‘Eli, where do we go now?’
‘Troll cave,’ he said. ‘Weapons, armor and kill points.’
‘Good point,’ she murmured.
By the time the game had ended and their dining table was ready, she had three willing slaves who would do anything for their new leader, including die for her, and she had him completely enthralled. The restless little tappety-tap of her fingers against her thighs when something wasn’t happening fast enough for her. Her joy at victory and her laughter at losing. The way she leaned into his shoulder as if he were a handy wall. Casual intimacy for her – he truly didn’t think she realized she was doing it. A revelation for him, the knowledge that he could feel this level of want again – hot and tight – in the presence of a woman. That a beer or two and a whisky or two and a woman’s contagious smile could warm him through.
They’d picked up more people during their game at the bar, nine people at their table now – a table for six – and it was easier just to turn a lengthy food order into pizza for ten. The convention hotel was straining at the seams with the weight of all the people – a mishmash of gamers and geeks, with two of the folk at his table dressed in space cowboy costumes. Maybe Zoey had been a little hasty when she’d ditched the dress for jeans and a pretty little top. The tenth person arrived – another woman, which made for two females at a table of ten. Introductions went round, people squeezed closer, and Zoey tucked into his side with a smile that was meant to be apologetic but ended up wicked instead.
So tactile, this woman. Nothing escaped her restless hands, not the beer coasters or the shot glasses, not his shoulder as she braced her hand on it as she leaned across to snag a slice of mushroom pizza.
‘You could’ve just asked,’ he murmured, as she eased back into her seat, somehow closer than before.
‘I’m laying claim to you, my friend. One of the space cowboys just can’t take his eyes off your pretty face. You can thank me later when he
doesn’t
make a move on you. Want some?’ She held up the slice of pizza for him and he bit, surprising them both. Her cheeks colored as her gaze snagged on his lips again. Eli smirked.
‘Shut up,’ she said, and took her pizza back and ate the lot, but she was smiling as she popped the crust in her mouth, smiling as she wiped her hands on a napkin and then as if that wasn’t quite enough, ran her hand over his jeans for good measure. From the top of his thigh, almost to his knee, a fine, firm hand that had him half hard in seconds.
‘Was that for the space cowboy’s benefit too?’
‘No, that was for me. Are you enjoying yourself?’
He was.
‘Let me know when you’re ready to leave.’
‘Not yet.’ Leaving was problematic. Leaving involved returning to the fancy suite with the four poster bed, the bed that he was meant to be sleeping in tonight while Zoey made herself comfortable on the couch.
Wonder what a costume designer wore to bed? Because the corset thing had been tantalizing and terrifying enough.
One of the three college amigos was maneuvering to meet up with them at the con tomorrow.
‘Yes,’ Zoey was saying. ‘We’ll be there. I’ll be in manly costume. Keep an eye out for a deerstalker hat. I’m going as Sherlock Holmes.’
It was after midnight before they made it back to the luxurious haven of the Palace Venexiana and the
let’s not call it a honeymoon
suite. Zoey had switched from beer and shots to water at some point in the evening. Others had not been so smart. Eli had switched to straight beer, which probably made him half smart, even if not altogether sober, she decided as she watched him pace restlessly around the suite, his shyness seemingly back in full force.
Pity, because for a while there tonight he’d been wickedly entertaining and a whole lot of fun.
He grabbed a water bottle from the fridge, and one for her too, and handed it to her and muttered something about hoping she got a good night’s rest. He looked towards his bed. Two of her suitcases stood by it, one red, the other a tan color with white polka dots. In the absence of having anywhere else to hang her gown, she’d draped it from the cupboard door.
‘You take the bedroom,’ he offered. ‘I don’t need much. I’ll take the couch.’
He hefted his carry-all just as Zoey said, ‘Oh, no no
no
. That is not how this works. Contrary as it might seem, I can get by on whatever’s on offer as well. I’ll just take this.’ She swept past him and grabbed the gown, hangar and all, and draped it over her arm. ‘And these…’ She managed
one
of the suitcases and glanced at the other one. ‘I’ll be back for that. You stay right there. Or use the bathroom. Or whatever it is Selkies—you do before heading for bed. I still have to take makeup off, brush teeth, find something to wear and try not to take the curtains down and sleep on
them
… I could be here all night.’
He ran his hand through his hair and managed to make himself look even more deliciously disheveled. She didn’t miss the flare of heat and the way his gaze raked across her body when she’d mentioned finding something to wear.
‘Do you need the bathroom?’ she continued as she tugged her overloaded red suitcase from one end of the suite to the other in a move that wasn’t graceful, sexy or inviting. She hadn’t forgotten about his late girlfriend ghosting in the wings, even if the tension in the room was thick enough to bat at with both hands and a broom. ‘I need the bathroom.’
Only when she’d closed the doors behind her did she draw a steadying breath. What the hell was going on here? Why,
why
, did she feel so compelled to push and prod at this man for more. Angling tonight for a smile from him and not just any old smile. She’d wanted one that was rich with lazy appreciation. Fishing for his attention. Searching for a bite and getting it. Friends my ass.
She unzipped her suitcase and rummaged through until she found the soft cotton shirt she often wore as a nightgown. And then she sank down on the edge of the bath, shirt in hand and tried to make sense of both her actions and his.
‘Hey, Eli?’
She could hear him rummaging about. ‘Yeah?’
‘I really liked having you around tonight – in a strictly platonic, no strings, not sexy at all kind of way.’
‘It wasn’t that platonic.’ He sounded grim.
‘Your fault or mine, do you think?’
There was a very long pause. ‘Both,’ he said at last.
Not everything had been buried with his late girlfriend, thought Zoey. Not all of this man’s feelings and desires. ‘Hey, Eli?’ Softer this time, because she knew she was about to encroach upon him even more. ‘When did she die?’
He didn’t answer, and Zoey shook her head and felt her lips twist as she stared at the soft white sleeping shift in her hands.
Never mind.
It didn’t matter when Eli’s girlfriend had died. Sometimes the living moved on from that kind of loss. And sometimes they didn’t.
She brushed her teeth, wiped her makeup off and got dressed for bed. She packed all her toiletries and clothes away so that he didn’t have to put up with a bathroom full of her stuff. She’d packed sheets for whatever couch she might be sleeping on and she took them with her to the main room, hugging them to her chest and keeping her greedy eyes to herself as Eli slipped past her on his way to the bathroom, carryall in hand.
She made the day bed into a night bed by getting rid of all the little pillows, adding sheets and then stealing a big pillow from Eli’s bed. He had several – it wouldn’t be missed. She switched off all the lights bar the one next to his bed and another one next to hers, and then she slipped into bed and settled down to count her blessings.
The room was pure indulgence and she was grateful for the experience. Eli was fine company and downright excellent to look at and she thanked her lucky stars for that too. She had food in her belly and tomorrow loomed bright with the promise of new games to play and worlds to explore.
It was all good.
And then Eli reappeared clad only in low slung cotton pajama shorts, and good turned to great because, seriously… pure masculine perfection.
Right there in the flesh.
‘Five years,’ he muttered.
‘What?’ She’d lost her way somewhere between his linea alba and his external oblique, for it was the start of six pack territory and, my, what a territory it was.
‘She died five years ago.’
His eyes gave nothing away in the dim light cast by the bedside lights. Zoey opened her mouth, closed it, and opened it again. She leaned forward and clicked off her own bedside light, and it was hard to say whether she did it for her benefit or his. It was easier to stay focused on the conversation when she didn’t have to look at him. Maybe it was easier for him to talk to the shadows rather than the girl. ‘And there’s been no-one for you since?’
‘No.’ He dumped his bag by the bottom of the bed and put his wallet, keys and phone on the bedside table. ‘For a long time I couldn’t look at anyone else. Didn’t want to. Couldn’t climb out of that great gaping hole. Couple of years back Cutter decided enough was enough and started pushing women at me. I pushed them straight back. I wasn’t ready to think like that again. Caleb had to step in to stop me from shredding Cutter to bits with my fists.’
‘Sounds painful.’ For all concerned. ‘Don’t beat yourself up about your grieving process, Eli. It’s yours alone and only you can determine if you’ll ever be done with it.’
‘This past year I’ve looked sideways at a woman a time or two but that’s as far as it went. Cutter calls it progress.’
‘Did Caleb have to step in then too?’
‘No.’
‘Definitely progress.’
He snorted gently. ‘And then came you. I feel as if I’m playing connect the dots between what I know of you online and what I’m learning about you here and now. I’m interested, Zoey. I’ve always been interested in you, and you’re right there and willing and it’s been one helluva long time, and then there’s this goddamn awareness between us and that’s something I’ve
never
dealt with before.’
‘So…’ Okay, she badly wanted to know exactly what Eli
had
felt for his dead love, but even she had more sense than to go there. ‘For what it’s worth, this is new for me too.’
‘I don’t fall for people this fast. It’s not what I’m used to. It’s not what I do.’
‘You
do
realize that you being a steadfast, tortured soul only makes me want you more, right?’
Her words surprised a bark of laughter out of him. ‘I’m trying to explain myself here.’
‘And you’re doing a remarkably good job of it.’ Nothing but the truth. ‘Okay, so how about we sleep on it? Alone. See if this thing between us settles into something a little more manageable by morning?’
‘And if it doesn’t?’
‘Beat it into submission with a big stick?’ Could be she’d been playing one too many computer games. ‘At the very least we’ll be able to say that we didn’t fall into bed with each other straight away. Think of all the self-respect we’ll have gained.’
‘And self-control,’ he murmured.
‘Paragons of self-respect and self-control, the pair of us. Role models for the masses.’ Possibly in need of a goddamn medal.
‘Hey, Zoey?’ She could hear the smile in his voice and it did absolutely nothing to dampen her appreciation of this man.
‘Yes?’ A blanket yes, that one. To anything.
‘Let’s not get too carried away.’
‘Right. You are so right.’
‘Night, Zoey.’
‘Goodnight, Eli. Sleep well.’
Self-respect. Supreme control.
Medals.
M
orning dawned grey
and gloomy, with a southerly wind that had the Pacific frothing and temperatures plummeting. Eli stared out the window in the bedroom and reached for his phone to check the weather conditions along the coast. Had he been home at the marina, he’d have written it up on the board just outside the boatshed, along with high and low tide – an old-fashioned courtesy and largely unnecessary in this day and age of internet communication and mobile phones, but it had been his job to do for as long as he could remember and there was a certain satisfaction to be gained from repetition and the simple jobs that heralded the start of a working day.
It occurred to him, as he turned from the window and his gaze went to the still sleeping Zoey, that he might just be getting a little bit set in his ways. At eighty, that was to be expected. At his age, not so much.
Zoey didn’t stir as he made his way to the bathroom. She didn’t stir as he emerged, fresh from a morning shower and shave. Eli was used to sharing his childhood space with brothers who were dead to the world. He wasn’t used to sharing living space with a woman. She looked paler this morning than she had done last night, the smattering of freckles across her nose standing out starkly against translucent skin. Makeup had hidden that paleness from him yesterday. Lipstick had colored her lips. Costume, he thought. Something to hide behind. But why?
For someone with a whole lot of energy
when
she was up and running,
getting
Zoey up and running proved remarkably difficult. Clattering about didn’t rouse her. Ordering room service, and finding out that a full room service breakfast package was included with the suite, had produced little more than a muttered ‘and orange juice’, but he’d figured it for progress and dutifully requested orange juice, and by the time breakfast arrived she was at least sitting up in bed, propped up by pillows, with the sheet pooling haphazardly in her lap as she pushed tousled dark curls away from her face and looked around, dopey eyed, her smile as soft as the velvet curtain she reached out to stroke.
‘Give me ten minutes and there might even be movement,’ she murmured. ‘Are we swimming?’
‘No swimming. The beach is closed. Rough seas and bluebottles. Want some coffee?’ He was pouring one for himself. May as well pour one for her too.
‘What sort is it?’
‘Double shot espresso.’
‘Perfect. Although, let there be cream.’
There was cream. ‘How’d you sleep?’
‘Surprisingly well, all things considered.’ Her eyes sharpened as she looked him up one side and down the other with disconcerting thoroughness. ‘I’m pretty sure my acute physical awareness of you hasn’t lessened overnight. How’s yours?’