Not in love

3

IT WOULD HAVE BEEN FUN

ELI

His heart skipped a beat, then thudded hard. He felt oddly, foolishly like ru

“You’re welcome.” Another unsmiling nod. There was something astonishingly effortless about this woman. Like she had no interest in being anything but herself.

“Am I allowed to know your name now?”

“No.”

“Figures.” Eli sighed and handed her his unlocked phone. “Take a picture of my driver’s license, text it or email it to a friend, and then let’s go. Share my location with them, too.”

“Is this an order?”

Yes, and an out-of-place one at that, but she didn’t seem too put off. Whoever her friend was, they were close enough that she had their number memorized. She sent a picture of his license, typed a short explanation that Eli forced himself not to peer at, and returned the phone. Then she gracefully hopped off her stool.

Fuck, she was tall. Even in flats, her eyes were only a handful of inches below Eli’s—and, no use in denying it at this point, right on the verge of spectacular. He forced himself to look away.

“You’re sober enough to drive, right?” she asked.

“Yeah. My plans fit better with sobriety.”

“Very well.” Her words were somewhat queenly, and his grin widened.

“You know you’re not doing me a favor, right?” he asked, even though she was. With Vincent around, he couldn’t have let her return home alone without losing whatever peace of mind he had left, which was very little.

She blinked at him serenely, and he was briefly certain that she could read his mind. The filthy thoughts he couldn’t rein in. The way her sweet scent seemed to settle inside his brain.

No. She couldn’t, because she was obviously relaxed with him. Trusting enough to send him on a bit of a power trip. Still difficult to decipher, but his gut told him that she didn’t mind prolonging their time together any more than he did. “Come on. My car’s in the parking garage.”

They avoided the main entrance, where Vincent waited, and called the elevator, a comfortable silence between them. A middle-aged man joined them inside the cabin, and Eli did not like the long, clinging look he gave to . . .

He still didn’t know her damn name. Which meant that he had no right to scowl at some creep just because he was looking at her tits. He did anyway, and the man must have felt the aggression coming off Eli in waves, because he abashedly lowered his gaze. Eli felt like a primate, half-locked in some ridiculous dominance battle, like the last twenty minutes had regressed him some fifty thousand years of evolution and—

Jesus. He needed to . . . get the fuck laid, probably. Or sleep. A vacation. Time, that’s what he needed. The past six months had been nothing but exhaustion and work, with no chance to think about any of this. Then, yesterday, she’d messaged him on an app he hadn’t opened in nearly a year, and it had felt like a cosmic gift.

A celebration for what he, Hark, and Minami had achieved. A prelude to what would come. Tomorrow.

He was deluded. A fucking break, that’s what he needed.

“Where do you live?” he asked, steering her toward his car with a flick of his hand. He tried to touch her as little as possible, but it was hard when she was the one drifting closer. Her shoulder brushed his arm, and the spot felt electric, itchy even through his clothes. The cool air of the underground lot was a welcome distraction.

“I can put the address in your GPS—”

“Can you please listen to me for one minute?” someone called, and when they turned back, Vincent was ru

“Go home, Vince,” she said.

Vince stopped. Then started again in their direction, his gait more menacing. “No, not until you listen to me—”

“I have listened. And I’ve asked you for a few days so I can think it through.”

“You’re being a bitch, as always—”

Eli had heard enough, and stepped in front of the woman. “Hey. Apologize and get lost.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Vince glowered. “This has nothing to do with you.”

Eli wasn’t so sure. He unlocked his car remotely, tossing the woman his keys. She caught them without hesitation. “Get in the passenger seat. I’ll be with you in a second.”

She didn’t move, instead staring at Eli with an expression that he could only define as crestfallen. After a long moment, her lips parted. Don’t hurt him, she mouthed.

Eli ground his teeth, wondering how this loser could have this much power over her. How he’d gotten someone like her in the first place. But he nodded, watched her disappear inside his car, and turned to Vincent.

He was tall, too, and wide shouldered, even if not as much as Eli. Still, he must have seen something in Eli’s eyes, because his first reaction was to take a step back. Then, once his spine met a pilaster, to flatten himself against it.

“You need to stop bothering women who ask you to fuck off, Vincent,” Eli said. Amiably, he thought. He was being a damn gentleman about this.

“You have no idea what she—”

He stepped close enough for Vincent’s boozy smell to hit him. “It doesn’t matter,” he said calmly. Don’t hurt him, she’d asked, but god, Eli was tempted. “You can walk away now on your own, or I can make you. Your choice.”

Vincent didn’t take long to deliberate. With a couple of curse words, he scurried away, jumpily turning every few steps, always finding Eli staring at him. Once he’d disappeared, Eli found the woman was in the passenger seat of his car, hands in her lap.

Rosie, maybe. Rosamund would fit her, too.

“Where did you say you live?”

She lifted her eyes but didn’t reply. “I’m surprised.” She looked around, and he could smell her so intensely, he had to get a grip. Skin and flowers and fabric softener. It was well past good, straight into dangerous territory. “I didn’t peg you for a hybrid kind of guy.”

He snorted and started the engine. “Don’t say what you did peg me for.”

“A Mustang, maybe.”

“Jesus.” He wiped a hand over his face.

“Or a Tesla.”

“Get the fuck out. You’re walking home.”

She laughed once, low in her throat, and the sound made him feel dizzy and powerful and accomplished. She was safe in his car, making jokes. Not on high alert as she’d been earlier. She was letting him take care of her.

He just needed to stop noticing how close she was.

“Here.” He handed her his phone. “Put your address in.”

“It’s locked. I’ll need your password.”

He turned to tell her and forgot to speak. Her haircut, he realized, was more elaborate than he’d originally thought. It was cropped close to the skull for a couple of inches around her left ear. Pretty. He’d have to ask Minami what the style was called.

“Are you embarrassed because it’s a string of sixty-nines?”

His mind took a brusque, inappropriate, sexual turn. Unavoidable, too. He’d been on the edge of it for a while, and it was getting harder to leash it back. “Two seven one eight two eight.”

“Your password is Euler’s number?”

They exchanged a surprised, plane-tilting look. Like they were only just now meeting.

“Are you a scientist?” she asked, suddenly curious, and it was the first time he could perceive this kind of interest in him on her part. She’d asked to use his body and volunteered hers in exchange, she’d gone through his documents with the efficiency of a DMV clerk, but she had not considered him beyond the here and now.

Until this moment.

“If I say yes, will you take it as proof that I’m the Unabomber?”

She smiled. A little wider than before.

“I’m not a scientist,” he admitted, loath to disappoint her. But it was the honest, if painful, answer. “I just studied science for a bit.”

“A minor in college?”

“Something like that.” No point in bringing up the rest.

“What do you do, then?”

“Boring money stuff.”

“I see.” She didn’t seem disappointed. She was still looking at him, searching. It was intoxicating, having her eyes on him. Her attention felt more precious than gold, stocks, market crash predictions.

“Are you a scientist?”

She nodded.

“What kind?”

“Engineer.” He pulled out of the lot, then turned to her when the soft weight of her hand settled on his forearm, a sudden shock of warmth in the blow of the AC.

Fuck. Just—fuck.

“Thank you,” she said simply. She sounded serious, as usual. Sincere.

“For not being a Tesla owner?”

She shook her head. “For being kind.”

He wasn’t kind. No one kind would wake up tomorrow and do what Eli was going to, relishing every moment of it. But it felt nice to have her think so.

“And for caring, I guess.”

There was something lost in her tone. Something that made Eli’s voice rough as he told her, “You should call the authorities, tell them what happened tonight. Take out a restraining order.”

She closed her eyes, leaning back against the headrest—a sign of deep trust if he’d ever seen one. Eli studied her slender throat, imagined burying his face in it, then reminded himself that he was about to merge into traffic.

Eyes. On. The. Road.

“It’s for your safety,” he added.

“It’s complicated.”

“I don’t doubt it. But even if you two have kids together, or you’re married, it doesn’t change that he could be very dangerous—”

“He’s my brother,” she said.

Eli winced. “Shit.”

“Yeah.” She turned toward the passing streetlights. “Shit.”

The resemblance was there, now that he knew to look for it. The height. The near-black hair. The eye color was different, but not the shape. “Shit,” he repeated.

“He’s not always like this. But when he drinks . . . well. You saw.”

“I did.”

“I don’t think he would actually hurt me.”

“You don’t think? Not good enough.”

“No.” She bit the inside of her cheek. “My . . . our father, our estranged father, died a few months ago. He left us a small cabin in Indiana, of all places—we didn’t even know he lived there. We disagree on what to do with it.” Her head rolled toward Eli. They were all alone, and it was disarming, how at ease she seemed. “Are you bored yet?”

“No.”

Her smile was dim. “It’s not easy to say no to someone who shares fifty percent of your genes.”