Singe (18 page)

My ex-wife used to read Cosmo ironically
feels like the wrong kind of opener here.

“See, now you
have
to let me try again,” is what he settles on.

To his surprise, Addie cackles through the door. “What, is this a point of pride now?” she asks. “Never leave a woman behind, et cetera?”

Eli thinks about lab tech Karen and how he let her fake it on her wide Pottery Barn couch. “Not women,” he says. “Just you.” The stretch of hallway between the bathroom and the kitchen is devoted to pictures from Addie’s childhood. The one Eli really likes is up by the light switch, toddler Addie in David Manzella’s huge black fire boots. He can just see the bottom of the frame from this angle. “Come on, baby, come out. I gotta take a leak.”

Addie sighs. After a moment the door squeaks and she’s sitting beside him. “It’s not that weird. Sometimes I just can’t.”

Eli nods in a way he hopes is normal. She wrapped herself in a towel, which he guesses isn’t surprising. “Okay. And when you’re alone, can you…” He’s not quite sure how to phrase that question. His dick is still stupidly hard.

Addie makes a face like he’s insulted her womanhood. “Of course, oh my God.”

Eli smirks. “So. How do you do it then?”

“Like everyone else!” Her ears are seashell-pink and annoyed. “Jeez.”

Eli thinks about that for a second. “Do you have a vibrator?” he asks.

“Oh
God
,” Addie says again, rolling her eyes and flopping backwards onto the carpet with a flourish, careful not to lose the towel. Eli can see everything shift anyway, her body rearranging itself appealingly, spreading out a little. He wants her like all hell. “Yes, okay? I’m modern.” She frowns at him. “I thought you had to pee.”

Eli ignores her. “Where is it?” he asks.

Addie licks her bottom lip, looking uncertain. “In a flatiron box under the futon,” she says suspiciously. “I threw away the flatiron, it didn’t work on my hair.” Then, “
Why
?”

In a flatiron—Jesus Christ, this girl. Eli absolutely one hundred percent doesn’t laugh. “Wait here,” he tells her instead and goes into the living room to get it.

Addie sighs noisily. “Eli,” she says, but she doesn’t sit up or stop him. “This is stupid.”

Eli doesn’t think it’s stupid at all.

It’s right where she said it would be, the box tucked behind some board games and a forest of cat hair and dust bunnies. It’s blue. “Are you
serious
?” Addie asks, when he comes back into the hallway. She’s still lying there, knees just slightly bent and the dark polish on her toes standing out against the carpet. Her hair is a crazy halo around her face.

“Yeah,” Eli says. “I am.” It’s one of those smooth silicone things, space-age and unassuming, like if the second robot from
Wall-e
was a vibrator. “Come on. You gonna let me?”

Addie sighs. Her knees swing back and forth.

Chapter Eleven

This is embarrassing,
Addie thinks, staring up at the ceiling.

“Eli.” He’s opened up her big bath towel so it’s spread out underneath them like a picnic blanket, the terry cloth soft against her back. Still, Addie can’t shake the feeling that she’s in the stirrups at her yearly physical. “Eli, come on. This is stupid.”

“No, it isn’t.” He’s flipped the thing on and cycled through the settings about six times. They’re far enough away from the AC unit that the whirring noise is really, really obvious. “Open up a bit,” he says, drawing a buzzy line across her thigh.

Addie huffs, letting her knees fall apart a few inches. “I feel dumb,” she tells the speckled ceiling. Eli moves the toy higher, and she jumps. “Jesus.” Just like that, nothing about this feels remotely clinical.

Eli smiles. “That’s hot,” he says matter-of-factly, trying it again. Addie gasps, hips arching to chase the feeling, heels digging into the carpet. Eli hums. “Yeah?” he asks, running it over her clit and then lower, this insane tease she can feel all the way up her spine and down into her tailbone. Addie squeezes her eyes shut. God, she really, really can’t believe she’s letting him do this.

Really can’t believe it’s
working
.

“There,” she manages, grabbing for his shoulder. He’s parked between her thighs to watch the whole proceeding, can probably feel every single twitch. “Yeah, okay, right there, please don’t stop, I—” Addie breaks off, sinking her teeth into her bottom lip and concentrating. It
is
hot, shit, he’s not wrong, knowing he can see everything. Letting him do it to her anyway.

“Not stopping.” Eli reaches up to pluck at her nipple, gentle. “Not gonna stop.” He keeps the vibe on her clit where she needs it, slides two careful fingers inside. “How’s that?”

“Good,” Addie says, arching against the sudden fullness. Already she’s too far gone for embarrassment. God, she’s never done anything like this with anyone else in her entire life. “Eli,
please
.”

“Fuck, princess.” Eli turns his head to suck at her thigh, the gratifying sting as his teeth sink into the soft, thin skin there. He clicks the thing up a notch, and Addie keens. “Talk to me, okay? Will you try and talk to me?”

Addie is having a hard time breathing, let alone expressing herself. “It’s good,” she whines. “It’s really, really—shit.” Eli’s licking at her now, sliding his fingers out and pressing his tongue in instead. Addie scrabbles for his head, screwing her eyes shut. “So good, oh my God.”

Eli hums against her, doing something complex with his mouth that involves sucking and pressure and teeth. Addie’s whole lower body feels like one big vibration.

“Eli,” she pants. “I think I might—God.”

“Might what?” he asks, head popping up to get a look at her face. “Might come? That it?” He wiggles the vibe against her gently, biting her lower belly right before the hair starts. “What do you need? What can I do?”

Addie hisses. Her face is solid red, probably, sweaty in unfortunate places. He said to talk. “No, no, it’s good. I just, I don’t.” She huffs. She’s been wound up for so long, and still the words are not out-loud words. Instead she reaches down for Eli’s hand on the toy, fitting her fingers over his. His thumb is resting on the controls. Very deliberately, Addie presses down on his thumbnail until there’s a click.

That’s it. That’s the right speed.

“
Eli
.” She’s got maybe twenty seconds before she goes nonverbal. “Gonna,” she whines, one hand coming up to yank at her messy hair. “Right now. Please, inside, I want to feel—”

“Fuck.” Eli scrambles to obey, nearly losing his grip on the vibe in the process, but then his fingers are there and Addie has something to clench on, all the feeling in her body concentrated in that one spot. Then it breaks and it’s
so
good, shuddering waves of it and how he’s watching, he’s watching her
right now
, he can see everything, and—

Yeah. Addie makes a lot of noise.

“Princess,” Eli gasps when she’s done, crawling up her body. “Holy fuck.”

He looks so stunned Addie has to laugh at him. “Uh-huh,” she says, trying to catch her breath. Her face can’t decide whether it’s blushing in mortification or satisfaction. She’s distracted by the feeling of Eli against her hip, hot and damp. She reaches down and finds the front of his boxers wet.

“I couldn’t help it,” he says at her raised eyebrow, kissing her neck. “You were so fucking hot, I had to. I couldn’t help it.”

And God, it’s getting harder and harder to roll her eyes at him when he says ridiculous flattering stuff like that, Addie’s realizing. She needs to be careful or she’s going to start wanting to believe him for real. Instead she runs the edge of her nail along the length of him, just gently through the sticky fabric, for the pleasure of hearing him inhale. Eli rests his sweaty forehead on her chest, turning his face to plant a kiss on the skin between her breasts.

“We can’t sleep like this,” Addie warns him, even as the afterglow—and it is one hell of an afterglow, the pleasure fizzy and warm all through her muscles and veins—has her melting into the carpet underneath him. “We’re grownups, Eli, we’re not falling asleep on my floor.”

“Mmph,” Eli answers, or that’s what it sounds like. He’s sleepy and distracted, tracing around her nipple with the tip of one index finger. It’s almost, but not quite, too much. “Probably more comfortable than your fucking futon.”

“Jackass.” Addie swats at his shoulder idly. Already she can feel the hair drying stiff and sticky between her thighs. “Come on.”

They collapse onto the mattress without the benefit of a shower and pass out in less than a minute, Eli’s breathing heavy and sated against her neck. When Addie shudders awake in a panic a few hours later, his body’s still leaden and lax.

Oh
God
, did she seriously let that happen?

Eli’s arm is draped across her hip. Even though Addie’s entire body is screaming at her to move, fight or flight, she lifts it as gently as possible and crawls off the futon by inches, struggling to her feet in the dark. Standing, she feels very naked. She wants a T-shirt and a glass of water and some underwear, her bed to herself.

The dresser is a Queen Anne highboy, solid oak and three times as old as Addie. It squeaks like a mother. Addie struggles with the underwear drawer for two endless minutes, wiggling it forward and back while the wood groans warningly. Finally she gives up and heads into the bathroom. The skin between her legs is chaffed and puffy from overuse, smarting as she walks. She grabs her robe off the back of the door and sits on top of the toilet seat without bothering to turn on the light.

“Shit,” she mutters to herself, raking her hands through her hair. Eli Grant. Good
God
.

After a while she goes and lies down again, her robe double-knotted at the waist. She doesn’t sleep. Instead she watches Chicken Cat pad around the apartment, stalking shadows, his eyes flashing when the streetlight hits them at the right angle. She feels embarrassed and vulnerable and inexperienced. It takes a special kind of idiocy to admit what she admitted to Eli, that he’s the only guy in her entire life who’s ever been able to do what he does to her—Eli with his parade of women with blonde highlights and hip tattoos of the Playboy bunny. He
would
know how to get a girl off, Addie guesses. Even a difficult, broken one like her. He’s had enough practice, that’s for sure.

He stirs now in the half-dark, rolling over and reaching for her. “Hey, princess,” he murmurs into her shoulder, pulling her close against him. “You get dressed?”

“Yeah,” Addie says, feeling herself stiffen. His palm is sliding up and down the front of her body, searching for the opening on her robe. Addie grabs his wrist before he can find it though, taking his hand and placing it back on his own stomach. Just like that, Eli’s all the way awake.

“You okay?” he asks, propping himself up on one elbow to get a better look at her. “Hey, Addie-girl, didn’t you sleep?”

It’s the first time he’s ever called her that when they weren’t actively doing it. Addie doesn’t know why that of all things is what makes her want to cry. “I’m fine,” she tells him, swallowing thickly. “You should go though.”

“I should—” Eli frowns, pushing her hair out of her face so he can get a better look at her. “Why?”

Addie shrugs. “Because I want you to.” She turns her head to the side and stares straight ahead through the forest of coffee table legs, the elegant curved feet of her grandpa’s wingback chair. They’re actual feet, the chair’s, with toes and tiny claws. When Addie was small, she used to be afraid it would come alive like the furniture in
Beauty and the Beast.
“Because it’s my apartment, and I’m asking you to.”

“Addie.” Eli sits all the way up then, hands dropping away from her body as he reaches for his pants. There’s some rustling, a beep when he presses the button to illuminate his watch face. The sick green glow spreads across the futon like a bad special effect. Eli whistles. “It’s not even four a.m., princess, you know that? You gonna kick me out on the street?” He nudges her hip. “Hey, Addie. Can you look at me?”

Addie swallows and sits up too. “I’m looking,” she tells him, even as she avoids eye contact. “You have your car,” she points out, shrugging again. Her mouth feels cottony.

Eli frowns. “I have my—okay. Are you serious?” His brow has deep, deep furrows in it. “Are you for real right now, Addie?”

Addie shrugs. She is, she’s not, she has no idea. She feels mean and small and cornered, and she wants to land a blow where it’ll hurt. “I mean, you’ve got enough night left,” she says so nastily she hardly recognizes her own voice. “You could always call one of the other girls you’re screwing around with, try for a twofer.”

And yup, that does exactly what she means for it to. Eli’s eyes widen, shocked and hurt in the dark. “What the fuck, Adelaide?” he asks, voice low and baffled. He doesn’t even sound mad at first, just wounded. He also doesn’t get up and storm out like she thought.

“First of all,” he says, “I’m not screwing around with anyone else.” He’s stopped halfway through putting his pants on, his hair all sleep-crazy and young-looking. “Second of all, whatever the hell else you think of me, I’m a fucking human being, so why don’t you cut the cutesy bullshit and talk to me, huh? How about that? What are you actually upset about here?”

“I’m upset about
you
!” Addie explodes. “Why do you have to be so pushy all the time, quite seriously? You’re so pushy, and I let you meet my family and I told you all this stuff and I just wish we could hurry up to the part where you get bored and this is over because I just—I just—” Oh, God in his golden heaven, she is not going to cry.