“Are what?” he asks.
“I like him,” I say, “I told him I am interested in Eli, and that means just Eli. Jacob’s a fan of my books, I write books for a living, and we were talking about the books when”—I swallow hard—“the animal attacked. Now I wish I would have suggested we share an Uber.”
“You didn’t cause this to happen,” he assures me. “And the animal that killed Jacob is being dealt with.” He motions toward me. “Put my number in your phone so you can text me if you change your mind about food.”
I grab my phone from my purse where it rests via my crossbody strap at my hip and he holds out his hand. “Let me give you several numbers.”
I don’t argue. I just saw a man mauled to death. I’m pretty okay with any contact that is local right about now. He punches in several numbers and then offers me my phone. “You have me, Rocco, and Eli in your phone. Rocco is—”
“A brother,” I reply.
His eyes narrow. “Yes,” he confirms. He studies me another moment and then says, “Text me if you want food.” With that, he turns and heads toward the door. Of course, he’s not going for food. He wants space. He’s giving me space, as well. The door opens and closes and I glance toward the stairs, to the location of Eli’s bedroom, with a rush of heat over my skin. That’s the most personal room in this apartment. If I know him, if we are connected, that’s where I’ll feel it the strongest.
I hurry in that direction, suddenly eager to feel close to Eli. Once I’m upstairs, I find his bedroom easily. It’s a king’s room for sure: lots of windows, a massive bed with a heavy wooden headboard and pillared posts, as well as huge, comfy-looking chairs. I inhale the scent of Eli in the room and for just a moment, I see another man in my mind, a man I’m smiling at, a man I feel love for, and deeply at that. It’s confusing. So very confusing.
Shaking off the memory, I walk into the bathroom, which is equally fit for a king—all white, with a huge bathtub. I opt for the shower though, where the blood can rush down the drain and away from my body. I strip down naked and turn on the hot water. Once I’m under the flow, memories that are not mine, begin to float through my mind. Eli—the man I loved. That is what I think when these unfamiliar images of him appear in my head. And this is insane. I grab the soap and scrub every inch of my body, allowing my mind to think of nothing but the process. When I’m done, I wrap my hair in a small towel and then my body in a larger one.
Fifteen minutes later, my hair is dry and I’m in leggings and a T-shirt when I step back into the bedroom. That’s when I notice the lamp on the nightstand and the chain hanging off the light shade. There’s a pendant on the end. I walk toward it and once I have it in my hand, I realize it’s a ring. My mind instantly sees that man, the man I loved, on his knees, in front of another woman.
“It was Ivy’s wedding ring.”
At the sound of Eli’s voice, I look up to find him in the doorway–tall, dark and handsome yes, but right now, it’s more like tall, dark, and tormented. There is a tormented edge in his chiseled face, radiating from him in waves that crash into me. And I have no idea why I do it, but I slide the chain around my neck and allow the ring to fall between my breasts.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Eli
There’s a storm inside me at the sight of that ring between Ivy’s breasts. A storm that rages more like a slow-moving hurricane, but it is no less fierce. I close the space between us, stopping in front of her, right in front of her, all but touching her without actually touching her. And I want to touch her.
“Why’d you put the ring around your neck, Ivy?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” she confesses softly. “I just—it feels like it belongs with me.”
She can’t remember that ring or me. That’s not possible, but every muscle in my body tenses as I ask anyway. “What do you remember?”
“You on your knee in front of Ivy. I saw it, I saw her, in my mind. She isn’t me.”
I catch her waist and pull her to me. “What if it is you? What if she is you?”
“I saw her.”
“Yes,” I say. “You saw her. Why did you see her?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “I’m a writer. It was a fantasy.”
Her ever coming back to me was the fantasy. “You know what you saw,” I murmur softly. “You know.” I don’t give her time to reject the idea, the reality that cannot be denied, not in an honest moment, and that is all I have in me where Ivy is concerned. I’ve longed for her. I’ve ached for her. I’ve wanted to die every day since she was taken from me.
My fingers tunnel into her hair and I drag her mouth to my mouth. “I know,” I say, and my mouth closes down on hers, my tongue pressing past her teeth, delving deep, stroking and stroking again. Drinking her in, trying to taste the past, and it’s there. I don’t know how it’s possible, how she can be this Ivy and my Ivy, but I taste her, I feel her. And I’m ravenous, a man denied a century of her on my tongue.
She moans, and I swear the sound of her moan shatters what is left of the soul I’ve barely managed to hold onto while she was gone. Her long-faded memory left me with nothing but a hunger for revenge. And while that need is still present, there is so much more to want, so fucking much more.
Her arms slide around my body, and she folds herself into me, soft, so very soft, where I am now hard in every possible way. And she’s so damn tiny and delicate. So easily destroyed and now a target because of me. Always a target because of me. My guilt over her death drives me near insane. But I can’t let her go. I know I can’t let her go, I don’t want to let her go.
I won’t. I won’t let her go.
I turn her and back her up against the mattress. Her hands slide under my shirt, and it’s not like the touch of other women. It doesn’t feel the same as those women, the many women, too many women, I’ve buried my guilt and loss inside, to no end in sight, no relief to be found. This is Ivy and it makes no difference that she is not in the same form she once was. Her touch, the taste of her—it’s a rush of guilt, passion, and hunger that is downright combusting inside of me, and I can feel the way it feeds the same in her.
She shoves my shirt upward and I tug it over my head, and before it hits the ground, we are all over each other. My hands are now under her shirt, shoving it upward. It’s off in an instant, and so is her bra and my hand is on her breast, fingers on her nipple.
She moans again, and it’s raw and needy. And I’m hot and hard, and way beyond any chance of turning back. All barriers are gone and my eyes devour her pretty pink nipples, her creamy white skin, her perfect body, but I’m not about lingering and lavishing in the moment. I’m far too on the edge, my gums tingling, even as I claim her mouth again.
One minute I’m kissing her and she’s kissing me, the next I’ve finished undressing us both, and we are naked, and on the bed, my weight over hers, and I can’t slow down. My cock slides along her sex, my hands under her sweet little backside and I bury myself deep inside her, but once I’m there, I have a flashback to another moment like this one.