“You’re right. It’s outrageously expensive, and I’m lucky that my dad is still willing to pay my tuition.”
That gets my attention. She almost never talks about her parents. “Why do you say still willing to pay?”
She looks rueful. “I’m not exactly a teenager fresh out of high school, am I?”
I feel my lips twitch. “True.”
“After I ditched school in Spain, I disappeared for a while. It understandably freaked my parents out. Then, once they found out I had no intention of going back to school anytime soon, my mom pretty much disowned me. Two years later when I came home, she said I was crazy if I thought I could just show up and continue on as if nothing had happened.” Her eyes dart away, but her voice is still steady when she continues. “And she had a point. I see that now. But at the time, we both had our pride.”
Pride? “What does that mean?”
“My mom wanted me to prove myself worthy of . . . being their daughter again, I guess.”
Say what? My face must convey that question because she goes on, almost sheepishly.
“Yeah, she had a whole list of rules I had to follow, including living with them. She wanted to control everything. Who I dated, who my friends were, what I wore . . . even what causes I gave my time to.” She sighs. “I was almost twenty-four years old and I couldn’t do it. Even if it meant I had to give up school permanently. So I did the only thing I knew how to. I hit the clubs. That’s how I ended up with my ex, Gunnar. I barely saw my parents for another two years even though they only lived twenty minutes away.”
My poor Ellie. She seems so lost when she talks about her past. “I can’t imagine not seeing my family for that long,” I tell her. And I mean it. They’re my support system. Without them, I’d be . . . lost. Realization hits me.
She lifts a shoulder with nonchalance, like it’s no big deal. “My mom’s not a very nice person. It was no great loss, believe me.”
Except it is. Because no one has Ellie’s back. She faces everything on her own. But I let that go for now. “So, how did you end up back in school?”
She rearranges her napkin in her lap nervously. “I, uh, hit rock bottom.” Her gaze flashes to mine. “After you found me on the street, I had no pride left, so I went to see my father at his office a few days later.”
The sadness lacing her words causes a wiggle of anxiety in my gut, so I pull her close and kiss her temple. “And all the conditions?”
She shakes her head against my chest. “My dad didn’t tell my mom until later. His only condition was that I had to pay for my own living expenses, which was way more than fair.”
“Fair,” I agree. “But not easy.” California is an expensive place to live.
She pulls back. “No, not easy. But I was done with easy. And I think my dad had that figured out. He’s a pretty smart guy.”
“Sounds like it. What does he do?” I ask, wondering how one pays for an Ivy League education.
“He’s a lawyer.”
“He must be pretty successful if he pays for you and your sister to go to college.”
She fidgets in her seat, uncomfortable again. “You could say that. He, uh, owns a corporate law firm that handles a lot of Silicon Valley. My two oldest brothers are partners.”
Sitting here, studying the smartest, most beautiful woman I’ve ever met – who currently looks like she’s confessed to something heinous – I can’t keep an ironic grin from my face. I think she’s telling me that her family is loaded.
“So, Opal?”
“Yeah?”
“You and I . . .”
Her brow creases. “You and I what?”
“We’ve got a lot stacked against us, huh? I’m too young for you, too poor for you, too uneducated for you, and I’ve got three too many kids for you.”
She pales a bit. “That’s not true.”
“It’s very true.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying it’s a damn good thing that you’re not into easy anymore.”
She gives me a solid thump on the arm.
“Hey, what was that for?” I rub at the spot dramatically.
“Don’t scare me like that.”
“What? It’s true,” I say with mock innocence, loving the fire in her eyes. “This thing with us isn’t going to be easy.”
“But you still want to try, right?”
I was only teasing, but now I don’t like the uncertainty in her voice. “Come on, El.” I run my fingers into the hair at the back of her neck and squeeze gently. “I want to do more than try. I want you. I want us. Don’t ever doubt that, okay?”
She nods cautiously, like it’s too much to hope for. Then, her eyes flicker to my lips and my dick perks up, taking an interest as if it’s his job to prove to her just how serious I am. Shit, how did the mood change like that?
“Let’s go to my place,” she whispers as I loosen my grip on her.
Oh, yeah. My pants are officially too tight. Let the wincing begin. “That’s not a good idea. I’m trying to do this right.”
“Right by whose standards? Because I’m thinking right involves you taking me home and making me come.”
I make some kind of strangled noise. “I . . . you’re sure?”
“Oh, I’m sure, Scott. I want you inside me more than I want my next breath.”
Ellie
The ride home is tedious in the hottest, most delicious way imaginable. The anticipation is killing me. In between squirming in my seat and wondering if he’d care if I stuck a hand down my jeans to ease the ache, I worry if I’m being too hasty about re-initiating our sex life. My conclusion? I don’t care. If it’s not going to work out between us, then it’s not going to work out. Allowing him to put his hands all over me won’t change that.
At a red light, his gaze rages over me like wild fire. “Stop your wriggling, would you?”
The soft command echoes between my thighs. “Or what?” The idea that we have so much to discover about each other’s sexual boundaries makes me light-headed.
The glare he levels me with is unexpected . . . in the best possible way. It’s like he’s pouring kerosene onto the wild fire, easily burning away the last of my will power. Loosening my clamped-together thighs, I very deliberately lower my hand and press a hard circle into my clit through the denim. I groan at the surge of pleasure.
His firm hand wraps around my thigh, pulling with steady pressure to further splay me open, twisting me slightly in my seat. I meet his eyes as he tells me, “I swear to god if you come in my truck . . .”
He’ll what? I’m desperate for him to finish that thought. But I’m not sure he even knows the answer. Is this assertiveness new for him? More desire pools low in my belly.
A horn honks behind us, but he ignores it, continuing to glower, filling the cab with menace. Goosebumps raise along my arms. “Eyes on the road, Scott,” I taunt. “The sooner we get home and all that.”
The horn sounds again. Still we sit here.
I huff out a disbelieving laugh. “Fine, I’ll keep my hands like this.” I interlace the fingers of both hands and rest them in a parody of a kindergartener between my spread legs. “Happy?”