by Liz Crowe
She nodded, waiting while he grabbed some from the locker room, then pressing them between her legs, helping her, babying her as he always did. The way she absolutely adored. The way she would have to leave behind.
“Back to the party?” He held out his elbow after tossing the tissues into the trash.
She nodded, stuck her hand into his arm, and accompanied him into the clamor once more.
After about an hour of agonized observation of all this glorious normality, relishing the stinging soreness between her legs she always got when she took him all the way inside her, she whispered apologies to Evelyn and slipped out of the door, managing to avoid Ross—who was engaged in a shot drinking contest—on the way.
She took the ride share to her own place, unlocked the door and stood inside, smelling the emptiness, old carpet, and stale cooking from her neighbors. She lit a candle to dispel the worst of the stink, found a half empty bottle of cheap red wine, and drank it, not bothering with the nicety of a glass.
Eventually, she felt propped up enough to pull her phone from her bag. She had a Google search set up for The Monster’s name. Given His celebrity status in the restaurant world, she got occasional notices when He was opening a new place—most recently in a ritzy Las Vegas casino—or when He had stepped onto the red carpet with some has-been celebrity or another. He loved the limelight. He’d claimed to love coming home to her, though. Which made sense, as no self-respecting celebrity would let Him to do the things she allowed.
Today’s announcement—via the local, daily paper of all things—declared that He would be here, in this town, in Grand Rapids Bloody Michigan, of all places. He’d apparently franchised His name for other, more lowly casino restaurants and the Native American casino here had landed one. His brutally handsome face was at the top of the news article. He was in a tux, smiling and waving at someone. His dark eyes gleamed. His teeth shone, like fangs, she thought, almost objectively.
He would be here, in her town, in two weeks.
She had to leave.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The next morning at Fitzgerald Brewing was quiet, as those who had to come in walked around groaning and drinking water, looking much the worse for wear. Elle figured she did too, but for a different reason. She went about the usual tasks, checking the brew schedule—now back to its usual busy, but not utterly frantic, level—before she began measuring out the ingredients for the Czech Pilsner, one of her favorite summer brews.
Ross wandered onto the brewery floor around noon. He found her in the lab, checking the specific gravity of the Pils before moving it into fermentation. She ignored him, content to let him watch her move around the room, doing her job, as her brain fumbled for something to say. She wanted so badly to confide in him, to lay the whole thing at his feet and ask him to help her through it. But years of training and even more years of avoidance had taken their toll. She kept her lips zipped.
When he reached for her arm at one point, she ducked out his reach, claiming she didn’t have time for nonsense. “Elisa, every tooth in my head aches, each in its own special way I am so hung over. Be nice to me? I hear kissing would help.”
“Not now, Ross. Okay?” She ran out of the lab, gnawing at her lower lip, finding make-work jobs to do to keep from having to see him for a few more hours.
By four-thirty, she and the silent, slow-moving cleaning crew had the brew house ready for the next batch. She sat, wiping her face with a towel, exhausted and drained from avoiding Ross all day. Groaning at the ache in her lower back, she pushed away from the edge of the mash tun, needing to write up the brew’s progression in the log, then get the second shift going before she headed home.
Rounding the corner, doing a mental check of her meager pantry and wishing she could go to Ross’ hotel for dinner and more, she ran straight into his chest. “Watch where you’re going,” she spat out, backing away from him. Nerves jangling, she found herself staring at the floor, hand to her neck when she registered the fury in his expression.
“Elisa,” he said, keeping his voice steady. “Look at me.”
She did, setting her jaw against the compulsion to throw herself into his arms. “When were you going to share this with me?” He held up a phone—her phone—face out so she could see the screen, filled with the last thing she’d been reading, for the millionth time. The Monster’s face filled her brain, making her blink and take a few steps back.
“What do you mean?” she asked, her voice low and wimpy.
“I mean, this asshole is going to be here, in this town, and you’ve obviously been obsessing over this article. This was what was wrong with you yesterday. So, I’ll ask again. When were you going to tell me?”
“Never,” she said, blinking back tears. “I wasn’t going to tell you at all.”
“Well, at least I got an honest answer out of you.”
She grabbed her phone and tucked it into her jeans pocket. “That is a violation of my privacy. What gave you the right to open my phone, anyway?”
“That is completely beside the point,” he insisted, crossing his arms and letting the line of stubborn between his eyes deepen.
“No, actually, it’s part of the point. I’m entitled to my own life, you know. Just because you…we…I… Oh never mind.” She tried to stomp past him, but he held out an arm, nearly clothesline choking her in the process. “Move your stupid arm,” she hissed under her breath.
“Talk to me, Elisa,” he said, griping her shoulders and pulling her so she stood in front of him again.
“Go to hell, Hoffman,” she said, keeping her voice and expression as neutral as she could manage.
“At the moment, I’d consider myself already there.”
They stood, glaring at each other for a few seconds. She could smell the booze wafting from his pores, but instead of making her angry, it made her feel terrible for ruining this triumphant week. She slumped back against the wall.
He stepped forward and gathered her close, murmuring into her hair. “Let me help you. I know it’s a new thing for you, but I want to. I love you, remember? Stop making that so fucking hard, why don’t you?”
“I never told you I’d be easy to love.” She had her face pressed against his chest and could smell his clean-showered skin under his shirt.
“Okay, fair enough.” He leaned away and lifted her chin. “Talk to me. Tell me what we can do to keep you safe. Do you want to go away? Now that this place is back on track, I don’t have a damn thing to do, nor a job to go to out west. Let’s take a vacation. Maybe head to someplace with a beach, a private hut, room service and lots of…”
“Stop it,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t just go on vacation to avoid him. He found me. And I guarantee the reason He’s here is to…to…” She buried her face in his chest again, relief at having told him this making her dizzy.
He frowned. “Do me a favor?”
“What?” she muttered, still pressing her face into his chest.
“Stop using capital letters in your voice when you refer to that asswipe. I can hear it, you know. I can tell you’re doing it.”
“I…don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do.”
They stood staring at each other a few seconds, seemingly sunk deep in their own thoughts.
“I know,” he said, gathering her in his arms again. “Let’s take Trent up on his invite to Petoskey. That’s not running away. It’s right here in Michigan and you’ll be surrounded by friends. The weekend he does whatever the fuck he’s doing at the casino, you won’t be anywhere he can reach, or even know about.”
She sniffled and disentangled herself, pondering this, trying not to reject it outright.
“Maybe,” she said, swiping at her streaming eyes. “I don’t know.” She looked up at him. “I do know one thing—I’m starving. And you could probably use some food to soak up the booze, no?”
“Yes, I absolutely could. Let’s head into the pub. I want one of Melody’s bloody burge
rs. She’ll burn one for you, I’m sure.” He kissed her forehead, cupping her chin in one warm hand. “And we can talk about the weekend with her.” He raised an eyebrow.
She nodded, and let him lead her across the back hall into the kitchen, then into the early evening business of the Fitz Pub.
By the time she was draped over Ross’ inert body as he snored softly, the weekend had all been arranged. She and Ross were even going to stay another week after everyone else left, to ensure that The Monster had left town without His—his—prey.
As she drifted, something prodded her wide awake. She rose, careful not to disturb Ross too much, but he was way gone, having eaten a huge meal, drunk about a gallon of water, and fallen sound asleep in front of mid-season baseball game on the telly. After pulling her phone from the heap of clothes she’d left on the floor, she opened the calendar and stared at the date, exactly four weeks from today when her preliminary hearing was scheduled.
Sighing, she leaned back against the foot of the bed, staring the ceiling as Ross’ soft breathing sounds floated into the air. That’s right. She had a damn manslaughter charge still hanging over her head.
“You’re quite the little troublemaker, aren’t you?” the inner nag piped up, as clear as day. “Not on the job a month before you’re blowing some hapless asshole’s brains across your boss’s office.”
Of course, both Austin and Ross had done nothing but sing her praises for that act. And the crack team of public relations pros in the Fitzgerald marketing department had done their job, keeping the gritty details from the press. But once she was in court, the whole thing would spill out, tarnishing her as a crazy, gun-toting, German whack job.
What she would not give for something resembling a normal life, she thought. What would that be?
She woke to the sensation of being lifted up into a set of strong arms. Of familiar lips on hers, of warm hands stroking her, caressing her, loving her. They made love in utter silence, slowly, and yet with an urgency that made her breathless by the time he pulled her on top him, once he’d licked and sucked her to a beautiful climax. The hot length of his dick along her eager pussy made her gasp. As she stared down at him, the ropes of her dreadlocks blocked out the world, leaving just the two of them, two lost souls who found each other in a foreign land.
“I love you, Hoffman,” she whispered at the same time she shifted her hips and took him fast and deep—so deep all at once she cried out into the cool, dark air.
“Shh,” he said, stroking her breasts, her stomach, her hips and thigh with a sort of reverence that thrilled her. “Just be still. Feel me inside you.”
She nodded, sitting up straight and relishing that angle as he continued to lightly stroke her shoulders, her arms, returning to her breasts and tweaking both her nipples at once. She gasped as her hips began to move.
He rose on his elbows, then sat all the way up, keeping their bodies intimately connected as he pulled her legs to either side of his hips so they were rocking together on the bed. “Ah…God, yes.” She sighed into his chest, feeling him deep, the angle of his dick mirroring the way he’d use his fingers. “Yes.” She exhaled as the orgasm hovered, teasing her. He was close too. She’d gotten so that she could sense his triggers and signs. His breathing was quick. His fingers flexing on the small of her back.
“Now, lie back, my love,” he said, pulling her arms from around his neck and pushing her slowly away from him. “Lie back…like that.”
She propped on her elbows, keeping her legs draped over his hips. His jaw clenched as he kept a tight grip on her. This even better angle, combined with the way he stroked her clit with his thumb, brought on the fireworks. She pressed against him, matching his rolling thrusts into her, knowing that her pussy tightening and pulsing around him from the climax would make him come.
He groaned, his hands dug into her upper thighs and his head tilted back, matching her stance. He came hard, continuing to thrust against her in rough spasms. When he opened his eyes, they were bright, lit from the moonlight streaming through a break in the blinds behind her. “I adore you, Elisa. Marry me.”
“Don’t ask me that right now, please. Just let me enjoy this feeling.” She lay all the way back, forcing him to lean forward. When he did slide out of her, she winced, but didn’t mind the pain. He headed for the bathroom, returning with a warm, wet cloth he used between her legs, always muttering intimacies in German as she drifted, stretched out with her head to the foot of the bed and her feet on a pillow.
“Marry me, Elisa,” he insisted, dropping down next to her, propped on one elbow.
She turned to him, touched his jaw, and smiled. “All right,” she agreed. “But let’s keep it to ourselves a while, at least until I can get past that…that weekend, okay?”
“Yes. Anything you want, darling Elisa. My love.” He gathered her close, flipped her onto her side and they slept pressed together like spoons, upside down on the bed, through the rest of the night.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ross wasn’t quite sure what to expect from the weekend away with the two richest men he knew and their women, plus—bonus—baby Rose Hoffman Fitzgerald along for fun. When he and Elisa arrived at Trent’s cabin on Lake Michigan in the quaint, picturesque, very moneyed town of Petoskey, they sat for a moment, staring up at the clapboarded, arts and crafts-style mansion, with the glittering blue of Lake Michigan as its beautiful backdrop.
“If that’s his cabin I’d sure like to see his regular house,” Elisa said.
“No shit,” Ross agreed, before climbing out of the rental. He’d upgraded to an SUV so they could pack in supplies, since he and Elisa had been responsible for choosing the beer and wine for the long weekend. People with money didn’t faze him. He’d grown up around it, but had never been one of those guys who thought it was the be-all, end-all of his existence. Give him a comfy place to live, some great beer and food, good friends, and a hot woman in his bed and he’d be satisfied.
He glanced at Elisa, who was still peering through the windshield in awe. “Great to have friends with plenty of dough, and the willingness to share the wealth, eh Fraulein Nagel?” She turned to him, her gray-blue eyes wide with admiration. “Trent’s a good guy. I’ve met him a few times. You should know something about him though. About him and Melody’s relationship.”
“I already know,” she said, unhooking her seatbelt. “Silly man. We ladies are on top of all the relationship gossip.”
“That a fact? And what do you tell your lady friends about me?” He cocked an eyebrow at her.
She grinned. “Enough…but not too much.”
He popped open the hatch, admiring the range of beers—some Fitzgerald products, many not—and wine they’d chosen. Elisa had been in hog heaven planning menus, while Evelyn and Melody had been, as well—not having to do that chore. She’d made a million different lists, asked his opinion, then done more or less the exact opposite of what he’d suggested. Finally, she’d handed the meticulously organized list over to the ladies and turned her attention to the booze choices with him.
Trent trotted down the drive. “Welcome to the Hettinger Cabin,” he said.
Ross handed him some cases of West Coast IPAs. “Some cabin, dude.”
“Thank you for having us,” Elisa said, as she hauled two bags of wine from the back of the SUV. Ross watched him watching her. He could see the man’s eyes narrow when he caught sight of the ugly, inked choker around her neck. Something about his body language made Ross feel instantly comfortable. As if he had Trent solidly in his corner when it came to protecting Elisa.
“Give me one more,” Trent said, jerking his chin at the rest of the beer. “I can take it.”
“You got it,” Ross said, stacking another case on top, then piling his own arms high. They made their way up the long drive, following Trent around to a side entrance that opened into a mud room cluttered with drying towels, canvas bags, flip flops, sunscreen and bug spray.
“Sorry in advance but you’
re getting the full Hettinger immersion this weekend, guys.” He set the beer on a long, granite countertop in a hall between the mud room and kitchen. “Here, let me take those,” he said to Elisa. She visibly flinched when she met his eyes. Ross set his cases down, tucked his hands in his jeans pockets and watched her gaze hit floor with a near audible slam.
There was certainly something about Trent—a kind of power that might intimidate some men or women—that Ross could sense as well. But underneath that strength lay a man hopelessly in love with the feisty Melody Rodriquez. And Ross auto-respected the hell out of any man who’d take that on and tame it—or whatever it was he did with her.
“Daaaaaaaa—aaaad,” a loud, female voice called from somewhere inside the house. “Can I drive the boat?”
“No,” Trent said, without taking his eyes off Elisa, who was still staring fixedly at the floor. “It’s getting late,” he amended when a pretty teenaged girl stuck her head around the corner. “You can take it out tomorrow morning. Taylor, please meet our guests. This is Ross Hoffman and Elisa Nagel.”
The girl stuck out her hand and smiled at them both. She looked nothing like her father but for a little something around her eyes and her height. Her nose was aquiline, patrician even. Dark, chestnut-brown hair was tugged back into a ponytail. Her eyes almost matched her hair color and were large, like Trent’s and as expressive as any teenager’s, Ross supposed.
What shocked him was her miniscule black bikini. He averted his gaze when she flounced into the hallway and stood in front of her father, hip cocked.
“Uh, excuse me,” he said, heading back outside for the rest of the booze, leaving Trent to handle the girl. Elisa followed him. They loaded up in silence, and headed back to the house. Austin and Evelyn pulled in as they were opening the side door. Ross put the beer down and headed for their car, knowing they had half the massive amount of groceries Elisa would require to make this weekend a gourmet experience.