by Unknown
“Shit,” he said aloud. “Simone.”
She was downstairs wearing the dress she’d worn when she’d showed up on his doorstep, but over it she wore one of his dress shirts, half unbuttoned and tied at the waist. Her wet hair lay sleek against her head, and she turned a fresh scrubbed face toward him when he came into the kitchen.
“I’m making some breakfast. You know you have like, nothing in your fridge, right?” She gestured at the pan. “I mean, look, honey, if you’re gonna fuck a Jewish girl, the least you can do is buy turkey bacon.”
“I didn’t know it mattered,” Elliott said slowly.
Simone gave him a small grin. “It’s fine. Coffee’s really all I need in the morning, anyway. I hardly eat breakfast. But you, come sit down here. You haven’t showered yet?”
“Uh … no.” Bemused and a little overwhelmed, Elliott let her push him into a chair.
“You’ll be late,” she whispered into his ear, then straddled him. “Especially if I make you fuck me before you leave for work.”
“We don’t have time.”
She rocked a little on his cock, which didn’t give a good goddamn about the time. She kissed him slowly until Elliott kissed her back, and his hands found the indent of her waist just above her hips where they fit just right, and he pressed her down on his growing erection.
“No time,” Simone said and got off his lap. “Seriously, I have to get going. I called a cab; it will be here any minute.”
“But you … I could drive you.”
She shook her head. “I have to go home first. I can’t go to work dressed like this. And besides, it’s not like we could show up together. Right? Someone might see us together.”
“We don’t work for the same company, Simone. It wouldn’t matter.” Hearing her say it that way somehow annoyed him, even though it was what he’d been thinking before she said it.
She dug in his fridge and pulled out a bag of grapes. Popping one in her mouth, she chewed, swallowed, shrugged. “I still need to go home, honey.”
“I don’t like–,” Elliott said, and stopped himself from rejecting her term of affection. She’d made him breakfast. She’d offered him sex when after the night before he wasn’t sure how either of them could stand. And all that on what, two hours’ sleep?
“What?” Simone said carefully, slowly, without turning around. The line of tension in her shoulders and the way she didn’t look at him told him everything he needed to know. “You don’t like what?”
“Bacon.” He’d bought the package on a whim a week ago when it had been on sale, feeling nostalgic for Molly’s BLTs, but then he’d never gotten around to making one. Without the tomatoes she’d grown herself, it wouldn’t have been the same.
“Oh.”
She put the pan in the sink and turned to lean against the counter. They stared at each other. In the daylight, without the protection of her makeup, she looked younger and softer, but no less lovely.
When had she started becoming so lovely to him?
“How do you feel?” He asked her, getting up to pour himself a mug of coffee. This close, he could smell her. His soap, but her scent.
“Great.” She stretched, grinning, and pushed on her toes to offer him her mouth. “You?”
“Domestic,” Elliott said without a smile.
Simone’s smile faltered. Then her eyes narrowed. “I’ll just get out of your hair, then. Okay? Sorry I fucked up your breakfast.”
“No. Simone, no. Wait.” He pulled her back for a kiss and a hug he was careful not to make too hard. “Your back?”
“It’s fine.” She nuzzled against him for a moment. “I’m sore, but it’s really fine, Elliott. I can take a lot. I mean … you can give a lot, honey. But it wasn’t too much. It was amazing. Last night. I don’t usually like all of that stuff, I mean, the toys or props or whatever, but last night I really just wanted it. Needed it. And you gave it to me.”
“I was surprised, too.” He wanted to tell her, then. Everything. All of his secrets, all the stupid things he’d done and had never told anyone, that nobody but Molly had ever known. Elliott held her close, breathing her in. Trying to find a way to be honest with her.
She laughed, tipping her face to look at him. “What can I say? Sometimes a girl just gets set off. Believe me, if I’d known that’s what was going to happen when Aidan invited me back to his place, I’d have given you a warning.”
Elliott had been about to ask her how long she had before she needed to get home, if there was time for him to tell her some things that had been on his mind. But at this, he paused. “What? Aidan who?”
“My friend Aidan. He has a new girlfriend, and they’re into … well, let’s just say she’s a better fit for him than I ever was, but they asked me over, and one thing led to another and she has this thing about pain, I mean she likes it but she doesn’t love it, and so I was kind of caught up.…” Simone, rambling, spoke lightly and without any hesitation. She caught his gaze and laughed. “And I guess I just got so turned on…”
He stepped back from her. “This old friend of yours. What did you do? You fucked him? And then you came here to me?”
Simone looked at him. With the span of only a few steps between them, she could’ve moved toward him. He could’ve reached for her. But instead, they only stared.
Her chin lifted. She crossed her arms. “Would it matter to you if I had?”
“Yes!” Elliott shouted. “God dammit, Simone, of course it would!”
She shook her head without answering him.
“Don’t just not answer me. Hey,” he said when she walked past him, out of the kitchen and toward the front door. “Don’t you walk away from me!”
“Fuck you, Elliott,” she said without turning around.
“Simone,” he cried, angry and desperate and furious and, fuck … jealous. “Talk to me.”
“You said you didn’t want to date! You said this was just what it was, and you don’t call me, you don’t fucking answer my texts, you barely talk to me unless your dick’s in me!”
He ran a hand through his hair, tugging it in his frustration. “You said that would be okay with you!”
“Well, is it okay with you?” she shouted, fists clenched. “Because if it is, and if that’s what you want, then you don’t get to ask me who else I’m fucking! You understand me, Elliott Fucking Anderson? You don’t get to fucking ask me that question!”
“Did you fuck him or not?” The thought of it, another man’s hands on her, another man’s cock inside her, made him want to puke. Or hit something. He punched one fist into the other, and hated himself for the way she startled.
Silently, Simone unbuttoned the shirt tied at her waist, then tugged it off. Carefully, she folded it and set it gently on the back of the armchair nearest her. When she turned toward the door again, he could see the marks he’d left. Faintly purple bruises, only a few, but he’d put them there. Because she’d wanted him to.
“Simone,” Elliott said in a voice he didn’t recognize as his own. “Yes. It matters to me.”
She faced him then, and to his shame he saw she was crying. He’d made her cry again. She swiped at her face, but there was no hiding the tears.
She let him kiss her, at least there was that. He held her close, bewildered and off balance, not knowing what in the hell he meant to do or say, only that if she walked out that door, he would never be able to forgive himself.
“Yes, Simone,” he said into the softness of her hair. “It matters.”
About the Author
MEGAN HART is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of many romance and erotica novels, including Switch, Tempted, Deeper, and Dirty. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and children.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
EVERY PART OF YOU: TAUNTS ME. Copyright © 2014 by Megan
Hart. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Cover photograph © Valentin Casarsa/Getty Images
Cover design by Olga Grlic
e-ISBN 9781250039354
First Edition: March 2014