by L. J. Evans
I just stared into those eyes, desire and smugness and humor bouncing through them as they sparkled in the light from the kitchen.
“Good luck with that.” I eyed her back, my own breath caught in my chest so that the words were gritty and harsh, but she didn’t seem to care.
Her eyes flicked to my lips, and I found mine following in the same way hers had gone as I looked at her full, pink ones that were waiting to be kissed. I ached to lean across the damn board and do just that. Kiss her.
Instead, I pulled back, dumping the wooden tiles from the board into the velvet bag. Ava eyed my hands that I swore were not shaking even though I felt like my whole body was trembling. I had control. I was in control.
Enlistment contract. Enlistment contract. Enlistment contract, I chanted to myself.
Ava stood, heading toward the hallway and the room she’d taken from me. “Goodnight, oh Captain, my Captain.”
I breathed a sigh of relief as the bedroom door shut behind her. Because if she hadn’t left, I didn’t know how long I would have lasted before she’d have broken through every last ounce of control I had.
♫ ♫ ♫
The next morning, I was up early again. Mac and Truck came out to help soon after. We painted longer than we had any day prior. I wanted to say it was because we hadn’t been disrupted by a half-naked Ava, but the truth was, she hadn’t come out while we were working the day before either. Instead, I’d gone in at lunch time to check on her.
Putting in extra time now meant we’d finished almost three sides of the house. It looked like we were going to finish with at least a couple days to spare.
It was late, almost four, by the time the dumbasses went in to shower, leaving me, as always, to clean up. Ava still hadn’t put in an appearance. I could see her car parked out front, so she hadn’t taken off without saying goodbye. This thought made my entire stomach clench up.
It would be a good thing when she left, I tried to convince myself.
Yet, I still found myself making my way inside to find her. I told myself that it was just to see if she wanted to come with us to the Mexican restaurant we’d seen in town, but I knew the truth. I just ached to see her again. Ached almost as much as I had when we’d done theoretical SEAL training sophomore year.
I went down the hall to the master bedroom. The door was open, and I caught sight of Ava going through my things. I leaned on the doorframe and watched. She was pulling clothes out and then folding them back in. She hadn’t realized I was there. Or at least, I didn’t think she had.
Her lithe frame bent and uncoiled as she moved almost methodically through the dresser. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was a spy or undercover P.I. looking for something. She wasn’t going to find it. There was nothing in my life besides the academy and the Coast Guard.
I should have been pissed that she was going through my stuff, violating my privacy and my trust. Instead, I was fascinated. What had prompted this sudden desire to dig through my life? Just the fact that she was touching it all, putting her scent on it, made me want to go behind her and pick up everything that she had handled so I could smell it.
I brushed the stubble on my head that was still longer than I ever let it grow during a school year and tried to get my bearings. She was doing me in. Temptation and threat rolled into one.
She pulled my uniform cap out of the drawer. It was my new cap, or bider, with the black and gold braids and no dent that declared my senior status. It meant I was almost done. One last cruise on the TS Kennedy, then my final year as a Sea Aggie before I could enlist and hopefully get accepted as a commissioned officer in the Coast Guard.
Ava turned to me, putting my bider on her head, as if she’d known I was there all along.
“Is this how you wear this thing?” she asked.
My whole body responded to that. Her in my cap.
“Yes.” It was a rumble. From deep within my chest.
She smirked at me. She wasn’t embarrassed at having been caught. She didn’t stop pilfering through my things, either. Instead, she came up with my uniform shirt. The dark green matched her pond colored eye.
As I watched, she pulled her T-shirt over her head to reveal a pink lace bra that did little to hide everything underneath it. It was like her bikini tops but sheer. Giving me a glimpse of her brown areolas and pebbled nipples. That made my body respond uncomfortably, but I didn’t move from my position on the doorframe with my hands carefully tucked under my armpits.
She pulled my shirt on and buttoned only a handful of buttons as I continued to watch. She was so goddamn beautiful. And confident. It was hard to imagine that she was only nineteen. That she hadn’t even been to college yet. That she hadn’t already spent years at college finding herself and becoming this strong, independent woman before me.
She looked up at me, her eyes and dark lashes loaded with emotions. Lust. Longing. Wariness. I knew, after a handful of days with her, that the wariness wasn’t directed at me, but it was always startling to see it there when, really, she was almost always full of sass.
I couldn’t move. If I did, I’d devour her. There would be nothing left of me or her or us. Just a puddle of spent desire. That couldn’t happen, because our lives weren’t ever going to touch again. Our lives were ships going in different directions.
Ava didn’t seem to have the same reservations. Hadn’t I already learned that? She could be controlled when she wanted to be, but there was very little that pushed her to allow that control. She was always going after what she wanted. In that moment, I could tell she wanted me. She moved toward me in my Midnights, a pink lace bra, and her miniscule jean shorts.
Her mass of messy, dark hair was pulled partially up, leaving some curls straggling down her back below my cap. Some curls twirled about her face, and my fingers itched to embed themselves in them.
When she got to me. Her one blue-green eye had darkened so that it was almost the same color as her dark hazel one. I couldn’t stop looking at them, drowning in them.
“Eli,” she breathed out my name as she stopped inches from where I was propped up.
I didn’t respond, I just looked at her rosy lips and dark lashes and full cheeks stained with sun and color that suited her.
“Do you want me?” she asked, and for the barest of seconds, I saw the insecurity skirt across her face and eyes. The high schooler on the verge of new adventures.
That pushed me into doing the worst possible thing. Touching her. I ran a finger along her cheek. My rough hands, stained with the paint that I’d been using for the last few days on the outside of her dad’s summer home, caressing the soft skin. She leaned into my palm, eyes closing part way. My other hand found the opposite cheek. Her skin was so perfect, so unscathed. But I instinctively knew it didn’t match the part inside her that felt marked. I knew that feeling.
“You know I do,” I finally responded gutturally, truthfully.
“Then kiss me,” she demanded, eyes open again, searching my eyes for an answer I couldn’t give.
I let my finger land on the corner of her lips like I’d been wanting to do since the day I’d met her. Instead of easing my desire, it only increased it. It made me wonder what those lips would taste like. Would they be full of the sea and citrus that she always seemed to drown me in?
God it hurt. To not kiss her. To not give in to everything my body was aching for. But I wouldn’t. I tapped her lips with my index finger and then drew away, turning my back to her and walking down the hall, my mind reminding my body of what I’d been working for since I was ten and I’d lost my father.
“We’re going for tacos,” I called back. “If you want to come, you better put on your own clothes and join us in five.” I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. I knew I’d just see disappointment on her face. The disappointment my heart was calling to me.
“Asshole,” I heard her breathe out as I got to the guys’ bathroom at the end of the hall.
That was okay. If she thought I was an asshole, it would keep her away. It would allow me to keep the barrier up that needed to be there. We didn’t have a choice.
Chapter Eight
Ava
KISS YOU TONIGHT
“I catch myself wishing
You were whispering my name
Every star, every scar
Every mark upon my heart
Up and fades away.”
—Performed by David Nail
—Written by Cook / Summar / Knowles
I watched Eli walk down the hall. My body throbbing for the kiss that I knew he’d been so close to giving me. My brain throbbing with the sheer arrogance of him. To touch me and leave me. To bring me so close to feeling the lips I’d been aching to taste.
But it wasn’t him I’d called the asshole. It was me. For tempting us both. I knew as much as he did that he and I didn’t belong. I knew the risks, to both of us, if we gave in to the feeling that our bodies were demanding. I also knew that I had never felt this way before.
I was slightly terrified that I’d never feel this way again. Understanding those stupid words that Jennifer Grey whispered to Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing for the first time in my life. Understanding Jenna’s romance books and movies a little better. Understanding the girls in high school. Understanding Jenna.
Because what if Eli was the only one who could make me feel this way? No other guy had yet. No guy had drowned me in just his gaze and commandeered my heart and my body to accept his hand and his touch.
I shook my head out of my thoughts and pulled off his shirt, inhaling the scent of him as I did so. Masculine and salty. Like the sea.
I pulled on my T-shirt that I’d thrown aside, grabbed my phone and my purse, and headed down the hall and out the door. Mac Truck were already in the back of the truck, legs bent at all weird angles as I got in.
Eli thundered down the stairs and got into the driver’s seat. We didn’t say anything. Mac Truck seemed to sense the air between us. Full and heady, and yet unfulfilled. Everyone was quiet as we drove downtown.
When we got to the taco truck, it was crowded, but we were able to order and find seats at one of the picnic tables. We’d just sat down when a voice drew my head around.
“Ava! I thought you’d left already.” It was Lacey, and she was right. I had planned on leaving after I’d played at the bar. Now, a day and a half later, I was still there. It was saving me money—money I needed to save—but the real reason was the stupid cadet sitting across from me, watching me and listening for my response.
“Decided I could save a few more dollars by staying a bit longer,” I told her with a shrug. “But I’ll probably head out tomorrow or the next day.”
That still had a lot to do with Mr. Grumpy sitting there glowering at me. The fact that I was leaving before my originally planned end of the week departure.
“If we’d known, we would have booked you another night,” Lacey said.
“Well, that wouldn’t be fair to Ben. He was gracious enough to give me the mic for two nights already.”
Lacey took in the three behemoths sitting at the table with me, landing on Eli—the one to pull me from her bar. And she could read, as easily as I could, that they were Dad’s cadets. A little frown furrowed in between her eyebrows.
“You’re still leaving, right?” She lowered her voice a little. Lacey was three times my age and had listened to me bemoan my life more than enough summers to know that I wanted Nashville and Juilliard more than anything else. More than a sexy cadet.
I nodded. “Yes. God, yes.”
“Okay. Well…please let us know when you get to Nashville, okay?” She started to hug me and then stopped, knowing that hugs and me were often awkward.
“Will do,” I told her.
She gave the guys and me one more look and then left just as our order was called. Eli and Mac went to pick it up while Truck and I saved our seats. I could feel Truck eyeing me.
“Just say it, Truck. I don’t want your brain to explode from you thinking too hard.”
He didn’t smile when I’d expected him to. “What’s the deal with you and Eli?”
I was surprised that he even asked. I shrugged. “Nothing more than is going on with you and me.”
He just stared. We both knew it was a lie.
“What do you want me to say? I’m leaving, and he’s one of my dad’s cadets.”
“Can I just say something?”
“God, please do before I crumble under your stare.”
“Eli. He doesn’t… He’s never…”
“Wait. Are you telling me he’s a virgin?”
Truck laughed so hard I thought he was going to blow a nostril. “Hell no.”
“What then?”
“Let’s just say, in the three years I’ve known him, I’ve never, ever seen him react to a girl the way he reacts to you.”
“Like an asshole commanding an army?”
“Like a man who doesn’t know if he can keep his hands to himself a moment longer.”
We both stared at each other before Eli and Mac joined us.
“Who died?” Mac asked.
“What?” I asked.
“Yo mama. After I taught her how long a real man should last in her bed,” Truck said.
Eli groaned. “Please. Don’t start the yo mama jokes again. You actually made a Fish cry last year.”
“But to be fair, that Fish cried over everything.” Mac shrugged, completely undisturbed by the joke about his mama.
We ate as Mac and Truck continued to rib each other back and forth. Eli was quiet, eyes darting to me and away. After we’d finished, the food settled into my stomach in a lump. I didn’t know why, except that it had something to do with my dreams, and leaving, and my dad, and the cadets…and Eli.
“Mac, I feel the need. The need for speed.”
“You guys are like a whole slew of eighties movie knock offs,” I laughed at them. “And please tell me that you don’t literally mean speed.”
Truck grinned. “Nope. But I do need a wingman at a bar with the ladies.”
“It’s your turn to be the wingman,” Mac said.
“Either way. We both get drinks and ladies.”
I rolled my eyes at them. “Well, don’t expect me to be your wingwoman.” I stood and tossed my trash in the nearby garbage can. “I can catch a Lyft back to the house.”
“No need. I’m not up for playing wingman either,” Eli said. “These two bozos can catch their own Lyft at the end of the night.”
“Are you sure? You seem like a night of revelry is just what you need,” I said.
“Revelry?” Eli smirked.
“It’s what lost you the game last night,” I told him.
“I lost because you cheat,” he said. He knew I hadn’t cheated.
“You two old people go back and have a rematch while we go out and entertain ourselves,” Mac said.
He and Truck took off down the street toward Andy and Lacey’s bar. At least they were going to the right bar. I was pretty sure if they’d headed toward the Bay Grill, they would have been shot down.
The silence between Eli and me continued on the way back to the house, as opposed to two nights ago when he couldn’t stop asking me questions.
When we got inside, he went to the refrigerator and took out two beers. I went and got the Scrabble game. I put it on the kitchen table before joining the board there. He hesitated and then joined me on the table top. My hands froze on the wooden tiles, my heart pounding to a tune that I knew I’d have to write down later as I stared at him.
“What?” he asked.
“You’re on the table,” I breathed out.
“Had to see what it was all about,” he responded with a shrug.
I continued to stare at him. His eyes didn’t turn away from me, but drank me in as they almost always did. I’d never had anyone join me. Never. In the stares. On the table. I�
��d been on my own. Even Jenna thought I was freakish about them both.
“It’s about perspective,” I breathed out. “Ursus Wehrli said that he liked to turn things upside down to get a different perspective. I figure, climbing up gives you a different view as well.”
“Huh,” was his noncommittal response, as if he was still assessing it himself. He seemed huge sitting on the table. He was tall anyway, but on the table top, he looked like a giant.
I just continued my stare. Heart pounding.
“You gonna give me the bag or what?”
I gave him the bag, hands shaking, and he noticed it with a slight burrow to his eyebrows, not understanding why I would be shaking. Not understanding the dream that had become a reality. Even though it was a dream I couldn’t afford, because I had bigger dreams to tackle.
He leaned over to put the tile bag in the box and slammed his head into the chandelier, and it broke the trance. He swore, I laughed, and we were right back to where we’d been all along. Two people whose bodies talked to each other but wouldn’t be anything more.
“You do that a lot,” he said after we’d both played our first words.
“Do what?”
“The quote thing.”
Jenna was probably the only other living soul who’d ever commented on my quote fetish. “Words are beautiful,” I told him quietly.
“That’s probably why you’re going to kick my ass again,” he said, and I smiled.
I did beat him…but I had to use my phone to cheat my way through because he came close to beating me on his own. He didn’t know that I’d used it, though, so it was a small victory. One I enjoyed because he groused about it.
“I feel like a walk on the beach. Want to come?” I asked.
“More perspective?”
I shrugged. “Sunsets on the ocean always have a way of making you feel like there’s more in store for your future.”
“Who said that?”
“Um…me.”
He considered me in that way he’d been doing all evening that made me feel really seen. Visible. Like when I was onstage. It made my heart beat extra fast.