanted to try to help me, whether it worked or not. Especially because I knew he hadn’t really been keeping up with his dad’s herbal business.
Or maybe now he was going to?
It wasn’t like we’d had an extended conversation about it after I’d yelled at him about the digitalis.
“Thanks,” I managed, automatically reaching for the bag.
He handed it to me, and I took it. The paper of the bag felt weird in my hands, my whole body seemingly hypersensitive because of nerves and exhaustion. To say nothing of the adrenaline his being here had sent surging through my ragged system.
“There’s dried lion’s mane powder, star anise oil, turmeric and black pepper, powdered ginger, thyme, cloves… Mostly powdered and in vegan capsules.” He shrugged. “Maybe none of it will help, but I thought maybe…”
“I’ll try it,” I assured him. Nothing he’d listed would be a problem, either for my alpha-gal or in terms of interacting weird with anything else. And I could still take Aleve if I needed it.
Elliot nodded, looking down. “And I, uh…” He swallowed, glanced up at me, then held out the flowers. I’d sort of assumed they were for… something else? Someone else. Judy Hart maybe, or… I had no idea. But it hadn’t occurred to me for even one second that they might be for me.
Nobody had ever brought me flowers. I shifted the bag into one arm and accepted them, my hand shaking a little and my mouth too dry to even thank him.
“I—” He stopped, licked his lips. Started again. “I was going to offer to buy you dinner. Or make you dinner. But obviously you weren’t here.”
I found my voice. “Have you been sitting here all night?” I asked, trying to decide if I found that disturbing or not.
“No.” He shook his head, and I felt a weird mingled sense of regret and relief. Elliot continued. “I—I came by. But you weren’t here.” He shrugged. “None of my business. But I wanted to give you those,” he nodded toward the paper bag. “I came back this morning because I thought maybe breakfast?”
I swallowed. “I’m—really tired.”
He nodded, then shuffled his feet. “I could make breakfast for you while you take a nap,” he offered, almost shyly, although I’d never known Elliot Crane to be even a little bit shy. “Or… not.”
I had to go back to work by one. I also needed to eat, because nobody had been even remotely in the mood for dinner last night. I’d eaten two vegan protein bars when it started to feel like my body was trying to eat itself, but I’d very nearly thrown them back up. I knew that I wasn’t going to make myself enough food—I was going to have cereal and maybe a banana, if they hadn’t turned brown already. Or if I hadn’t eaten them. It was hard to remember—I was that tired.
“Okay,” I said to Elliot. I wanted him here. I wanted to pretend that he was here for reasons that he couldn’t possibly be here for. But I wanted to pretend. Even if only for a few hours.
He looked up, his expression was clearly surprised at my answer. “Really?”
I nodded, and even that felt difficult. “I didn’t really eat yesterday, and…” I didn’t finish the sentence. I didn’t have to—Elliot’s face told me he understood.
“Come on, let’s get you a nap, showered, and fed. Okay?”
I nodded again. “Okay,” I agreed, then shuffled toward the stairs, each step up sending pain shooting through my knee, despite having used Henry’s cream religiously. There was only so much it could do, after all. My legs weighed as much as lead, my back ached, and it felt like it took me at least ten minutes to climb the flight, although it probably only took one or two.
Elliot followed, and he took the flowers from me so I could unlock the door and let us both inside.
“I’ll put these in water,” he told me, also taking back the brown paper bag. “You go get some sleep. I’ll make breakfast.”
“I have to go back,” I told him, and he frowned.
“Today?”
I nodded. “One.”
The frown deepened, but he didn’t say anything else. “What time do you want breakfast, then?”
I thought very hard about that. “Elevenish?”
“Okay. Go get some sleep.”
I was about to tell him that I didn’t actually have much in the apartment. Cereal. Almond milk. One banana that I could see on the counter. There might have been other things he could make. Maybe I had eggs?
I shuffled into the closet-sized room that passed for my bedroom and closed the door, leaning back against it and letting the combined emotions of last night’s case and Elliot’s inexplicable kindness wash through me, tears that I forced to stay silent running down my face.
I clenched and unclenched my fists a couple times, trying to keep myself under control—not to stop from shifting, because I’d gotten good enough that I didn’t think I would be in danger of feral shifting unless I was afraid for my life or something like that. This swirl of emotions was chaotic, but didn’t quite trigger the fight-flight-feral response.
Thankfully. I didn’t need that shit on top of everything else right now.
Fumbling with my phone, I set an alarm for eleven, then plugged it in. Much as I didn’t want to go back to work, I did need to be there.
I stripped off my clothes—clean, at least, since I’d showered at work along with everyone else, as we’d all been freezing cold and covered in mud and ash—and left them on the floor while I crawled under the covers. The tears didn’t stop until I lost consciousness.
My eyes were crusty when my phone went off, informing me that what little sleep I’d gotten was over. I pulled in a breath to sigh out and was hit with the smell of something baking, turkey bacon, eggs, and spices.
Elliot .
In the few seconds after I’d awakened, I’d forgotten that Elliot was in my apartment, cooking me a breakfast that couldn’t possibly have been made from ingredients in my kitchen. Which meant that he’d either brought all of it with him, which seemed unlikely, or had gone grocery shopping. Just to make me breakfast.
I swallowed around the lump in my throat, rubbed the salt out of my eyes, and dragged myself out of bed. I didn’t need another shower, but taking one would wake me up, so I grabbed clothes, threw on a pair of sweatpants, then quickly scooted from my closet-bedroom to the tiny bathroom next door and took a quick shower.
Dressed and feeling almost like a person, I came out of the bathroom, hair brushed back, beard trimmed, wearing a pair of grey corduroys, a light yellow button-down, and a navy blue sweater. I liked the cream cable-knit better, but you really can’t wear cream-colored anything to work either in a lab or at a crime scene and not expect it to be absolutely ruined.
I was still in my sock-feet, so the sounds of cooking must have masked my approach, because Elliot didn’t look up, giving me a chance to observe him as he moved through my surprisingly-not-as-tiny-as-you’d-expect kitchen. Elliot was frowning down at something on the stove that smelled a little odd and maybe a little burnt, the dangling silver feathers in his ears swinging slightly. He had on a dark red long-sleeved t-shirt, the sleeves pushed up over his muscular forearms, exposing the bottom edge of the tattoo on the left.
I crossed my tiny living room and stepped into the kitchen, drawing his attention.
“Hi,” I said, feeling strangely awkward in my own kitchen.
“Hey,” he replied, glancing over and giving me a quick, crooked smile. “Better?”
I nodded, my neck a little warm. “Yeah. Thanks. And thanks for this.” I gestured.
“Don’t think me yet,” he said. “I believe I royally fucked up this gravy.”
I looked at the pan. “Gravy?” I repeated.
“It was supposed to be. I’m pretty sure it’s burnt paste now, though.” He sighed. “I was going for southern-style biscuits and gravy. At least I have the biscuits.” He offered half a crooked smile. “They’re vegan and everything. No buttermilk.” His cheeks colored a little. “I did try one to make sure they weren’t horrible.”
The biscuits were cooling on a rack just to the side of the stove, and they smelled amazing. “I’m sure they’re great,” I replied, my neck warming even more.
Then I noticed the pan of sausages.
“You didn’t put the sausage in the gravy?” I asked him.
“What?” Elliot looked startled.
I gestured to the pan. “The sausage. It’s sausage gravy.”
“You put it in the gravy? But gravy is just stock and flour…”
“Not southern gravy,” I told him. “But since you didn’t use the sausage, I can do it.”
Elliot stepped to the side, that small half-smile back on his lips. “I suppose if you’re going to learn how to do southern biscuits and gravy properly, who better to teach you than a southerner?”
I snorted, rolling up the sleeves of my shirt and sweater. “Probably a lot of people,” I told him. “But this is one of Noah’s favorite things, so I do make a decent sausage gravy.” I glanced over at the rack of biscuits. “I use store-bought biscuits, though.”
“Heresy!” Elliot mock-gasped.
“I can tell you know Hart,” I muttered, turning up the heat slightly under the pan of sausage. “What kind is this, anyway?”
“Chicken and apple,” he replied. “I made sure you could eat everything.”
I felt my neck flush higher. “I wasn’t questioning that,” I said. “It smells different than what I’m used to—the apple, probably.”
“Is that okay?”
“Yeah, of course. I think it’ll be good.” The heat was creeping onto my face. I hadn’t meant to question him or make him feel bad about his food choices.
I used the spatula to break apart the sausage links, letting some of the grease out into the pan. When the liquid was hot and sizzling, I pushed the sausage pieces to the edge of the pan, then took the flour—still out from Elliot’s paste-like attempt— and mixed it directly into the sausage juices with a fork. Once the lumps were mostly smoothed, I grabbed the almond milk from the fridge and added it, as well, switching over to a spoon once it was mostly whisked in so that I could bring the sausage pieces into the mixture as the gravy bubbled around them.
I stirred, not wanting to scorch the flour or almond milk—neither does well with being burned to the bottom of a pan, and I hadn’t made gravy with chicken sausage before. I’d always used pork, because up until a year ago, I’d been able to eat it, and when I made it for Noah after that, I just didn’t eat any. I wanted to make sure it came out okay—because in spite of everything, I still wanted Elliot to be impressed. To like me.
Okay, he liked me—as a friend. But I still wanted to show off for him. Because maybe someday he’d be interested in something more than friendship. Something that would involve wanting me to cook for him on a regular basis.
I tried not to sigh, stifling the breath I’d drawn into my lungs. I shouldn’t be holding out, waiting for Elliot to think of me as anything more than he already did. He’d made it clear where we stood. Repeatedly. Me carrying a torch was both toxic and stupid. Unhealthy. For both of us.
I gave the gravy one last stir, then set the spoon down and turned to tell him the gravy was ready. And then?—
His lips were on mine, his hands on the sides of my face, holding me there as though I were going to pull away or resist.
I wasn’t about to do either one.
I had no idea what to do, my brain having completely short-circuited.
Before I could properly react by kissing him back or even putting my hands on his waist, he pulled back, his cheeks flushed and his eyes cast down toward the cracked and slightly stained linoleum floor.
“I—” He licked his lips, those lips that had just been on mine. “I’m sorry.”
I opened my mouth to tell him he didn’t have to be sorry, but then he kept talking.
“I know I said I wasn’t ready, and I’m not. I don’t think you can ever be ready, not really.” He swallowed, seemingly unable to hear the pounding of my heart. “I just don’t give a fuck anymore. I—I care about you, Seth. And I don’t want to lose you because I’m a fucking dumbass.”
I gaped at him. Despite the handful of hours of sleep I’d just gotten, I was still too tired and too wrung out to process what he was telling me. It felt like a hallucination, something my sleep-deprived brain had conjured up as some sort of defense mechanism because my heart was too battered to keep being rejected.
Elliot swallowed again, lifting his brilliant hazel eyes to study my features. “I don’t expect you to forgive me. Not yet—fuck, maybe not ever, given the shit I’ve put you through. But if you can—if you can, someday, I’d like another chance. But there’s no rush—you can take your time to think about it.”
Beside us, the oven timer went off, and I flinched away from it.
Elliot gave me a rueful smile, small and lopsided, and then pulled a pan of roasted potatoes out of the oven. “You don’t have to say anything,” he told me. “We can talk about it later. When you want to. If you want to.” He let out a sigh, not looking at me. “I told myself I wasn’t going to bring it up right now. That you had to go back to work, and it was a dick move to just dump this on you.” He let out a bitter bark of a laugh. “And then I went and fucking did it anyway.”
He set the pan of potatoes down on some hot pads that he must have put out for precisely that purpose. As soon as the pan was on the counter and out of his hands, it was my turn—I reached out and grabbed his jaw, bending to kiss him.
Strong and calloused hands gripped my forearms—but not to push me away. He kissed me back, all of the kisses I’d imagined over the long months between when we’d met and this moment all poured into my lips and tongue until I drew a soft moan from Elliot’s throat. I pulled back, breathless, and looked down into eyes that danced with cracked crystal in green and gold and brown. He grinned up at me. “Is that a ‘yes, Elliot, you can have another chance’?”
I nodded, biting my lower lip.
He kissed me again, and I melted into him, feeling my heart and eyes full to the point of spilling over.
It was my growling stomach that broke us apart, Elliot’s fingers on the back of my skull pulling my forehead to his.
“You need to eat, baby,” he said softly. It has been a while since he’d called me baby . It sent warmth sliding through me.
I knew he was right, but I wanted to keep kissing him. I wanted to do more than kiss him.
“We’ll come back to this,” he said softly, his fingers running through the short hairs on the back of my neck. “I promise.”
I nodded, but he had to be the one to step back.
“Sit,” he told me, and I obeyed.
He brought me a full plate—homemade biscuits, my gravy, turkey bacon, potatoes, scrambled eggs—and then poured me coffee from my thrift store french press. “Thanks,” I murmured, emotion thick in my throat as I poured some of my dairy-free creamer into the cup of coffee.
“You’re welcome.” He made himself a plate, joining me at the table. “If—If you want to talk about it—the case—or… whatever—I’m here.” His mouth twitched, but not in a smile. “I know you probably can’t say much about work, and I’m not asking. Just… if you need to vent.”
He wasn’t helping me to keep the tears in check. “Thanks,” I managed, although I definitely didn’t sound normal.
Elliot reached out and squeezed my hand for a moment before turning back to his breakfast. “I know it’s hard, what you do,” he said softly. “I know what it did to Val, sometimes. I also know that you can’t always talk about the specifics. And if you don’t want to talk about it, or talk about it to me, you don’t have to. But I’m here. For whatever.”
I nodded, unable to keep a few tears from escaping my eyes. Wrung out as I was, there was no chance of keeping my feelings in check anyway, and adding this on top of Elliot’s sudden declaration of romantic interest, and I was an emotional disaster. At least I had enough self-control to stay in human skin, although every nerve ending was buzzing.
“Seth—” His brow furrowed with concern or worry or something like it.
I shook my head. “It’s just—I’m just a mess,” I said. “Sorry.”
He put his hand over mine again. “Don’t be sorry,” he told me. “I—I’m sorry. I should have kept my stupid mouth shut, at least until you were done with work for good today.”
I gave him a weak and watery smile. “I’m glad you didn’t,” I told him.
Lacy told me to “go the hell home” a little after six. Colfax had come all the way into Shawano to ask a million and a half questions about what we’d found in the barn fire. The orc been pacing my lab with its combination of sad old and shiny new equipment, talking mostly under their breath for the past three hours. They’d just left, which was the point at which Lacy told me she was going home and I should, too.
I wasn’t.
I was going to Elliot’s. Because of course I was going to Elliot’s. He’d kissed me. Said he cared about me. I’d barely been able to think about anything else all day, and had almost dropped half a dozen different slides and plates and nearly knocked my microscope off my makeshift lab table with my elbow because I’d lost all spatial awareness in my semi-delirious fog of romance.
But the three humanoid and two non-human bodies from the burned-out barn had needed DNA testing. I had the suspicion that the two non-humans were probably shifters, based on the fact that the chemical spectrum analysis had come back positive for the same accelerant that had been used on the bonfire with the shifter Colfax had called me to.
Colfax had been at the scene last night, too, and had immediately demanded that I run DNA on both non-human bodies. I’d informed the massive orc that I was running DNA on all of them. Because shifters could take both forms. And because we wanted to have IDs on all of them, regardless of species.
So I’d run five consecutive DNA panels, and came out at the end of it with DNA for three shifters, one Arc-human, and an elf. The Arc-human had an ID from a missing person about nine years back, but none of the others had given us names.
I’d spent the rest of my time cross-referencing particulate evidence, checking tire tracks, running fingerprints, eliminating tire tracks and fingerprints, running tox screens—we had a new toy at the lab—and checking spectral analyses. I’d been moving non-stop since I’d gotten in at one, and even though Smith had told me to go home when I’d brought him a box of evidence and small stack of reports, I’d checked with Lacy, who then also told me to go home.
There would be more to do tomorrow, such as figuring out how long they’d been there, but now I was going to go back to Elliot’s house and hope that I got at least some real sleep. I also wanted to do things that didn’t involve sleeping, but I wasn’t sure how much energy I was going to have for any of it once I actually sat down. I hadn’t actually done that in the last five-ish hours other than half a butt cheek on a stool while typing in something quickly.
I was sure my reports were rife with typos.
Right at that moment, I didn’t give a shit.
I probably drove too fast, particularly considering that I was running on about three-and-a-half hours sleep. I wasn’t in danger of falling asleep, but my reaction times and judgment were probably fairly impaired by this point. Fortunately for me—and everyone else on the road, if I’m being honest—nothing noteworthy happened between work and Elliot’s house.
I pulled up behind his truck, even a week and a half later not wanting to park over the tire tracks left by whomever had killed the badger. And the dog.
Whomever had threatened Elliot.
I slid out of the Cruiser, hissing out loud at the pain in my knee, my ankle, and my back. I limped back and pulled a bag out of the back seat, looking forward to more of Henry’s cream, a hot shower, a hot meal, and sex that would let me work out one hell of a lot of stress and tension. Not necessarily in that order, either.
And then I stopped, feeling like an absolute fool because I hadn’t checked with Elliot to see if he wanted me to come over. Or was even willing to have me here for dinner, much less stay over. He had said that I could stay at the house, but that was back before we’d gone on our disaster-date and before he’d kissed me?—
“Are you coming inside, or are you going to stare at the dead grass all night?” his voice interrupted my borderline panic attack. His tone was warm, welcoming. It was like a ray of sunshine—not that there was any actual sunshine left this late in the year.
I hadn’t actually been staring at the grass, although my face had been pointed in its general direction. I could actually see it—my vision was definitely better in the dark than it had been when I was an ordinary human.
I looked over at the house, finding Elliot’s form outlined in the doorway by the warm light from inside. He was leaning against the frame, one ankle in front of the other, arms crossed over his chest. Something glinted near his ears, and I wondered if he was still wearing the silver feathers he’d had on this morning.
I swallowed, suddenly exceedingly nervous. “Should I?—”
“Bring your clothes in, if you have them,” he replied. “Toothbrush, too.” I could hear pleasure in his voice. “If you forgot it, I have an extra somewhere.”
I took a shaky breath, then found my courage. “One you didn’t use to varnish something?” I called back.
I heard his chuckle, low and rough, and it was enough to get me to move my feet, propelling me toward the glow of the open door and Elliot’s crooked smile.
I climbed the steps to the house, stepping up to the door so that I could look down into Elliot’s sparkling hazel eyes. “Hi,” I said softly.
He took the bag from me, set it down behind him, then put his hands on my sides and pulled me into the house. I reached out, cupping his face in my hands, bending to savor the feeling of his lips on mine.
He hooked his fingers in my belt loops, pulling me close against him with a tug that was almost—but not quite—rough, his lips opening and inviting me deepen the kiss. I accepted the invitation, leaning into his body, claiming his mouth with mine.
I felt more than heard the rumble of a growl in his throat against my fingers before he pulled away. I let him go.
I was breathless, and so was he, as he stepped back. “At least take your shoes off,” he said, the half-smile back in place on lips that were slightly swollen, his cheeks flushed and mouth pink from the roughness of my beard.
“Right,” I said, wondering if he’d stopped kissing me because of the beard. I’d shave it off if he asked me to, although I did rather enjoy not having to shave every morning.
I slowly crouched down, wincing, and began to untie my shoes, although I was almost immediately distracted by Elliot’s fingers sliding into my hair. I sucked in a breath through my nose and finally noticed the smell in the house—fish, along with something a little sweet, but also savory.
I looked up at Elliot, one shoe untied. “It smells good,” I told him. “What are you making?”
He smiled down at me, fingers toying a little with my hair. He’d never done that before, and I liked it.
“Maple salmon, roasted squash, and corn cakes.” He grinned. “Turns out, dairy is a white people food, so I can make you what my people traditionally eat and you’ll be just fine.” He paused. “Skipping the venison and rabbit, I guess. But turkey and fish, anyway.”
I blinked. “Dairy is a white people food?” I asked, surprised.
“We didn’t have cows or sheep or goats here until you people showed up,” he pointed out.
“Oh. Um. Buffalo?”
“Do you know how stupid you’d have to be to milk a plains buffalo?” he asked me.
“Do you?” I retorted, finishing untying the other shoe. “Last I checked, buffalo don’t live in Wisconsin.”
“There’s a buffalo farm like three hours from here in Baldwin,” he informed me.
I blinked. “Seriously?”
“Mmhmm. You can’t eat buffalo, either, though,” he pointed out.
“I mean. But I thought they were extinct?”
“That’s bison bison. And not quite.”
“Why are you repeating it?” I asked.
He laughed as I used one foot to pull off the other shoe, then switched. “I’m not” he said. “ Bison bison is its Latin name. The American Bison was knocked down to something like 500 individuals in the nineteenth century and had to be cross-bred with the European bison for the population, such as it was, to recover.” He made a face. “Not unlike many First Nations.”
“Sorry?” My extremely Scandinavian ancestors had emigrated sometime in the late nineteenth century. I didn’t know history well enough to have any idea of they’d been responsible for anything that might have impacted the Indigenous people living in Virginia where they’d settled. Apologizing seemed like the safer of the two options, though.
Elliot raised his eyebrows, lips quirked. “I’ll consider forgiving you,” he replied, and I could tell he was teasing me, both from his tone and because his hands came to rest on my hips.
“Anything I can do to help convince you?” I asked him, teasing back, although my voice had dropped a little.
“We can discuss you begging on your knees later,” he replied huskily.
My mouth went dry. “Okay,” I agreed, probably too quickly.
Elliot laughed. “Dinner first,” he told me. “You’re going to need your strength.”
I swallowed. “Are you going to expect me to be able to actually pay attention to what I eat?”
His laughter drifted down the hall as he turned and walked into the kitchen.
My pants a lot tighter and less comfortable than they had been, I followed awkwardly after him.
I sat back from the table, one hand rubbing my extremely full belly. I’d been too emotional to eat as much as I probably should have this morning, especially after not having eaten the night before, but Elliot had made more than enough food for both of us—and then some. He’d left me at the table, carrying the dishes of sweet-savory salmon, the spiced squash, some sort of baked beans unlike anything I’d ever had, and the thick-but-not-heavy corn cakes back into the kitchen to package up leftovers.
The fact that there were leftovers were not a judgment on his cooking. He’d just made that much food. I let out a satisfied breath, then pushed myself to my feet, picking up the empty plates and carrying them over to the sink, walking around the far side of the island to avoid getting in Elliot’s way.
“I can do that,” he told me, looking out from behind the fridge door.
“So can I,” I countered.
“You had a really long day.”
I shrugged. “I can do some dishes,” I replied, taking them to the sink and rinsing them before starting to load them into the dishwasher.
As he emptied the serving bowls and platters, Elliot handed them to me, so that he finished before I did, and I nearly dropped the last plate as he pushed his hips up against my butt, clearly already interested in taking this somewhere other than the kitchen.
Or maybe not , I thought as his hands pulled the tails of my shirt out of my grey work slacks and got to work on the buttons, undoing about half of them.
“Elliot—”
He pulled my undershirt out of my pants.
I turned in his arms, and he went back to the buttons, finishing the rest of them, all the way up to the top.
I caught his hands.
“Elliot.”
His eyes were dark, studded with gold and green, the pupils wide. He pushed his hips forward so that his stiffening erection pushed against me, my own twitching in response.
“I’m serious,” I told him.
“So am I,” he replied, stepping closer to that our bodies were pressed against each other.
I let go of his hands, putting mine around him to settle on the small of his back. I leaned away, my back against the counter, looking down at him.
“We need to talk,” I said. I didn’t particularly want to talk. I wanted the same thing he clearly wanted. But I wasn’t going to let us go down the same pathway we’d already been on. I needed to know what he wanted us to be. Where he wanted this to go.
I felt more than heard him sigh, although he didn’t move to step away from me. “What do we need to talk about?” he asked softly, his hands resting against my chest.
“What are we?” I asked him. “How is this going to work? Us?”
“You want rules?” he asked me, and I almost said no, because I had hated his old rules so much. But relationships need rules. Boundaries. Commitments.
“I mean, we should at least set some parameters,” I said, not liking how apologetic I sounded.
“Okay.” He looked up at me, something I couldn’t quite identify in those multi-toned eyes. “Rule One,” he said softly, so soft I could barely hear him. “You can kiss me as much as you want, anytime you want.”
I took him at his word, bending to kiss him deeply, my hands cupping his face and my tongue tasting him, slowly and deliberately, before pulling back. “Ditto,” I agreed, before kissing him again.
When I pulled back, a half-smile was on his lips.
“Rule Two,” he continued, as though I hadn’t just kissed him until both of us were breathless. “I care about you.” His voice broke a little, but he kept going. “And I want you to care about me, too.”
“I do,” I whispered. I cupped his face and kissed him again, softly, until he pulled away, just far enough that he could speak.
“I want us to do the romantic shit, like go on dates.” My lips twitched.
“Okay,” I agreed against his mouth. “Romantic shit.” I felt him smile again.
“Rule Three,” he went on, his lips still brushing mine. “There is absolutely an us . And…” He hesitated for a moment, then continued. “I’d like it to be only an us.” He pulled back far enough that his eyes could study mine. “I don’t want to share you with anyone else.”
“I don’t want to be shared,” I assured him.
He offered me a quirked, lopsided smile. “I also want the sex, though.”
I laughed, pulling him back to me. “Good.”
“Was that enough talking?” he asked me, his hands starting to push my open shirt over my shoulders.
Part of me wanted it to be, because I wanted to get to the part that Elliot also clearly wanted to get to. The part where he took my clothes off, I took his clothes of, and I got to find out what it was like to kiss him at the same time that he was fucking me.
And part of me wanted it to be crystal clear what we both wanted out of this. Yes, he’d just said he wanted romance, and emotional attachment, and exclusivity, but that was pretty basic in the grand scheme of relationship parameters. Were we just trying this out? Were we serious ? Were we thinking about this as having the potential for forever?
To be fair to Elliot, I wasn’t sure what my answers were to those questions, either. I felt like he would be in the trying it out camp, given how we started off, but I wanted to opt for serious with an eye, at least, towards whether or not we could be forever.
But that seemed like a lot for our first… whatever this was. Night together together ? It wasn’t our first date—that hadn’t gone terribly well—and it wouldn’t be the first time we’d had sex by a long shot. Would he expect me to leave after? Was I supposed to sleep in the guest room?
“Seth.” His hands were holding my face.
I blinked at him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, softly, and I wasn’t sure about the tone of his voice—whether he was upset or confused or— “It’s okay if you want to keep talking.”
I sighed, bending forward to rest my forehead against his again. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled, emotion pushing at the back of my throat. This wasn’t how I’d wanted tonight to go. I’d wanted the sex, hot and sweaty and tender. I’d wanted cuddling, gentle caresses and kisses and shared thoughts.
I hadn’t really wanted to have an awkward relationship talk, but I had been the one who started that. Sometimes I’m my own worst enemy.
Fingers threaded into the hair on the back of my skull as he held our heads together. “Don’t be sorry,” he said gently.
“I over think everything,” I grumbled.
That got me a barked laugh. “Oh, baby, you have no idea what it means to over think something,” he said.
I pulled my head back to look at his features more clearly. “What do you mean?” I asked him.
His lips twisted wryly. “How long did it take me to admit to myself that I’m in love with you?” he asked me.
I gaped at him. Literally. Mouth-hanging-open gaped.
His mouth twisted further. “Well, that’s not a good sign,” he remarked, and I could almost taste the bitterness that ran under the forced humor.
I grabbed his jaw and kissed him with everything I had—every sleepless night, every tear of frustration, every fantasy spent into tissues or water running down the shower drain, every hope and wish and prayer I didn’t believe had power, every ounce of what I had felt for him since the day we met and had tried, desperately, to keep from blooming into what it had become.
Did I love him? I honestly had no idea. I’d been quashing my emotions for so long that I wasn’t completely sure what I felt anymore. I knew I cared about him. But I didn’t know if this was love.
I wasn’t even sure what love was supposed to feel like—or if I’d ever even felt it before. Sure, I had wanted Devin to be The One. I’d thought he was. But the way he’d made me feel was different than what I felt for Elliot. Yes, both of them were hot, in their own ways. I’d wanted to please Devin, wanted to make him see me as his sun and moon and stars. I was willing to do whatever he asked—I did what he wanted in bed, made the food he liked, kept the apartment the way he liked it, let him make the decisions about decorating and finances… and I’d told myself that letting him do all those things was love. I’d wanted him to be happy—because if he was happy, then we were happy.
It wasn’t like I’d disliked his choices—I’d mostly not had an opinion about most of them. He’d generally compromised or given in when I had voiced an opinion, it just didn’t happen very often. I’d been content, I’d thought.
I wondered now if I had been, or if I’d just been so quietly desperate for love that I was willing to give in on a hundred thousand things just to get a taste of it.
What I felt for Elliot was different. Like a banked-low fire that lived in my belly, tightening my chest with both anticipation and worry, slipping into my mind at strange moments as this thing reminded me of the way Elliot tilted his head, or that thing reminded me of his tendency to rub his fingers together when he was thinking. Reminders that warmed my blood and brought a half-smile to my lips.
I wanted him to think of me with the same warmth, but I never once felt that I had to change who I was, what I thought, what I wanted. I didn’t have to compromise.
Or maybe it was just that I’d stopped compromising, and when I turned around, Elliot was there. Watching. Waiting, maybe, for me to figure all of that out. To know who I was and what I wanted from my life before asking me if I wanted to share that life with him.
Or maybe it was just coincidence.
I don’t think I’ll ever know.
All I know is that in that moment, my heart was full, and while I didn’t have the words to try to explain all of that, I was going to do my best to show him.
I dropped my hands from his face to tug at his long-sleeved t-shirt, and he obligingly drew back so that he could pull it off over his head. I ran my fingers over his skin, reveling in the heat of it, the smooth softness of its texture, the way the muscles shivered beneath it as I touched him.
I bent my head to put my mouth against his neck, feathering kisses from the top of his trapezius up the column of his throat, taking the time to give extra attention to where the line of scar tissue cut across it, then to the soft spot beside his jawbone under his ear. He let out a soft gasp as I gently sucked on his skin.
I ran my tongue around the edge of his ear, and he shuddered. “I have never wanted anything as much as I want you in my life,” I whispered to him.
He let out a soft moan, and one hand threaded fingers into my hair, pulling my lips back to his. I leaned into him, pushing him a few steps back until he bumped against the counter. He let out a soft growl, then shoved my shirt down my arms. I let it fall to the kitchen floor, his hands already tugging at the undershirt underneath. It joined my button-down on the floor.
I pulled him closer, wanting—needing—to feel the heat of his skin against mine. His hands slid up my back, and he broke from our kiss to push his face into my neck, inhaling deeply with a half-growl. I turned my head, pressing my nose into his hair, drawing the rich, complicated scent of his earthy, heavy musk and the sharp soap of his shampoo into my lungs and my heart.
“El—” I couldn’t manage more than a single syllable.
“Seth,” he countered, the word half-spoken, half-growled into my skin.
“I need you,” I gasped, as his hands pushed into the back of my waistband. “Please.”
Another growl, and he slid his hand around to my stomach, gripping my waistband at my fly, using it to pull me across the room, then into the hall, and then into his bedroom. Then he undid the button and the zipper, pushing them off my hips. I half-kicked, half-stepped my way out of them as Elliot pulled me toward the bed with his hands on my face, his lips once more glued to mine.
I fumbled for his fly, and he let go of me to bat my hands out of the way, stripping himself of both jeans and tight, dark blue underwear.
I let out a soft moan as the familiar, beautiful sight of his cock, standing out from the dark hair between his thighs, and dropped to my knees, ignoring the flash of pain as the left one hit the thick rug. I might pay for it later, but it was worth it.
Both hands gripped my hair as I drew him into my mouth, the muscles of his thighs trembling as I sucked and pulled.
“Fuck,” he gasped out, and the fact that I had him shaking only encouraged me. His hips bucked in my hands, and I slid them around to grip his ass, feeling the muscles quiver and tighten in response to what I was doing. “Seth… Oh, fuck.”
One fist tightened on my hair, and he pulled me away.
“On the bed,” he growled. “Now.”
I put my hands on the bed to push myself, painfully, back to my feet, then sat abruptly as Elliot pushed me down.
“Move back,” he demanded.
I crawled backwards, and he followed me on hands and knees. I hit the pillows at the bed’s head, and stopped, but Elliot kept going, climbing up my body, his legs and hips pushing mine apart.
“Tell me you want me,” he rasped.
“God, yes,” I agreed.
He fumbled in the bedside drawer, coming back with lube and a condom. “Seth?—”
“ Yes ,” I repeated, moving one of the pillows under my hips to give us the right angle for where this was going.
He pushed a lubed finger into me, and I felt my eyes roll back in my head. I’d missed the feeling of his hand. His fingers. His cock.
“More,” I demanded, spreading my legs wider and reaching between us to wrap a hand around his cock, hard and hot and silky.
He let out a soft groan, slipping a second finger into me, making me squirm. “You keep doing that and this isn’t going to last,” he told me.
“I don’t care,” I said, stroking him.
He moaned, his hips pushing forward, seemingly of their own accord.
“Seth, baby, I need to fuck you,” he gasped, “but I’m not going to last long.”
I spread my legs, offering myself. “Then fuck me,” I told him.
He pulled himself out of my hand and slid on a condom, stroking himself a couple times with a lubed hand. “I?—”
“ Now ,” I demanded.
The sound he made was strangled, a mingled whimper and moaning gasp, but he did as I asked, pushing into me, my legs bent back to give him space. Both of us moaned, his urgent, mine one almost of relief as I felt him stretch me, burning just enough that it sent electricity straight to my balls, making them ache.
“Seth—”
“Harder,” I begged.
“Seth—”
“Please.” I wanted him to come apart in my arms, to lose control because I made him lose control.
He panted as he pulled back, then thrust forward once, twice, a third time, hard and fast, then cried out as he came, his breath mingling with mine as my own orgasm chased his.
He bent, his forehead pressed to him, our breath mingling as we panted.
“Fuck,” he breathed softly.
I slid my hands up his arms, feeling every hair, every drop of sweat. Reveling in all of them.
Elliot’s sagged into my chest, and I put my arms around him, holding him there, and I felt him relax into me with a sigh.
I don’t know how long we stayed there, but, eventually, he pushed himself up, placing a kiss to the inside of my knee before climbing down. He cleaned himself up, then brought me a warm washcloth and towel to do the same.
He noticed my pained expression as I straightened my left leg, and frowned. He sat on the side of the bed, putting one callus-rough hand on my thigh. “Can I do anything for it?” he asked me.
I shook my head.
“Some of Henry’s cream?” he asked.
I hesitated, and he got up. “I’ll be back.”
He had a jar of it when he returned, and slowly, carefully began to massage it into and around my knee. I’d never even let Noah touch my bad joints, but Elliot was gentle, cautious, tender, and it eased the pain a little.
“Thanks,” I said softly, after he’d put the jar on the nightstand and put the dirty towels in the laundry. I was propped up on my elbows, wary. I didn’t know if he’d want me to stay in the house—although he had told me to bring clothes—much less in his bed.
“What’s wrong?” he asked me. “Besides the pain.”
“I—” I swallowed. “I guess I’m just not sure if?—”
“If what?” His brow furrowed. “If you want to… be with me?”
“No!” I sat up higher. “I mean. I know I do want to be with you. I just… don’t know what you want that to look like. Right now, I mean.” I could feel my neck flushing.
Elliot visibly relaxed. “You mean, if I want you to stay.”
I nodded.
He reached out and gently stroked my bearded cheek. “Of course I want you to stay.”
“Here?” I asked him, and I was surprised at how desperately I wanted a specific answer to that question.
Instead of answering me, he leaned forward and kissed me, soft and gentle. “Yes, here, if here is where you want to be,” he said, his voice as tender as his lips had been.
I nodded.
“Then lay down,” he murmured.
I did, and he climbed into bed beside me, then pulled me into his arms, turning me onto my right side and pulling my head so that I could hear the steady beating of his heart. “Stay,” he whispered into my hair, his hand cupping my skull.
“Yes,” I told him.