by Fiona Shin
Elliot sighed and ran a hand through his already disheveled hair. He’d been at the saloon the next street over and would’ve stayed longer if damned Reynolds hadn’t kicked everyone out, just so the selfish bastard could gussy himself up for the gathering.
And now here he was.
In an enclosed space with a beautiful woman who drove him to distraction with her amethyst eyes and scent of roses and vanilla.
He couldn’t even leave the house, not with the sudden heavy snowfall and howling winds that made the windows shudder.
It was too much to bear. “If you need me, I’ll be in my study. Working. I’ll be very busy, as a matter of fact. Much too busy to hang about talking to you.”
“Of course, Mr. Whitley,” she said, just as meekly as a country mouse. “I would expect no less from you.”
And for some damn reason, her attitude just made him angrier.
“Damn it woman, aren’t you even going to look at me?”
Probably not the right thing to demand, as now he was being stared at quite intently by a pair of beguiling violet eyes that made his mouth go dry. “I’m sorry, Mr. Whitley. You seem quite disturbed.”
Disturbed?
Instead of opening his mouth and saying something he was bound to regret, he clamped his mouth shut and glared at her.
At his rate, she was probably going to think he was mentally ill.
She put down her knitting, clasping her hands on her lap. All that would’ve been fine if she wasn’t still staring at him.
Which she was.
“Mr. Whitley,” she began and Elliot stopped her.
“Never mind,” he said. “I’ll be in my office.”
“Of course, Mr. Whitley,” she repeated in that maddeningly infuriating tone. “If there is something I require, I will let you know.”
By the time Elliot made it to his office, he wanted to bash his head against the walls. Christ, what the hell was wrong with him?
She was beautiful. Too beautiful. Every time she left the house, he was afraid she’d never come back, having been offered several marriage proposals on her way to the general store.
Why should it have bothered him so much?
Was he jealous?
He made do with dropping his head heavily on his desk. “Get a hold of yourself, man.”
Just the thought of her sitting in front of the fire, the flames highlighting the burgundy of her long hair, cheeks pink from the warmth, was enough to bring a tightness to his chest, his groin and he closed his eyes, trying to think of anything but that.
Ivy underneath him.
Ivy, head thrown back, body flush from passion.
He groaned and banged his head on the desk again.
It didn’t help.
A knock sounded at the door. “Mr. Whitley.”
He breathed in deep and half fancied he could smell that incredibly intoxication scent that seemed to surround her like an invisible mantle. “Yes, Miss Stevens?”
There was a faint pause and he held his breath, hoping against hope the woman had decided to leave.
“Might I come in?”
Blast it all, no such luck. He should've known.
Straightening back up, he pulled his chair closer to the desk and arranged the papers in front of him, just in case she was impatient. “I would rather you didn't, Miss Stevens. As I said before, I am quite a busy man.”
He almost choked on his own lie. “Perhaps it can wait?”
Another pause. This time longer.
“I see,” she said, voice muffled from behind the thick study door.
Mr. Kent's property deed for his fourteen acre farm never looked so appealing. “Yes. Perhaps another time?”
When Mrs. Chang was home.
When there was another person to stop him before he made a complete fool out of himself.
Yes, that sounded about right.
She cleared her throat delicately. “I'm afraid this will not wait.”
Briefly, Elliot entertained the thought of staying silent. Would she stay out there for an indefinite period of time? Would she simply just barge in? What type of person was Ivy Stevens?
But his conscience could not let him do such a thing.
Better to get it over with.
Mentally steeling himself, he grabbed a pen to look as though he'd been interrupted. “You might as well come in, Miss Stevens.”
The doorknob swiveled and when she stepped in, he was almost nonchalant. Actually, he was quite proud of his gruff facade. Damn, maybe he’d missed his calling as an actor. “Yes?”
She closed the door softly behind her and turned to face him, a nondescript expression on her pale face. “I'm sorry to bother you.”
I'm sorry to bother you.
A million replies ran through his mind. “No bother.”
Gazing at the floor, she rubbed at her face in a distracted manner. “There is something I must ask you, Mr. Whitley. I hope you can forgive me for my forwardness in advance.”
He nodded, warily. “What can I do for you?”
She bit the corner of her red lips and his groin tightned. Damn.
“Why do you hate me?”
He blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
A wave of pink rushed up her cheeks as she took a step forward. Too close. “I'm not an idiot. You can't stand me. You can't even look me in the eyes. You speak to me as though I am a simpleton.”
Astounded. Gobsplattered. A myriad of like emotions whirled through his head. “You...a simpleton?”
Ivy crossed her arms, drawing his attention to her breasts and he was ashamed he couldn't seem to look away. “I understand how you must feel. I am an interloper in your home. And I am sorry. If you would just let me work off my debt to you -”
He held up a hand, effectively stopping her from going any further, coming any closer. “I don't hate you.”
Her eyes narrowed. “And now you're lying.”
“I'm not lying,” he replied and leaned back in his chair, not entirely sure what to say. “Christ, Ivy, for such a beautiful thing, you sure can be a fool.”
She tilted her head to one side and regarded him with steady eyes he didn't, couldn't trust. “Beautiful? Perhaps in the past. But you've seen me at my worst.”
“Doesn't matter. I see you now, in front of me.” He took a deep breath, decided to take a plunge. If a gruff exterior didn't scare her away, perhaps truth would. “You're a pretty little thing. I can't help what I feel. I'm only a man.”
Inwardly, he winced at his callous words, callous tone, but her expression did not change a whit.
“Were that true, then you would not look at me as though I were refuse found on the bottom of your shoes.”
He opened his mouth to say something, anything, and then shut it. She had him there. What the hell was he supposed to say to that?
She was in front of his desk now. Too close. If he moved his hand just a fraction, he could touch her.
“Please be honest,” she said quietly, so quiet he barely heard her over the roar of the blizzard. “If you can't stand me, I will leave.”
No.
Don't go.
But how could he say something like that? He swallowed the lump in his painfully dry throat. “Ivy. I'm just a man. That's something you ought to know. I am not...safe. You're an extraordinarily beautiful woman.” He took a deep breath. “It's only natural that I would feel...something.”
Yes. Best to say all of this now.
He prayed it was enough to scare her away.
“You want me,” she said. “Is that what you mean?”
Somehow, he found the courage to meet her steady gaze. “Yes.”
***
He wanted her.
The breath left her in a rush and she felt her palms sweat.
“I thought you despised me.”
His eyes were haunted as he threw up in hands in exasperation. “Of course I despise you! You make me feel things I thought were long dead. I don’t want to remember anym
ore. I don’t want to know, don’t want to feel anymore. There was a woman. Before. When she left me, she took everything. She left me a broken man, and I’m damn sure I won’t be able to live with myself should I let it happen again.”
Ivy clenched her hands, tight enough she felt the brief pain as her fingernails dug into her skin. She was grateful Mrs. Chang had taken Timothy with her to the gathering. This was a conversation that needed to happen. “I’m not her.”
“No,” he said. “I wish you were. I wish you were, so I could pontificate on the many ways I’d like to see you burn in hell. It wasn’t right what she did. And it’s not right for me to still hate her, after all this time, but I do. I'm not a saint.” He sat down heavily on a chair, head in his hands. “Can’t you see? She’s taken everything from me. There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t think of her. She ruined me.”
“No. Don't say that.” She knelt at his feet, taking care not to touch him. She had to see his face, had to see the dark, enigmatic eyes that burned into her heart, her very soul. “I am not her, Elliot. I’m so sorry she left you in such a despicable manner. But please, you must know I am not her, that I will never be her.”
He shook his head, hands over his face, groaning under his breath.
And it broke Ivy’s heart to see the gruff, stoic man reduced to this. Oh, if that Meredith woman was here, what she wouldn’t do that evil woman!
She stared down at his polished black shoes, neatly tied and buffed to a shine. “When I first opened my eyes…when I first saw you, I thought you were an angel.”
He laughed, although it was not a happy one. “If I’d known what sort of trouble you’d cause me, I would’ve carted you straight to Doc Warner’s and let him take care of you.”
Her throat felt heavy, like she was choking. “Why didn’t you?”
His body shook ever so slightly. What she would’ve given to see his face, see his eyes, know what was going through his complicated mind. “You were so small. I thought you were just a child. You know the situation with Timothy. Apparently, I’ve got a soft spot for orphans.”
She nodded, although he certainly couldn’t see it, not with his hands over his face. “You’re a very gentle man.”
“I’m a fool, is what I really am,” he replied. “It was Christmas. You looked like a child and I couldn’t imagine not having a place to go, a table to sit at and be warm. Timothy never told me about his life before he met me, but I can imagine. In fact, I’ve got a pretty good imagination when it comes to that particular scenario. I promised myself that were I to see another child in his situation, I would do my damnedest to help.”
But he got her instead. “I am not a child.”
Finally, he drew his hands away from his face and the look in his dark, almost black eyes made the breath catch in her throat. “I know you’re not. But God, I wish you were.”
For the longest time, Ivy had cursed her beauty, wished she had inherited less of her mother’s fine features and more of her father’s blunt, craggy looks. Beauty did not win her any friends, did not get her anything, except for the endless string of proposals from men who seemed insincere to say the least.
But now, perhaps it would do some good.
Perhaps beauty would save her this time.
She took hold of his hands, felt the tensile strength in his long fingers, wrapped her fingers around his. “I want to thank you. Were it not for you, I…I don’t know where I would be, what I’d be doing. I might even be dead. Certainly, anyone out in such a storm would not be able to survive. I owe you everything. Thank you so much.”
He stared down at her hands, and she expected him to wrench away.
He did not.
“I don’t want your thanks.”
She let out a slow breath and set her knees into the wooden floor.
Put her hands on his cheeks. Tilted up his chin so she was looking into his face.
The muscles jerked under her fingertips and suddenly, he reminded her of a wild horse, unwilling to believe, unwilling to trust.
She would not let him look away.
“Then, what do you want?”
***
He felt like he’d been punched in the gut.
Then, what do you want?
What did he want, indeed.
What he wanted was right in front of him, kneeling before him, her hands on his face, looking at him intently with eyes the color of African violets.
But how the bloody hell could he say something like that? “You need to go.”
Exactly the opposite his body wanted, but he couldn’t let his body dictate its wants and needs.
He was a civilized man, not some kind of crazed, lust-ridden barbarian.
She shook her head, tendrils of dark hair curling about her narrow shoulders. “No. I won’t. I owe you my life, Elliot Whitley. And…” she paused. “I’m not a fool.”
Maybe not, but he was.
A fool for not tearing away.
A fool for not running away.
Not when his body burned for hers. Not when he wanted to bury himself in the warmth of her body and never come back out.
“I’m not a fool,” she repeated, words coming in a rush, almost as if she was afraid to stop. “When I left New York, I was just a child. I am older now.”
Her fingers shook as she slowly ran a hand down his face, traced the shape of his unmoving lips. “You saved me. I have nothing to offer in gratitude. But I know what happens between a man and a woman. We live in enlightened times, Mr. Whitley. You want me, or rather you want my body. I can see that.”
His mouth was dry, so dry, it was a wonder he could say anything at all. “You have quite a high opinion of yourself, don’t you?”
His attempt at a joke fell flat and she merely gazed at him with those maddeningly calm, peaceful eyes, the eyes of a siren with wisdom beyond comprehension. It scared him. “It is not an opinion. I know, Mr. Whitley. I want to thank you. But I have nothing to offer.”
But I have nothing to offer.
He tried to wrench out of her grasp, but somewhere between his brain and his hands, the command got lost.
“Don’t be an idiot,” he said. “You have much to offer. Don’t waste yourself on me.”
And let me go, he wanted to say, but again, somehow the words just never made it past his lips.
She moved forward, then, one swift movement that made him jump, and when her mouth grazed his temple, he felt it all the way down to his damned feet.
“I don’t consider it a waste,” she whispered, her breath warm on his ear, eliciting a trail of goose bumps to run along his spine. “I will have no regrets. I want to do this.”
He stood up then, almost tripping over the chair in his haste. “Stop. Just…stop. I can’t offer what you deserve. I’m just a shell. If there ever was an Elliot Whitley, he’s not here anymore. Why would you want anything to do with me?”
The chair clattered to the floor and she stepped over it, prim as a lady merely stepping over a branch on a midday walk. But the look in her eyes was anything but ladylike.
“You’re fighting yourself.” She held out a hand to him, her fingernails gleaming like polished coral in the firelight. “But it is a losing fight, Mr. Whitley. You can call me a hussy, a wanton moral-less thing, but this is what I want, and if I’m not mistaken, what you want as well.”
He resisted the urge to clap his hands over the part of him that called for her. Instead, he grabbed a ledger book, a great, wide thing that hid everything from his waist to his knees. “I can’t help it. What you’re doing is the equivalent of waving a red cape in front of a bull, madam. I am a civilized individual. It will be a cold day in hell when I can’t even control my own body.”
Was that a glimmer of a smile about the crimson red lips that better belonged on some succubus? “What would you call outside your very front door, Mr. Whitley? Would you not consider it a sort of hell?”
He could smell her, that scent of roses and vanilla and wanted to
throw himself out the window and just freeze to death. Better to die an honorable man than a cad.
But he could not move as she walked to him, as she laid a hand over his rapidly beating heart, as she slowly undid the buttons of his gray vest.
“Please,” he found himself saying. “I can’t…I haven’t…”
He wanted to say it had been seven years since he had laid with a woman, since he had even touched a woman in passion.
If he hurt her…
She stood on her tiptoes and he shivered as she whispered into his ear, her fingers undoing the last button. “Everything will be all right.”
He jammed his eyes shut, too afraid of what his traitorous hands would do, if his eyes continued to feast on the sight of her crimson lips, the curve of her breasts pressing against his body, the very feel of her…no, no, he wasn’t going to even think about it.
She peeled the vest from his shoulders, and he heard the hush of it slithering to the floor.
He should’ve walked away.
Should’ve simply placed his hands on her shoulders and surely but gently, set her aside.
Should’ve stepped back and then turned on his heel.
Should’ve, would’ve, could’ve.
Didn’t.
Instead, he stood there, still as a statue, as her nimble fingers worked his ribbon tie free and that too drifted to the floor. “I wish I could tell you to stop.”
Her hands paused at the top button of his linen shirt and against his better judgment, Elliot opened his eyes, when she did not reply.
She was close.
Too close.
He was in grave danger of drowning in those amethyst eyes.
Too late.
She licked her lips and he clenched harder on the ledger book, unable to let go, too afraid of the consequences should he do so. “Are you finished, then?”
The demoness shook her head. “I am not. Why are you fighting me? Most men would’ve already had me flat against that wall.”
The blatant, graphic image made his face blaze, and his cock jumped shamelessly. “Christ, woman! Where’d you learn such things?”