Singe (14 page)

Eli points. The bathroom in this place isn’t too bad, at least, the walls and fixtures done up in plain, renters’ white. It’s clean. “There are towels,” he offers. “Although, I guess—you’ll want a new one, huh?”

He’s pleased with that stab at domesticity, but Addie’s face stays impassive. “Little late to worry about your germs,” is all she says, sitting down on his floor to yank off her boots. She strips her socks too, balling them up inside for safekeeping. Her toes are as pink and clean as her mouth. “Okay.” She pushes herself to her feet, looking at him expectantly. “Let’s go.”

Oh.
Oh
.

She turns on her heel and starts walking before Eli can do anything dumb, like let his mouth drop open or, God forbid, ask, “What do you mean?” Instead he follows her up the hallway and into the bathroom, giving it a critical once-over. The tile slopes a little, cracking near the walls, but other than that. Even the weird anti-suicide windows look okay in here, high up the wall and tiny for privacy.

Addie glances around the room and sighs.

“You’re divorced all right,” she pronounces, fingering his towels. Without her boots, she’s small enough to tuck under Eli’s chin.

“It’s not that bad,” he protests. Months of one-night stands, and he’s never brought a woman home with him. He guesses he knew it would hurt his chances.

“It
really
is,” Addie says, stripping her station T-shirt over her head. She’s got a plain cotton sports bra on underneath, black and thick-banded; she smells sweatier with her top off, and it makes Eli want to lick her all over. “Come on,” she says, when she catches him staring dumbly. “We can tell them there was a paperwork glitch or something, but it’s not like we’ve got all day.”

A paperwork—
fuck
, she premeditated. Eli feels his dick jump inside his pants. “Right.” He yanks his own shirt off and starts the shower, just tepid. It’s warm in here. When he looks back she’s tugging at the elastic on the sports bra, breasts tumbling out like something out of a high school fantasy, if his high school fantasy was short and Roman Catholic and possibly hated him a little. Jesus, her body is his favorite body. As soon as Eli thinks it he realizes it’s true.

“Addie—” he starts, wanting to tell her things: that he’s sorry about the blonde girl at the bar, that he used to have a brother and it makes him stupid at fires sometimes. Instead he gets his palm on the back of her skull and kisses her, free hand on the sweaty curve of her rib cage. Addie makes a quiet sound at the back of her throat.

“In the shower,” she mumbles. “Come on.”

Eli doesn’t argue, reaching for the button on her work pants. He’s only ever had her naked the one time. She’s just as surprising as he remembers, the sudden dip of her waist, ass flexing as she steps into the tub. Eli doesn’t think there’s a straight line to be found on her entire body.

“You just gonna stand there?” Addie demands, tilting her head back into the spray. Her curly hair triples in length like a magician’s scarf, flattening against her scalp. Her nipples are very, very pink.

Eli exhales slowly and forces himself to stop thinking about arson and tiny dead bodies, the smell of gasoline. “Nope,” he says, more to himself than anyone else. “Move over.”

Chapter Nine

Even with Eli standing behind her in the shower, getting handsy with her boobs while he rubs himself against her ass, Addie is still half-certain he’s about to drop dead. She knows about smoke inhalation, has been drilled on its dangers since she was a little kid. She wants to slice his chest open, crack apart his ribs and peer at his lungs herself, verify that they’re pink and sound. She’d work her way up to his esophagus next, slice it lengthwise and check for burns. Then, maybe, she would be satisfied.

“Sorry,” Eli says as she reaches mechanically for the soap. “I only have guy’s stuff.”

Addie brings the bar to her nose and sniffs, getting a deep breath of chemical garbage that’s supposed to smell like mountain springs. She’s lathering it up anyhow when Eli reaches up from behind her and takes it out of her hand.

“Let me,” he murmurs, the words vibrating against the base of her neck, this low delicious hum. “Come on, Addie, let me.” He rubs the bar between her shoulder blades and down her spine, over one hipbone and down between her legs. He’s so, so hard. When she turns around to face him, he’s burning hot against her stomach.

“Are you good?” Addie can’t keep herself from asking. Water runs down her cheeks and into the corners of her mouth. “Are you sure you can breathe? Are you good?”

Eli looks surprised, like it’s occurring to him for the first time how badly he rattled her. “I’m fine, princess,” he promises, then palms down her slippery breasts, her nipples puckered up under his hands. “I’m better than fine. I’m perfect.” He grins, impish. “If I knew this is what I needed to do to get you to like me again, I would have cowboyed up a long time ago.”

“Don’t joke,” Addie orders, shaking her head and tipping her face up so he’ll kiss her. “I don’t like you.” She’s frowning, too hard. She can’t seem to make herself stop long enough to fit her lips against his.

“Hey, hey.” Eli pulls back, cupping her face. “I’m okay. Everyone’s okay.” His gaze is warm and understanding, rubbing away the streaming water with both thumbs. Addie wants to claw his compassionate eyes out.

She twists away, frowning harder. “Only because you got lucky. You weren’t smart or brave. Everyone’s okay because you have a generous effing guardian angel, not because you’re a good firefighter.” She makes herself breathe, snorting water up her nose and sputtering inelegantly. “I was stuck on top of the
engine,
Eli. I couldn’t even do anything.”

Eli’s brow furrows. “You were managing the hoses,” he says, petting her cheek. Addie wonders what he was like in school. She bets he was one of those kids who would take a reading comprehension passage and be able to tell you that the dog was brown, but not that it was sad the bear stole its ice cream.

“Yeah.” She scrubs at her face with both hands. Her hair is going to be murder after this, his cheap anti-dandruff shampoo and no conditioner. “I was. Come here.”

Eli comes eagerly, hands running up her sides to cup her breasts again. Addie arches her back, swallowing as he tweaks her nipples. Already she’s aching. She’s furious and exhausted and aching, and she’s not sure she knows how to have sex standing up in a shower.

“I’ll make you like me,” Eli whispers, nosing down toward her ear. He bites her there, in the soft, good spot right before her hairline starts. Addie shivers. “I’ll wear you down. I’m a likable guy.”

“Who told you that?” Addie mutters, but the tone doesn’t really get across because he’s reaching down between her legs with one hand and opening her up and
God
she’s so slippery, she wants him so insanely much. She’s never wanted somebody like this before, she can’t control it. It doesn’t feel like a smart thing.

Eli, unsurprisingly, isn’t worried about what’s smart and what isn’t. “
Addie
,” he mutters into her jawline, sliding a curious finger deep inside and curling it. Addie squirms impatiently for more. “Jesus, princess. I missed you.”

“Okay.” That’s enough of
that
. The last thing she needs is for him to get all fake feelings-y with her, Eli with his million girlfriends and his
let me take you on a date
. “How do we—” She breaks off, motioning nervously between them. He’s a whole lot taller than she is. “I mean, how do you want to—?” They need a condom, she realizes belatedly. Shower or not, she’s going to insist—

“You clean?” Eli asks, like he’s reading her mind. Addie blinks at him, taken aback and a little offended until she realizes he means, like, soap-and-shampoo-wise, reaching around her to shut the shower off. He offers her a steadying hand as she climbs out of the tub. After a second’s hesitation, Addie takes it.

She lets him dry them both off too, with his purple man-cave towels that don’t show stains. When Eli rubs the terry cloth over her face, it smells like soap and dirty cotton. “There,” he says, stooping to do her legs. “All done, princess.”

“Gonna do the fireman’s carry again?” Addie asks when he keeps kneeling, fluffing through his damp hair. His shoulders are shiny and scarred, the discoloration extending down his back. The more Addie looks at his burns, the more she’s convinced he wasn’t wearing turnout gear when he got them. “Or is that more of a one-and-done kind of thing?”

Eli noses across her belly, mouthing over the hair between her legs. His tongue presses in and Addie’s hips jump, an involuntary squeak. Eli laughs.

“Dunno,” he says, standing up in a rush and grabbing her under her ass, all rough, uncareful hands. “Let’s try it this way, see how we do.”

Addie winds her legs around him automatically. “Hey now,” she says, but she’s smiling. He’s such a bro. Dumb, firefighter bro. She reaches down between them as they’re walking, gives him a squeeze. Eli grins back.

His bedroom is more of the same, mattress and box spring with no headboard and a blue-and-green plaid duvet that looks like it belongs in a freshman dorm. There’s a small flat screen TV on the bureau, a couple of books, not a single photo to be found. For the first time it occurs to Addie to wonder about Eli’s family, if he’s got one. For some reason she doesn’t think he’s from around here.

She’s not about to ask him now though, as he’s dumping her naked onto his bed and just
looking
, the same way he did the first time on her futon. His gaze flickers everywhere at once. At first it makes Addie kind of self-conscious—how her stomach’s not as flat as it could be, nothing blonde or bird-like about her at all—but then she opens her legs to show him
everything
, arms sliding up underneath the pillows above her head. Eli growls.

He gets his knees up on the bed and hovers over her, handsome scarred-up body still shower-damp. “You are so fucking pretty, Manzella,” he tells her, ducking his head to suck at the side of her breast. “You wanna get on top, let me keep looking at you?”

Addie shakes her head. It’s not the looking she minds—she’s rounded the corner into liking it, is the truth—but she’s just, she’s thought about this, and she wants to see if she can—if he’s—

“Stay up there,” she says bossily. She butterflies her legs out even farther, rocking her hips. “And hurry up.”

Eli whistles, tweaking a nipple. “Yes, ma’am.” He kisses her knee, then leans over to root around in the bureau, holding up the box of condoms like a prize. Addie snorts.

“Slow, right?” he asks eagerly when he’s on top of her again, one hand cupping her ass. “I’ll go real slow.”

Addie nods, remembering the stretch. Her whole body feels nervous and heavy and coiled, like it’s waiting for the starter’s gun. The tip of the latex drags against her thigh as they get situated, leaving behind a slippery trail.

Eli isn’t waiting. Instead he’s lining himself up, sliding two fingers in to rub for a brief second, and then there’s the push, thick and sudden. He goes faster than Addie would have, enough that it hurts a little. But she doesn’t stop him and then he’s in, all the way deep with pressure everywhere. Addie’s so wet she’s making a mess of herself.

“Good?” Eli asks, leaning in and kissing her neck. He remembered to pause, holding himself still. Already it feels nice, the angle, maybe. Addie remembers liking it like this with Big Y Anthony too. That’s why she thought she might be able to—

“Yeah,” she tells Eli, wiggling. She should have snuck her hand down between them before he got on top and pressed their bellies tight together. She could brazen her way through it, she guesses, just push at his shoulders until he gets the message and gives her room, but Big Y Anthony was kind of weird about it when she did that, like possibly he was offended that she’d want to. And like, yes, who cares about Big Y Anthony, Addie gets that, but—

“Touch yourself.” That’s Eli, one hand in her hair and completely not emasculated by the idea, apparently—the opposite, if Addie had to guess. He lifts himself up just a little, taking a detour to nip at the thin skin of her upper arm. “Come on, princess, wanna see how you do it when you’re alone.”

Well. Addie grins at him, she can’t help it—and sure, probably you can afford to be easy and casual about sex if you have it with every woman in a thirty-mile radius, but. Just like that her whole body relaxes for real. She fits her fingers down where she wants them and lets out a sharp, quiet noise when Eli starts to move, slowly to start. He’s a lot bigger than Big Y Anthony, that is a fact.

“When we have more time, I wanna watch you,” he tells her, dark eyes and all the frat-boy joking totally gone from his voice. “What do you think, would you let me do that?” His voice makes it sound like the best thing in the world.

Addie inhales. She thinks about spreading her legs on the bed a few minutes ago so he could look, imagines taking it a step further. Reaching down, pulling herself open, showing herself off. Rubbing how she likes, as fast as she likes, maybe bending both legs all the way back so he could see—

“That’s it, baby,” Eli hums as she clenches on him. “Like that, just like that.”

Addie takes a breath and realizes how close she is, closer than she’s
ever
been in this position. It’s so shocking that it actually cools her down some, the sheer surprise. She’s
never
—

“Might let me, huh?” Eli continues obliviously, biting at her jaw. “Like being watched?” His hips are going now for real, the hand on her ass encouraging her to rock.