by Chloe Liese
“I’m sorry.” I shook my head. “You have nothing?”
She blushed in embarrassment. “I left my overnight bag at Nairne and Zed’s. I don’t want to go back and face an inquisition.”
Ah, that made sense. Nairne was nosy and intuitive. She’d smell trouble on Elodie and not settle until she knew exactly what was wrong. I had half a mind to go Nairne on Elodie, too.
“You’ve no…knickers?” My voice cracked. I cleared my throat into my fist, castigating myself for talking like a sex-starved boy. “I mean, forget I asked that. Yes, yes. I should have a shirt that will work, and I think my sister left a few things here last time.” Turning into my room, I made for the dresser. “She’s a notorious slob.”
“How so?” Elodie asked.
“Leaves shite everywhere. Never puts anything in the same place twice. Is constitutionally incapable of order.”
Elodie followed me in and peered around as she sat on the edge of my bed. “I mean if you compare other people’s tidiness to this…no one would measure up.”
“I’m sorry,” I said over my shoulder, “are you criticizing me for being organized and tidy?”
She shrugged and swung her legs off the bed. “I’m just saying some people simply lose track of things. They aren’t trying to be messy.”
“But messy they are. That’s what my sister does. Just leaves things strewn about. She’s a slob.”
“Not all mess-makers are slobs.”
“Nonsense.” I rifled through my drawer and found the jeans. “Things have a place, and some people are too lazy to be bothered with putting them there. Now, here’s a shirt and her trousers.”
Elodie stood and clutched them to her chest. “Thank you.” Then she sighed heavily. “I have one more favor to ask.”
“Of course.”
She closed her eyes, looking pained. “I need to borrow a little money from you. I promise, Lucas, I will pay you back. I just need a tiny loan—enough to buy a small professional wardrobe and some…knickers.”
One eye cracked open. She smiled as she bit her lip.
That bloody lip. I wanted so badly to draw it between my teeth, lave it with my tongue. It was full and a glorious rosy pink. Were her nipples that same color? Taut and pink and perfect? Of course they were perfect, they were hers.
I was suddenly aware that I had a growing problem under my towel, thanks to my lascivious thoughts. “Absolutely. In fact, I’ll take you to the shops myself after I change. But now I’ve got to uh…use the loo, so if you’ll excuse me.” I took her by the arm and quickly walked her out of my room. Pulling the door my way, I hid my waist behind it.
“Right,” I said awkwardly. “Be right out.”
I slammed the door in her face, and dropped my head shakily against it.
“Thank you, Lucas,” she said from the other side of the door.
“Gladly, Elodie.”
I was now at full salute and throbbing painfully at the thought of Elodie’s wet body before me. On a groan, I headed right back to the shower. This one was going to be frigid.
Shakespeare’s known as the master of irony, the narrative device that breeds conflict, misunderstanding, and often, tragedy. Irony always struck me as poetic yet uncomfortably close to human experience. Irony made for good literature but terrifying reality. So while I always loved reading the Bard, I couldn’t say I fancied feeling like one of his doomed characters as I did at the moment.
When I’d met Elodie, disparate locations made pursuing her impossible. Then, when I finally had her in my sights, I learned my diagnosis and the truth that I could never keep her there. Pièce de résistance, the woman I wanted and could not have was nestled in my bloody car, after sleeping in my bloody flat, where we’d done nothing but sleep chastely in a bloody bed and have a coffee in comfortable quiet.
Talk about a tragedy.
My Aston zipped easily through London’s streets as we left Greenwich behind. Elodie faced the window, peering at the River Thames as I sped us over the Waterloo Bridge. Her stare was intense. She looked troubled.
I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel, at an utter loss for what to say. My body was taut as a wire, painfully aware of her closeness. Her smell was maddening—a soft scent of flowers. Jasmine and honeysuckle. Decadent and sensual. I breathed deep and let it wash over me. I wanted to bathe in it, to taste it on her skin. I really just wanted to bury my face in her gorgeous cunt until she was fisting my hair, screaming my name, again and again.
Really poetic, mate.
Well, I wanted more than that too. I wanted to make her gin and tonics and drink them in the backyard while I told her absurd mythologies of the constellations. I wanted to bike trails with her and kiss her senseless on the sofa. I wanted to hear her talk finance and get tetchy about the distinction between diversity and inclusivity. I wanted her fierce, rib-cracking hugs, and her bell-like laugh. I wanted to be the man who wiped her tears and held her close when she broke apart as she had yesterday. I wanted to shield her from pain.
And that last point was why I could never have her. I wanted all of her, but if I gave her all of me, I’d hurt her. Deeply.
I gazed around, ensuring I watched the road carefully. Last thing we needed was to wreck. The A2 was quiet enough, though, since it was mid-morning already, and I allowed myself to relax as I settled us to a reasonable speed. I’d never been terribly comfortable with prolonged silence, and we had another ten minutes left in our drive. If the past ten were any indication, it was going to feel eternal if I didn’t say something to her.
You’ve got to tell her.
I couldn’t, not yet.
“When are we going to talk about what happened, Lucas?”
My fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “Must we? Right now?”
She rolled her eyes as she glanced over at me. “You’re so avoidant. Like Nairne, but worse.”
“You’re not the first to say that,” I muttered as I began to look for my turn. “Zed’s told me this as well.”
“Yes, well, I’m not overly eager to say Zed’s right any more than he already thinks he is, but I have to agree with him.”
I chuckled at that. Zed and Elodie weren’t as dissimilar as they liked to pretend they were. Frighteningly observant, fierce lovers, loyal friends—there was a reason Nairne adored them both.
“Zed’s ego aside, he’s right,” she said. “As am I. We need to talk about it.”
“About what?” As if I didn’t know.
“About the fact that you and I want each other. And you say we shouldn’t act on it, but then you do it anyway.”
I took the turn and avoided her eyes. “Fine. But what I’m about to say is not meant to yank you about, understand? I’m not being dramatic. I’m being…honest.”
Elodie shifted to face me more. “Yes, I understand.”
“If things were different, darling, I’d woo the hell out of you. I’d sweep you off your feet and worship you for the rest of my life. Please don’t ever, ever doubt that. It’s just I simply can’t.”
She inhaled sharply. “You can’t, but you want to? Then, why have you acted like you don’t want me?”
“Elodie, I’m so far from not wanting you.”
“But you don’t,” she pressed. “Romantically, you don’t want me.”
“No, that’s what I’m saying. I do want you. I just have very good reasons for not acting on that.”
She groaned in frustration. “You’re playing with…comment dit-on…picky with words?”
I frowned. “You mean, semantics?”
“Oui, semantics. You’re playing with them.”
I had to fight a smile. We were having a very serious conversation but hearing her butt up against the limitations of her English was absurdly endearing. She was all siren on the outside—alluring, striking, incredibly polished, but inside she was a curious, language-loving Pollyanna.
“Lucas, are you listening? You say you want me, but you’re rejecting me.”
She stared at me in disbelief. “Never?”
The look in her eyes was an arrow to my heart. This was exactly what I didn’t need—to add a lick of pain to Elodie’s life.
My pulse was thrumming. It was on the tip of my tongue; the temptation was so real to unburden myself to her. But as I stared from her to the road and back to her again, I knew I couldn’t. She was already burdened and wounded. Something was clearly wrong at home. She had nothing with her but a bloody handbag and an overnight suitcase, and suddenly she needed a loan, when I knew for a fact she was—or had been—obscenely wealthy.
“Never,” I confirmed.
Elodie gripped my forearm. I didn’t have the heart to shrug her off, but her touch burned me. I wanted to lose myself in it or rip it off. This platonic limbo was agony. “What’s the matter?” she pressed.
I shook my head. “We’re not talking about this right now.”
“Please, Lucas, tell me.”
“I will.” I wrenched the car into park, and scrubbed my face. “I will soon—I just need some time to collect my thoughts on it. I know it’s dreadful of me to string you along, and I’m being a prideful arse, holding my cards so close, but it’s sort of like Beetlejuice, you know? Once I say it, then somehow it’s here in front of me.”
Elodie’s eyes danced between mine, her face a portrait of concern. She sighed and released my arm. “Okay.”
I exhaled in relief and threw open my door. “Thank you. And for the record, you better not bloody cry when I do. It’s bad enough I have to talk about my feelings and share my problems with you, but if you cry, I’m done for, you hear?”
Elodie laughed as she blinked away tears. “Don’t know what you’re talking about, I never cry.”
I jogged over to her side, pulling open the door before she could. As Elodie stepped out, the wind lifted her wild curls and brushed them against my face, bathing me in her jasmine scent.
Our eyes met, and she slipped her hand in mine. “Don’t make me wait too long.”
A curl danced across her face. Reflexively, I tucked it behind her ear. My fingers lingered longer than they should have before they whispered down the column of her throat. She shivered, and I hated myself for torturing us both.
“I promise, I will tell you soon. And afterward, friends no matter what, right?”
She nodded as a smile crept over her face. I couldn’t help but smile back as I tugged her close and tossed my keys up in my hand. It felt perfectly natural to wrap an arm around her shoulders, to talk with her and take a stroll. Now all I had to do was not get used to it.
Good luck with that one.
As we started window shopping, I hazarded more glances than I should. That pair of trousers Sarah had left at my place eons ago fit Elodie too well. And she was wearing another one of my old shirts, this time a Rolling Stones concert tee that I got when I was a lad, so it was a reasonable size. She had it knotted to the side and the black color that had faded to charcoal bounced off her golden skin.
It’s a cliché that French women always look put together, but I was starting to believe there was truth in the stereotype. She’d informed me she was knickerless—which was absolutely a ploy on her part to make me suffer—she was bare-faced, wearing borrowed clothes, and she looked like she’d stepped off a fashion walk.
My knob was back in hell, I was famished, and Elodie was oblivious to all of it.
“I’m hungry already,” I grumbled as we strolled down Oxford Street.
Elodie smirked in profile, and my stomach did a summersault that had nothing to do with hunger pains. “Serves you right.”
“I had no idea when I asked for it that a full French breakfast meant a measly piece of toast, butter, and jam, with milky coffee.” I shuddered. “Blech.”
“Then, you should have thought about what you asked for. How are you fluent in French but completely ignorant of a French breakfast? You have French friends, you’ve stayed in France…”
I shrugged, looking both ways and pressing my hand into the small of her back as we crossed. “I think it’s because everyone always offers me a tower of food when I’m there. I suppose they take a look at me and say, ‘well, there’s a large chap, let’s make sure he’s got enough to eat,’ you know?”
“You’ll get no special treatment from me. You asked for a French breakfast, and you got one.” She peered in a window, frowned, then moved on.
“No wonder you’re all so bloody thin in France,” I said. “If I started my every day on a sliver of baguette with butter, I’d waste away. You’re active, Elodie, don’t you need to eat more than that?”
She seemed perfectly content with her breakfast, but privately I mused that she must eat at some point. A woman simply could not have that glorious of an arse while eating nothing. I’d known plenty of waifs, and they subsisted on salad, cigarettes, and seltzer. It was a sad existence, and certainly not worth having a bony arse for.
Elodie sighed, pushing us past another window. “I eat, just later in the day. My stomach’s slow to wake up, and the milk in my café au lait offers adequate protein and fat to give me energy.”
We’d yet to walk into a store. She just kept shuffling along the windowfronts, and I was starting to think she had no idea what any of them were. When she asked me to take her to a shopping row with reasonable prices so she could buy what she needed without racking up a big tab, I’d gritted my teeth and fought the impulse to deny her, to assure her I’d buy her whatever she needed because it was a drop in the bucket to me. But, whatever was going on, Elodie valued her pride and her independence, and I wanted to honor her request. However, it was quickly becoming apparent the woman had never shopped at TopShop or Ted Baker or any of these other places that many frequented.
“I’ll give you that, your milky coffee was top rate. Christ, I’d take that every morning, with a few blueberry muffins, some eggs, maybe some bangers on the side.” I groaned, and my stomach growled. “That would be a full breakfast.”
“Starting your day with that much food is not good for the system.” She shuddered. “The English and their horrid food. C'est dégoûtant.”
I rolled my eyes but couldn’t hide my smile. Gross, she’d said.
Turning away from a window, she sent her eyes raking over me. “How do you stay so fit? I’ve yet to see you exercise, ever.”
I frowned as I crossed my arms. “I’ll have you know I exercise quite regularly. I’ve just had my hands full every time you’re with me, either with some drama our friends concoct, a baby godson in arms, or I’m too distracted by a certain round-arsed woman snuggling into me to get up and do my usual morning routine.”
She gaped as she looked up at me. The shape of her open mouth had filthy thoughts flooding my mind very quickly, sending a chain reaction through my body. I pushed her ahead of me, onto the next window, visualizing my annual Boxing Day dive into the frigid lake near my parents’ home. It did little to solve the pressure inside my trousers.
More pointless meandering, and I was done with it.
“Right, let’s get out of here.” I turned and headed onto Regent Street.
“Where are we going?” Elodie asked, coming beside me.
“Dover Street Market. Where you’ll actually recognize names and brands and buy what you like.” She started to protest, but I talked right over her. “Don’t argue with me, Elodie. Be sensible. It’s what you know and what you’re comfortable in, and you might be on your own and starting fresh, but knowing you, you’ll be making enough to pay me back tenfold within the year for this spree, so just hush.”
She stopped abruptly. “You really think that of me?”
I turned and glanced back at her. “What? That anything you set your mind to, you’ll accomplish with rapacious acuity and intelligence?” I spun back
around, heading toward the familiar high-end shops. “Abso-bloody-lutely.”
Six
Elodie
I sat back in my seat, sated from a delicious lunch. After barely eating yesterday thanks to my emotional state, I’d worked up an appetite and practically inhaled my meal. Pleasantly full, I reclined with my coffee in hand and people watched.
London was quite different from Paris, but something in the summer air, the hot sunshine, made me feel like it was a place where I could settle in and be happy. Perhaps one day I’d return to Paris, but not anytime soon. I shuddered just thinking about flying back, living in my old place, suffocated by things I didn’t want and obligations that had swallowed up my time and joy. Already I was working out the logistics. I’d pay someone to pack up my things, let my flat, have those horrible clothes from Maman sold off—assuming my parents hadn’t vindictively disposed of and liquidated everything already.
But beyond those considerations, to live independently and secure my ability to stay in England, I’d need to find a job, of course. That was next on the agenda.
Leaving my thoughts, I glanced at Lucas and did a double take when I caught him watching me over his cup of tea. He held it in front of his mouth, while his sharp sea green eyes roamed my face curiously, warm with appreciation and something more perhaps.
More.
It hurt to consider just what more could be, the more he refused to pursue, even as he curled around me in my sleep, interlaced our fingers, crossed streets with a protective hand on my back. It would cut deeper if I believed Lucas was manipulating me, but I knew he wasn’t. It was as if this was the least he could manage—that not touching me, not expressing any affection, was impossible.
I liked that thought more than I cared to admit.
The pull between us was steady as ever as we sat across from each other at the café table. Hiding behind my sunglasses, I let myself peruse his body. Long, lean arms folded across his chest, biceps flexed, their sharp definition giving me all kinds of ideas about where my tongue could travel, the planes and divots I could taste and bite. He was still wearing his tortoiseshell glasses, and they were driving me insane. I had no fucking clue why that was, but when he’d put them on this morning, I’d almost spontaneously orgasmed.