Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Q uinley groaned and tossed back the covers. She couldn’t stare at the ceiling a moment longer. Sleep obviously wasn’t on the agenda, so she got up, wrapped herself in the throw blanket that draped one of the chairs in the sitting area and quietly tiptoed out of her room after wincing at the squeak of her bedroom door as it opened. With luck, there was still a little of Elias’s fresh-squeezed lemonade to be had.
She downed the first and was on her second glass with the television on mute and the closed captions flashing rapidly across the screen as Lorelei Gilmore pleaded desperately with Luke about her need for coffee when Quinley felt a presence behind her.
She jumped and swiveled to find a shirtless Elias standing in his doorway looking bleary-eyed and beautiful.
He might be a bit crazy when it came to his food police tendencies—which she totally understood now—but those were some tightly racked abs. He seriously needed to be the poster hunk for eating well.
Not something you should be noticing.
Guilt niggled at her once again, though this time it was for an entirely different reason than leaving Rhys at the altar.
“You okay?”
Annnnd dang it if his concern didn’t make her heart sputter more than it should for a woman with flight-risk tendencies. Maybe that’s why she loved Lorelei so much? Identified with the strings attached coming from a wealthy family? The pressures? All the things? “Couldn’t sleep. Come join me.”
“Is she really talking that fast?”
A laugh emerged from Quinley, and she grinned. “Is it possible? Are you a Stars Hollow virgin?”
“Am I a what?”
She patted the cushion beside her. The chairs on either side of the couch were nice but the couch had the kind of soft, sinking cushions made for comfort. And maybe she tested her willpower, but she wanted him to sit beside her, all sleep tousled. “I’ll catch you up. But if you’ve seriously not watched this show, you’re missing out.”
He hadn’t grabbed a shirt before leaving his room, and she had to force her gaze back to the television and not watch as he lowered himself down, abs and back muscles and glutes flexing in the process.
She felt like fanning herself at the sight.
Not for you. Do you hear me? Not for you! You haven’t dug yourself out of the mess you’re in with Rhys, so don’t think for a single moment that Elias is for you!
She didn’t. She couldn’t. Yet…she found herself drawn to him too. But why? That whole damsel in distress thing? Had she gone from one fairy-tale man to another? Because the odds of that happening were… zilch .
She unmuted the television and gave Elias the full effect of an exchange between Lorelei and Rory.
“How does anyone talk that fast? Remember all of those lines?”
Quinley shifted and settled more deeply into the cushions, aware that his weight beside her meant her body leaned toward him a bit. “They’re amazing.”
A commercial began, and she felt Elias nudge her with his elbow, his corded forearm right there and twice the size of hers.
“Why can’t you sleep?”
She rolled her head on the cushion toward him. “Guilty conscience?”
“Is that it?”
“Mostly,” she said with an exaggerated sigh. “That and dread. I just… I don’t want to go back. I know I have to go. I know I have apologies to make that have to happen in person. I know there will be people in my life who will never forget that I’ve done, much less forgive it. And even though I keep telling myself that it doesn’t matter, that it’s my life, I feel guilty. I let them down.”
“You can’t live for others, Quinley. They aren’t living for you. You can’t allow anyone else to control your life.”
She stared into his dark brown eyes and felt a shiver race through her. A shiver she’d never felt with Rhys. Oh, Rhys was gorgeous, and they’d shared a mutual attraction but this was…different. It was unexplainable. Visceral. Just…more. And it wasn’t only that she found him attractive. That seemed to be a bonus perk.
She looked at him, really looked at Elias, and the need to touch him, to thank him for what he’d done for her, how he’d cared for her, overcame her. Became a living, breathing thing inside of her.
She’d muted the television when the commercial had started and the quiet cabin held only the sound of their breaths and the slight hiss of the propane in the walled fireplace, the flames flickering against the glass shards and reflecting off them like fireflies in a night sky.
Elias had shifted his bare feet to the coffee table, his long legs stretched out in gray sweatpants that rode low on his bare, ripped stomach.
Her heart pounded like a thoroughbred racing for the finish line, and she noted the way those sooty lashes of his had lowered, giving him an intense, heavy-lidded stare that made her want to throw caution to the wind and??—
She shoved an elbow into the cushion behind her and surged toward him, her lips finding his awkwardly as she kissed him. She just— kissed him. Because if this moment never happened again, she wanted to know what his kiss felt like. Had to know. Had to thank him and know .
Because maybe it would break whatever it was drawing her to him like this. Be an awful, gross experience that would shatter the illusion of…more.
Like breath, she needed this kiss, this melding of lips and warmth and connection that shot her pulse to warp speed and pulled a soft hitch that turned into a groan from him as her weight landed atop his shoulder and chest seconds after her lips landed on his.
Her fingertips touched the stubble on his face, drifted over the hard jawline, one fingertip edging the corner of his unbelievably soft yet so often unyielding lips pressed to her own.
She felt one of his hands slide into her hair, and tingles raced down her spine when he gripped, his other hand at her waist, unmoving but there. Holding, supporting her as she maintained contact and reveled in the scent and feel and sweetness of the quiet night, of him and the headiness, the awareness of what might be if her life wasn’t the disaster she’d made it with so many bad decisions.
Breaths were shared as long seconds passed with the world disappearing as they kissed. Elias stayed still and frozen until another sound tore from deep in his throat, his chest, and his grip on her eased before tightening again. Not painfully, just more as he pulled her tightly against him, taking over the kiss until she wasn’t sure where one ended and another began. Until it was just the two of them and deep, drugging kisses that welded stars and fire and everything together.
With a ragged, broken sound that came deep from his soul, he used his hold to end the kiss, to push her away while staring at her like he wanted to devour her whole before his expression blanked and he surged to his feet to stalk away from her.
She stilled against the cushions and tried to calm her pulse and the lightheadedness that came with…whatever that had been. Whatever the exchange had turned into, that had nothing to do with an innocent, exploratory kiss given to someone she wanted to show her appreciation to, someone she’d grown to care about, a thank-you for all he’d done for her, to that . A kiss seemingly filled with all the things she and Rhys had lacked.
Shock rolled through her as she grappled with the surge of thoughts and reprimands and all things internal for how she could be engaged days ago yet find a stranger so…
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should’ve stopped you.”
She blinked at him and sank deeper into the cushions, watching Elias as he paced, a hand at his mouth as though his lips tingled and ached for more the way hers did at the moment. Yeah, because if she was honest with herself, and while standing on that balcony clinging to the edge, she’d promised herself moving forward that she would be— She felt all the tingles .
And none of the grossness. Yeah, that plan backfired, didn’t it?
“I forgot myself— I apologize, Quinley. That won’t happen again.”
“Why not?” The question emerged from her before she thought better of it, drawn from inside her like a moth to a flame. She couldn’t help it though. That kiss—those kisses —they’d been…everything kisses should be. Everything missing from those she’d shared with her ex-fiancé. “And why are you apologizing? I kissed you.”
She watched as he ran a hand over his hair, raking through the strands so hard she imagined he lost more than a few in the pulling.
“You’re…confused.”
“Am I?”
“You’re reeling from everything going on and— rebounding . I shouldn’t have lost control like that. You just caught me by surprise.”
She canted her head to one side as a few pieces of a very complicated puzzle slipped into place like the one they’d left unfinished on the coffee table. “You really like being in control, don’t you.” It wasn’t a question, more an observation.
His strict routine of a morning workout, his diet, his work ethic. They were all based on rigid control, like he couldn’t breathe or function without them.
“It was just a few kisses, Elias. And really good ones, if I’m honest.”
He released a sound under his breath, but his body language spoke volumes. Yeah, he really didn’t like his reaction to her. But why?
“Come on, it’s okay. I can’t be the first woman who’s kissed you,” she said, trying to lighten the tension. “Or the first one you’ve kissed back.”
“Of course not.”
“Then why are you so,” she waved a hand at him, “upset?”
“Because you’ve got enough going on without adding more fuel to the fire,” he told her, practically spitting the words. “You’re vulnerable, and—you don’t know what you want. You’ve said so yourself.”
Fair point. Still. “I knew I wanted to kiss you. So I did. I’m not sorry, either. I might be confused about a lot of things, but—I’m not confused about that,” she told him firmly, maintaining eye contact.
Elias raked more fingers through his hair, and she felt sorry for his poor head as she watched him pace. He’d kissed her back, and she knew instinctively his upset and anger had more to do with that than anything. He’d lost control. With her .
And he hadn’t liked it. Because he deemed her life too out of control? Too much for his control-centric sensibilities to handle? Too messy and complicated?
She inhaled and frowned because she had to admit her life was all those things. It was true. At least for the moment.
But that wouldn’t be the case forever. Sure, she had a few really tough weeks, maybe months, to get through. But there was light at the end of the tunnel. And until then, she needed to think of a way to approach him that wouldn’t send him off on another tangent. “Elias, we are…connected now. Through Ana and Cole, through me seeing you when I came running out of the hotel to jump into the limo with you. Through you letting me stay here and sort through all the stuff with Rhys. Like that old Chinese proverb about the red thread. One way or another, we were meant to meet. What’s amazing is that it hadn’t happened until now.”
He turned to stare at her then, eyeing her with such intensity, with such a look of suspicion that she laughed. Laughed! She couldn’t help it, and it felt good to laugh after so much drama and months of stress with Rhys.
“I can see that went over well with you. You don’t believe that some things are fated to happen? Meant to?”
The moment the words emerged, she saw the flicker of unfathomable pain cross his face, and she knew instantly he thought of his parents. Of his loss. Of how their deaths had impacted him and his family. How fate had shoved him into adulthood at such a young age, and he’d struggled to heal himself so he wasn’t torn from his siblings.
Oh, Elias. “I just meant,” she said softly, “that we would have eventually met through Ana if nothing else. So I’d like to think we’d have wound up friends no matter how we met.”
That seemed to ease some of the pain she saw flickering behind his dark eyes, and the furrow between his eyebrows softened. She smiled at him, her brain working overtime to sort through her own emotions and his.
“If I promise not to climb you like a tree, will you sit down and watch Gilmore Girls with me? It’s a great show. Or we could discuss why you came to a cabin in the mountains for vacation with no plans to hook up and have some fun.”
“Is that so unusual?”
She blinked at him and then realized how…jaded she’d become. How the people—work colleagues (admittedly the majority male), Rhys’s cohorts with too much money and lack of morals, even a few friends, though not Ana—wouldn’t have dreamed up a vacation without an intended hookup. Or ups .
That had never been her style. She had long term relationships, usually lasting a year or longer before distance or work, morals or personality flaws, ended things.
Was Elias the same way? Did he date with intention rather than the mere casualness of random encounters? “Do you date?” she blurted suddenly.
“You sound like my brothers.”
“If you’ve been asked before, then you already know the answer,” she said smoothly. “So do you?”
“When the occasion warrants.”
“Oh, isn’t that the statement of a man who keeps his dates at arm’s length while enjoying the benefits.” She laughed softly. “Okay I get it.”
And sadly, she did. If she had to guess, he satisfied the urge when it became too much but kept his heart on lockdown because that’s what control freaks did.
His expression darkened to a glower that widened her forced grin. She liked poking the bear.
“What do you get?”
“So growly ,” she murmured, pretending to shiver and making him even more uncomfortable by giving him a bodacious wink, falling back on years of flirting practice that kicked in like second nature. “I get that you see the world as neat little boxes. You take one box out at a time, do what you need to do, and put it back so that it doesn’t have the audacity to get all messy with the others.”
It took all of two seconds for her to realize she’d described his life in a nutshell. His slow blink, the slight tightening of his oh-so-kissable lips into a flat line and the barely perceptible jerk of his fingertips where they lay spanning his lean hips gave him away.
Yeah, she was good at her job for a reason. She could totally read a room by body language. And his gave him away and then some. He lived and breathed his mastery of himself, of his self-imposed control, and a real shiver raced down her spine when her thoughts flashed on where else he might demand control when it came to him and his…relationships.
Yeah, not the kind of thing you need to think about now, Quinnie.
“You should turn off the television and go to bed. You need rest, Quinley. I doubt you’ll be getting much of it when you return to Carolina Cove.”
Touched a nerve, had she? What would it be like to tease him unmercifully? Would he lose some of his precious control? Get angry? React and??—
Oh, yeah. The next few days were going to be interesting indeed. After all, she was a newly single woman. It wouldn’t hurt to practice her flirting skills, because why not? And she knew just the man to practice on, if for no other reason than to loosen him up a little. Or a lot. And shake up a few of his too-neat boxes.
“I could. Or you could come sit back down and we watch TV together.” She patted the cushion beside of her like she had that first time and blinked at him through her lashes.
A muscle flexed in Elias’s statuesque jawline before he shook his head and stomped toward his bedroom.
“Good night,” the beast growled.
Quinley pressed a hand over her mouth to stifle the laughter that bubbled out of her chest, but she knew he’d heard her by the gentle slam of his door.
Yeah, the next few days were going to be fun. Maybe she should feel guilty about teasing him so much when he’d been kind to her?
She glanced at Lorelei as she bantered with Luke.
Nahhh. Learn from the master.