Singe (7 page)

“Want me to save you a piece?” Brooks asks Eli now, holding up the knife. He took over cutting from Sharpie, who was dishing out hugely unequal slices. He’s a good captain, in Eli’s opinion. He runs a tight firehouse. “There’s more than enough this week.”

Eli shakes his head, pushing himself to his feet. “No thanks, Cap.” Addie, he can’t help but notice, disappeared right after she served the dessert.

He isn’t quite looking, but he finds her down by the women’s lockers anyway, fishing a change of clothes out of her top shelf. She has pictures of her family here too, stuck to the door with magnets. Lockers always remind Eli of gym class, girls on one side, boys on the other, the dank foot-smell and all that time he spent wondering about the mystery of periods. Addie’s lock is a purple smiley face, the non-Dudley kind that wasn’t allowed at Eli’s high school. His brother Will taught him how to crack those when he was six.

“Gonna catch some sleep?” he asks, leaning against the cinder block wall.

Addie whips around so fast she nearly topples. “What the—oh my God, did you
follow
me here?” She looks pissed off and pretty, the lipstick she always puts on when she goes to her family dinners. “I thought we said we were keeping this out of the house.”

Eli smiles. “Just making conversation.”

Addie rolls her eyes, hard. “Uh-huh.” She’s holding a pair of yoga pants in one hand, dark gray and the kind that clings, Eli’s pretty sure. He’s looking forward to seeing them on her body. “In the women’s locker room?”

“Shoot,” Eli says, looking around at the tiny space she and Jill Buono use to get changed in, separated from the rest of the lockers by a makeshift hallway. It literally used to be a closet, Brooks told him once, back when Eleven was made up entirely of dudes. “Is that what you guys call this?”

“Funny,” Addie replies, in a voice meant to communicate that it really, really isn’t. After that she smirks though and gives herself away. “Okay, fine. In the women’s locker
alcove
. Either way.”

“Either way,” Eli echoes, then completely doesn’t follow it up or even bother moving.
Shit where you eat
, reminds a quiet voice inside his head. He really thought he’d gotten it out of his system last night, this thing with her, that he’d be good and done and guiltily annoyed by the fact of her continued presence, just like it’s been with every other girl since Chelsea. Then he woke up and came to the firehouse and watched Addie Manzella eat cold spaghetti all up in his personal work environment, and.

It’s, uh…not out of his system.

It’s not out of hers either, Eli’s pretty sure. She’s watching him like she’s real skeptical of whatever the hell his next move is gonna be, yeah, but. She isn’t moving, herself.

“Look, are you gonna let me get changed?” she asks finally, holding up the yoga pants. She kicked off her shoes already, Eli notices. Another second and he might have caught her in her skivvies.

Eli holds out his arms like,
go ahead
, just for the pleasure of watching her eyes go wide. Then he turns around and heads for the outer hallway. Addie Manzella feels like the kind of girl you have to coax.

“I’ll guard the door,” he announces, facing away from her like they’re kids at the swimming hole. That’s the joke of the women’s locker alcove, of course, no working door—the Captain is perpetually worried about a harassment suit. “Be right out here.” After a second he hears an exasperated sigh and shuffling from behind him, the unmistakable sound of a zipper being yanked down. He hopes she leaves her underwear off with the yoga pants. Chelsea used to do that, so there would be no line. “How was dinner?” he asks after a minute, clearing his throat. “How’s your old man?”

Addie huffs. “Christ, are you seriously putting the moves on me again? Is this what you do?” Then, when Eli doesn’t answer, “Dinner was fine. We had stuffed shells and everyone talked about throwing a baby shower for my brother’s wife.”

Eli shifts his weight. “Oh yeah? When’s she due?” More sounds behind him, the whoosh of cotton that may or may not be her shirt coming off. In Eli’s mind she’s got that same strapless bra on, even though in reality he knows girls only wear those when they have to.

“I dunno, actually,” Addie says. She sounds closer. Eli turns around without thinking and there she is, fully redressed. “I probably should though, huh?”

“Probably,” Eli agrees. She’s in a faded sleep-shirt he’s seen on her before, all these nights at the firehouse, and the yoga pants are
definitely
the kind that clings. The tuck of them between her legs is enough to drive Eli insane.

“Well.” Addie shuts her locker with a clang and reaches back to redo her braid fast and brutal. It’s a sport bra, he can tell when she lifts her arms up, even with his eyes locked on hers. In the second before she scoops all that hair into the elastic it springs dark and wild around her face. “I’m not a very good sister.”

“I kind of doubt that,” Eli counters. He’s not sure which one of them is closing the distance but she’s near enough to smell now, the same faint flowers from yesterday over the mildew-bleach stink of the locker rooms. Even after a shower, her smell stuck to his skin all night long.

“Uh-huh.” Addie raises her eyebrows. “You don’t know me very well, friend.”

Eli raises his back. “Know you enough.”

“Why, ’cause we—?” Addie laughs, that now-familiar cackle, and it echoes off the metal lockers. “
Eli
,” she says, when he hooks one finger in the hem of her T-shirt. Fuck, he doesn’t hate hearing her say his name like that. “Come on.”

“Want me to stop for real?” he asks. He doesn’t think so, he’s pretty sure this is just her playing hard-to-get, that she’s having fun too, but. “Tell me to stop right now, I’ll stop, we’ll never talk about this ever again.”

“I’m pretty sure you said that last night,” Addie points out, shifting her weight just the slightest bit. If she takes another step, her back’ll be up against the lockers. “Somebody’s going to hear.”

Somebody will—yeah. Eli grins, nudging her back that last step himself. “And what are they gonna hear, princess?” He lets his hooked finger travel, running across the underside of her hem. When his knuckle brushes her stomach, Addie’s whole rib cage jumps.

“Shut up,” she tells him, but her shoulders have settled back against the cold metal, chin tilting up. Eli smirks, leaning in even farther. He can’t resist dodging at the last second though, pressing his cheek against her temple instead. Addie growls. “E
li
.”

“Hmm?” He traces a finger up around her belly button, thumbs the dip in a pretty blatant tease. “What do you need?”

Addie shoves at his hand—though it’s not so much shoving
away
, Eli notices, as it is shoving down. “Jerk,” she huffs. Those pretty boyish eyebrows are drawn together, dark and furious. She has freckles on her nose that weren’t there yesterday, faint, irregular splotches. They must have been brought out by the sun. “You’re such a jerk.”

“I am,” Eli agrees. His hand is hovering near the seam of her leggings now. He lets it touch down lightly, just the tips of his fingers.

Right away, Addie goes completely still. “Umm.” Her eyes are wide, like she didn’t expect him to actually follow through. He can see the pulse ticking in her neck. “Eli,” she warns one more time.

“You keep saying that,” he observes mildly, turning his wrist and tracing the shape of her with one gentle finger. Addie gasps, widening her stance almost imperceptibly to give him room. Even through the fabric she is so, so warm. He’s barely even rubbing, not enough for actual friction, but when he brushes her clit she whimpers out loud.

“Shh,” Eli murmurs, kissing her for real now—fuck, he wants to kiss her for
ages
, wants to take her home and lick his way into her mouth until he can tell what kind of toothpaste she uses. Wants to suck on her tongue until she squirms. He gets closer, palms one heavy breast with his free hand—a sport bra then, definitely, everything locked and loaded under the spandex. He imagines rucking her shirt up, pulling it down. “Somebody’s gonna hear, remember?”

“Ugh, I
hate
you,” Addie complains, reaching up and winding her arms around his neck. Standing face to face like this, she’s shorter than he thought. She’s got physical presence. Addie Manzella is somebody you’d notice when she walked into a room full of people. Eli doesn’t know how it took him so long to do just that. “You’re the worst.”

“Don’t say you hate me,” he chides quietly, working her harder. He thinks of last night, how she balked when he tried to get his mouth between her legs. “That’s not nice.”

Addie bites the collar of his T-shirt, tongue pressing against the cotton. “Guess I’m not nice then.” She’s using his shoulders for leverage, going up on her tiptoes to get a better angle on his fingers. Eli gives her one firm stroke, top to bottom, and her mouth drops open helplessly. “Shit, Eli. We really can’t be doing this here.”

Eli grins, kissing her again. “So?” he says. “Stop me.” Her nipples are tightening up, he can feel the change in texture through her sport bra. He tries pinching, but the spandex is holding her too firmly to get any purchase. “You hate it so much, stop me.” He’s getting hard himself, has been sitting at half-mast since basically the second he touched her. He sucks on her chin, chances sliding a few fingers under her waistband.

“Oh my God.” Right away Addie stands up even taller, forcing his hand farther into her pants. There’s hardly any room to maneuver, all that clinging fabric. “Fast, okay? You got me all—so just do it fast.”

“I got you
all
, huh?” Eli asks, worming his hand down to cup her fully. He opens her up as best he can with one finger and yeah, she’s not kidding—she’s slick as a river. Eli hisses through his teeth. “Gotta take care of that, then.” He’s pretty sure he’s walking away from this encounter with blue balls, what with her
not here
’s and her
so just do it fast
’s, Addie Manzella the pillow queen. He doesn’t give a single fuck.

“Come on,” Addie whines, rubbing herself against his knuckles. “Hurry up.”

Eli sinks his teeth into her bottom lip, tugging lightly. She makes him nuts, this woman. She’s a piece of work like nobody he’s ever been with before in his life. He gives her what she’s after for a minute, works a finger inside her tight slippery body. Then—and he knows, he
knows
he’s being an asshole but she started it—he tugs the yoga pants down over her hips.

Addie’s eyes go full-moon wide, her whole body taut and rigid. “What the heck are you
doing
?” she hisses. Then, when he sinks down onto his haunches in front of her, hooking an arm around her leg for access, “Eli. You
can’t
.”

Eli looks up at her, shrugging. He’s going for casual even though it’s pretty much the opposite of how he’s feeling right now, her smell and that dark hair between her legs; he was wrong about the underwear, this practical gray pair bunched with the leggings around her olive-pale thighs. “You wanna get off or not?”

“I—” Addie bangs the back of her skull off the lockers, looking enormously frustrated. He bites her inner thigh, and she jumps. “
Yes
, but.”

“No buts, princess.” He slides the finger back inside her, relieved to find her just as wet as she was a minute ago. “Gotta be fast. Like I said, you wanna stop me, stop me.”

“Not fair,” Addie whimpers, sliding both hands through his hair and yanking hard. “I just don’t know if I’ll be able to—” She cuts herself off, frustrated. Eli’s brain fills in all the flattering possibilities,
stay quiet
and
keep calm
, but he’s pretty sure she means something more basic.

Which—huh. He sucks at the sweaty join of her thigh, nosing to see if he can get those legs any wider. She’s locked in pretty tight with the spandex, and Eli’s not enough of an asshole to try to pull them down farther. “I’ll make sure you’re fast, how about?” he promises, pressing his mouth against the hair. He can barely even see any pink with her legs this close. “I’m good at it.”

“Oh, you’re
good
at it, okay,” Addie starts, then breaks off with a squeak as he fits his tongue in against her. “Shit, Eli.”

“Taste good,” he tells her, voice muffled. She does, she tastes
so
good, the smell of her sharp and thick and salty. Eli uses his free hand to open her up, get better access to her clit. “Relax,” he murmurs, pushing his whole face against her for a second, nose and tongue and chin. She’s going to make him messy. “I’ll do it real fast.” He curls the finger that’s still inside, and Addie whimpers.

“Fast,” she repeats weakly. Her thighs are shaking. “So fast.”

“Mm-hmm,” Eli promises, mouth still pressed against her. He works another finger in alongside the first, nice and easy. She’s breathing so hard. “Relax,” he says again, which is a thing that used to drive Chelsea crazy,
I’d relax a lot faster if you’d stop freaking telling me to
, but once Eli says it he stiffens his tongue and twists his fingers and the
noise
Addie makes then—yeah. He stops thinking about his ex-wife pretty quick.

“Shit,” Addie murmurs, one hand still fisted in his hair but the other traveling up to press against her mouth and her neck and her forehead, then over her mouth again like she’s trying to hold in another sound. She rolls her eyes even as Eli feels her rock herself against his tongue for the first time.

There you go
, he thinks and doesn’t tell her—he’s busy, his mouth and his fingers and
fuck
, everything about her is turning him on so much. He wasn’t being a dickhead before, this is actually a thing he’s pretty good at. He loves doing it, has always loved it, is happy to do it to any girl but there’s something about doing it to Addie that’s different, and Eli doesn’t know what exactly it is. It’s not about proving something, it’s not about forgetting for twenty minutes. He just really, really wants to get her off.