Page 16 of Bend
“Well yeah.” I squinted at him. “What’ve you been doing with yours?”
Eli laughed harder. “Saving them.”
“Saving them?” I blinked. It’d seemed natural to me to just go ahead and eat them, even if I hated the taste. Throwing away Eli’s messages, no matter how dumb, had somehow felt wrong, but it didn’t even occur to me to keep them tucked away somewhere.
He nodded and put a hand to his forehead dramatically. “God, all my poetry crushed and swallowed.”
“I don’t know how poetic ‘Beej Me’ is, but if you’re about that kind of posterity, it’s cool.”
For my smirk, Eli grabbed the collar of my shirt and pulled me in for another kiss, then rubbed his lips along my jaw, whispering into the stubble. “That ‘Beej Me’ took me hours to come up with.”
“And all of five minutes for me to carry out.”
“Speaking of”—he took my hand and dragged it lower—“care to practice your bedside manner some more? I mean, making me ice water is nice and all, but you could step it up.”
I nipped his jaw, then slid my hand aside to his thigh and gave it a squeeze. “They already have it out for me here, but I can promise you lots of practice once we get you out.”
“You’ll wait for me? Fly back to LA with me?” His eyes grew round with surprise.
“’Course I will. I’ve got two weeks off. Got nothing else to do anyway.” I winked at him when his expression flatlined, and he sniffed imperiously.
“What if I’m a terrible patient?”
I gave him what I hoped was an ominous smile but probably came out more as a leer. “I know how to keep you in line.”
Epilogue: Mars
Islid the plastic key card into the slot and opened the door of the hotel room only to be greeted by darkness. I checked my watch as I stepped inside, the cool, impersonal, scrubbed-down scent of the room filling my nostrils, my lungs.
Eli had said he’d be in by ten, but sometimes he got delayed or I did. I was counting down the days until we both had a weeklong break in our schedules, which we planned to spend driving around Wine Country. That was never something I’d have been into before Eli, but he’d done a doc on winemaking after the Rambling Hearts doc wrapped, and I’d gotten addicted to listening to him talk about the different types of wine, how he detailed all of it, the little snippets he sent me via text of the vineyards and people he met.
Two weeks and counting, but this weekend would tide us over until then.
“Stop right there.”
I couldn’t pinpoint Eli’s voice, my eyes still adjusting to the darkness, but I heard movement, a rustling, and a second later a rattling whoosh as Eli yanked back the curtains on the window, revealing the Vegas skyline wrapped around his silhouette.
“Quite a view.” I wandered deeper inside, unable to stop the smile tugging my lips.
“Isn’t it?”
“But the better one’s about ten feet in front of me. That a suit?”
“It is.”
I whistled low and approached slowly as Eli made a turn, light flashing over the starched white shirt. No jacket, but there was a tie. And he looked damn good in it. “Guess I’d better take a second to admire it before I tear it off of you.”
He grinned, tipping his chin up as I cupped his the sides of his face and gave him a long, slow kiss, soaking up the scent of him, the solid feel of him pressed against me. The physical distance between us would grow shorter over time, I suspected—some of his belongings had already migrated to my Nashville home, and some of mine to his LA apartment. But for now we took what we could get where we could get it.
“You always smell so good,” Eli murmured as he kissed along my jaw, then flicked his tongue over my earlobe, making my spine curve to one side. He planted his hand against my sternum and bullied me backward until my knees hit the firm edge of what turned out to be a chair, and a second later, he pushed me into it before taking a step back and loosening his tie.
“Leave it,” I told him, and he cocked his head to one side and gave me a devilish grin before he worked the buttons free and stripped off his shirt and then his pants until he was down to just the tie and a jock. I curled my fingers into the arm of the chair and let out a content sigh. I loved our sex life. Never knew what I was gonna get with Eli, never knew who’d end up on top or on bottom or if we’d just end up curled around each other like commas, using our mouths and hands to get each other off. But it always, always felt just right.
I reached for his tie, drew him closer and then some, until I could reach his mouth again. He moaned as I brushed my fingers over the fabric stretched around his cock, and then he sank to his knees, tugging my shirt up. Unbuttoning my jeans, he kissed over my stomach until I arched into him.
“Why don’t you just hang on to that?” Eli ticked his chin toward the tie that had gone slack between my fingers, and I let out a low growl, wrapping the fabric around my fist and urging him onto my cock when it sprang from my pants. As he licked around my head then took me into his mouth, I slouched down in the chair, spread my legs wider, and closed my eyes while pleasure roared through me.
“Missed you, baby,” I murmured.