I garner a few strange stares when I get in the elevator. Belinda even asks if I have an appointment scheduled that’s not in her calendar, but I wave off the inquiry and make it into a cab without further interruption. I get home, change out of my dress and into clothes I don’t mind getting dirty, and catch another cab to Eli’s apartment. He finishes work at six, giving me approximately two hours until he gets home.
I let myself into the second unit. We’ve been plastering and sanding the walls for an eternity, and they’re now ready for primer and three coats of paint. We’ve painted two rooms already, and Eli has complained incessantly about how much he hates painting, so this seems like the perfect kind of apology.
I open all the windows in the living room, turn up the volume on my phone so I’ll be sure to hear if Arthur texts, then grab a can of primer and pour it into a tray. I choose a roller, arrange my ladder and get to work. It takes about fifteen minutes to remember why Eli hates painting. It smells bad, the cast-off keeps spraying back off the roller and onto my face, and my shoulder’s aching from the repetitive motion. My tank top and blue cotton shorts are covered in white flecks—so are my legs, now that I look closely—and despite my ponytail, I’m pretty sure I’ll be combing it out of my hair for days.
Still, I keep going. I’ve never been afraid of hard work, and by the hour-mark I’ve finished the entryway and am putting the finishing touches on the living room. I’m facing the wall opposite the door when I hear a click at my back, and it takes me a few seconds to recognize the sound of the knob turning. When I look behind me I’m sure my startled expression mirrors Eli’s.
He looks around mutely, eyebrows raised. “What’s this?” he asks.
“You said you hated painting,” I reply. “So I’m helping.”
He nods slowly, taking in my paint-splattered appearance. “How long have you been here?”
“About an hour.”
“What about work?”
“I left early.”
“You got a lot done.”
“I’m a hard worker.”
“Ah.” He steps inside and closes the door, studying the walls I’ve finished and nodding his approval. “You didn’t have to do this,” he says eventually.
“I know.”
“Then why?”
“Because I’m sorry for blowing you off on Friday.”
“For Berry.”
“Ah—Well, he was there...”
“You blew me off for him the week before, too, right? To have lunch instead of coming to the baseball game?”
“We were working. I didn’t choose him over you, I just had to work. And he’s married, Eli. There’s nothing going on between us.”
I don’t have to hear the words to know that “That didn’t stop you with Haines” is on the tip of his tongue. Five painful seconds pass before he runs a hand through his short hair and exhales heavily. “Thanks for doing this.”
I hesitate. I still have about ten feet of wall to finish before the living room is complete, so I turn awkwardly and resume rolling on the primer. I jump when I feel Eli’s hands sliding over my bare calves, stopping halfway up my thighs.
“I’m sorry for Friday, too,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to the soft skin behind my knee. “I should have told you where we were so you could come out. I wanted to see you, I was just so...fucking pissed.”
“I know you were.”
“But I knew if I saw you, no matter how mad I was, I’d still want you, and I just...wasn’t in the mood. That’s how it was with Stella, you know? I knew what she’d done but I wasn’t the one to walk away. She was.”
I reach back as best I can to place my hand on his head, trying to be reassuring. “I’m not Stella.”
He chuckles softly. “No kidding.” His fingers are brushing higher on my thighs now, and soon I feel him slide his fingers under my shorts, stroking me through my panties. My breath catches as he rubs back and forth, the soft contact not nearly enough.
“Eli,” I murmur, resisting the urge to collapse forward against the wet paint-covered wall.
“Don’t move.” The order is mumbled against my ass, his teeth nipping me through the cotton. I jerk at the sharp sting, then groan as he pulls off my shorts and panties, rough hands squeezing my cheeks, parting and kneading.
I whimper when I feel his tongue trace the top of my thigh, sliding in toward where I really need him. “Eli,” I moan again. The paint roller falls from my hand and I give up the fight, resting my forearms against the wall and my head on my wrists, knowing I’ll be scrubbing off primer all night. But it’ll be worth it. The position thrusts out my ass and gives Eli better access, and he takes full advantage, gripping my hips, thumbs opening me wide as he slides his tongue through my wet folds and presses inside.
My breath is short, raspy pants, relieved and turned on at the same time. “Yes,” I gasp. I bump my hips back to encourage him to give me more, and accidentally dislodge his tongue, sending it up between my cheeks, circling the one place he’s never been.
“Oh,” he exclaims with mock astonishment. “Caitlin. You’re full of surprises.”
I blush fiercely. I did not and do not want what he’s implying.
“I’ve never given a rim job before, but I guess I could try.” I can practically hear him shrug as he teases me. Then I squeal at the rough pass of his thumb over my untried opening, followed promptly by the wet, taunting swipe of his tongue.
“Eli!” I try to twist away but the combination of his hands, the ladder and the wall make it next to impossible.
“By special request...” he intones.
“I did not—” I laugh breathlessly when he does it again. “Don’t! Do what you were doing before. This isn’t what I wanted.”
“No need to be shy, Caitlin. I’m sure I can figure this out.”
I know he’s just tormenting me, but when I feel his hot breath there again I push back from the wall and use my free hand to pry his face away. He’s laughing hard against my palm, and I descend the ladder only because he’s too distracted to stop me.
“That was an accident,” I inform him primly, cheeks hot with embarrassment.
He looks me from head to toe, gaze lingering between my thighs as he sobers. “All of it?”
I resist the urge to cover myself. “Just the...back stuff.”
He smiles again and winks at me. He’s the sexiest, most challenging man I’ve ever been with. “Let’s go upstairs before the paint fumes kill us. We’ll do some more of the ‘front stuff.’”
My cheeks are still pink as I scoop up my shorts and follow him to his apartment and into his bedroom. He strips quickly and nods to indicate that I should remove my top and bra, then gives me a deeply unimpressed look when I set my phone on the nightstand. I assure him it’s turned off...though it’s not off-off, not exactly. But it is on Silent, so it won’t interrupt anything.
Eli bears me back onto the bed, and for a long time we just stay like that, making out like teenagers, enjoying the feel of our bodies pressed flush together. It’s been nearly a week since our server room sex and my last orgasm, and if his harsh breathing and the rapid thud of his heart against my ribs is any indication, he’s as ready for this as I am.
“Eli,” I whisper, turning my face away to catch my breath, snagging his earlobe between my teeth. “I’m ready.”
He laughs roughly. “Not even close.”
“Not even close? You know I am. You felt it.”
“Felt it,” he murmurs, turning his attention to my throat, sucking hard on the soft skin until I tremble. “Tasted it.”
I fumble for the condom he’d tossed onto the pillow beside us, but he snares my hands and holds them in one big fist, using the other to knead my breasts as he torments my nipples with his lips and teeth. I spread my legs wide and bump my pel
vis against his waist, trying to get friction where I want it, but he laughs again and pins my hips to the mattress.
“Eli...” I do my best to make it sound like a warning, but he doesn’t care. I try to untangle my hands so I can touch him and return the torture—I mean favor—but his grip is unrelenting. He drags my bound wrists to my stomach as he widens my legs with his shoulders, one hand sliding between my thighs and splaying my swollen flesh for his perusal. I force myself to take a deep breath. To date he’d insisted on going down on me far more than I think he might have with a partner who didn’t say she couldn’t come from it, and he’s proven me wrong every time. It’s even gotten to the point where I enjoy oral, and no longer have to provide a mortifying play-by-play. And when Eli spears his tongue inside and fucks me with it, I cry out and feel my stomach muscles tense in anticipation.
He releases my hands so he can open me wider, using his lips and teeth and tongue and fingers to torment and arouse me. I curl one hand into his hair and try to guide his head, but he steadfastly ignores me, choosing instead to respond to the message my pussy is sending: don’t stop.
I catch sight of a flicker of light from the corner of my eye and turn my head in time to see the display on my phone go dark. A phone call? A text? An email? My heart pounds, equal parts aroused and curious. “Eli,” I plead. “Hurry.” He lifts his head to meet my gaze, his stare implacable, and I know what he’s doing—he’s reminding me that he calls the shots in this relationship, too. I don’t come when I say I will, so now I’ll come when he says. Fucker.
He fastens his lips around my clit and sucks hard, making me yelp, back arching off the bed. He chuckles and slips two fingers inside to add unnecessary fuel to the fire, and my mouth falls open, helpless to contain my gasping breaths.
Then I see it again. The familiar glow of my phone. Arthur calling to say Novak wants to meet? Berry texting with more scandalizing news?
I try to focus on Eli, but there’s no way I can do that without at least knowing who called. I don’t have to read or listen to the message, I can just see who it is, then I’ll relax and enjoy the sex, and then later I’ll check my phone. Everybody wins.
I moan so Eli knows how into this I am, then twine my fingers in his hair again to keep his head in place. With my free hand I inch across the bed to the nightstand, carefully lifting the phone and turning it on so I can see the display. Three new text messages. I risk a glance between my legs but Eli’s still hard at work, so I click the icon and see they’re all from Arthur.
Okay. Good.
I put down the phone and curl my fingers into the mattress.
Everything’s fine.
I’m sure it can wait.
How long will this take? Surely no longer than...fifteen minutes? Thirty, tops? An hour?
Oh God.
“I need to come,” I tell Eli, the desperate note in my voice not entirely false. “I’m so close. Please make me come.”
“I intend to.” He drags his lips up and down my inner thigh, and the sight of the moisture clinging to his chin is almost enough to send me over.
“Now, Eli.”
He smirks up at me. “Soon, Caitlin.”
I try bargaining. “What do you want? I’ll do anything.” I pause. “Almost anything.”
He laughs again. “I’m not trying to torture you, babe. Just relax. It’ll happen.”
“It would happen if you—”
“Relax.” He presses a sticky hand against my chest to force me back down onto the bed, then resumes his work. God. He’s so good at this. So generous. So determined. And he never expects anything in return, which is why my stupid bargaining ploy didn’t work. He just likes doing it. He just likes me.
The phone lights up again and I grimace.
I can’t.
I can’t come if I don’t know.
And he’s going to be a while.
Maybe if I just read one message.
The first one.
Just to get an idea.
Again my fingers creep across the mattress as I keep one eye on Eli. My pitchy breathing has as much to do with my deception as my arousal, and I pick up the phone to see that I now have five messages from Arthur. I select the first one: Novak called.
My eyes widen. I’ll just read one more.
She’s willing to meet. When should I say?
Third message. The last one, I swear.
Caitlin? She says she can come to the office on Saturday.
Saturday? That’s the same day as Dorrie’s tournament and our office party. Take the weekend off, you psycho. Out of habit I start to write back, tapping carefully with my thumb, until Eli’s enraged, “What the fuck?” scares the shit out of me and I drop the phone on the floor.
“What the hell are you doing?” he demands furiously, jumping to his feet.
I sit up abruptly, dizzy from the change in position, barely able to see him yanking on his shorts.
“Eli, I—”
His face is red with fury. “Shut up, Caitlin. Just...shut up.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, ignoring him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—”
“You shouldn’t? You shouldn’t answer your fucking phone while I’m fucking going down on you? You shouldn’t? You think?”
“No, I mean, I—”
He drags on his T-shirt as though it’s a piece of armor. “Stop talking. Don’t say another word. Or send another goddamn text.” He snatches up my clothes from the floor and hurls them at me. “Get dressed,” he says coldly, “and get out.”
I pull on my clothes as fast as I can. I’m not afraid of Eli, but I’ve never seen him this angry, either. “Would you please let me—”
“I am letting you,” he interrupts. “Be grateful I’m letting you walk out with your fucking treasured phone and your all-important work.”
“I’m not just going to leave while—”
He storms around to the side of the bed. “No? Maybe this will convince you.” He scoops up my phone and chucks it across the room. My jaw drops as we both watch it smash into the wall and fall to the floor, somehow blessedly intact.
“Stop!” I shriek, scrambling off the opposite side of the bed and picking it up. I’m not foolish enough to check to see if it works right now, but I spare a split second for a prayer to the phone gods.
“Get out!” Eli roars. He throws my purse at me and I catch it, jamming my phone inside and running out of the room and down the hall.
“Forget where I live. Forget where I work. Forget painting the apartment. Forget your phony apologies. Forget my fucking name. Do you understand?”
I’ve got my hand on the knob when he slams a fist on the door over my head to keep it closed. “Do you understand?” he repeats. His head is dipped low, his breath hot on my cheek. Every ounce of the person I knew five minutes ago has vanished, leaving this wounded, brutal man in his wake.
“I understand,” I say, keeping my eyes on the door.
“Don’t talk to me at the games.”
“I won’t.”
“Don’t ask me for any fucking favors at work.”
“I won’t.”
“And...” He grips my chin painfully tight and forces me to look at him, waiting until I meet his eye. “Don’t tell anyone about this. About us. It never happened.”
I swallow painfully, realizing with more than a little horror that the stinging behind my eyes is tears I absolutely refuse to shed. I can’t make myself speak right now, so instead I just nod, and when it looks like he’s going to try to make me talk I shove him away as hard as I can and flee. He lets me go, slamming the door so violently I swear the whole house shakes, but I don’t look back as I stumble down the stairs and out of the building, shoes in hand. My fingers tremble as I call a cab and ask to be picked up two blocks awa
y, clinging to my composure as I scurry away from Eli’s apartment.
The cab arrives three minutes later and I give him my address, my voice deceptively calm. I make it all the way to my apartment and into the shower before I start to cry, great, racking sobs that hurt everywhere. I crouch beneath the spray until the water runs cold, then linger as long as I can bear it.
I don’t even think about my phone.
Chapter Twenty-One
When my alarm goes off at eight o’clock on Saturday morning, I stare at the red numbers on the display in confusion. Why does it say eight? Why am I in bed? Why am I in my bed? And then, as it has every day since last Wednesday’s awful debacle, the answer comes back to me.
We fought.
We made up.
We fought.
We broke up.
We didn’t speak again.
In fact, I think, as I force myself out of bed and into the bathroom to wash my hair and prepare for today’s 10:00 a.m. meeting with the elusive Martina Novak, we haven’t even seen each other since the fight. Not that we’d ordinarily bump into each other at work, but we’d been finding ways these past weeks, dropping off papers we could have emailed, planning stairwell visits or lunch breaks...
I take a deep breath and focus on lather, rinse, repeat. Eventually I’m in the kitchen with half a grapefruit and my second coffee, skimming the case notes I’d memorized a week ago. I’m determined to show up no more than twenty minutes before the meeting starts, no longer one of those people who has to get to the office at six o’clock on a Saturday.
I shake my head, determined not to hop on this morose train of thought again, leaping instead to a slightly more depressing topic: Dorrie’s softball tournament. Her first game is scheduled for nine fifteen this morning. It’s a gorgeous late-August day, perfect for ball, not yet too hot. She’d come over last night to talk about how excited she was that Susan had agreed to attend—the implication being that my presence was no longer required—and I’d forced myself to sound equally excited. I’d been urging Susan to go to the games, hadn’t I? This is exactly what I wanted.
In Her Defense Page 26