“Elliot,” I stammer. “What are you doing?”
“I said. Get. Your. Fucking. Hands. Off. Her,” Elliot sneers through gritted teeth.
Daniel smiles sarcastically, totally unruffled; he raises an eyebrow. “What’s your fucking problem?”
“You are.”
Holy crap. I pull out of Daniel’s grip, this is a nightmare. I glance around to see that people are noticing the commotion.
Elliot steps forward until they come face to face.
I step between them, my back to Daniel. “Will you stop it?” I whisper.
“Get out of my way, Kathryn,” Elliot whispers angrily.
“Go home, pretty boy, she’s here with me,” Daniel whispers.
Elliot’s nostrils flare as he teeters on the edge of a complete meltdown.
“Will you two stop it?” I whisper. “Elliot, I want to talk to you . . . outside.”
His eyes stay glued to Daniel, like a cobra ready to strike.
What the hell?
“Now, Elliot.” I grab his hand and pull him back from Daniel. “We need to talk.”
He ignores me.
“Now.” I drag him through the crowd and out of the back doors and onto the terrace. I pull him over into the corner. His hands are clenched by his sides. Fury is oozing out of him like a volcano.
“What the hell are you doing?” I whisper angrily.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he growls. “You ended it with me . . . for him?”
“No. Who said we were ended?”
“I’m not fucking stupid, Kate, he’s all over you like a rash.” He drags his hand through his hair as he grapples for control.
“We’re just friends,” I whisper.
“With benefits.”
“No.” I throw my hands up in disgust. “Me and you are friends with benefits.”
“You left out the dramatics part.”
“What? You spoke to me like crap,” I snap. “And for your information, you’re the one that wanted casual.”
“With no other fucking people,” he interrupts.
“Oh, you can go home with Varuscka but I can’t live with him?”
“It was a fucking lift and nothing more.”
I roll my eyes. “The jury is still out on that one.”
“Does he sneak upstairs whenever he’s horny?” He nods as if picturing something. “I’m getting the full picture now. Of course, that’s it.”
“Listen.” I poke him hard in the chest. “If you want to spend time with me, act like a grownup and not a fucking petulant child.”
“What?” he explodes loudly; people around us all turn to see what the commotion is.
“Keep your voice down,” I whisper angrily. “Where’s the swoony guy who took me out?”
He holds his hands out wide. “I’m right fucking here, Kate.”
“No. You’re not. You’re being Elliot Miles on me, the power-hungry control freak, and I don’t like him. I’ve never liked him.”
“I can’t change who I am.”
“I’m not asking for a marriage proposal, Elliot. I’m not even asking for a full-on relationship.”
“What are you asking for?”
I stare at him for a moment as I collect my thoughts. I know I can get hurt here, it’s a real possibility, but I’m sick of being scared of feeling something . . . anything. And even if this ends badly, I won’t have the what-if regrets that I already do.
Fuck it, I’m going to try.
I have to.
“I want you to give us a chance, and not be an asshole every time you get scared,” I whisper softly. I need to cool this situation down.
“I’m not scared,” he spits.
“Bullshit.” I take his hand in mine. “Stop trying to hide from me, Elliot. I can see straight through you.”
He snaps his eyes away from me, infuriated. “I don’t want him touching you.”
“Okay.”
His eyes meet mine.
“Elliot . . . I don’t want to end this . . . whatever this is,” I whisper. “I’d like to see where it goes, but I don’t want you making me feel like shit every time you’re having a bad day.”
A frown crosses his brow.
“Can we just see how it goes, and you not be an asshole for two minutes?” I ask.
“I told you, I can’t change who I am.”
I think he may just be the world’s worst communicator. Empathy fills me and I stand up on my tippy toes and softly kiss him; he frowns against me as if surprised.
“I’m not a plumber, Kate,” he murmurs as he puts his hands on my hips.
“But you are very good with my pipes.”
“Well . . .” He gives me a slow, sexy smile and I know that for the moment, my tiger has been tamed. “They are great pipes to work with.”
“Can we go home?” I whisper.
“What about your date?” he replies flatly.
“Daniel?” I shrug. “I’ll handle him. He just needs someone to walk into a venue with, he’ll pick up a gorgeous woman in about ten minutes flat. You don’t need to worry about Daniel, Elliot, he is the last of your worries with me. I’ve seen him pick up women a million times. I promise you, we really are just friends.”
A trace of a smile crosses his face and I know he liked that answer. “If he baits me again, it’s on.”
“Okay.” I smile up at the mercurial man before me. “I’ll talk to him.”
“I just moved house today.” He shrugs. “I’m not sorted yet; my house is full of boxes.”
“That’s fine.” I smile. “I don’t care if we sleep on the floor.”
“Who said anything about sleep?” he says as he raises an eyebrow.
I smile up at him and he takes me into his arms and hugs me, and it’s tight and tender and full of unexpected emotion.
Maybe we really do have something here?
“Meet me out the front in ten minutes?” I ask. “I just need to go and say goodbye.”
He pulls back and keeps my hand tightly gripped in his.
“I’m coming out in ten minutes, tops,” I reassure him.
He exhales heavily, and I know he doesn’t want me to go back inside to Daniel.
“Elliot.”
“Fine. You have five minutes.”
I kiss him quickly and make my way back into the auction room. Daniel has moved and I look around. Where is he?
I find him talking to a group of women in the corner, and I smile. I wasn’t lying before to Elliot, he really does very well in the hook-up department. He glances up, sees me, and excuses himself.
“Hi.”
“Thank God you got rid of that fuckwit,” he whispers.
“Um . . .” I frown. “About that.”
He rolls his eyes. “Don’t tell me.”
“We just need to talk.”
“With body fluid? Come on, Kate.”
“Stop it, I want to see where this goes.”
“Why?”
“Because he makes me forget who I am, Daniel, and when I’m with him, I’m not sad Kathryn any more. For the first time in years, I feel like my old self. I need you to be my friend and support me in this.”
“For God’s sake,” he mutters under his breath. “He’s a psycho.”
“Maybe.” I shrug. “Are you okay if I go?”
“Fine,” he snaps. “Fuck off then.”
I smile.
He kisses me on the cheek. “Bye.”
“Are you sure?”
He widens his eyes. “Positive.”
“See you at home?”
“Yeah.” Daniel turns back to his conversation with the girls, fully distracted. I let out a sigh of relief and, with nerves swirling around in my stomach, I turn toward the door.
I walk out of the front door and look around, see the black Mercedes double-parked. I cross the road and go around to the passenger side, the lock clicks open, and I get in, and because of his close proximity my mood instantly changes from anxious to excited in two seconds flat. “Hi,” I whisper.
He stares over at me and the air crackles between us.
“You piss me off,” he says.
I smile softly. There’s the bossy man I know.
“And I’m not taking your crap, Elliot, don’t ask me to. It won’t fly with me.”
He goes to say something and I cut him off.
“Shut up and kiss me.”
He grabs my face and pulls me to him; his tongue takes no prisoners as it swipes through my open lips. His grip is dominant and hot and . . . oh . . . “You pissed me off,” he repeats.
“What are you going to do about it,” I murmur against his lips.
His grip on my face tightens, his teeth graze my bottom lip. “You’ll see.” He pulls out into the traffic and revs the car hard as he takes off at speed. I look between him and the road as I swallow the lump in my throat.
Fuck.
I think I’m in for one hell of a night.
What seems like a long time later we are somewhere in the country. “This is where your new house is?” I frown.
“Uh-huh.” He nods, his eyes staying glued to the road.
“When did you move here?” He told me about buying a new place but I never asked where it was.
“Today.”
“So, this is your first night here?”
“Yep.”
“Oh.” I try to hide my goofy smile; I like that I get to spend his first night here with him. He turns off the main road and we see a stone sign, although I can’t make out what it says. “Is this your road?”
“This is my driveway.”
“Your driveway?” I gasp. “All this land is yours? Holy hell, Elliot.”
A trace of a smile crosses his face as we wind up the hill on the small road. I can’t see much because it’s so dark, but there are loads of trees in the headlights.
“This is only temporary,” he says, his eyes still on the road.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m going to live in the house for a few months as it is, work out what works and what doesn’t, and then renovate or rebuild. It’s very”—he pauses as if searching for the right word—“original, in its current state.”
“I like original.”
“I like you,” he fires back as his eyes flick over.
I smile. “I like you too.”
He reaches over and runs his hand up my thigh. “You can show me just how much in a minute.” He slides his hand under my dress and rubs the backs of his fingers over my sex.
And there he is, the bona fide sex maniac that I know so well. “If you behave,” I whisper.
He lets out a deep chuckle and I look out of the windshield, and my eyes widen in shock. “This is your new house?”
“Yes.” He pulls the car into a large circular parking area and turns the car off.
“Holy shit, Elliot.”
He leans over and kisses me. “Come.” He gets out and opens my door, and takes my hand and leads me up to the veranda of the grand house.
It’s huge and like something out of a movie, and it’s pitch-black inside.
“Put your phone light on for me.”
I fumble with my phone and put the flashlight on and shine it on the door.
He takes a set of keys out of his pocket and, in the distance, I hear the sounds of animals in the fields that surround us. I look out into the deserted darkness. It’s a little bit scary out here, if I’m honest.
He puts one key in and it doesn’t turn, so he tries another. “Fucking keys,” he whispers.
I smile as I watch him struggle; so unlike him to not know how to do something.
“Do you want me to try?” I ask.
“No,” he snaps. “I’m perfectly capable of working a lock, Kathryn.”
“But are you?”
He glances up, unimpressed.
I giggle and hold my hands up playfully. “Okay. Sorry, boss.”
He struggles with the key and I run my hand down his back and over his tight ass. “That’s more like it,” he mutters as he keeps trying. “Keep doing that.” He fumbles some more. “Why are there so many fucking keys on this ring?” He jiggles the huge door with force.
“You must have a lot of doors.”
“That are about to be kicked in,” he snaps in frustration. The door finally gives way, and he pushes it open. It lets out a long, slow creak as it swings and I shine my phone light inside.
“Where are the light switches?” I ask.
“Who knows?” He takes my hand and leads me inside. “Shine the flashlight on the walls.”
I giggle as I do as I’m told. This is so unexpected. “There they are. Next to the door, imagine that?”
Elliot flicks them on and the room is brought into the light. I look around at the grandeur and my mouth falls open.
“Elliot,” I gasp.
“You like?” He smiles softly as he looks around.
“Oh my God, I love.” I look around in awe. “This is incredible.”
I turn back to see Elliot staring at me intently, and my heart constricts. I wasn’t lying before, I don’t know what this is between us.
But it makes me feel everything.
The good, the bad, and the ugly . . . but mostly, alive.
I twist my fingers in front of me. “Thank you for inviting me to stay here on your first night . . . it means a lot.”
“Well.” He shrugs casually. “I need someone to use as a shield, on account of the ghosts.”
I giggle and step toward him and he takes me into his arms, and we kiss.
Ever so gently, he melts toward me. The emotion bounces between us like an echo.
And I know it shouldn’t, but this feels real.
A frown crosses his brow, and he pushes the hair back from my forehead as he looks down at me. He presses his lips together as if stopping himself from saying something out loud.
Why does he do that?
“Do you need to eat . . . or?”
“I don’t know what I need anymore,” he whispers as he stares at me.
“I do.” I take his hand and lead him toward the stairs. “Where is your bedroom?” I ask.
“Upstairs somewhere, I have no fucking clue.”
I giggle and he pulls me back by the hand and I slam into his body, and he kisses me.
Hard and urgent and the emotion behind it tears my heart wide open.
He leads me up the grand double-width staircase, and when we get to the top, it falls into pitch-black darkness again. “Are there really ghosts here?” I whisper.
“Relax, nothing’s as scary as you.”
I scare him . . . I knew it.
I’m not imagining it, there is something here between us.
“I think my room is this way.”
“You really don’t know where your room is?” I laugh.
“The removalists put my bed up for me while I went to the art auction. I was only here for half an hour before I had to go.”
I giggle and we turn right and walk down to the end of the hall. He flicks the light on and a huge bedroom comes into view. It has ornate ceilings and beautiful original chandeliers, bay windows with window seats and so much character I could die. There is a large timber four-poster bed in the middle. This place looks as if it’s straight out of a romance movie.
“It’s a little dated,” he murmurs, and it’s apparent he’s uncomfortable with it the way that it is. He’s used to having the best of everything at his fingertips.
I gasp. “Are you kidding, it’s incredible.”
He walks me backward to the bed, and lifts my dress over my shoulders and throws it to the side. Silence falls between us as his eyes drift down my body. I can feel the heat as his gaze sears my skin.
I stand before him in my underwear, vulnerable and at his disposal, and when his eyes rise to mine, they are blazing with desire.
“Did you miss me?” I ask.
He takes my face in his hands and kisses me deeply, uninhibited and wild.
We kiss again and again and I feel his hard length as it pushes up against my stomach.
He can hide his emotions from me all he wants . . . but his body doesn’t lie.
It can’t, he has nowhere to hide.
Literally.
As we kiss, he takes my bra off and then slides down my panties, his hands roaming all over me as his kiss deepens. He grabs my behind and lifts me to rub me over his hard cock.
His breathing becomes labored, and holy hell . . . how this man makes me feel.
I don’t know if I’ve ever been with a man who physically affects me this way.
I take his shirt off over his head and then undo his jeans, and our tongues dance together.
The arousal between us is at fever pitch.
I slide his pants down and his cock springs free. He smiles against my lips and I give an excited giggle as he picks me up and my legs go around his waist.
We fall down onto the bed as we keep kissing, his body cradled in between my legs, and he slides his length through my wet flesh.
He stares down at me and I smile up at him in awe.
The tip of him slowly slides in and my breath catches as I lift my legs.
He closes his eyes and pulls out.
“What are you doing?” I stammer.
“Condom.”
“No, El.”
“Stop,” he snaps as he climbs off me.
He’s lost trust in me.
Back to square one, fuck.
He fumbles through his wallet and pulls out two condoms and I watch as he rolls one on, and when he turns back to me his demeanor has changed. My sweet El isn’t here anymore.
Elliot Miles, the hard-ass fucking machine has arrived.
Not that I’m complaining, I love him too.
He lies over me, and instead of the intimacy we shared only moments ago, he lifts my legs so that my knees are up near his shoulders. With dark eyes he rubs the tip of his cock back and forth through my wet lips.
“You want this?” he whispers.
I nod, unable to answer.
“Answer me,” he barks.
“Yes,” I whimper.
Satisfaction flickers in his eyes and he pushes himself in. Hard and unapologetic, my body struggles to take him. He pushes harder. Pinning me to the mattress.
I whimper again and he turns and kisses my knee, his tongue softly lapping at me. “Open,” he commands in a whisper against my skin.
“I’m trying.” I wince.
He pushes forward again and rotates his hips. “Try harder.”
A flutter of arousal shimmers through the sting and I smile softly. “That’s it.”
He rotates his hips again and my back arches off the bed in approval.
“Yes . . .” I pant. He pulls out and pushes back in and I moan. “Oh God.”
My body floods with moisture, allowing him to go deep, and he smiles darkly. “That’s it, baby, open up. Let me in.” He rearranges my legs over his shoulders and turns and softly kisses my foot.
Watching the intimate act brings a flutter to my heart.
He’s right here with me, I know he is.
He pulls out and slides back in deep, my body sucks him in, she’s ready to go.
He rotates his hips and I shudder deep inside.
Nobody fucks like Elliot Miles, he was born to do this.
The master.
He begins to ride me hard and deep and I close my eyes as I run my hands up and down his muscular back; I can feel every ripple on his torso.
His lips are on my neck, at my ear. His breath makes goosebumps scatter up my spine. The burn of his possession is sending shockwaves through my blood, and he pulls out and moves down my body, his thick tongue swiping through my wet flesh.
Oh fuck.
I’ve never been with a man who does this before: he goes down on me in the middle of sex, he loves it.
I love it.
It drives me fucking wild.
He holds me open and licks me up like I’m his last meal, and the look of pure ecstasy on his face brings a smile to my face.
Elliot Miles doesn’t go down on a woman for her pleasure.
He does it for his, and I’ve never seen or felt something so fucking hot in my life.
He lifts my legs and really begins to eat me, my body convulsing at the burn of his stubble.
My back arches off the bed and I slam hard into a freight train of an orgasm, my entire body convulsing, and in one sharp movement he’s flipped me onto my stomach and dragged me up onto my knees.
He slides in deep and then . . . he lets me have it with both barrels.
Hard, thick pumps, the sound of our skin slapping together is loud and echoing throughout the room. His grip on my hip bones is almost painful, the burn of his cock working at piston pace is out-of-this-world good.
Fuck . . . this is what sex is supposed to be like.
Hot, hard, and sweaty.
Where the rules are: there are no rules.
He pushes my shoulders down onto the mattress, changing my position, and then he begins to moan. Deep, low, and guttural.
He’s lost control now, his body taking on its own agenda to feed.
Taking what it needs from my body.
Thick and hard . . . Elliot Miles is a hell of a lot to take.
“Fuck me,” he growls. “Fuck me harder.”
I clench as hard as I can and his knees nearly go from underneath him, and he cries out as he holds himself deep. I feel the jerk of his cock deep inside of me.
I face-plant into the mattress as I come again, and he slowly moves to completely empty his body into mine.
We come back to earth and he falls over me, our bodies wet with perspiration. I can feel his heart as it hammers alongside mine.
“The bed works,” he pants.
I smile sleepily, completely spent. “I’ll say.”
I wake to the feeling of the bed dipping as Elliot gets out of bed, and smile as I stretch.
Wow, what a night.
I hear Elliot go to the bathroom and I doze for a few minutes. I hear him going through an overnight bag and I sit up onto my elbows. “What are you doing?”
“I’m fucking starving,” he mutters as he digs through his bag. “We didn’t eat last night.”
“Well. We did.”
“I mean food, Kate.”
I sit up. “I’ll make us breakfast.”
“There’s no food to cook.”
“Shit.”
He grabs my hand and pulls me out of bed. “Come on, we’ll go get something.”
“Okay.” I go to the bathroom and come out to find that he has gone downstairs. I throw on his button-up shirt and make my way down.
“What is that?” I hear him mutter as he opens the curtains in the living room.
I can hear a strange sound, like hail hitting a window or something.
I frown as I try to focus. “What’s that noise?”
He looks around. “I don’t know.”
We walk through the house, opening the curtains as we go from room to room. “Is something in the walls?”
His eyes widen in horror. “Like what?”
“I don’t know, rats?”
“What?” he barks. “Surely fucking not.”
As we walk toward the back of the house it gets louder and louder.
Elliot’s holding his hands out as if pre-empting an attack of some sort and I smile as we get closer to a huge curtain, which must be covering a sliding door.
“What the hell is out there?” he whispers, wide-eyed.
“I don’t know.”
He peers through the crack in the curtain and then stands up as if disgusted.
“What is it?”
“Ducks.”
“Huh?”
He flicks open the curtain and I see a group of ducks all pecking at the glass like maniacs. They appear frantic and are jumping over each other to get to us.
“What are they doing?” I frown.
Elliot opens the door in a rush. “Fuck off, ducks,” he snaps.
They jump over his feet and run inside.
“What the hell?” he cries.
They run through the house with their wings up in the air, squawking loudly.
“What are you doing?” Elliot screams.
I burst out laughing.
“Get out of my house!” he yells as they all jump up at him. “What the fuck are they doing?”
They are so loud and making such a commotion.
It’s him they want, they’re all jumping up at him, and he storms outside and they all run after him. “Fuck off,” he cries as he tries to get away from them. “Call somebody.”
I tip my head back and laugh loud. “Who do I call?”
The sight of Elliot Miles running down the pathway with a bunch of ducks chasing him is simply too much and I nearly fall over as I laugh hard.
“This isn’t fucking funny, Kathryn,” he yells, and he kicks out to try and move them and they squawk louder. “Fuck off, ducks!”
