Chapter 13
Thirteen
Here Comes the Sun — SYML
A gainst all my better judgment—not that I had a whole lot of that—I went home with Elliot.
Why my usually unshakable tenacity turned to nothing but ash when it came to him scared me.
The lack of control I felt when I was with him was like I was adrift in the middle of the ocean.
And Elliot was the anchor. A pretty cheesy metaphor, especially considering his job, but I couldn’t think of any other way to explain it.
The brave, honorable person would let themselves drown in that proverbial sea instead of bringing someone else down with them. Because I would. Bring Elliot down. He couldn’t carry me. Despite his impressive physique and force of will, he wasn’t strong enough.
No one was.
All of this, I knew. Yet there I was, at his house that smelled of leather, salt and firewood.
It was small.
Cozy.
One bedroom, tucked away down a bumpy lane outside of town, nestled against trees, inland from the ocean, which surprised me.
When I’d thought about where Elliot lived—something I did more than was healthy—I’d imagined some seaside shack, all white, beaten-down furniture, beanies and Birkenstocks littering the place.
And yet I couldn’t have been further from the mark. Yet again, Elliot proved he was not a man who I could predict.
I was in the living room slash kitchen area.
It was all one room, the compact space somehow feeling open.
Spacious. An oversized, well-worn armchair was in front of a wood burning fireplace with a bursting bookshelf spanning each side of it.
The mantel was crowded with framed pictures.
A quick glance told me they were all of his family—Clara, his mother. The ocean. Memories. Happiness.
A faded rug covered polished hardwood floors which were sparkling clean. As was the rest of the space, the kitchen was tidy with gleaming appliances, butcher block island, copper pots and pans dangling from hooks above it.
I looked out the window from above the kitchen sink at the dense trees that made it seem like we were in the middle of nowhere, not ten minutes from Jupiter, only a few miles from Avery and Kane’s house which was on the other side of the woods.
“Not on the ocean?” I surprised myself by asking him. The act of doing it was admitting, however subtly, that I’d been wrong. Pegged him wrong. What I’d consider to be a grave show of weakness in any other interaction I had with a man.
But Elliot was not any other man.
Arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me back into a warm, toned body. His stubble brushed against the skin of my neck, making me shiver.
Despite the intimacy of the pose and the fact that I’d never been a cuddler, I leaned back into Elliot’s embrace.
We could pretend here, in his little house, with the books, the fireplace, the armchair, the photos.
I could be the woman who cuddled the fisherman, who deserved to be there, who could be content somewhere so simple, with a man who was far from simple. For the night, at least.
In the morning , I promised myself. In the morning, I’d end it. For that night, I’d just enjoy it.
I was aware that I was acting like an addict, promising myself one more fix before going cold turkey.
Though I’d never considered myself an addict, I’d had a healthy affinity for narcotics.
Going off them abruptly had been uncomfortable but not unbearable.
I’d never craved drugs the way I craved Elliot.
“I live my life on the ocean.” His rasped words tickled my cheek. “I love it. Grew up on it. But when I’m on land, I want to be on land. Solid footing.”
A simple answer from a seemingly simple man.
But if he was so simple, he wouldn’t see through me so easily. Or maybe I wasn’t as complicated as I thought I was.
My gaze centered on a photo of a smiling girl in a black tutu.
“How is Clara?” My concern was real. Her immune system was extremely compromised still, so they were being cautious. A simple cold could prove catastrophic while her body’s natural defenses recovered.
Elliot’s smile changed, morphing somehow. It was still warm and hopeful. Reverent, with a glimpse of the love he felt for his niece. “She’s good. We don’t want to get our hopes up too soon, but I’m a hopeful motherfucker, so I’m going to say she’s better than good.”
My muscles sagged with relief, and I felt myself smiling. “I’m so glad.” My mind moved to more unpleasant topics best left avoided, given my knowledge, but I couldn’t help myself. “And Naomi, after the transplant?”
“Gone,” Elliot replied with an edge. “And I’m a hopeful motherfucker, so I thought even with plenty of evidence to the contrary, that she would be the mother that Clara deserves.
” He sucked in a breath that was painful to even listen to.
“I mean, how could you not want to be her mother?” He asked quietly.
“Just spending a second with her, you know she’s something special, extraordinary, and you can’t help but feel honored to even know her.
” Elliot’s eyes shimmered, and he didn’t even try to hide the single tear that escaped his eye.
He unabashedly wiped it away, a gesture that was so intensely masculine even though it went against all conventional notions about stoic men.
I wrestled with the complicated emotions I felt over knowing Naomi was gone for good and would never darken their door again. A major one being the guilt I felt that I was there in his living room, knowing someone had murdered her. That I’d been party to it.
“Some people are just bad,” was my response to Elliot. “We’re not meant to say that. It’s trendy to believe there’s good inside the worst of us, but I don’t believe that to be true. And you can count your blessings that she doesn’t sully the glorious person that Clara is with an ounce of her evil.”
Elliot searched my face, spending a long time on my mouth.
I did my best not to shift from foot to foot, uncomfortable under his scrutiny, standing in the middle of the room without anything in my hand, nothing to distract me from my discomfort.
He looked like he was going to say something.
And by the intensity on his face, the furrowing of his brows and the weight of his stare, I assumed I wouldn’t like it.
Because it was going to be real. That’s what Elliot Shaw was.
Real. That’s what this thing with him was.
Real. It was becoming increasingly hard to escape that.
“Sit.” He motioned to the armchair. “I’ll make you dinner.”
I licked my lips, my stomach growling with hunger since I had indeed missed dinner and hadn’t indulged in appetizers at Nora’s.
Though a different kind of hunger sparked within me, mindful of how long it had been since I’d had Elliot’s hands on me. Not that long ago in the grand scheme of things, but a second longer seemed unbearable.
“I don’t want food right now,” I purred, feeling more content lapsing into a sexual tête-à-tête. My comfort zone. Where there were less emotional landmines and intense looks.
Based on the hedonism I’d seen in Elliot’s eyes since I saw him, since that fucking kiss on the beach, I didn’t think he’d be opposed to the idea of some tawdry sex. Behind the easy smile he was a kinky fucker, and a hungry one at that, with stamina that impressed and delighted me.
Though his eyes flared at my words, he shook his head. “No, I’m going to feed you first.” He pointed. “Sit.”
“You’re really going to tell me when I eat?” I raised my brow at him. “I’m a big girl. I can decide that for myself.”
He didn’t answer straight away, just looked at me blandly, stretching the silence long enough for me to want to fidget.
“You want to be my good girl?” he finally asked, liquid sex in his tone.
My throat closed from the intensity of the lust that coursed through my body in response to the simple question.
Though my first instinct with any other man was to fight, my muscle memory with Elliot was to submit, so I was nodding slowly before I realized what I was doing.
A wicked smile stretched across Elliot’s face, so different from the warm smiles from before. It had my mouth watering with need.
“Then you’ll do as I tell you.” It felt like the oxygen in the room pulsed at his murmured words.
“For the rest of the night, until I tell you otherwise, you do as I say. You sit where I say, you eat until I say stop. Then I’ll reward you with my mouth on your cunt, my cock inside you until I decide you’re done. ”
The list should’ve been offensive to me on many levels, even if I wasn’t a woman who operated off the need to control everything and everyone around me. Generations before me had marched, protested and screamed until their lungs hurt in order to free themselves from the shackles of a man’s orders.
But Elliot wasn’t telling me what I couldn’t wear, what I could and couldn’t do with my life. No, he was specifically dictating the borders of this … arrangement? His house. This night.
Though I considered rules, laws and any other markers of authority to be utterly suffocating, I somehow felt comforted by the concept of surrendering to him.
Knowing that for the night, Elliot was in charge of me.
Even what I ate—something I usually monitored with a militant precision.
Unhealthy, bordering on eating disorder, but it didn't so much relate to my body image and self-worth than my ability to ensure that I was not a victim of my own willpower or desires.
All complicated things I had never really explored and likely needed a very credentialed therapist to wade through over years and thousands of dollars.
Not things to go deep into at that time, but it was all brought to the surface by Elliot’s uncomplicated proposal.
Let go of the reins.
Trust.
Trust a man to take care of me. To know what I want. What I need.