“You were always alone,” he reminded her. “Now, you aren’t.”
“No, I’m not.” She smiled, letting those words wash over her. She was the furthest thing from alone now.
5
Elijah
“You only have space tomorrow?” Elijah tried not to growl. Tomorrow was too soon. Way too soon. It had already been a few days since he was cornered publicly into doing this and he still wasn’t ready for it. He had hoped he would have another week before he signed himself over to spending an entire day alone with her, maybe even a night.
Not that he didn’t see the need to get her out of the house and keeping busy. Just the day before, he’d caught her in the gym alone. He had slept through breakfast and the morning training he’d stupidly signed up for. He’d figured to catch her and Zander before they were done, but he’d missed it. Instead, he found Sawyer, just sitting there on the mat, a lost look on her face. He knew it when he saw it - that moment when a loss felt like it had been the day before and not years ago. He had just helped her stand and walked her out. He found Vincent in their office, and the Italian took her off his hands. He hadn’t seen her again until dinner, where she seemed more like herself.
He should have comforted her himself, but that sort of pain was raw and he’d needed to get away from it. It had only reminded him of Taylor and all the reasons why he was so hung up on admitting how he felt about her. He felt like an ass after the fact.
“Yes sir. It’s a busy season with the holidays. We had someone cancel just this morning, and that’s the only thing we have for the next two weeks. Unless, of course, you want to schedule something closer to Christmas-”
“No, it works. I’m just shocked. I’ll take it, doesn’t matter the time. Party of two.”
“Then it’ll be eight pm tomorrow. Party of two, you say? Would you like us to make any plans for a date or know anything ahead of time?”
He resisted a groan. “No. Just a table for two. It’s not…it’s not a big date or anything. I just promised to bring her here at least once, and-”
“We’ll have something set up at your table to drink upon arrival. Maybe even some flowers.” The professional tone of the other person on the line ended after that. “You know, Elijah, you’ve never brought a woman here before.” It was a teasing comment.
“Fuck you, Rogers.” Elijah growled this time. “She’s a teammate just like the guys.”
Well, she was nothing like the guys, but he wasn’t going to tell his contact for this place more. Rogers knew he was an IMPO special agent, and so were the guys, but nothing else. And he wasn’t going to tell Rogers any more, either. From the years he’d known Rogers, he knew the other man was nosy. It was one of the reasons Elijah stopped sleeping with him. He was always interested in what was going on. That’s what Elijah got from making friends with the Magi from Atlanta who knew everything. He played the role of server and host for one restaurant, but he had contacts to every good place in the city and knew all the right people to get the best service around. A call to Rogers meant you were going to get the best Atlanta had to offer, if you stayed in his good graces.
“That’s interesting. A new teammate? I hope that’s working well for you boys,” Rogers commented lightly.
Elijah nearly cursed. He’d given Rogers something without meaning to. He now knew their team was five guys and one woman. He didn’t know why it bothered him that Rogers was looking for information, since he always did, but today, it got on his nerves. “Make the reservation. Don’t do anything ridiculous.”
“Do you need a hotel room for the evening?”
“No,” Elijah bit back and immediately backpedaled. “Yes. We’ll need a place. There’s no reason to try and drive too much after having dinner. Thank you.”
“I’ll make sure those are handled for you as well.”
“Thank you, Rogers.” He meant it.
“I’ll email everything to you once it’s done. Just give me an hour. Have a good one.”
“You too,” he replied and then hung up. He needed to find his ‘date’ and tell her the plans now. He didn’t like how he felt about all of this. It was just a dinner with a friend. A friend he’d been neglecting because he was a damn coward. Quinn even said as much now. Vincent and Quinn had both now nailed him to the wall over it. Jasper had too, now that he really thought how that went down.
He wondered where she would be now. It was late enough in the day that she wouldn’t be in the gym, but he didn’t know her schedule anymore. They didn’t have much of one, everyone just going with the flow. Sawyer was the hardest to find out of everyone. She could be anywhere from the offices, to her room, to another of their bedrooms, or even in the woods. He was in for a search, he realized as he left his space.
He tried his shared office with Vincent first. Vincent looked up from the book he was reading and frowned at him. “Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Sawyer,” he answered. “You seen her?”
“No, but I’m going to ask why you need her,” Vincent replied, narrowing his eyes. “Haven’t you pissed her off enough recently?”
“Fuck you. I’m looking for her to tell her we’re going on a trip to Atlanta tomorrow.” Where he would hopefully grow back his balls and talk to her about what was wrong with him.
“Ah.” Vincent visibly relaxed. “Well, I haven’t seen her since breakfast. I know she trained with Zander in the morning, but…I would try the woods with Quinn. Those two have been spending a lot of time together in the last few days.”
“Don’t I know it,” he replied. He wanted to spend time with them again, the three of them. He also didn’t want to be the third wheel to the Sawyer and Quinn show. There was only one real way to fix that, and therein lay his problem. His shit was keeping him not just from her, but from all of them. They were all wrapped up in her. Everywhere he went, everyone he talked to, he was confronted with her. “I’m trying, Vin, I really am. This trip will be time to air my shit. I promise. Maybe I’ll feel better once she understands.”
“I’m not the one you need to worry about. Look, we’re in a weird situation. We always have been, but she looks at you like her best friend now and you’re hurting her. I can understand what you’re thinking and going through, I really can, but…This needs to be the time, or I’m telling her the next time she asks me.”
“I’m amazed you haven’t yet.”
“I’m a better liar than she is. I hate it, but you’ve got the rest of us backed into corners about it, especially Quinn and I. We all know what’s eating away at you, at least from some perspective, and we’re keeping her in the dark for you. Because it’s your feelings that need to be admitted, not ours.”
Elijah let the guilt hit him like a bag of bricks. Damn, he was being shitty. He was convincing a group of guys to lie to the woman they loved because he was scared to admit he cared for her. “I’m trying.”
“I know.” Vin sighed. “But you’ve got to get over that mental block. It’s causing all sorts of problems between people, and you know it.”
Which one? The fact that he was crushing on her or that she could die and break his heart? Or maybe that he very possibly could be rejected by her, that she didn’t want him like she wanted the rest of them? He felt like the lovesick fool he claimed all of them were. He wasn’t even sure he loved her. He cared for her. He’d convinced himself of that, now that they weren’t in danger - that nothing was wrong.
“Elijah?” Vincent called out to him and he realized he was just standing there in the office door like an idiot.
“Nothing,” he answered, closing Vin back in their office.
He went out the back of the plantation house and into the woods. He didn’t need to work very hard to find her or Quinn now. Sombra ran up to him and pounced.
Elijah was a big man, but the over two hundred pound jaguar had momentum and took him down. He hit his back on the earth, groaning as the jaguar rubbed on him, purring. He let it happen, staring at the sky in a
small amount of pain. Damn cat.
“Sombra, get off him! We’ve had this discussion. You can’t jump on people. You can seriously hurt someone.” Sawyer sounded frustrated, but when he rolled his head to look at her, he saw the small smile she was fighting off. “Though this one deserves it. Jump on him again.”
Sombra obliged and he grunted as she dropped all her weight on his stomach again.
“Thanks, little lady. Really. I get the message.” He didn’t try to move, hoping his suffering could end soon. Maybe the cat would suffocate him. That didn’t sound so bad.
“Good. Get off him, girl.”
Sombra did so immediately and trotted back into the woods. He heard even more movement and watched the wolves run after the jaguar and disappear.
“What are y’all doing out here?” he asked as he pushed himself up. A hand appeared in front of him and he took it. Quinn helped him up without a word, smiling as well.
“We’re just putting them through their paces. They need to stay exercised,” he explained. “The wolves caught your scent.”
“Sombra just thought you would make a good practice dummy,” Sawyer commented, grinning now. “What are you doing out here?”
“I wanted to tell you that we’re going to Atlanta tomorrow. For dinner. Well, maybe sightseeing, then dinner, depending on if we have time. Maybe some dancing afterwards, since we’ll be up there.”
“As friends?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
He sighed and looked back at Quinn, who didn’t offer him any advice on the matter. He already knew Quinn’s advice, and his closest friend knew that. Tell her what he wanted. Just say it. Stop being a coward and start being the male he knew Elijah was.
“No,” he said slowly. “Well, if you want it to be as friends. That’s your choice.” He corrected to a non-answer. He would rather have her make that decision. It shocked her. He watched her eyes get big, then the emotion disappeared from her face as she covered it all up. It was something she didn’t do as much, the blank face, but she pulled it out on him and that worried him.
“We’ll play it by ear,” was her answer, with no inflection to her voice that told him what she wanted. That frustrated him, but he resisted acting on it. He had wanted her to admit something about how she felt. Friends or something more: make a decision. Instead, she gave him a non-answer to his own.
“All right then, little lady.”
An awkward silence settled on them. Elijah wasn’t sure where to go from here.
“I guess we’re not going hunting tonight,” Quinn said, breaking the silence as he turned to her. “We’ll plan it for a different time.”
“You were going hunting?” Elijah frowned between them. When had that happened? He’d never heard about them wanting go out to hunt. He would have loved to go on a hunt. He grew up hunting with his dad, but hunting with Quinn was an experience.
“We’ve been planning to, but things keep coming up. And after South America, I haven’t been keen to go out and play in the woods away from the comforts of modern civilization.” Sawyer was wearing an expression of mock disappointment. “I’m sorry, Quinn.”
“Don’t pretend to be disappointed.”
“Okay!” She grinned and that made Quinn chuckle at her.
He just watched the interaction, happy for them. He had been right about them, that much was certain. He knew Quinn wasn’t going to be able to resist her strength, both physically and of character. He knew she wasn’t going to be able to resist giving a piece of her heart to a Magi very few understood and even fewer ever gave a chance to love. Sawyer loved the ‘lost’ causes.
A pang of jealousy at his closest friend ran through him. A pang of jealousy for her as well. “I’ll leave you two. Have a good day and Sawyer, tomorrow-”
“Wait. Hang out with us. It’s been a long time since the three of us just hung out.” Sawyer grabbed his arm and held on. He hadn’t even started walking yet, so she hadn’t needed to grab him, but the gesture moved him. She wanted him there, with them.
“Okay, but I’m not sure I can help with exercising the beasts. I’m not fond of being a pounce target, either.”
“No, we’ll just go to my camp. We’ve had a fire going all day to battle the chill. I’m certain I have one of your spare sketchbooks; you can doodle while we just talk. She’s right. We haven’t had fun together in a long time.”
He swallowed at the idea of a sketchbook. He hadn’t drawn anything in weeks, probably longer. He knew what he wanted to draw but he was tired of seeing obsidian eyes looking back at him. Especially now that she knew she was one of his constant subject matters. To combat the urge to draw her, he just stopped.
They walked to the camp and garden, where Elijah immediately made the fire bigger, seeing it was trying to die out. He grabbed a couple of Quinn’s logs from the stack and threw them on and brought it back to life. Then he grabbed a chair and fell into it. Quinn brought him the sketchbook and a pen. He took it slowly, unsure of himself. His lover must have noticed, but then, Quinn noticed everything.
“She thinks you draw her beautifully. It brought her to tears when we were in the rainforest,” he whispered. Elijah’s eyes went wide as he stared at the leather-bound sketchbook in his hand. “I hope you haven’t stopped.”
“I have stopped,” he mumbled. “I didn’t know that she…”
“I know she complimented your work, but she was very touched by your art of her. I should have told you sooner. You should draw something she can keep today.”
“Damn you,” Elijah grumbled, realizing he was just backed into another corner by the wolf. “Sneaky.”
“She knows I’m meddling too, which is why she’s wandered off to get the animals back when she didn’t need to.”
He looked around and realized he hadn’t noticed her disappear on him. Shaking his head, he opened the blank sketchbook and began putting the sketch down, getting lost in a mental image of her and those dark eyes and that smile, like every time he drew her. Not even Quinn had been such a captivating model for him.
When she came back with the pack behind her, it felt like normal. They all talked about the animals, each other, and he couldn’t resist making some very obscene jokes as Quinn decided he wanted her to sit on his lap, something Elijah had never seen before. She wasn’t the type of woman to sit on a lap, but the sight of it made him want her on his. Made him want it enough to put the sketchbook over his lap and hope the animals weren’t close enough to smell how turned on he was. He knew they could and then they would tell their owners, because animals didn’t keep secrets, not really.
“Jealous?” Quinn asked in a taunting way that made Elijah grin.
“I get her all night tomorrow,” he retorted, feeling easier.
“Oh, the pervert thinks he can get a piece whenever he wants, huh?” She was also smiling and shifted a little in Quinn’s lap, like she was trying to get more comfortable. Elijah let out a bark of laughter at Quinn’s face, an agonized expression of want and some attempt at control. She was torturing the poor Magi.
“Stop moving,” he demanded softly. “Or I’m going to ask Elijah to leave.”
Elijah continued to laugh. “Don’t stop on my account.” He felt the pang of being the third wheel, but he also wanted to keep enjoying the easiness of this.
“That’s an even better idea,” Quinn murmured. Elijah could see the devious ideas twinkling in his eyes. He knew what Quinn wanted. Elijah had considered that wet dream more times than he could count.
“Oh, that’s dirty,” she mumbled, getting off Quinn’s lap. “I’ll sit over here.” She placed herself beside Quinn. The conversation was dropped in favor of lighter, less obscene topics.
As dinner approached, he got up and carefully tore out the sketch he’d been working on. He approached her slowly, following Quinn’s suggestion and held it out to her.
“I’m going in. You said you like my work and…” He felt like a tongue-tied fool.
She took it slowly and look
ed it over with consideration. “You always draw me so beautifully,” she said, grazing a finger gently over the sketch. He wanted that gentle finger stroking down his chest, or maybe any other body part of his. He had never seen her touch something with such a tenderness. And what she’d said? There was a vulnerability to it. As if he didn’t draw what he saw, but rather made her more than what she was.
But he was a realistic sketcher. He drew the world around as it was and he drew her exactly as beautifully as she appeared.
“Because you are.” He wasn’t going to give her anything but the truth on that. “Well, you can have that. Good night, you two.”
“It’s about that time, isn’t it?” Quinn stood up and put the fire out. “We’ll come in as well. Sawyer?”
“You can stay with Elijah for the night. I think I’m going to bother Zander.”
He didn’t move as he listened to them. He swore they were reading each other’s minds. They made the decision to split and leave each other with different lovers without even needing to discuss it.
“Elijah?” Quinn looked at him, questioning. “You want to come to my room tonight? Or I’ll go to yours.”
“Yeah,” he answered. He wasn’t in the mood for anything, but the company would be nice. He would never turn Quinn down, either.
Once they were inside, she disappeared on them. She was good at it, and he still appreciated that she made no effort to stop him and Quinn. Not like it mattered, since nothing was really going on anymore, but it was more him and Quinn, not her.
He walked into Quinn’s room and fell on the bed. “Save me,” he groaned.
“Only you can save you. Look, we can be normal. You can stop avoiding hanging out with me and her. I’ve missed you, and I know she wants you around, so you can get over yourself now. Especially now, when she needs us around her, being there for her. She can’t be alone.”
He growled into the bed. He knew that. He knew and realized all of that. “Are you in the mood?” he asked, rolling onto his back, hoping to change the conversation.
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