by Ylana MIlls
He had triumphed, even though he had to admit the previous morning had almost been his downfall. But who could blame him? Waking up in a tent, listening to the ocean, with the usual morning wood and a very warm Eliza Clark by his side was the ultimate test of willpower.
And not only for him, apparently. As they crawled out of the tent to see the sunrise, she made him promise that they would be back some other day to do things… properly.
'Like, bringing marshmallows and roasting them over a bonfire,' she had added.
Of course. That was what she had meant. Marshmallows.
And then, after hiking for a while and taking some time to watch the ocean, they were heading back to Tallahassee, more specifically, to The White Hare, a medieval concoction of a tavern and a gambling parlor, where folks dressed up as knights and princesses would mix with much more modern-looking commoners either around the dartboard or the fighting ring.
Well… She had mentioned she liked medieval stuff, after all.
And she seemed, indeed, to have had a blast, especially when the two of them took up the house on the challenge of scoring a Hat Trick in darts in exchange for a free steak. They had to laugh. That was the kind of challenge that neither an archer nor a man with a flair for throwing knives was likely to lose.
Two free meals later, they headed back to her place, and now that she knew his home was a car, she insisted, again, that he stayed over.
He didn't. One day, perhaps, he would. But not under those circumstances.
Devon blinked when the cashier in the cheap accessories store cleared her throat, still waiting for a response.
"Is that all?" she asked again, raising an eyebrow as she chewed her bubble gum and stared at him.
"Yeah," he finally muttered, smiling as he watched her put his only purchase in a small plastic bag. "Thanks."
When he stepped outside, he emptied the content of the bag on his hand, and shook his head as he looked at the silver little gift he intended to give Eliza Clark. Not that long ago, he had bought a diamond ring and proposed to a woman who had never truly loved him. Now, he had found the love of his life, and all he could afford was a keychain. And not even a fancy, 'bought-in-a-boutique' one.
Talk about irony.
----
The rest of the day went by without surprises, except for a long-awaited phone call: he had finally been called for a job interview.
Things were really happening. Eliza, a job, soon enough a place to stay… a family. Maybe that was the time. Maybe it had finally come. Settling down with the right person, making plans together, traveling around on their vacation, saving money for their kids' college.
He reached inside his backpack for the clothes he had chosen for the evening that approached, and a smile curled his lips. The two of them were barely a couple, and he was thinking about their kids.
As he ironed his dress shirt, he glanced at the mirror across the room to study his figure and check if everything was in place. The usual plain boxers, the usual plain jeans. Indeed, less was more. He made sure he had not gone overboard with his cologne, and after wearing his still-warm shirt, he walked to Eliza's bed and checked the bedside tables. Condoms, mints, lube, water, more condoms, more water… of course. Many bottles of water. He probably should get them something to eat as well. If everything went as planned, they wouldn't be leaving that room that soon… but he didn't want them to starve, either.
He buckled up his belt and rolled up his sleeves, casting a glance towards the window, and then at his watch. When he finally headed to the kitchen to prepare dinner, it was almost five.
Not much later, a click coming from the front door announced that Eliza was finally home.
"Hey," he said, walking into the living room to greet her, still wearing an apron.
"Hey…"
When they kissed, she looked away, and in that split second when her eyes refused to meet his, he knew something was wrong.
"What happened?" he asked.
"Nothing," she muttered in response, and the way she was eager to step away from him made a frown replace the smile that had initially lit his face.
"No, hey," he asked again, grabbing her arm. "What's wrong?"
"Devon…" she whispered, finally raising her glance to his face. "We need to talk."
He felt his heart sink. 'We need to talk' was never a prelude to a nice, pleasant conversation.
"About…?"
"You'd better sit."
Another line that usually resulted in bitterness.
"OK."
"Try not to be mad until-"
"Eliza, please, just…"
He tried to stay calm. After all, it was their long-awaited night. Whatever bad news she was trying to break couldn't be that bad. He could stand it.
"Viktor has been calling me all week," she said, and he couldn't help but notice her chin had trembled when his name left her lips. "He got a divorce and he… he wants to see me."
"And?" he raised his eyebrows, and bit his lip. He was not angry. He would not be angry.
His eyes darted from Eliza's eyes to her hands, which she was now clutching over her lap as if agonizing about what she was going to say next.
"He's coming over tonight."
Devon opened his mouth, his eyebrows so far up his forehead that for a moment his whole face looked like a cubist portrait.
And then, he burst into laughter.
"Good one!" he exclaimed, poking Eliza on the ribs. "You know, you almost had me for a moment. You're good."
He kissed her, still laughing at her prank, but she remained serious.
"Nah… you're not serious."
His laughter died down when she lowered her eyes to her lap.
"You are serious!"
His mouth was hanging open again, and he was so shocked he could barely find the words he wanted to use.
"Eliza… No! What… what the fuck were you thinking?"
"Devon, please let me finish."
"Hell, no! Eliza!" he got to his feet, looking around as if the room was on fire and he had to find a way out to save his life. "Why would you…"
"I'm sorry!"
He looked into her eyes, and then it hit him. That was why she had that look on her face. That was why she couldn't look at him in the eyes.
Viktor had gotten a divorce, and she was going to give him another chance.
And she was going to do it that night. The night that was supposed to be theirs.
He felt his whole body was on fire. No, he was not angry. He was furious. When the doorbell rang, Eliza sprung to her feet, but he was faster. Tearing away the apron and throwing it over the dining table, he marched towards the door, knowing at the very moment his hand touched the doorknob who he would find standing outside.
A tall, good-looking blue-eyed man, with his perfect hair and his perfect suit, and his perfect bouquet of red roses.
"You must be Viktor," he muttered.
"Yes," the other man answered, looking slightly bewildered. "And you are…"
Devon snorted, and looked behind him to cast a poisonous look towards Eliza.
"I'm just the maid."
"Devon, please wait…"
He made sure not to look at her face when she spoke, and simply grabbed his jacket from the back of one of the chairs.
"I'll give you two some… privacy," he whispered, before leaving her apartment and shutting the door behind him, his pace picking up as he headed to the car, trying to outrun his humiliation.
Chapter 10: And Straight on 'Til Morning
To say that Viktor had rained on his parade was an understatement.
He had left in such a hurry that he had completely forgotten to take the cheese breadsticks out of the oven. Whatever. Now he hoped they burned, and that the smoke would make the two of them choke as they made out.
He walked faster and blinked, trying to rid his mind of the images of Eliza and Viktor making out on the very same sofa where he and Eliza had been together. Goodness! What
joke was that? He was the one who should be with her, not some inglorious bastard who decided to pop out of nowhere after getting a divorce.
And now Eliza was letting that idiotic, non-wrinkled, non-old, non-everything-he-had-hoped-he-would-be Viktor back into her life.
What fucking joke was that?
"Shut up," he muttered, clenching his hands into fists. "Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!"
He had finally reached the car, only to find out he had left his keys at Eliza's place.
----
"Your… maid seems to be quite a character," Viktor said, allowing himself into her living room as soon as the other man left the apartment.
"He is not my 'maid', Viktor."
Eliza Clark looked at the man in front of her and wondered: how could she have ever thought he was the one? How could she have cried for him? Suffered… Dreamt of him… Waited… Who had she been fooling?
"Devon is my boyfriend."
As soon as those words left her mouth, she felt an urge to run after him, to tell him that he had gotten it all wrong, that whatever thought that had infuriated him that much was obviously not the real reason why she had told Viktor to come over.
"I beg your pardon?" Viktor asked, taking a step closer to her.
"That's why I called you here," she replied, looking into his eyes so that she would make herself perfectly clear. So he hadn't believed her when she had told him that over the phone? Very well. Now that they were face to face, there was no way her message wouldn't get through. "To tell you that it's over. Whatever it is we had… If we had anything at all… It's over. And I am dead serious, because the man you just saw?"
Viktor kept looking at her with a frown, as if staring at a person with a serious mental issue.
"I love him."
She chuckled. It felt so good to say it aloud. She felt like repeating it forever. She loved Devon Shaw. She wanted to be with him. Her eyes searched Viktor's again, and her grin broadened. She had called him that night for another reason as well. She wanted to put herself to the test. She wanted to know… if she would falter if she ever saw him again.
And now she knew she wouldn't. There he was, right in front of her, and all she could think of was the angry man who had just left her apartment.
She was over Viktor. She was free. Her heart… her heart was somewhere else.
"Eliza… I… I don't know what to say."
"No, you don't. But I do," she said, still smiling at him. At that point, their past didn't even matter anymore. She felt so happy it was all over, that she was finally letting go of that ghost, that she couldn't even bring herself to rant at him for toying with her emotions not that long ago. "Best of luck in your future endeavors."
And then, she led him out of her apartment, and slammed the door behind him.
As she leaned against it, she closed her eyes and let out a relieved sigh. Now all she needed was to find Devon and explain everything.
She had just reached for her cell phone when she heard a knock on the door.
"Viktor!" she yelled, dialing Devon's number as she touched the doorknob with her free hand. "I've already told you t-"
There was a moment of silence in which she only stared at Devon. Then, he picked up his phone from his pocket, and after glancing at the screen to check who was calling him, he cleared his throat.
"I forgot to take my keys," he muttered, looking at the carpet.
As soon as he came in, she locked the door behind them.
"Really?" she asked, crossing her arms. "Did you really walk out like an angry little girl?"
"Angry little girl?"
He had whipped his head to look at her, and his eyes were tainted with anger.
"You invite Viktor over, and now you're telling me off?"
"I-"
"Oh, shut up, Eliza!"
"Shut up?" So he felt like screaming? Fine. She could scream as well. "I called him here to tell him we were over!"
"Really?" he was standing a mere foot from her, and he felt so absurdly annoyed at how that evening was turning out to be that he was sure he would scorch her with all the heat coming out of his body. "Since when do you need to invite him for a date to make that happen?"
"A date?" her eyes looked as though they were about to pop out of her head. "Are you fucking delusional? I called him here so that I could dump him face-to-face! So that he would leave me alone!"
No matter how loud Eliza Clark thought she was being, Devon Shaw knew he could be louder. And if she wanted to go down the road of verbal abuse, he was game.
"You had a whole week to do that, and you call him here tonight?" he yelled, and the veins in his forehead threatened to burst. "Tell me again who is fucking delusional!"
Now she was the one who looked positively pissed. Her mouth hung open, and for a moment, he thought she was going to slap him across the face.
Instead, she pulled him closer and shoved her tongue past his lips.
And although that was not exactly what he was expecting, her kisses were always something he looked very much forward to, even when she was clearly intent on making his lips bleed as she bit him, her hands pulling at his hair frantically as she rubbed her body against his.
As to not disappoint her, he bit her back, but obviously not as hard as she was biting him. And then, although they both had their eyes tightly shut, she would sense his agony and replace her teeth with her tongue, licking his lip softly as if to numb the pain for a brief moment before sinking her teeth in again.
"Fuck, Eliza…" he managed to moan, when she finally gave his throbbing lips a break.
"I guess… this is our… first fight as a couple," she panted into his mouth, still clutching at his hair.
He opened his eyes, and cupped the back of her head as his gaze danced over her face.
"I'm still angry."
"I know…" she whispered back.
He gritted his teeth when her lips moved to his neck, and his hands closed around the rim of her dress. He honestly felt it wouldn't take much for him to tear the whole garment apart, given the explosive mixture of lust and anger that was bubbling in his veins. But then, they would end up in the couch, again. Or, as it was, on the carpet.
Maybe they could, for once, make that little extra effort to get to the bedroom.
And so, he grabbed her arms just when she had managed to undo the first three buttons of his shirt, and forced her to walk backwards until her legs hit the sofa and she fell onto it, sitting. He tilted his head upwards, gazing down at her with what he could only imagine was his most deranged look.
At the end of the day, it was her fault that he was not thinking straight. Things had gone out of control far too fast for him to keep track of where his emotions were taking him. All he knew was that he had unbuckled his belt and pulled it off, his eyes never leaving hers.
"Oh no, you wouldn't," Eliza gasped, her eyes wide as he snapped the belt in his hands.
"Oh yeah…" he replied, although he was not sure what she was talking about. He was not even sure as to what he would do with that belt, either. Still, he licked his bottom lip and decided to play along, taking a step forward. "I will."
"Only if you catch me first."
With that, Eliza climbed over the sofa and attempted to make a run for her money – something she would have clearly succeeded in if it weren't for the fact that one of the buckles of her boot had gotten caught in the slipcover, causing her to crash onto the floor with a loud thud.
"Oh, Jesus, Eliza!"
Before he knew, he was kneeling next to her, his belt long forgotten behind him.
"Are you okay? Are you hurt?"
She turned her head to look at him with a mixture of pain and surprise.
"I'm fine, I'm fine," she whispered. "I just hit my knee."
"I'm sorry…" he muttered, with a worried look on his face. "I'll go get some ice."
Devon Shaw and his surprises. She tilted her head to gaze at him, and a smile lit her face. One second ago, he looked like
he was about to give her the spanking of her life with that belt… or even choke her with it. Now, he couldn't look more concerned with the fact she had bruised her knee.
"What?" he asked.
"Is that how you intend to punish me?" she asked, smiling as he gently rubbed her knee. "By taking care of me?"
"I will always take care of you."
The words had left his lips before he could even think about what he was saying. But, in the end, it was the truth. He saw her mouth do that funny thing of its own again, and once again he was sold. One second ago, she was this fiery warrior that could have easily tackled him if she had wanted to. Now, she looked like a girl again, vulnerable and fragile.
"I love you," he whispered.
He watched as her eyebrows went up for a fraction of a second, before her lips curled upwards.
"I love you, too."
He let out a sigh of relief. No matter how much he had seen that moment in his head, to hear her actually say it made his chest swell with joy. He loved her. She loved him too.
He brought her lips to his, and his hand slowly moved from her knee to her thigh. He felt her shudder under his touch, her legs parting to accommodate him as he covered her body with his. And so, they would end up doing it on the floor, in the living room, again. That sofa had to have some sort of magnet that kept pulling them to it: they were fated to either go at it on top of it, or behind it, apparently.
Her fingers swiftly undid the rest of the buttons of his shirt, and in a matter of seconds she was tossing it off his shoulders, her nails grazing his back as his tongue delved into her mouth, eliciting moans every time he pushed his hips against her groin.
As she unzipped his jeans, he lifted his body from hers for a second and stretched his neck to look over the sofa, in order to locate the candy jar where he kept the condoms.
At that moment, the smell of something burning filled his nostrils, and his eyes went wide when he realized there was smoke coming from the kitchen.
"FUCK!"
He sprung to his feet and ran, aware that Eliza had already pulled his fully erect cock out of his jeans and boxers, but way too worried about setting her apartment on fire to actually care.
As soon as he reached the oven, he grabbed a dishcloth and pulled out a tray full of cheese breadsticks that now looked like burning pieces of charcoal, and threw them on the sink.