Can't Hurry Love (28 page)

Eli followed, soggy and sore. And tired.

Really, really tired of being angry.

chapter

19

“
You decided on
those tiles yet?” Gavin stepped into what would be the change rooms and instantly the room got smaller. More intimate. How that was possible with exposed pipes and the presence of five other men, Celeste wasn’t sure, but that was Gavin’s magic.

He turned every room into a potential bedroom.

“We’re going to go—” She looked up and gaped at him. Gavin was soaking wet, a runny trickle of blood easing down past his eye from a cut on his eyebrow. “What the hell happened to you?”

He touched the eye, winced, and then used the bottom of his shirt to swipe the worst of the blood away. The skin above his belt was white, like marble. Muscled like the statue
David
. Perfection. And she went dizzy with her desire to see more of him.

He swore a blue streak. “Where the hell is the first-aid kit?”

“Come on,” she said, not believing that she was actually doing this. The bathroom she shared with Victoria and Jacob was full of Spider-Man Band-Aids and Neosporin.

A bubble surrounded them, the awareness that she was leading him someplace private. That he was following, so closely she could feel the heat of him, or perhaps she was imagining that. Either way, her body loved it.

She was going to touch him—she would have to in
order to dress the cut. And she couldn’t wait. She was going to take her time, milk every minute.

The lights blinked on in the bathroom and she pointed to the closed toilet without looking at him, preferring to keep her intentions in her own head for as long as she could.

Once she had everything in her hands—a cotton ball with alcohol, the little tube of Neosporin, and a Sponge-Bob SquarePants Band-Aid, she turned.

But he wasn’t on the toilet. He wasn’t sitting there like an obedient patient. He was standing right in front of her, a wall of masculinity, an ungovernable force.

He kicked the door shut. Her body went wet.

“Tell me right now if you don’t want this,” he said. The blood, the blue of his eyes, the restrained temper in his jaw—it was too much. She would regret this, the memory would embarrass her for eons, but there was no refusing.

She threw the things in her hands into the sink and met him head-on. Her arms curled around his neck, chains to keep him close. His lips touched hers and the world exploded into nothing.

All that remained was heat and a kiss more intimate than anything she’d experienced in ten years.

He stepped her backwards until the top of her hips hit the marble edge of the sink and in one delicious movement, he slid his tongue into her mouth and lifted her until she sat on the sink, her legs spread to accept the width of his hips between them.

But he didn’t grind into her. He didn’t shove his erection at her. He cradled her cheeks in his hands. Swept her hair from her face, then kissed her neck, her eyelids. Her mouth again.

It was tender. Reverent.

“Sorry,” he murmured, and after another slow, sweet
kiss, he stepped away, helping her down from her perch. The perch she had no desire to leave.

“For what?” She knew she was staring at him, wide-eyed, like a starstruck virgin.

“I’ve been thinking about kissing you for a long time now, and I didn’t want it to be like this. Stolen, in a bathroom, of all places.” He wiped his hands through his hair and winced when the cut over his eye split and started to bleed again. “Damn it.”

“Sit down,” she said and gathered the things from the sink with shaking hands. Grateful as she was to have something to do, her body was still processing that kiss and she felt her cheeks burn. Between her legs she was wet. Her nipples ached.

“Close your eyes,” she said, unable to stare into those eyes and keep herself in order.

“Are you mad?” he whispered, his head tipped back. She smiled down at him, only because he couldn’t see her. “Have I blown it?”

“Blown what?”

“A month of lunches, Celeste. I was working toward a dinner date.” He opened one eye and when she didn’t drop her smile fast enough, he grinned.

“I don’t …” date, she was going to say. But that wasn’t the truth. She dated plenty. “I don’t date younger men.”

“Younger? Come on. By what, five years?”

“I’m sixty-three.” She arched an eyebrow at him. “How old are you?”

He picked his jaw up off the floor. “It doesn’t matter.”

She laughed because it hurt, like waxing all the hair off her body, a wild stinging pain. She put the Band-Aid on over the cream and leaned down to kiss it, taking as much heat from his body as she could. “Of course it does.”

Victoria loved walking in the front door of the ranch these days—it was like walking into a beehive. Men carrying heavy equipment. Women on phones, bossing the men around. She stepped over ladders and skids of materials and headed into the kitchen, eager to see the new appliances that had been delivered just as she was taking Jacob to school.

Ruby stood in the center of her kingdom, a queen in tye-dyed yoga pants. A pair of legs in denim and cowboy boots stuck out from behind the new six-burner professional-grade stove.

“Look, Victoria,” Ruby said, “it’s the mother ship.”

She ran her hands across the sterling-silver dials. “So shiny!”

The terra-cotta tiles had been laid and sealed a few days before and the fridge and freezer had already been hooked up. The deep stainless-steel sink and new dishwasher still sat in boxes just inside the sliding glass doors. The counter had been replaced with stainless-steel worktables.

“I didn’t think Gavin was going to have any guys to spare for this today,” she said.

“I got my own guy,” Ruby said, her eyes twinkling over her reading glasses.

“I heard that.” To Victoria’s surprise, those legs belonged to Eli. He shimmied out from behind the stove. “There you go, Ruby.”

She felt foolish, gaping at him, but it was sort of like finding a rainbow at night. He was literally the last person she expected to see here. Helping, of all things.

She hadn’t seen him since the swans. She’d canceled the last visit because she was rubbed raw by him. Rubbed raw by his crossroads, and she just needed a break from it.

“Ruby bribed me with food.” He reached over to tap her jaw shut. He was sunny as a beach vacation, and she
wanted to tip back her head and absorb this surprising change in him.

“What happened to your face?” Now that he was right in front of her, Victoria could see he had a big swollen lip and a cut through the corner.

“Allergic reaction,” he said.

“Yeah,” Ruby snorted. “To Gavin’s fist.”

“You fought with Gavin?” She tried not to make it sound as if it turned her on, because it was totally inappropriate that it did.

“Who fought with Gavin?” Amy walked in, and immediately Eli closed up like a fist. That beach vacation was suddenly rained out. “You? Eli? Are you—”

Eli glared at her, storm clouds rolling in across his face. This was going to be a doozy.

“Are you all right?” Amy asked her son.

“Fine. It was nothing.”

She pointed to the appliances.

“Did you put in the stove?”

Eli nodded, unrolling his sleeves, refusing to look at her with all the force and intention of a tornado.

“The fridge?”

“You just plug it in.”

Victoria and Ruby stood there, watching the two of them act like they were playing tennis with grenades. Eli grabbed his jacket from the counter and swung it over his shoulder, before stepping toward the sliding glass doors.

Amy slammed her clipboard down on the stove.

Here it comes
, Victoria thought, wanting to dive behind the counter.

“This isn’t going to work,” Amy said, and Eli turned around. “I can’t have my guys working like this. Two of them are talking about leaving. You’re fighting with my foreman. And I thought—”

“You’d show up after twenty-seven years and we’d magically make up?” he asked, and Victoria winced.

“No. I don’t expect us to make up. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I thought it would be worth it, just to have you here.”

“How is that working out for you?”

“It’s not. None of this is working.”

“Wait a second,” Victoria said, not liking the way this was going. “The renovation is working pretty great.”

“I’ll go,” Amy said, not even looking at Ruby or Victoria. She only had eyes for her son, putting all of their fates in his angry hands.

Victoria fumed. This was exactly what she’d feared would happen with Eli sitting outside the ranch like a damn pest—he was chasing Amy away.

“Leave the ranch?” he asked, his eyes opening wide as if this were the last thing he’d expected.

“If that’s what you want,” Amy agreed with a solemn nod.

“I’ll sue you, Amy,” Victoria breathed. “I mean, I’ll have to. You can’t … you can’t just leave.”

“I should never have come,” Amy said, looking every minute of her age and then some. “This was a mistake. I’ll give you back the rest of the deposit, I’ll recommend another contractor, maybe Gavin will stay—”

“It’s fine,” Eli said.

Victoria took in a shaking breath, because he wasn’t looking at his mother, he was staring right at her with the kind of focus and intention reserved for dark deeds against walls and in trucks. “I’m tired of sitting out there every damn day. Stay. Finish the job. For Victoria.”

Amy nodded. Eli turned to Victoria, his intent incendiary. “I’ll see you tonight,” Eli said. Not a question.

Her body understood what was happening before her
brain clued in. It wasn’t until he was out the door that she realized she’d be going to his ranch tonight.

Without her son.

The air she pulled into her lungs was hot and damp, and it tasted of sweat and sex. She pushed the pillow that kept flopping over her head off the side of the bed and braced her hands against the wall. Her hips pushed back, meeting Eli’s slow, steady thrust, and when he pulled back, she moaned, nearly crying, trying to follow his body with hers.

“Slow,” he breathed in her ear. His heavy chest, muscled and slick with sweat, settled against her back and the sensation of being covered, of being dominated by this big man, turned the dial up on her excitement.

“Please,” she gasped. “Come on. Please.” She tossed her head, her hair falling over her face, and he put his lips to her shoulder, that place where neck met body, where a cluster of nerves lived and breathed, waiting for his attention.

She groaned, curled up against him, the thick, heavy length of him inside of her pinning her to the bed.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, and that was it. She couldn’t take it anymore. She might not be as strong as him, but the frustration of the last few weeks had given her power.

Rocking her hips forward she squeezed her legs together, clamping him inside of her, and he groaned. She did it again. And again. Gathering speed and rhythm until the friction made her see stars.

His hand landed on her hip, his thumb against the flesh of her bottom. Gaining leverage where she could, she could feel him reacting to her, feel him giving up his control. Losing it altogether, holding himself in place so she could work him. Work both of them.

“So good,” he breathed against her ear and she felt him rest his forehead on the center of her back, craning his neck so he could watch, and that made her crazy.

The orgasm started slow, curling through her body, gathering sensation from every limb, every nerve ending, until she was suffused with light, with lust and excitement and passion, and then when she couldn’t take it anymore, when it started to hurt, Eli groaned, “Come with me.”

And she splintered apart, raining down on this bed and this lonely ranch and the night outside as glitter, until Eli rolled her over, pulling her into his arms, and put her back together. Arm here, leg here. Pounding heart at the center of it all.

“You’re right,” he breathed against her forehead. “Forgiveness feels great.”

She laughed, soundless, because her voice was still missing, but her body shook against his and she could feel his smile against her cheek.

As the sweat cooled on her body and goose bumps cropped up across her skin, Eli reached down to get blankets, but she stopped him.

“I have to go,” she said. “Jacob—”

“Are you sure?”

She laughed, despite the fact that it hurt a little to play this game with him. Being casual was new to her, and she didn’t yet have the appropriate calluses. “Don’t pretend you’re not relieved,” she said, reaching down beside the bed for her underwear.

He sat up in the bed, his muscles silvered in the moonlight that came in through the window. He was all shadows and light, his muscles so beautiful, his face so sweet. “I’m glad you came over,” he whispered.

“Me too,” she whispered back, smiling at him through her hair as she pulled up her jeans. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and looked down at him. Studied him.
The weeds of her doubts finding room to grow, despite everything they’d done in the last hour.