Not in love

“No. But it’s not just about Florence and her petri dishes anymore, is it? Kline has a staff of three hundred and sixty-four.”

“And?”

“One bad decision can take away the paychecks of three hundred and sixty-four families.”

I couldn’t disagree with that. But I also knew Florence, whose actions were rational and well thought out. I wished she could be here to list them for Eli.

As if she’d been summoned, my phone buzzed with a text. “Excuse me,” I told him, slipping it out of my pocket.

Florence: You okay? I’m stuck with Sommers and his wife. Pls tell me Eli Killgore is not harassing you.

Rue: I’m fine. Eli and I are just making stilted conversation.

Florence: Just excuse yourself and walk away from him. He CANNOT be trusted.

I know, I thought, and suddenly the hall was suffocatingly hot. “I need some air,” I said.

Eli pointed somewhere I couldn’t quite see, and when I hesitated, his hand found my lower back and pressed forward, guiding me firmly through the throng, out to a stone balcony. It gave onto a small courtyard, and a pool, and what looked like—

“Fuckin’ golf courses,” Eli muttered. A laugh bubbled out of me, clearing my head. For once, the temperature was bearable, the night balmy and cool on my skin. Muffled through the glass doors, even the music seemed almost palatable. I leaned against the wall, tilting my head to take in the starry sky. Eli did the same with the high railing, facing me. He looked idle, but I knew he was not, and the app’s checklist flashed in my mind.

Kinks? a box asked, and he’d answered, If negotiated.

I was dying to know more about all of that. But Florence was right—he couldn’t be trusted.

“Has your brother been leaving you alone?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Do you have a contingency plan in case he shows up at your apartment, or at Kline, or at your gym?” His voice was gruff. Like he wished he hadn’t been asking, but couldn’t help himself.

“Can’t believe I fooled you into thinking that I’m the gym type.” It was a half-baked attempt at teasing, the kind he’d responded well to during our first meeting, but his expression was serious. A strict lab supervisor, demanding to know why my bacteria culture was suddenly giant-blobbing all over the city. “I’ve asked a friend—who’s a lawyer—what my options are. I don’t have a plan, though.”

“Make one,” he ordered. And then shook his head, massaged his eyes, and repeated more gently, “Maybe you should make one.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“You need someone to call if—”

“What about I call you?” I joked.

“Yes, please. Please, fucking do that. Do you want my number now, or . . . ?” He stared, waiting for an answer. And then his eyes softened. The breeze picked up between us, and he kept looking, looking, looking.

Looking.

“It’s unsettling when you do that,” I said softly.

He turned away, chest heaving. “I’m sorry.” His Adam’s apple moved. “I forget to look at other things, when you’re around.”

“I’m sure I do the same.” I feel it, too.

He huffed out a silent laugh. “Has this happened to you before?”

I shook my head in a first, instinctive reply, then forced myself to slow down and think about it. I’d been attracted to men before, but attraction had seemed like a conscious choice on my part, a feeling to chase and feed. Generic. The product of focus and cultivation, more than this current that seemed to rejoice in sweeping me under. “Not like this. You?”

“Me, neither.” His long fingers drummed on the metal rail, the rhythm almost meditative. “You know what’s fu

“Oh.” I pictured the kind of woman someone like Eli might fall for, but my mind could only conjure vaguely alluring traits. Smart. Socially adept. A nice wholesome girl, willing to tame that hungry undercurrent of impatience in him. Proud builder of a solid investment portfolio, able to gently but firmly call him out on his passion for brain-injury-inducing sports at di

“It definitely didn’t work out, but it was for the best. I think she’d agree, too. But since I met you, I’ve been thinking . . .” The sentence fizzled out. Eli glanced toward the city lights. The occasional skyscraper.

“What?”

“I tried to imagine a reality in which she and I had gone through with it. I’m still with her, I love her, we’re a family, and . . . and then I meet you by chance. And this thing between you and me, it’s there.” His eyes roamed the landscape, then landed on me. Contemplative. “I keep thinking about how fucking tragic it would be. For me. For her. I’ve never even been tempted to cheat on a partner, but this pull, it would still be in my head. You would still be in my head. Do you have to go through with it, for it to be cheating? How would I deal with . . . what would I do with all of this?”

He pointed at himself when he said this, but I knew he was referring to the gravitational energy between us. We were both caught in it.

“I think, the same way we’re dealing with it right now,” I said, trying to sound dismissive. Falling short. “Nothing is going to happen between us, even if you’re not married. You’re trying to take over my friend’s company. That’s not something I’ll ever be able to overlook.”

“Yeah.”

But what if this chemistry between us was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity? What happened when the person who tore you apart was not the person you’d chosen to cherish? My concept of love was far from idealized, but this still seemed crucifying.

It’s all in your head, I told myself, but it was a lie. It was, at the very least, in both our heads. And now would have been a really good time for some elderly lady wearing an opal brooch to come out and interrupt this conversation, because Eli and I were starting to be absorbed in each other, and a reckless idea was germinating inside me, growing stronger by the second.

“Can I try something?” I asked, barely audible. He heard, though.

“Try what?”

“I’m not sure yet. Can I?”

That half smile again. “Knock yourself out.”

I took a step forward, until the toes of our shoes nearly touched. I remembered the powerful shiver that had raked through me the other night, when I’d pushed up and kissed his cheek. The memory had to be magnifying the real thing, and a do-over would prove it and break the spell.

If I lifted my hand to his face, like this.

And traced the high line of his cheekbone with my thumb.

And cupped his freshly shaven cheek in my palm.

If I touched him for seconds, or maybe minutes, and despite his heat, his darkening eyes, the wild, blistering feeling that pumped into me . . . if despite all of it we managed to still walk away from each other, then—

With a guttural sound, he pushed my back into the wall of the balcony, so fast that I found myself instantly dizzy, held upright by two things: the stone and Eli’s strong body.

He didn’t kiss me. Instead his hand wrapped around my jaw, and his thumb pressed into my lower lip, slow, inexorable. I had all the time in the world to push him away, but found myself urging him on.

Eli.

Anyone could find us.

But whatever you are about to do, do it anyway.

“Your damn mouth,” he murmured, “is the most obscenely lovely thing I’ve ever had the burden of seeing.”

The kiss that came after was open mouthed and unbound. We exhaled against each other’s lips, and when my hands closed around his nape, Eli groaned low in his throat. I moaned when he broke from me, but he simply found the hollow of my neck, the valley behind my ear. “I just want to make you come. Maybe come in the process, too. It’s all I fucking think about,” he said roughly. He nipped at my clavicle through the thin fabric of my dress. “But we’re on different sides of a fucking takeover, and apparently that’s too much to ask.”

I lost myself in the weight of his body against mine, his grip on my hips. It was a new, different kind of pleasure, at once drugging and screaming. He licked into my mouth, and I did the same to him, trying to remember if anything had ever felt like this.

“It’s disconcerting.” His breath was hot on my cheek. “But in the past seventy-two hours, I’ve found myself thinking over and over that we could fuck however you wanted. For however long you wanted. Wherever you wanted. I’d consent to any and all demands, and it’d be so good that you’d probably just ruin me for the rest of my life, and I’d just sit there, grateful.” He let out a laugh. “Rue. It’s humbling, how bad I want you.” His thumb stroked my nipple. It was instantly hard, and we both shuddered into another rich, frustrated kiss. Because this wasn’t close enough.

“If you think that this is easier for me,” I gasped. “If you think that I want it any less—”

“No.” His hand trailed up my thigh, gathering my dress in its wake. His fingers were as shaky as my knees felt. “It’s not a game. Not for you, and not for me.” He reached the elastic of my underwear, lingered, and he could do—whatever. Anything. In that moment, I’d have let him do anything, begged him for something I didn’t even know. His thumb slid to the inside of my thigh, brushed against the cotton covering my mound, discovered how wet it was. He hummed his approval in my mouth, and when he found my clit, he drew one single, slow circle over it. He’d done barely anything, but the pleasure was so close, I was hurtling toward it anyway. I wanted this done. And Eli did, too, which meant that we—

Suddenly, I was cold. Because Eli had taken a step back and was taking another.

Trembling, I watched my dress drape over my thighs once again, feeling bereft.

“Not here,” he said, shaking his head as if shrugging off a haze. My lipstick was smeared on his lips. “And not like this.”

Silence settled between us. Where, then? And how? I didn’t ask out loud, but he answered anyway.

“Tomorrow,” he rasped. He moved closer, and I could once again feel his heat. His hand rose to my cheek in an involuntary twitch, then pulled away, as if Eli was scared by what he might do. By his lack of control. “Seven. In the hotel lobby. You know which one.”

I swallowed. “I don’t—”

“Then don’t. It’s your decision.” He was close. I hoped he’d kiss me again. I needed him to kiss me again. “But, Rue, if you come, we settle this. Once and for all.”

He tore his eyes away and stalked back inside.

I was alone on the balcony, chest heaving, hands unsteady in the jasmine-scented night air.