Ellie picked up the fringed end of the throw and toyed with it. Should she tell Kara about her and Hunter? She wanted to. She wanted to tell everyone. But then again what should she say? Because it wasn’t as if she and Hunter were in a relationship or were planning a future together or anything. All they were doing was sleeping together. A lot. Whenever they could get their hands on each other for the past week basically. And that wasn’t anything to announce. They hadn’t talked about it but they both knew that in five days, Ellie would be leaving for Tokyo.
Currently she was trying not to think about that. She was too happy with the novelty of going to sleep in Hunter’s bed every night and waking up in his arms every morning. Of being able to touch him whenever she wanted, kiss him whenever she felt the urge. Being as close to him as she possibly could. Yeah, happy. If only she could ditch the need that constantly hummed in the background. The need for more.
He didn’t talk about his past and what had happened with Elizabeth Chase, and she didn’t ask him. She’d initially been full of thoughts of how to help him, heal him, but as the days had gone by, she’d found approaching the subject more and more difficult. He denied that he’d been abused, denied that he’d been taken advantage of. Denied that it still affected him.
And in the end, she’d accepted his denial because she didn’t want to rock the boat. Didn’t want to disturb the delicate equilibrium they’d reached with each other. The subject was too volatile and far too heartbreaking.
What was the point when she was leaving anyway?
“Hey, here’s your wine.” Kara put down a narrow, tall-stemmed wine glass covered in gold leaf on the rickety wooden coffee table, then flopped down on the couch beside Ellie. Holding up her own glass—a heavy glass goblet, mismatched, like everything else in Kara’s apartment—she said, “And here’s to neck hickeys.”
Ellie, in the process of lifting her glass, pulled a face. “Kara.”
Her friend lifted an eyebrow. “Dude, are you going to tell me or what?”
“Or what.”
“Not an option.”
“Bah.” Ellie took a sip of the cheap red she’d picked up on the way to Kara’s place. “Okay, well, it’s no biggie.”
“No biggie? It’s Hunter, right?”
Despite her best efforts, Ellie blushed. “What makes you say that?”
“Bitch, please. You’re staying with him, you’ve had the hots for him for years, and you’re leaving in five days. All the vital ingredients needed for a hot sex Hunter soufflé.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“Aha. I was right then?”
Ellie sighed. “Yes, okay, you’re right. We’re sleeping together.”
Kara gave her a triumphant grin. “I knew it! Right on, babe! That is freaking awesome.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s not awesome?” The grin on Kara’s face slowly faded when Ellie didn’t smile back.
“Oh, no, it’s awesome all right. Don’t get me wrong. I just…” She stopped, not quite sure why she should even be prevaricating about it when she had everything she wanted.
“Just what?”
Ellie fiddled with her drink then looked up at her friend. Kara was giving her a concerned look from over the top of her glasses. Was there something different about her today? Yeah, there was. She’d taken out some of her piercings, the eyebrow one and the little diamond she wore in her nose. And her hair had begun reverting to its natural gold, the blue colour almost gone. And, bloody hell, she actually had brown eyes instead of the coloured contacts she almost always wore.
“Hey, what’s happened to you? You look…normal.”
A tinge of colour crept into Kara’s cheeks. “We’re not talking about me, babe. We’re talking about you.” Pushing her glasses back up her nose, Kara glared at her. “So why is the hot Hunter soufflé not awesome? With a body like that, surely it’s impossible not to be.”
“Sex isn’t everything.”
“Then clearly you’re not doing it right.”
But Ellie didn’t feel like joking around. This was too serious. Too painful. And she was afraid. She stared down at the wine in her glass. “It’s not enough,” she said after a moment. “I want more.”
Kara let out a soft breath and put her wine glass down on the table. “Oh babe. That was always going to be the danger, wasn’t it?”
It had been. She’d been too hungry for him, had spent too long waiting for him to really think about it. “I’m an idiot, huh?”
The look on Kara’s face softened. “No. Yes.”
“I’m bracing myself for some ‘I told you so’s’.”
“Would I do that to you? Besides, I never said don’t go for it.”
“No, I know you didn’t. But…well…”
“Well nothing. Come on, Ell. You’ve been in love with him for years. Might as well get something out of all that waiting, right?”
Ellie took another gulp of wine. Yeah, she may as well admit it to herself. She had been in love with him for years. And she’d done a fabulous impression of ignoring it, pretending it was all just about the sexual attraction. But of course it wasn’t. Sure, the sex was great but it was the man himself that fascinated her. That made her hungry for more.
An incredibly complicated, kind of screwed-up, passionate man. Who’d had a horrible thing happen to him and, whether he liked it or not, needed her help.
A moment’s silence filled the apartment. From outside the sounds of the city, cars, sirens, construction sounds from a building site, drifted in.
“Does he want more?” Kara asked.
Ellie gave a short laugh and she knew it sounded bitter, but she couldn’t help it. “No, I really don’t think he does.”
“So you’ve talked about it?”
“No.” That was another thing she hadn’t spoken to him about. Another subject she’d been too afraid to broach.
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to. What’s happening now is good and I don’t want to upset it.”
“But you don’t know—”
“There’s no point.” Ellie shifted uncomfortably on the sofa, a big ball of misery catching hard under her breastbone. “I’m leaving for Tokyo in a few days and that’ll be the end of it.” Maybe if she said it enough times, she’d believe it.
Kara was silent another moment. “You could stay. Or ask him to come with you.”
“Give up my job to stay here when I don’t even know if a few nights in bed is all he wants? Yeah, right.”
“Okay, dumb idea. What about asking him to come with you?”
“Why would he give up his job, his whole freaking life, to come to Tokyo?”
“Uh, because you’re awesome?”
“Not helpful, Kar.”
“True, though.” Kara sighed. “Look, you’re going to have to talk to him. You know that, right?”
Ellie bit her lip and took another big sip of wine for good measure. “I don’t want to.” She finally managed to say it out loud. “I’m scared. What if he says no?”
Or more importantly, what if he was too screwed up to accept what she wanted to give him? Accept that he needed her, because she was quite sure of that. He did need her. Every night he pulled her into his arms it felt like he was losing himself in her, escaping from something. And afterwards he’d hold her, his face turned into her neck, his breath warm on her skin. Just holding her. But he didn’t talk, at least not about the stuff she wanted to talk about. He hadn’t shut her out, but it wasn’t like he’d welcomed her in either.
Kara’s brown eyes were serious. “He might. But he might say yes too. Don’t sell yourself short, babe.”
“I’m not.” At least she was trying not to. She wanted to be able to give him what he’d always given her. A place of safety and trust. Thing was, if he didn’t trust her enough to be able to open up now, given what he’d already told her, would he ever be able to do so?
Vin scowled at the plans spread over his desk. “Don’t say it.”
“I told you so,” Hunter said, to mess with him. “Expensive isn’t always the best.”
“Yeah, well, it should be.” His friend muttered a curse. “So I’m going to need another solar panel. Shit, it’s going to ruin the whole bloody roofline.”
“No it won’t.” Hunter picked up the pencil lying on the desk and did some quick sketching. “Not if you do it like this.”
Vin’s scowl didn’t lift. He hated to be wrong, understandably considering the time and effort he always put into planning things. But then again, that was why Vin was a good business partner, why they both worked so well together. Vin was the planner while Hunter coped with anything last minute or unforeseen. Such as a solar panel problem on the house Vin was in the process of building.
“Man, I hate it when you’re right.” Vin shoved his hand through his dark hair, the sun coming through the windows, catching the subtle coppery highlights of it.
Much darker than Ellie’s.