“I’m sure he has a good reason for evicting her, and if he finds her a great place to rent, then it’s a win-win situation.”
Her jaw drops, I think. I’m too busy focusing on the curves of her breasts.
“I’m sitting astride you naked! How can you kick me out?”
“I’m relocating you, not kicking you out.” I sit up, burying my face in her neck, thinking I should have brought more than one condom. “It’s business, not—”
“I will break your dick off if you use that line on me one more time.”
I chuckle, nipping at her neck while my hands explore the rest of her. “You’re too loud. I’m sorry. It’s just a fact. I have to work. I’ll find you something just as good if not better.”
“Ugh!” She shoves me back and climbs out of bed, leaving me with a dirty condom and a new erection. Slipping on her robe, she gives me a look—a look I don’t trust. “You fire Amanda every day, but she’s still there.” Her voice fades a bit as she disappears out the door. “Can’t you evict me without forcing me to physically leave the building?”
Glancing around her room, I shake my head. She’s a messy creature. Stacks of books on the floor, clothes strewn all around and hanging out half-opened drawers, a guitar in the corner next to a basket of other instruments like she has at her office, and an old turntable on an equally old square table in the corner. I may be in over my head.
“You didn’t answer my question.” She brings in the half of my wardrobe that landed somewhere between the bedroom and the front door.
I slide out of bed, grabbing my briefs on the way to the bathroom. “While Amanda can be annoying at times, she doesn’t prevent me from getting my work done.”
Ellen hands me my pants when I come back into the bedroom. I slip them on, followed by my shirt. Her fingers go to work on the buttons. How could any man deny her touch?
Easing my tie around my neck, she grins. “Is it the noise or is it me?”
I don’t need to wear a tie home at this late hour, but I don’t say anything because I want her this close—touching me, making something as simple as buttoning a shirt and tying a tie feel like a slow seduction. It makes me want to strip down again just to let her dress me.
“Why do I get the feeling you’ve tied a lot of ties?”
Ellen shrugs. “Not really. But I’ve watched my dad do it a million times. He unknowingly taught me many things.” She holds out my jacket for me to slide my arms into it and grabs the lapels, giving them a gentle tug, bringing her chest close to mine. “Flint Hopkins, you sure do look the part.”
Threading my fingers through her hair, I bend down, pressing my lips just below her ear where I can feel her pulse. “What part is that?”
She leans into my touch, drawing in a shaky breath. I don’t need to look at her to know vulnerability bleeds in her eyes like the ocean swelling at high tide. “I’m not sure yet,” she whispers.
Savoring every inch of skin, I kiss my way to her jaw, over her cheek, stopping to hover over her lips. “No?”
She shakes her head.
“Let me know when you figure it out.”
She lifts onto her toes until our lips lock. I kiss her as if I deserve this. I kiss her as if my past doesn’t exist. I kiss her until reality crashes down.
“Goodnight.”
She nods and whispers, “Night.”
*
To my disappointment, the kitchen light is on when I arrive home just after midnight.
“You’d sleep better if you drank coffee in the morning instead of at midnight,” I say to my dad as I loosen my tie.
“Ah, the door to your bedroom was shut, but I had a feeling you snuck out. But I have to say, man to man, I’m a little disappointed you’re already home. She turn you down? You’re evicting her … hell, I’d kick your ass to the curb too.”
I fill a glass with water and sit across from him at the kitchen table.
“Your hair’s a mess, so either she dragged your ass to the curb by your hair or she had her fingers in it for other reasons.” He smirks.
“I’m going to call you ‘Mom’ if you keep making such investigatory statements.”
He sips his coffee, eyeing me with an I-told-you-so look. “Your mom and I like her.”
I nod a few times.
“Harrison likes her.”
Another nod.
“You clearly like her … or at least your hair does.”
I give him my best fuck-you look.
“So what’s the problem?”
“I haven’t told Harrison the truth.”
“So tell him.”
“He’s twelve.”
“He’s smart.”
I shake my head. “He can’t reason it out. Everything is so black and white with him. He won’t forgive me, and I’ll be stuck for the next six years raising a kid who hates me. Some days I’m at my fucking wit’s end trying to keep us from killing each other as it is.”
Dad unfolds from his chair with the grace of pulling an old wagon up a hill. “Maybe Ellen will wait a decade for Harrison to reach the age of reason.”
His sarcasm doesn’t help. When I’m with her, it’s easy to pretend that I deserve her. It’s easy to imagine allowing her into my life because Harrison likes her. That’s the very reason this feels so wrong. If we don’t work out, he loses her. I took one woman from him. I can’t do it again.
“Stop overthinking it.” He pours the rest of his coffee into the sink and rests his fatherly hand on my shoulder. “Just say fuck it and see what happens. We could all die tomorrow, so thank the big man upstairs that a sexy woman ran her hands through your hair tonight.”
After the last stair whines beneath his weight, I close my eyes and wonder if people living in my special Hell are allowed a fuck-it pass in life.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Ellen
“You look awful, chipper. How’s your arm?” Dr. Hamilton grins as the elevator doors close.
“It’s all healed. And I’m always chipper.” I watch the digital display as the numbers increase. I feel her eyes on me.
“You’re humming a little louder than you normally do.”
I glance over at her. “You notice me humming?”
She chuckles. “Everyone does. We grumble our way through the day, you hum. You need to tell me what you’re putting in your morning coffee. I could use some.”
I have a shot of Flint in my coffee this morning, but I don’t know how I feel about sharing him.
“That smile is going to break your face. Would it have anything to do with a certain neighbor of mine?”
The elevator doors open and I step off. “You’ll never know.”
As I make my way to my first appointment, a cancer patient going through chemotherapy, I shoot off a text to Flint.
ME: Good morning. : )
Just as I go to open the door to the room, my phone vibrates.
FLINT: Good morning.
I grin, slipping my phone into my pocket. If he regretted last night, he would have ignored my text.
The high from those two words makes my morning breeze by with the exception of Alex calling me twice; both times I let it go to voicemail, but he doesn’t leave a message. I gave him everything, and now I owe him nothing.