Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Eloise
“Give me your number,” he says as I step out of the shower.
That’s one way to thank someone for the best sex of their life.
At least it was the best sex of my life. I can only hope that it landed at the top of the experiences he’s had.
I couldn’t tell if it did because when he was inside of me, he was staring at me with a dark intensity. His gaze bore through me as he fucked me harder than he has before.
“You have it,” I call out to Gaines.
Since I showered before him, I assume he’s on his way for his turn now.
Wrong.
He suddenly appears in the open doorway of my bathroom, fully dressed with his shoes back on.
“I don’t have it,” he says.
I glance at the phone in his hand as I slide on my robe. “I thought you said you programmed it in there when Astrid called out phone numbers to Stevie when she got her new phone.”
I don’t stop there since this is the opportunity I’ve been waiting for. “By the way, why did you save it back then? It was weeks before I saw you at Atlas 22.”
He finally looks up. “I don’t know what happened, but I texted you the other night, and the response I got back wasn’t from you.”
I can’t help but smile. “Spill the beans. What did your text say, and who responded?”
“Let’s just say the guy who replied made it clear that he wasn’t anyone’s lamb and that my tongue didn’t belong anywhere near him.”
“I’m genuinely sorry I didn’t receive that text message.” I sigh before telling him my number.
“Ah.” He nods. “The last two numbers were transposed.”
“Text me now,” I say.
“Why?”
“So I can text you when I want to.” I tilt my head. “If you want me to text you, that is.”
His left eyebrow perks. “What’s that about?”
“Did we just hate fuck?”
He scrubs a hand over his forehead. “Hate fuck? Is that a thing?”
“If it’s not, you just invented it.” I stab a finger in the middle of his chest before I brush past him. “It was incredible, Garin, but you were intense. It was so fucking intense.”
“Garin,” he repeats the name I called him at the club. “How clearly do you remember that night?”
Since then, I’ve replayed it every single day since in my mind, and the memory has only become more vivid. I can recall the color of his tie and the way his hair fell around his ears. I remember the scent of his skin beyond the cologne he was wearing.
I know all of the lyrics of the song playing when he was fingering me and the dull beat of the drum of the music that sounded through the speakers when he came down my throat.
I spin to face him. “I remember it all.”
We’re in the living room now. His gaze darts from my face to a bookshelf behind me. It holds a collection of my most treasured reads, along with a few books my aunt had and a couple that Astrid had left behind on the nightstand when she moved.
“You have a signed first edition of Garin’s first book,” he says. “The dedication he wrote is to you.”
I should accuse him of snooping when I was asleep, but I’m not surprised he did. If I ever step foot in his apartment, I’ll do the same.
“I treasure it.” I walk over to the shelf to retrieve it. “He was in Buffalo for a poetry reading. It was at a bookstore near my high school, so I cut class and went to see him.”
I open the cover to find the blue-inked dedication and the date Claude Garin had written it.
“When you knew who he was at the club, I felt an instant connection to you,” Gaines admits. “I had never met anyone before you who knew who Garin was.”
“They’re all missing out.”
He steps closer but stops himself as if he’s fighting a silent battle.
“It wasn’t a hate fuck,” I whisper. “It was an angry fuck, wasn’t it?”
He doesn’t say a word as his gaze wanders to the windows behind me.
“When you came here last night, you were in knots,” I broach the subject I’ve been avoiding since he walked into my apartment at three this morning. “Did something happen at the hospital? Was it a patient?”
He tilts his head back. His hand trails over the front of his neck. “I almost lost a long time patient last night. It was touch and go for hours.”
I rush toward him but stop just short of him.
I don’t know how he processes that or what he needs from me.
Maybe the sex settled whatever demons were raging within him, or it quieted the pain of what he must have endured last night.
“Will he be all right?” I ask, even though the man in question is a complete stranger.
All I know is that he matters to Gaines, and I suspect his concern for the patient reaches beyond his position as his doctor.
“He’ll survive.”
“I’m glad.”
As if on cue, his phone dings.
He checks it instantly. “I have to go.”
I nod silently.
He glances at me. “Thank you for answering your door last night.”
“You would have broken it down if I hadn’t.” I smile.
“You don’t know how true that is,” he says with a straight face. “I’ll text you now that I have your number.”
I won’t ask when or what that text might say because when he walks out my door, he’ll leave me with more questions than I had when he stormed in here early this morning.
He steps closer to me to plant a kiss on my mouth. It’s soft and tender. “Goodbye, lamb.”
I shove the book in my hands into his. “Goodbye, Garin. Keep this until I see you again.”
“I will.” He holds it against his chest. “Tell me the page of your favorite poem.”
“Forty-two,” I whisper just as his phone sounds again.
“I have to run.” The words leave him as he sprints to my apartment door.
We don’t exchange another word, just a look into each other’s eyes before he’s out the door and gone again.