by Michele Hart
Before allowing her to pass through the front doors, Greg insisted she stand at the doors of DC’s own Rubia’s Restaurant for his camera-phone to record the inaugural moment. She felt out of place and silly doing it but she made overexcited faces in every shot, lending posterity her humor.
Then Greg ushered Elissa into the empty restaurant to the welcome hugs of familiar faces, Sissy, Allen, Julian, and Penny. Discarding her coat for the warmth of the room, Elissa took in the atmosphere of the new restaurant, a huge round room with booths built into the outer walls among grapes, vines, and shadow like the original Tampa restaurant and Greg’s kitchen, the furthest tables dimly lit for romantic mystery. Paintings of the original Rubia’s hung on the wall, very recognizable as Sissy’s style.
Tables surrounded a stone-built fire-pit filling the center of the giant dining room, putting the chef’s team on display. Julian could put on a show, if he wished. The place had been built for that very purpose and it showed. Julian would soon be an international star.
A tall, fluffy Christmas tree stood in a corner, beautifully decorated in silver, gold, and white. Only white lights twinkled in random, enchanting her.
“You’ve been painting again!” Elissa exclaimed on sight of Sissy, their hands clasped together in excitement. She wasn’t showing her pregnancy yet.
“Yes,” Sissy replied, pride just beaming from her every moment.
Allen came up behind her and wrapped his arms through her and rested his hands on her belly. “Sissy’s going through a creative period.”
Elissa watched Sissy look up to Allen standing over her, both of them tuned to each other, and he put a soft kiss to her lips. Elissa was touched by the light in their eyes, deliriously happy for them both. And relieved to know Sissy was Greg’s sister.
Tonight they had Julian exclusively to themselves, so they sat in comfortable bar stools all around the open-air kitchen, the fire kept low. Elissa watched Penny assist Julian as if well used to the position and loving it. Julian always wore a smile. It was a room filled with happiness.
“You better watch your back,” Greg said to Julian showing off with spinning spices. “And you didn’t hear it from me.”
Julian became intensely interested as he flipped onions, garlic, and mushrooms in a sauce pan. “What have you heard?”
Greg leaned a little closer, and the smile grew on Elissa’s face to watch some of their boyhood games. “Val told me to talk you into choosing the DC restaurant so he can start taking the Bay Cook-off.”
Julian nodded in sudden understanding. Sly, he replied, “I say you should put Val in the DC restaurant and tell him I said to go serve the President. The Bay Cook-off is mine. He can go stake out his own competition territory.”
Greg pretended deep thought. “Looks like I have a money-maker here. You should perhaps think of how much you’re willing to part with to keep Tampa.”
“Ah, it’s this way, is it?” Julian volleyed back, flipping the sizzling mixture into the air, and then back into the pan with the skill of a juggler. “I thought I might change your mind by poisoning your dinner here.”
“Looks you win Tampa.”
“I thought so,” Julian replied, sending Elissa wink. “Arsenic changes minds.”
Dinner had been exquisite but of no surprise to anyone there. Julian deserved each one of his trophies. A wonderful meal ended with the chef’s award-winning chocolate toffee cheesecake topped with dark chocolate and toffee sauces. Greg point out her name in the dessert selections of the new menus. The incredible flavors broke her will. Greg knew it and waited for her weakest moment spent in bites of ecstasy.
Slices of cheesecake on glass plates and steamy mugs of Irish coffee on a tray, Greg led her by the hand as he always did when he was excited to show her something, and he took her up to the Christmas tree in the entrance to the restaurant. They sat in the closest booth and indulged in another bite of heaven while admiring the blinking lights. She must’ve told him somewhere along the way she loved Christmas trees.
“Sissy did the tree, of course,” he narrated, his sight roaming the different tree ornaments. “Some of these ornaments remind me of decorations we had as kids. The same things about them must have caught Sissy’s eye as well, reminded her of home."
Elissa stayed quiet, studied every ornament, fondly remembering childhood Christmases while her mouth delighted to the rapture of Julian’s cheesecake.
Then she thought of having to start life all over again, figure out a new future from the splinters of the old future. Find another life goal to replace the one that was now dead-on-arrival. “Home. It'll do me good to go back to Frostproof, Florida. Mom will be happy. Back to home base. I can reorganize there.”
“You could, of course, stay at my house.”
She didn't want to be rescued, really didn't need rescuing, but the thought of seeing Greg every day made her weak. She sure didn't deserve him. The very second he'd appeared in the parking lot at her car, he'd brought down her wall with one solid punch, and her heart swelled in love for him. She'd never be able to pack that in a box again.
Elissa turned to see Julian, Penny, Allen, and Sissy yards away involved in an entirely different conversation around the grill. No one noticed Elissa and Greg sinking into each other after six months of separation, or they ignored it on purpose. Their welcome had been a surprise considering how loathsome an exit Elissa had taken from Greg’s life when he hadn’t wanted her to leave. They were good people.
Despite guilt that might not ever go away, she swore this moment to be one of perfect bliss with chocolate-toffee cheesecake to eat and Greg to look at.
“I have an extra bedroom you could take over,” he said low, apparently offering another bone in the deal while attempting to show no emotional investment in the negotiation. “If you wished for your own special Elissa room.”
Greg was opening the door for her to come back to him. Hadn't he relented in his chase, like she'd wanted of him? Hadn't he stepped away, his presence cut out to enable her every chance at focused success? That view of him changed her, made her realize he’d sacrificed what he wanted, her, to see her give her dream her best shot. Greg was right; she was a lousy detective.
Would it really be so easy and so painless to walk back into his life and his arms? She felt like she’d betrayed him, choosing herself and her dreams over him. She'd have to make up for that.
“My own room, you say. If I were to continue school, I would need a Greg-free zone so I could study.”
“You could turn one of the back bedrooms into an office. You could study when I’m not home. If you insist on studying when I’m home, then I get to interrupt you.”
He stole a long pause before he suggested, “You could sleep with me, be my Pet Elissa, keep me company so I won’t awaken alone.”
What was today? The luckiest worst day in her life?
“Seems fair,” Elissa commented, when she wished to sink into him on a cold night. Like tonight, and the next, and maybe the next after that.
Elissa looked into his flirty eyes, impressed with his sacrifice for her. He hadn’t banged on her door to demand a personal explanation for their breakup. Greg hadn’t let the pain of the split reverberate between them. He’d really given up contact with her, like she’d desperately needed him to do.
She’d have to give up some control of her life to be with him. But he’d already shown her how sexy and fun that can be. She could hardly wait for the next arrest.
“Did you miss me?” she asked carefully, and deserved a negative answer.
“Only the hours I drew breath.”
“Ah,” she said in a parody of pride. “It’s always good to scar him for life so he doesn’t forget you.”
“I’m scarred for life,” Greg confirmed, his playful smile on his face. “You’ll have to come back to Tampa to really inflict that punishment to its finer degree.”
She laughed over that too, then her mind wandered over possibilities. “A doctorate would m
ean at least another two years at USF.”
Still too Latin-handsome for any girl to deny with dark eyes hinting to emotion, he gave her hand a squeeze, raising his potent brow dedicated to negotiation. “I promise to be out of your hair forty hours a week, and in your hair the rest.”
“You drive a hard bargain,” she admitted. “But it seems like a lot of pressure for two people getting to know one another.”
“I can see your point,” Greg countered plainly. “I really can. But then I remember that I don’t want to say good night to you again, not even to let you sleep in your own bed and away from me. I did too long a stretch of time when I couldn’t say good night to you at all. I’m through those times now, and I can’t think of a moment ahead in my life I wouldn’t want you in on. I simply don’t want to have to say good night to you again.”
His sweet words caused her heart a shudder to hear his resolve to keep them from parting again. It was so easy to love Greg. Like slipping on cheesecake and tumbling into his bed.
“We’ll agree you’re house-sitting for me ... for a few years. A package could be delivered at any time. We’ll see how it goes, renegotiate after that, if we need to.”
Elissa took a deep draw on her Irish coffee, warming her to her bones. She was used to Florida’s short and milder winter, and December in Virginia chilled her to the chatter of her teeth, no matter how thick the coat. The frost made her happy she was headed home, but it looked like she’d have a lot of good reasons to move back to Tampa again. Funny how Tampa felt like home, and not the tiny unknown town she’d come from. Maybe she could convince her mother to move closer to the Bay area.
Lucky her. The best-looking man in Tampa enticed her back to his town, even his home and bed. She didn’t know how she’d say good night to him again, either.
When Elissa leaned a little closer to him, she smelled the sandalwood and musk of his scent, a smell that really made her want him again, just took her over with his masculinity, caused her immediate pheromonal surrender with far too much joy.
“You know, Special Agent Baker,” Greg said with his best diabolical sneer. “I could have deeper Mob connections than you know. You owe it to your country to become deeply embedded in my life, snoop out all signs of evil, and make sure I’m no danger to society.”
“It does seem critical when put that way. You look innocent, but I’ve firsthand experience of the particular brand of danger you’re capable of, Citizen Moretti.”
“You should go under deep cover, stay in for the long run, keep me from turning to the dark side.”
Elissa burst into a smile. Just being with Greg, cast under his spell compelling her to want him again, made her wonder why she’d made a run for it.
“Living with a suspect’s a bit unorthodox, but I'd love to be deep in covers with you.”
“You could strip-search me every night.”
“The offer’s getting better,” she commented, her smile untamable. “It is my patriotic duty when tilted at a particularly obtuse angle for a unique point-of-view.”
“I like the angle,” Greg supplied, stretching his arm over her shoulder. She felt good in his possession. “Got good company to light the fireplaces this year. What do you think?”
Elissa delved into his chocolate glaze, noticing his eye color had turned from pecan to a delicious dark chocolate shade of brown that made her want to nibble candy on his chest and all the way down.
“I could get used to watching a fire in the reflection of your eyes. Besides, you do always owe me dinner, you remember.”
“I’d better get to work on it then, or I’ll never get that done and over with. With you living at my place, that promise will be much more convenient to fulfill, another fine reason why you should just move in with me. Saves gas, good for the environment.”
“That would make me an environmentalist as well as a smart cookie. I’m feeling better about myself already.”
“You could think of it as saving your little part of the world, you know.”
Elissa recalled how she’d told him she intended to save her little part of the world by joining the FBI. “So you’re going to offer me another future, just like that?”
Greg’s smile was really pretty, his eyes a bit glistening with tease. “You haven’t received a better offer, have you?”
Her eyes watered a bit. “I doubt there exists a better offer. You do realize we’ve only known each other a few weeks.”
Greg had confidence in his smile. “Dad told me to hold the girl who stopped me in my tracks, and he was the wisest man I know. Best way I can think of to hold you is to hold you, as in every night as I slip into sleep, and kiss you for breakfast in the morning. It also prevents a stalking charge.”
It was too easy to love Greg. She looked over to him to see his every handsome trait, his nearly black hair, his hungry chocolate eyes and Latin tan, the breadth of his shoulders. The sweetness of his burning lips everywhere on her, and the thrust of his hips. All the strength she’d invested in those walls to keep from loving him crumbled away.
“It’ll be an all-important deep-cover job to guarantee you aren’t involved with the Mob, nightly strip-search mandatory, sleeping beside you in case you attempt to slip out into the night to meet your minion-cohorts. Seems like good reasoning to stay at your side and, as you pointed out, my patriotic duty.”
“An important step in your battle against evil and tyranny.”
Greg took up his fork and skewered the last piece of cheesecake in his dessert plate and offered it to her. “I’ll be on my best behavior, but I can change that, if you like. Would you still go on a space ride to visit aliens?”
“Would I go on a space ride to meet aliens?” she repeated, thinking that a question out of left field.
“Yeah, like in Contact.”
Elissa thought about it for a few seconds, visiting aliens welcoming her with a confetti parade. If she never came back home to Earth, would she miss Greg terribly?
Yeah. Yeah, she would. She’d missed him every moment they’d spent apart these past months, she just hadn’t allowed herself to feel it. Until late at night when no idea or notion could block thought of his hands on her, trapped against the wall, tied to his bed, and his unforgettable kiss.
“No, I guess I wouldn’t go now,” Elissa declared. “Got too many good things going on here to be hopping around other worlds.”
Greg smiled contently, took the mug of coffee from her hand, and he slipped his arms around her waist from behind, snuggling against her. “That was the right answer.”
LOOKS ARE DECEIVING
THE END
WWW.ILOVESHAPESHIFTERS.COM
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michele Hart was born and raised in Tampa, Florida, a latch-key kid who came home from school and lived inside TV shows and movies of high adventure. Her family comes from Transylvania. That would explain her pallor, fangs, and her huddling in the shadows with her evil snicker! There's bound to be a horror story somewhere inside her.
When she’s writing a character who's a law enforcement officer, she goes out and gets her Concealed Weapons Permit. When she writes characters who are sword-fighters, she takes sword-fighting classes! Sadly, she can't take an interstellar space trip, but she would if she could. She loves the future. Michele can most likely be found in front of her computer, her head in a science book, slave-driving her poor mother to edit, or hanging out with her new best buddy, a LabraDoodle named Killer.
Visit Michele’s Web site:
www.ILoveShapeShifters.Com
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
-ms-filter: grayscale(100%); filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share