Chapter Forty-One
We took the elevator up, and by the time the doors opened to our floor, I was swaying on my feet.
Eli walked beside me with his hand pressed lightly against my lower back. We stopped in front of my and Ruby’s room and I dug through my purse, searching for my room key.
“Shit,” I muttered once it became very clear that the key was missing.
I patted Eli on the shoulder, feeling a little punch-drunk from the lack of sleep. “I’m going to head down and get another key. I’ll see you in the morning.”
His mouth opened and closed before I spun around back toward the elevators, but then he caught my hand and pulled me back. “Stay. With me.”
My heart fluttered up into my throat. I shook my head, unable to voice a reason because I didn’t want there to be one.
“You’re basically asleep on your feet. And it’s almost morning, anyway. Come on. You and Ruby could both use some space.”
My resolve was rapidly crumbling.
“I’ll be a gentleman,” he promised.
Another yawn answered for me and I followed him to his room.
Eli’s hotel room was spotless. The only sign of life was the slight indentation on the end of the bed from where he must have briefly sat down before going out for the evening.
“Did you unpack your suitcase for a two-day trip?” I peered into his bathroom to see his toothbrush perfectly situated beside his toothpaste, face wash, and cologne. The closet was cracked just enough for me to see his clothes hanging up in a neat row. “Red flag.”
He laughed. “I can sleep on the floor.”
“No, no,” I said. “The bed is huge.” I was already slipping under the covers, my shoes kicked off behind me. “Is this okay?” I asked. “Do you have a particular side?”
“This is okay,” he said softly, clicking off the bedside lamp as my head sank into the pillow. “I’m going to get a shower. Do you want to use the bathroom for anything? You could borrow a T-shirt if you want.”
I nodded. “That’s nice.” But my eyes were already closing.
* * *
A sliver of light passing across the room woke me as Eli walked out of the bathroom. This felt familiar. The clean, humid feeling of him showering in the other room. It was a good memory. One that I was currently inside of.
“Vera,” he whispered.
A soft noise of recognition pushed against my lips.
“I left you the T-shirt I was going to sleep in on the bathroom counter if you want it, love,” Eli whispered as he petted my back in circles.
I stretched into his touch, and managed to open my eyes, lashes blurring my vision for a moment. “Th-thank you,” I said as I felt the underwire of my bra rudely cutting into my side. I didn’t know that I could bring myself to go braless, but it would be nice to get out of these clothes at least.
The bed sank slightly as Eli sat down on the opposite edge.
I glanced over my shoulder to see him in cotton sleep pants and no shirt. The muscles in his back strained as he rolled his neck from side to side.
“There’s an extra toothbrush in there too. I left mine at home and the one I picked up at the airport was a two-pack.”
“Thanks.” I slid out of bed and tiptoed into the bathroom.
It felt so good to brush my teeth and splash water on my face.
I eyed the shirt on the counter. Eli was a broad guy, so I knew his shirt would fit, but it wouldn’t be big enough to be appropriate to wear on its own.
However, I was wearing a jumpsuit, so leaving my bottoms on wasn’t really an option.
I could just go back to bed in my clothes. That was what I should have done.
But I wanted to wear something of his. It was that painfully simple.
Pushing aside reason, I stripped out of my jumpsuit and tugged his T-shirt over my head. It was huge in the shoulders and even the chest, but snug on my hips. I gave myself a little twirl in the mirror and found that it barely covered my ass. I unhooked the black strapless bra and
slid it off. The matching—though somewhat cheeky—underwear I wore had been bought at the behest of Ruby because they had some sort of bullshit smoothing panels that didn’t actually do anything.
I set my toothbrush in the cup near the sink and flicked the lights off before stepping back into the bedroom.
I’d expected to find Eli with his back to the bathroom door, already asleep, but instead he sat on the edge of the bed with his hands clasped in his lap.
He looked up at me and let out a strangled sound. “Vera,” he whispered.
“It’s a little short,” I said. “I’m sorry. I can put my clothes back—”
“No,” he snapped. “No. Does the fact that I like seeing you in my clothes make me a Neanderthal?”
I shook my head, taking a few steps closer.
“Especially after watching you walk around the house in Brody’s old T-shirts.”
A fluttering warmth spread across my chest. I knew it was sinking to the lowest common denominator to feel turned on by him being possessive. But I was. Very much so. “It’s just the one that I sleep in sometimes,” I told him. “And I can’t even find it, anyway.”
“I know,” he said. “I may have been the reason it was lost in the laundry.”
“What?” I’d been looking for that shirt for weeks.
“I threw it in with some donations.”
I gawked. “That’s some psycho shit.”
He shrugged. “Were you expecting me to apologize?”
I shook my head because I didn’t want him to. “Did you mean what you said about being a gentleman?” My voice didn’t even sound like my own. Low and breathy.
He slid his hands under his thighs, like that might help him resist temptation. “Unfortunately.” He groaned. “But maybe you could indulge me.”
“Maybe,” I conceded.
“Vera, will you turn around for me? I just—I need to remember this. I know it’s fucked up to even say that out loud, but—”
I stepped between his legs, pushing them a little farther apart. He leaned back, taking in the view, his stare heavy.
Slowly, I turned around. The T-shirt had ridden up my ass a little so that my cheeks were peeking out the bottom. It was a part of my body that I genuinely liked.
I took a glance over my shoulder to watch him.
Pupils blown and hungry, his eyes traveled up my thighs and backside. His hands gripped the mattress now, knuckles white.
“Elias.” His name felt like a sin. The sex we’d had in Vegas—our bodies younger and less experienced but eager all the same—had been hurried and almost antagonistic. This felt different. “What if I don’t want you to be a gentleman?”
He sucked in a breath and tilted his head back, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Fuck,” he whispered. “We should go to bed. You had a long night and—”
“No.” I turned around, and pulled his hands, guiding them under my T-shirt.
He watched me with reverence as the tips of his fingers dug into the soft curve of my hips.
My lips parted on a gasp as his hands roamed my body, his nose dragging along the side of my neck, his breath hot and impatient.
“I need to know that this isn’t the end.” His teeth nipped at my ear, and it was so distracting that I hardly registered what he said.
His touch ran up my thighs and slid inward until he was parting my legs, forcing me to straddle one of his thighs. Unanswered pleasure rolled up my spine as I arched my back, letting my body curl against his.
“I need to know, Vera,” he demanded. “I need to know that this isn’t going to be something you’re getting out of your system.
I need to know that you’re not going to feed me some bullshit line about the apartment or your job, because no matter what happens to us, I will never put your well-being in jeopardy. I need you to trust in that.”
“But—but—”
He pressed his thigh upward, creating a painfully frustrating pressure.
“This isn’t f-fair,” I stuttered. “I can’t even think right now.”
One hand slid up my shirt, exposing my belly.
Outside, the sun was beginning to rise, and the sudden lightness in the room had me gripping his wrist and trying to push him away.
I hadn’t thought this through. Not at all.
I wasn’t ready for this. I wanted the pleasure of feeling him, but not in the vulnerable morning light. In Vegas, the lights had stayed off.
His thigh thrust up again, my middle pulsing. He was hard against my leg and suddenly his thigh wasn’t nearly enough. Instead of letting me push him away, he circled his fingers around my wrists and held my hands on my thighs.
“If we do this,” he said, “you’re not ignoring me when we wake up, Vera. Do you understand?”
With my hands braced on my thighs, I attempted to grind against him, but he forced me to still.
“Vera. Please.” The desperation in his voice momentarily broke through my veil of lust.
“Goddamn it,” I said. “When did you turn into such an open communicator?”
He laughed, teeth dragging along the crook of my neck.
“Yes. Okay. Yes. I won’t ignore you.”
He tilted his head into the back of my neck, lost in my tangle of curls. His hand spread across my stomach as he stood up and turned me around. With such care, he wrapped his arms around me, his arms cradling me as he laid me back against the mattress.
“Let me taste you,” he said.
I shook my head, pushing up from beneath him on my elbows. “No, no, that’s— I don’t need you to do that.”
“You might not need it, but I do,” he said.
My breath hitched and my brain would not shut the fuck up.
I hadn’t shaved in a few weeks. Brody had gone down on me a handful of times, but he never seemed to enjoy it and any time he did, my mind populated with reasons why he should stop, like some sort of toxic search engine results.
What if I tasted off? What if I smelled?
What if he didn’t like that I wasn’t fully shaven?
(Not that his pubic hair ever stopped him from receiving oral.) How could I possibly shut off my brain long enough to enjoy something that intimate?
Eli inhaled deeply as he dragged his nose down my chest, pushing the hem of my shirt up. He groaned at the sight of my breasts.
I did that to him. I was the reason for that desperate noise. I said it over and over again in my head. A mantra. I wanted him to touch me. I didn’t have to be the person who only had sex in the dark or hid under the cover of blankets.