Chapter Eleven
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHERRY HELL
EZRA
“What crawled up your ass?”
I lift my drink to my lips and continue examining the bar as if Ivan hadn’t spoken.
“Seriously, you’re killing the vibe,” he adds, his words twisting with I’m sure a sour expression on his face.
Did he really use the word vibe ?
Are we hippies smoking pot in the back of someone’s van? This is what happens when Ivan hooks up with women barely out of their teens. He starts fucking sounding like them, and now I have to sit with a guy who talks like a twenty-year-old with no long-term goals.
“Should I kill you instead?” I ask him, setting down the rocks glass, ice clinking against it. I lift my hand to the cocktail waitress who’s been eyeing us, signaling that I’d like another double cognac on the rocks.
My third one of the night.
“Ever since we got back from Cherry Hell , you’ve been miserable,” Ivan points out. “I mean, it’s been a slow descent into this dead lifestyle of yours. But it’s been a lot worse lately.”
His complaining makes me want to pay my tab and go home. Grown men shouldn’t whine. Certainly not grown men over thirty.
I wonder if it’s me. If he’s grown so accustomed to a version of me that no longer comes out to play. If it’s my fault for keeping up with this lifestyle until a few years ago. Maybe I’m the problem because all of a sudden, I no longer have a tolerance for the way things used to be.
Then again, I hardly have a tolerance for anything since the night Eloise walked out into the rain and didn’t look back.
She hasn’t answered my emails or phone calls.
I’m not familiarized with the feeling of wanting to punch Ivan in the face just because he’s breathing—usually I require at least another HR complaint about his office etiquette before reaching this level—but here we are. And I can only blame the woman a hundred miles away with her lean, lithe frame and hair so long I wonder if she accidentally sits on it.
I want to wrap the dark strands in my fist as she sits on me.
Naked.
Her softness cradling my hardness.
“Another one of those and you’ll be on your ass. I think I’ll pardon myself before you get there,” Ivan announces with a grunt as he stands. It reminds me that we aren’t as young as we once were.
And that he’ll still be thinking with his dick, even when his blood can hardly get to it.
“Don’t forget the meeting tomorrow morning,” I tell him, just as the waitress sets down a new glass. It’s an early one, with overseas investors that we can’t afford to fuck up with.
I ignore the middle finger he flashes at me and slide some cash her way. She continues to stand here like she’s waiting for more as I tip the glass back and drink it all at once. The warmth is the only thing keeping me settled.
The glass hits the table with a thud, and I get up, buttoning my suit jacket and excusing myself from the attractive woman who never had a chance in hell.
Not when there’s already a woman dragging me there.
Had she even made it home?
I’m starting to feel more and more like the sucker in the contractual obligation of ours. The professional in me wants to take control of the situation, but the man in me is excited by the thrill of it.
The thrill that feels a lot like misery at the moment.
I step into the elevator, leaving Ivan at the bar as he strikes up a conversation with the lingering bartender. As I turn to press the button for the ground floor, I catch sight of the way she leans over, pushing her cleavage out with her crossed arms. And Ivan, like the sucker he is, ogles them like they’re the first and last pair of tits he’ll ever see.
Had that been me?
Had I ever been so impressed by such overt displays of sexual coercion?
And when I think of Eloise, I’m not flooded with images of her breasts or her ass. No. It’s the gentle slope of her hips, the length of her legs, the way her hair hides her often expressionless face. It’s her plump lips, the sparkle that lives in her brown eyes, even as her face gives away nothing. It’s the way she fights me, even when she’s the underdog. God, just the thought of this infuriating woman gives me a semi.
I slide my phone out of my pocket just as the elevator doors open. As I scroll for her name, I step out into the warm city air, toward my waiting car.
“Where to, sir?” Paul, my driver, asks before opening my door for me.
“I’m in a shitty mood. Just take me home.”
I hear his smirk in his response as I get in the backseat, thankful that he’s kept the air conditioning running.
“Sure thing.”
As he shuts my door, the sound of the city now muted, I think better of it and call her. With each ring, I grow even more frustrated.
Paul gets in the car, and we lurch forward, merging into traffic as I hear the beginnings of her voicemail, the automated tone making me wish she’d had the wherewithal to create her own voicemail greeting.
Do people even do that anymore?
“How do you feel about taking a drive?” I ask my driver, settling back into my seat before I toss my phone next to me.
“To the new house, sir?”
Our eyes lock in the rearview mirror and I nod.
Fuck tomorrow’s meeting. I’ll video conference from Cherry Cove.
When I’d said I wanted to go home, I originally meant the penthouse I kept a few blocks from here. But more and more, I find myself wanting the silence of the small-town.
And even more than that, I want the woman with scarce smiles to stop hiding from me.