Not in Love

ELI

The scene wasn’t as bleak as he’d expected.

Vincent, who looked as sullen as the last time they’d met, was taking a rest from his breaking and entering efforts and sat on the hallway floor, head tipped back against the wall. When he heard footsteps against the linoleum, he glanced lazily in Eli’s direction, then did a double take.

Eli had been ready to go nuts on him, but the berserker rage he’d felt during Rue’s call extinguished almost instantly. What a sad, miserable asshole her brother was. Not even worth a couple of educational slaps.

“Go home,” Eli ordered, bored. Rue wasn’t going to open her door until Vince left, which meant that he stood between Eli and where Eli wanted to be.

“What are you doing here?”

“I was invited. What are you doing here?”

“Are you seeing my sister?”

“Yes.” Not even a lie. He’d seen Rue several times. Had fully expected not to see her for a while after last night, but now, thanks to her asshole brother, he was about to see her again. “You need to drop this. You know that, right?” Vince was Rue’s brother, and Eli was going to keep his own temper in check out of respect for her. But he had his limits, which was why he stepped closer and lowered his voice. “You can’t act this way around her, okay? Because she’s going to get sad. And if she gets sad, then I’m going to get mad. And there will be consequences.”

Vince scrambled to his feet. Perfect punching height for Eli, but once again—not what Rue wanted. “If you don’t stop interfering—”

“Here’s the deal.” He dropped his voice further, angling his back so that if Rue was watching, she wouldn’t be able to read his lips. “Your sister obviously cares about you. She called me here because literally anyone else, from the doorman to her neighbors to the fucking mailman, would not hesitate to call the authorities. But here’s what she doesn’t know.” He leaned forward. “I have an entire team of lawyers at my disposal who can make your life very, very hard. Which means that I can ruin you without getting you arrested or beating you to a pulp. I wouldn’t even need to make her sad.” He straightened, pleased at the narrowing in Vincent’s eyes.

“I just want to talk to her,” he bit out.

“Then schedule a fucking meeting.”

“We have a buyer right now. She’s being selfish.”

“Good. She should put herself first. Now, will you get the fuck out of this building, or do I have to make a couple of calls?” He took his phone out of his jeans and dangled it until Vincent shook his head and stalked away, stopping to kick the banister on the landing like the childish fool he so clearly was. Once he was gone for good, Eli knocked softly.

“It’s me.”

A few beats and the door opened. Rue stood in the middle, half in the shadows, looking like a paler, less substantial version of herself. She didn’t quite meet his eyes, and Eli was tempted to make a detour for the parking lot to rough Vincent up.

“I wasn’t sure who to call—”

“No need to explain. Can I come in?”

Her eyes widened, like the thought hadn’t occurred to her. “You don’t have to stay.”

“I know.”

She tensed. “I didn’t call you here because…I don’t think that just because we had sex you should be at my—”

“I am, though. At your disposal.” He smiled at her, small but reassuring. If she needed to tell herself that this was just fucking, she was welcome to do so. He refused to play the game any longer. I’m not going to follow the rules, Rue. I’m not going to behave. I’m not going to pretend this is enough. “I’ll stay for twenty minutes, just in case Vincent’s waiting for me to drive off.”

Her head bent low, and there was a slight tremor to the hands she stuffed in her pants. But it wasn’t until they entered the living room that he could fully see her expression. Ever-armored Rue Siebert looked forlorn, and ten years younger, and a hundred times more fragile. The sight of how much she hurt hit him with violence. He wrapped his hand around her forearm, pulled her closer, and it was more for himself than for her. “Hey. It’s okay.”

They’d hugged dozens of times by now, always within the constraints of sex. This embrace was different: It had no direction and existed only to provide comfort. It was warm and eviscerating and dangerous. More forbidden than anything they’d done so far.

And then he felt it: the small shivers running through her back, her forehead pressing between his pecs, a choked sound she swallowed. She was crying.

Eli’s heart sank.

“It’s okay, baby.” He kissed the crown of her hair and held her as tight and as long as she allowed. “It’ll be okay.” Minutes later, when she slid two hands on his chest and pushed him away, he had to clench his fists to avoid drawing her back into his arms. And that was when his vision broadened from its Rue-induced tunnel and shifted to his surroundings.

The apartment was magnificent. Or, what she’d done with it. The place wasn’t large, and the layout was nothing special, but Rue hadn’t lied about having plants. In fact, the entire room was lush, every surface covered in green. Cacti, flowers, a few ornamental pots. But Rue’s favorite cultivation method was clearly hydroponics. There were towers, and shelves, and a couple of kits she may have built on her own. Most of what she grew was produce: Eli spotted basil, tomatoes, mini cucumbers, peppers, lettuce, and that was just at first glance.

Her house was a beautiful, honest-to-god garden.

He puffed out a laugh, thinking about the raised bed he’d bought two years ago to grow herbs for the kitchen, the one he’d never gotten around to putting together. In fact, it was still packed in the garage. Had been there for so long, Maya had given it a name.

Fucking Herbert.

He glanced back at Rue, wanting to say something, but it wasn’t the right time to compliment her agricultural skills. She’d walked to the couch and collapsed herself in front of it, on the floor, back pressed against the cushions, knees to her chin. Like her brother, in the hallway earlier.

Eli sighed and sat next to her, allowing his arm to brush against hers.

“I don’t usually cry,” she said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

“I figured.”

“How?”

“Just a hunch.” She hadn’t cried last night, and that fucking deposition had given her plenty of reason. “Your general vibe, as Maya would say.”

She smiled through her sniffles. “It’s because he’s my brother.”

“I know.”

“He’s younger. My brain is wired to constantly feel that I have to take care of him.”

“I know.”

“He’s being a total asshole. I’m being a complete pushover. This could escalate to a really dangerous level. I need to figure out a solution to this. It’s just…”

“Believe me, I know.”

His sincerity made her finally look up from her knees. “It’s embarrassing,” she admitted.

“What is?”

“Maya’s…great. The first night we met, you said you two used to not get along, but clearly you worked through your issues. Meanwhile, I’d get a restraining order for my brother if I weren’t a fucking wimp.”

He nodded. “Maya is great, and we now have a good relationship that I wouldn’t change for anything. But…” He swallowed. “Want a story?”

“Depends. Is it terrible?”

His laugh was low. “It’s the most terrible of all of them, Rue.” It wasn’t an exaggeration. Her nod was solemn.

“I don’t even know where to start. How about—Maya is great now, but when she was fifteen, she slashed the tires of my car because I told her she couldn’t go to a midnight screening of some shitty horror movie on a school night.” He winced at the memory. “And when I grounded her to punish her, she slashed the new set, too.”

Rue’s eyes widened. And then deviated from their routine: she asked a question. “Who gave you the right to tell your sister what she could and couldn’t do?”

“Are you siding with her?”

“No.” She sniffled. “Maybe?”

He chuckled. “I got custody of her when she was eleven. The court gave me the right. Literally.”

“And your parents?”

“They died one year apart from each other. Unrelated. My mom first, acute leukemia. Then Dad—car accident.”

“How old were you?”

“Twenty-five.”

“And you were her only remaining relative?”

“There are some scattered uncles and second cousins, but none here in Austin, and none she knew well. I was an adult and her brother. There was no question in anyone’s mind that I should be the one taking care of her—not even in mine.”

“If someone asked me to take care of an eleven-year-old, I wouldn’t know where to start,” she mused.

“Same here. Maya was a toddler when I moved out for college. I didn’t get along with my parents, so I rarely went back home and hardly saw her.”

“Is that why the last thing you told your mom…?”

“About being a shitty mother?” He sighed. “My dad was the kind of disciplinarian who’d ground you for days for a perceived eye roll, and I was…a shithead. His approach did not work for me. Constant fights, ultimatums, threats—them trying to get me to be less wild. Me being ever more wild, out of spite. All that teenage shit. And my mom, she deferred to him in everything, so.” He shrugged. “If I could talk to them now, adult to adult, maybe we’d get over that stuff. But I moved to Minnesota to play hockey. Took all sorts of part-time jobs. I’d go back home once a year for a couple of days, tops. Then grad school started, and you know how busy it gets. I was in the same city as my family. I could have visited more, but home was a place where I’d been miserable for three-quarters of my life, and there was so much baggage on both our ends. The last time I saw my mom was on my birthday. They invited me over for dinner. The conversation devolved into the usual recriminations. A few weeks later my mother died.” He’d had a decade to work through the kinks of these regrets, and they were still tangled in his head. Always would be. As it was, he couldn’t stand his fucking birthday. “Then my dad, fourteen months later. And I was my sister’s guardian.”

Rue’s eyes held neither pity nor condemnation. “Was Maya…” She shook her head. “Were you okay?”

Had anyone ever asked him that before? Everyone’s focus had been on Maya, rightfully so. Eli’s heart thudded, and he covered it with a laugh. “I was definitely not okay. I was freaking the fuck out. I didn’t know Maya at all. I had no money, I’d just been kicked out of my doctoral program, and my parents’ mortgage still needed to be paid. And Maya…initially, she was just mourning. Later, the grief turned into anger, and she had to take it out on someone. The two available options were me and herself, and she spared neither.” He swallowed. “I don’t think she would deny that she was kind of an asshole. Then again, I was severely underqualified.”

Rue laughed, bubbly and wet, and even in the midst of recounting his worst story, he couldn’t believe how rare and lovely it sounded. I like you when you laugh. I like you when you’re serious. I like you all the damn time.Property belongs to Nôvel(D)r/ama.Org.

“Did it get better?”

“Not for years. Before she left for college, it was slammed doors and screaming matches and acting out. In hindsight, I can’t imagine how devastating it must have been, to have a brother who’s fundamentally a stranger tell you what you should do. When she left for college, she was done with me. I was half-convinced I’d never see her again. By then Harkness was doing well and I could afford to send her to school wherever she wanted. You know where she picked?”

“East Coast?”

“Scotland. She went all the way to fucking Scotland, just to get away from me.”

She tried to hide her smile. “I hear it’s very beautiful.”

“I wouldn’t know. I was never invited to visit.”

Rue snorted a laugh. He had to force himself to stop staring. “She did come back, though.”

“She did. And she was different. She was an adult, and I didn’t have to be an authority figure anymore. She’d lived abroad for years, and I could trust her to take care of herself.” He massaged the back of his neck. “She used to complain about my despotic tendencies, but I was terrified. She was wild and unpredictable and fragile, and ordering her around was the only thing I could do to keep her out of harm’s way. I began understanding my parents and what they’d gone through with me, except that they were dead and it was too late, and that degree of mindfuckery is just…” He shook his head. “She’ll always resent me a little, and maybe I’ll always resent her. But the pain of it has dulled. I truly enjoy watching her doing her shit. She’s way smarter than I was at her age. She’s resilient. She’s determined. She’s kind. And, the whole experience gave me something very important.”

“What?”

“A total lack of interest in having children.”

Rue laughed again, and had he ever yielded more power than right at this moment? Had anything felt better than making her smile when she’d been crying only moments ago? It was fucking intoxicating. Screw science or finance—this could be his craft. He could spend the next few years learning the nooks and crannies of her moods, studying her temperament, cataloging her disposition in all its little idiosyncrasies, and once he’d accrued an adequate body of research, it would be his mission and his pleasure: make Rue Siebert happy.

Way more satisfying than his current job description.

“I didn’t even need to be my brother’s guardian to reach that conclusion,” she murmured.

“Bragging’s not cool, Rue.” He smiled at her amused look, and glanced at the clock hanging on top of a plant rack. It had been twenty minutes. More.

“Thank you. For coming.”

“Thank you for calling me. I’m a simple guy who used to channel his aggression into hockey and now has a boring corporate job. I need to get my kicks somewhere. And…” I was thinking about you anyway. I want you to reach out to me when you need something—anything. I want more. If I came clean about that, how would you react?

She nodded like she understood the unsaid. Seemed on the verge of opening up and admitting to something that Eli really, really wanted to hear. Then, at the last moment, defaulted to their usual: she rolled over and wedged herself between his open legs. Her eyelashes were dark half-moons as she glanced down, assessing his body with all the thoroughness of a merciless examiner. Heat surged inside him, the exhilaration and sheer pride that always came from being the object of her attention. Then she took his face in both of her palms and leaned forward.

She tasted like dried tears. Eli deepened the kiss on instinct, but instantly came to his senses. “Rue.” He wrapped his hands around both her wrists. “I didn’t come for this.”

“And I didn’t call you for this.” She gave him a solid, even look. “Can we do it anyway?”

He scanned her face. “If you ask, I’m never going to tell you no. You know that, right?”

“I had my suspicions.”

The kiss resumed, slow, calm, salty, and Eli was able to keep himself in check for about two minutes. Then, it was over. He pressed her into him, pushed into her, ran his mouth down her throat, and when her fingers raked through his hair, he asked, “Here? Or in bed?”

She walked a step ahead and led him down the hallway. Her fingers, wrapped loosely around his, felt as explosive as any other sexual act they’d ever engaged in—positively perverse, given how little real intimacy she usually afforded them. Being escorted inside Rue’s bedroom was like the first time a girl had guided his hand under her shirt: forbidden, terrifying, life rearranging. He wondered if she’d had any other man in her room. Decided it was unlikely. Tried to get his heart not to pound out of his chest.

She was messy in her private space. Surfaces not covered by plants were draped in discarded clothes, unopened mail, empty mugs. It made her room even smaller and cozier, her unmade queen bed narrower. She didn’t bother apologizing for the clutter, and Eli loved that.

He tried to imagine what sharing a living space with her might be: a constant fight to keep her chaos from encroaching on his part of the room. Tripping over the straps of a discarded bra on his way to the bathroom. Memorizing her unsmiling face in the soft morning light. Dreaming of her at night without being afraid to wake, happy in the knowledge that if he reached out, his hand would meet her soft skin. Soaking in that unacceptable feeling that permeated his cells whenever she was nearby. She sat on the edge of the mattress, looked up at him with the intent expression she reserved for talk of nanopolymers, and he couldn’t survive one more second without his head between her legs.

It was becoming easier and easier, getting her off. Like a well-trained musician, he knew exactly how to play her. Satisfaction hit him hard as he dragged her underwear to the side and made her sigh, and shiver, and come over and over, with his mouth and his tongue and his fingers. When she pushed his head away because it was too intense, he saw it in her eyes: she hadn’t thought she was capable of this pleasure. When they were together, she sometimes doubted that her body was really hers.

“Whenever you want to feel like this,” he murmured at the inside of her thigh, “call me. Use me.” Her heels dug into his back like little fists. “I think about doing it every second of every day anyway.”

She collapsed back on the mattress, one arm thrown over her eyes. Eli wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, unbuttoned his too-tight jeans to give his dick some respite, and then moved up to force her to look him in the eyes some more. She didn’t seem inclined to, and he waited patiently, a knight seeking an audience with his beautiful, iron-willed queen.

“I should have condoms. Somewhere in the medicine cabinet in my bathroom.” Her voice was still raspy from the cries. “I don’t think they’re expired yet, but…” She arched off the bed in a deep, lazy stretch, and when she stayed like that, a perfect bow of elongated muscles, Eli hooked a finger in the hem of her shirt and pulled it up. He stared at her full breasts, mesmerized, willing himself to be patient.

“We don’t have to.”

“I know.”

“We can do anything that you—”

“I know.”

Her arm moved, and her peaceful eyes were on him. His heart was louder than he could remember. “So I did cure you with the unique prowess of my magic cock.”

“You have healed me. My appendix scar has disappeared. I’m not allergic to pollen anymore.”

He huffed. “They weren’t my best performances.” He wasn’t embarrassed, per se. He’d enjoyed fucking her too much to attach anything but highly positive feelings to the act.

“It’s a turn-on, to see you like that.” She bit into her lower lip. “You’re not the only one who enjoys giving pleasure to others.”

His vocal cords felt paralyzed, so he went to the bathroom. When he caught his reflection, what he found in his eyes was terrifying. He’d told himself to be careful with her, over and over. To keep his guard up. He’d failed, miserably.

You’re fucked. Completely, irrevocably fucked.

Rue had taken her remaining clothes off. She gave him a small smile and took care of him, undressing him slowly, methodically, and Eli was transported to another reality—one in which at the end of a stressful workday, Rue was the thing he’d been looking forward to since morning. In which he’d spent his meetings deconstructing the scent of her skin. Time was stale from nine to six. The subject of every email contained her tranquil eyes.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she murmured, kneeling in front of him to rid him of his jeans. A spectacular image he was going to treasure in his old age.

“Like what?”

She shrugged.

“Like I want to fuck you?” Like I want you? “I can’t make it stop, Rue.” Believe me, I’ve tried.

She stood, and he buried his head in her shoulder, laughing at his own idiocy.

“You’ll have to put it on,” she instructed, handing him the condom.

“Want me to teach you how?”

She shrugged. Her breasts bounced—a masterpiece of gravity. “It’s not a skill I have particular interest in acquiring.”

Fuck, he liked her. “No, you wouldn’t.”

He wasn’t certain how they ended up with him lying back against the headboard and Rue on top, her hands balancing on his shoulders, slowly sliding him inside her, inch by torturous inch. He wanted to tell her that she was killing him. Wanted to order her to get the fuck on with it and let him just be inside her. But he let her take her time, and eventually he was as deep as he wanted, and she was taking all that he had to offer, and that was simply overwhelming. Once again, he was grateful for the condom dulling the sensation, or it would have been all over, right now.

“How does it feel?” he asked. He didn’t have the tightest reins on his control.

“It feels…” She moved experimentally. He bit back a groan. “Full. Nice.” She pressed a kiss to his shoulders. “You know what I like best?”

“My preternaturally medicinal cock?”

She laughed. He nearly choked on his breath. “Sure. But also, when we do this, you practically vibrate.” Her fingertip traced the taut curve of his triceps, nail lightly scraping. “Every single muscle in your body is tense, and I can feel how much you want to move, and yet you’re not, and it makes me…” She tilted her hips at a perfectly disastrous angle, and he had to grip her hips and force her to be still and take a deep, shuddering breath before his third time fucking her turned out to be even more lackluster than the first two.

“Jesus Christ, Rue.”

She nipped at his earlobe, and he couldn’t help himself anymore, so he closed his fingers around her waist and began moving her, up and down. For a second he lost himself to the feeling of it, the tight squeeze of her muscles, the taste of her tits in his mouth, the soft yield of her ass under his fingers. He hooked his arms under hers and was moments away from chasing his orgasm, but when he looked at her face, she was staring down at him, interested but detached, and everything inside him screamed, Fuck, no.

Not this time.

“Rue.” He let out a breathless laugh. “If only you knew how fucking good this feels to me.”

“That’s nice.” She bent down to kiss his cheek. “I want you to feel good.”

He groaned. “Okay, new plan.” He guided her off him. “I’m going to turn you around.”

“Around?”

“Yeah. That way I should be able to…” He arranged her to face the wall, then guided her until her palms were on the headboard. He pushed back inside without giving her time to adjust. Her gasp matched his grunt. “I can control my thrusts better. And I can touch you more easily.” He pressed an open-mouthed kiss against the valley behind her ear. “And even if you don’t come, at least you can…”

He circled the heel of his hand against her clit first, then his fingers. He pushed in and out of her, shallow thrusts that had her ass grinding against his groin. “How are you—”

“Good,” she exhaled. “I like it.”

“Yeah?” He touched her some more. “Is it working for you?”

She nodded, and he felt her breath speed up. “You just—you really know where to touch me. And it’s not even…” She whimpered at another stroke of his thumb, and when she contracted against him, he felt his balls tighten and the pressure at the base of his spine tingle. “I think maybe I could…” She exhaled again, but he knew what she was about to say.

“Yeah,” he breathed in her ear. “Maybe you could.”

Every thought of his own pleasure was forgotten. He surged against Rue, as deep as he could go, and once he bottomed out, he kept his strokes shallow and began moving his fingers on her. “Like this?”

She nodded eagerly, almost violently, and Eli felt like this was what he’d been put on this earth for—get Rue off, right here, in this very moment. “Oh, sweetheart. Why does it feel like you’re going to come, huh? Why do you feel so wet and soft and—”

Abruptly, she seized around him. Her entire body clenched, the sound of her winded breath stopped, and even though all Eli wanted was to fuck her into the mattress, he pushed in to the hilt and let her ride her orgasm until she collapsed in his arms.

“You just came around my cock,” he rasped out. His words sounded shocked—just as shocked as he felt.

She nodded, lost for words.

“Rue.” He kissed her temple. Her cheekbone. The line of her jaw. He held her to himself with shaking hands. “I’d like it if you said it.”

Her voice trembled. “I just came around your cock.”

“Okay. Okay. I need to—I’ll finish, okay? Let’s see how long it takes me to…”

He pushed in, then out again, then in.

And that, apparently, was how long it took.