Chapter Twenty-Two
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
WORTHY
EZRA
I’m standing on my porch, waiting on the elusive Eloise when I see her car making its way down the long driveway. The trees cause her old model Subaru to dip in and out of my line of sight, but the dust that kicks up tells me I’m not imagining her arrival.
It causes my stomach to flip.
I’m in my mid-thirties.
A man my age shouldn’t get butterflies.
A man my age shouldn’t want her as badly as I do.
Hell, a man my age shouldn’t get himself off at the reminder of what she sounds like when she comes. What she tastes like, what her skin feels like, how her orgasm hugged my dick like a vice.
Without hesitation, I venture down my porch steps to head to her now parked car. She rolls down her window while pushing her sunglasses up into her hair.
I watch as she doesn’t offer a smile; there’s no warm greeting for me, even as I stare at her with a smile of my own playing over my face.
“Get in,” she instructs, hardly looking my way. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she didn’t like me at all. But I see her skittish nature, the way she never fully trusts herself—or me.
“Are we actually leaving the confines of my home? And it’s your idea?” I joke, opening her door, wondering when she’ll actually look at me.
“Don’t worry. No one will see us where we’re going.” She pulls her shades down, and I recognize the power move.
“I’m not worried, you are,” I inform her as I get in her car, noting the stacks of books in the backseat with a smirk. “Are you a safe driver?”
“Coming from someone who doesn’t even drive themselves anywhere?”
“I drive myself places,” I insist, trying to remember if she’d ever seen me drive. Probably not. “How else do you think I get around this town?
Certainly not walking. And it isn’t as if I keep my driver here. Not when I know he has a family of his own to get to, and there isn’t shit here for him in this town.
“Honestly, I hadn’t thought about it,” she answers, turning to regard me with eyes I can’t see. It makes me itch to touch her, to reach over and force her to stop hiding herself.
It’s already too late. I’ve seen her.
She’s about to pull off when I open the passenger door and climb out.
“Where are you going?” she calls out after me, annoyance in her tone.
“We’re taking my car,” I announce, hanging over the door to answer before turning away to get my keys from within the house.
“But you don’t even know where we’re going.”
“I’m sure you won’t have any issues instructing me where to go,” I remind her. I jog up the porch steps, snatch my keys from the bowl on my side table inside, and press the garage door before walking outside again.
I don’t bother locking my front door.
It’s something I’ve had to get used to, something I’m still struggling with. But an upside to small-town is that no one is around to steal your shit. I’m so far from town that it’s rare I see anyone driving around here.
The brand-new houses being built in this area are mostly vacant; another sign that this town needs more people. They’re building houses that the people of Cherry Cove are too stubborn to venture out and live in.
With the garage door open, I can see my Jeep Wrangler, sitting inside, waiting for us.
Eloise is already out of her car and pushing her sunglasses up again to look at me.
“Is that thing safe?” she asks, and I glance back and forth between her and the vehicle.
“Of course it is.”
“I’ve never been in a car that had fabric for a roof,” she mutters as she marches past me and into the garage. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were overcompensating.”
The last bit is said under her breath, but I catch it, following her and opening the passenger door so she can climb in.
“Why, Eloise. I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said about me,” I goad her, flashing a grin before I shut the door on her bland expression.
As the CEO of a multi-billion-dollar enterprise, I’m typically the one giving out orders. So, to be at the mercy of Eloise’s directions makes me antsy.
It makes me wish I knew where we were headed so I could relax into easy conversation.
As if she can read my thoughts, she looks over at me.
“You’re uncharacteristically quiet.”
I glance at her, happy to see her dancing eyes and wicked smirk, even if it’s at my expense.
“Just trying to stay focused on the road,” I inform her, watching as we drive past trees on a near deserted back road. From my peripheral, I can see her turn to look out the window. After a few more minutes of silence, she tells me to slow down. I’m wondering where the hell we are, seeing no buildings or parking lots to clue me in.
Just as I’m about to break down and ask her if we’re lost, she points to a clearing in the trees where a few cars are parked on the dirt.
Curious, I pull my car in, shutting it off and facing her completely.
“Is this where you’ll hide my body?” I ask, licking my lips at the sight of her tossing her hair back before opening my car door and hopping. She doesn’t wait for me as I get out, placing my keys in my pocket.
It doesn’t take long for me to catch up to her and I swear I hear the sound of water rushing as I follow her through the trees and toward a bed of rocks. And as we near them, my suspicions are confirmed. We’re at the edge of a small cliff, water rushing downstream.
“This is beautiful, Eloise,” I murmur, catching sight of people a few feet away in their bathing suits.
“This is nothing,” she starts, walking away from me. “Follow me.”
I’m not wearing hiking shoes, my athletic sneakers able to keep up but not the sturdiest for this adventure. I watch her tiny body trek its way around the rocks with ease, like she’s done this too many times to count.
And the sight of her pert ass in her spandex shorts is enough to make me want to follow her to the ends of the earth.
The sound of water rushing becomes louder, the farther we walk from where we parked. She’s taking a steep step when I see her falter and catch her before she can hit the rocky surface.
“Are you okay?” I ask, pushing her hair from her face, wondering how she hasn’t managed to put it up before taking on this task.
“Yeah,” she says, standing herself upright. “It’s been years since I hiked this. I either underestimated the walk or overestimated myself.”
With a shake of my head, I peer into her brown eyes.
“I’m thoroughly impressed.”
I swear I catch the beginnings of a smile, but she turns, her focus back on the task at hand before I can see it for myself.
I’m not deterred. I’ll get a smile out of her before she leaves me today.
Because her leaving is always inevitable.
I don’t have a moment to dwell on that because she stops short, and I place my hands on her shoulders to keep from toppling into her. Before I can ask what’s going on, she brushes her hair from her face and turns to face me, her arms outstretched.
I register the waterfall she’s just turned her back on for a moment before I’m assaulted by her smile. It’s open and breathtaking and full of pride.
“Welcome to my favorite place on earth.”
She turns her back to me again, and I move to stand beside her, catching sight of the bubbling water at the base of the waterfall and the greenery that provides the type of imagery that I didn’t know could exist in a place like this.
Cherry Cove is a beautiful place. But I never would’ve thought I’d find something so serene and almost ethereal here.
Then again, I never thought I’d find Eloise here, either.
“Why did you stay away for so long?” I ask, yearning to share a moment with her. To hold her, to press a kiss to her forehead.
“It was the last place I went with my father before he died.”
Her words are nearly swallowed by the rushing water, and before I can think, I reach for hand, brushing my fingers against her palm, seeing if she’ll open up to the idea of the kind of touching that doesn’t have a thing to do with lust.
She spreads her fingers, and I slide mine in the open spaces in between.
“Thank you for bringing me here,” I tell her, not wanting to ruin the moment but unable to keep my gratitude to myself.
Eloise doesn’t tell me much about her life. Little tidbits that I piece together to try to understand her.
I envy her fond memories, my own stilted relationship with my father making me wish that I knew him in a way that I would mourn his loss. But I don’t. And perhaps I mourn what we could’ve been more than I’ll ever miss what we are when it’s his turn to go.
“What are you thinking about?” she asks, still keeping my hand in hers.
I could lie, keep us on the level we’ve both grown accustomed to.
Or I could open myself up in turn and invite her in.
“I wish I could have what you had with your father,” I tell her, my voice thick with emotions that I try to swallow back.
She nods, and we stand there a moment, just basking in the natural beauty of our surroundings.
And when she speaks again, I turn my head to look at her, admiring the way the sun brings out the light toffee flecks in her eyes. A few times, I’d wondered if her eyes were pitch black, the way I was able to lose myself in them. But out in the open here, where I can drink her in freely without her looking away or hiding herself from me, I really see her.
I see a version of herself she hasn’t allowed herself to be. A version that I could fall in love with. Sweet and soft with a hint of melancholy.
But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t already love the other side of her, with its sharp edges and quick wit.
Eloise is far from a simple small-town girl.
“I like you, too,” she says, blinking a few times. And before she can second-guess her confession, I use the hand I’m holding to pull her to me, pressing our joined hands into the small of her back. And with my free one, I lift her chin to look at me.
“I love that you made me earn it,” I whisper before pressing a small kiss to her lips. “It makes me feel worthy.”
I kiss her lips once more before letting her go. And once I do, she starts toeing off her shoes.
“What are we doing?” I ask, my brain going fuzzy when she pulls her tank top over her head to reveal her sports bra. She doesn’t say anything, and I shrug, pulling my own shoes off before yanking off my shirt.
I catch sight of her stepping down the rocks toward the water, and I pull off my shorts before following her down.
“Be careful,” I call out, wondering if I should warn myself of the same. Because what could happen with a woman like Eloise? One who’s afraid to be seen with me? One who hasn’t even been in my bed, let alone in my life in any real way.
But when she enters the water and glances back at me with a come-hither smile, I leave caution to the wind.
Fuck careful.
Is it fun if someone gets hurt?
Her question rings back at me as I enter the water behind her, not bothered by its slight chill.
She’d only ever worried about putting her heart on the line, but the farther I get into the water, the more I wonder if I’m falling for a siren, doomed to be destroyed by her.
The edges of her hair pool out around her and she stands in the water, looking at the waterfall.
When I stand beside her, she starts to speak.
“This place is called Diana’s Pool. Some people say her heart was broken by her lover and she jumped to her death from the top of the waterfall. Others say that she filled the river with the tears she cried and drowned.”
“Are you worried I’m going to break your heart?” I ask, a slightly humorous tone in my question. But the question is one I already know the answer to.
“I won’t jump off a cliff if you do,” she starts before peering up at me. “But I may push you off one.”
I bark out a laugh, catching sight of her own smirk. Yes, this part of Eloise is one I’ve already learned to love.
“Where did you come from?” she asks once I’ve stopped laughing, reaching out to brush her hair from her face.
“As in, where was I born?” It reminds me that while I’m trying to piece together who she is, I have to share who I am as well.
“As in, are you the asshole I once thought you were? And if so, how did you manage to get me to alter my opinion of you?”
So many thoughts flood my mind as I try to make sense of how to answer her. Pleasure over her opinion of me changing, hating that she ever thought I was an asshole. Finally, with my hand dropping back to my side, I settle on my answer.
“I let you see something very few have.”
“And what’s that?”
This question is easy to answer.
“Me.”