Play Fling (A Stupid Cupid Book) (27 page)

But she was hiding. He pulled her hands away
but only to kiss the tips of her fingers before moving to her wrist
and up her arm. Her breathing picked up pace, matching his
quickening pulse. Her skin was so soft.

He could make promises. He could beg her to
believe, ask for a chance, a real chance to prove all her fears
unfounded. But then, he couldn’t be certain what those fears were.
Sure, he had ideas. Where did that get him?

Nowhere but here. Here in this moment, in
this chance to wait, to give her time and try to prove what he felt
in actions instead. He slowly undressed her, covering her body with
his.

Maybe it would be enough in the end. Shafts
of sunlight streamed over her naked curves, highlighting each
contour. He tipped her face to his and kissed her again. Nothing
else mattered but her and him, here and now.

Brooke returned his kiss with more ardor than
ever before. She breathed hard against his lips, sucking, licking.
He let her, choosing not to fight whatever it was she needed. She
took over, straddling his thighs and erection. With a gasp, she
took him into her. Her body was tight, wet bliss. Elliott held his
groan in check and watched her.

Her eyes stayed shut. Her head tilted
skyward, her hands raked his torso. He stiffened under her touch,
then relented, enraptured seeing her abandon herself to the switch
and pull of their movement, riding him, touching him. Moaning
wildly when he cupped each breast, teasing the rigid nipples with
his fingers. He massaged, he pulled each close and sucked, he let
her push away and watched her. She rocked her body with his again
and again. Feverishly. Then she stopped, clenched and climaxed
around him. With a sigh, she dropped to lay on him. He carefully
rolled their bodies over.

He made love to her slowly, tenderly, willing
every last drop of care forth. A gift to her. His bended knee, his
prize, laid at her feet.

Brooke’s eyes remained closed through the
end. She did not look at him, but her body spoke. Her back arched
in pleasure. Her hands roamed his chest and shoulders. She kissed
his neck and held him close.

“Brooke,” he moaned. God, she was perfection.
He wanted to tell her here, in this moment, but a thread of sanity
tethered his heart in.

Her slick heat clung to his stiff prick as he
stroked in and out, bringing her to another climax, fighting back
his own until he could no longer resist her. A perfect blissful end
of stars and light and sheer pleasure pulsed out of him. He knew
she felt it, too. She wrapped herself around him as if holding on
for her life. He held her close, drawing her safely back to earth,
praying when she landed he would not feel her slip away.

He continued to hold her close. A sigh
escaped her. “Elliott,” she whispered. She fell asleep.

Elliott moved carefully to her side, smelling
her candy scented hair and swallowed back the emotion that had
nearly split him in two only moments ago. Thankfully, clean sanity
crept back in. Logic. His pulse slowed and his mind calmed. He
directed his attention to how she felt in his arms, memorizing the
details. The way her leg lay limp and heavy against his thigh. The
bony press of her ankle on his calf. The softness of her hair.

By the time Brooke woke, Elliott was composed
and prepared.

She smiled crookedly up at him. “I fell
asleep again.”

“You did.” Unable to resist, despite the
voice inside him shouting, d
on’t go and scare her away now
,
he winked. “I thought the guy was supposed to pass out after
sex.”

She looked at the ceiling. “And I’m supposed
to pout for more cuddles, right?”

“Exactly.”

Brooke laughed, then groaned, nice and loud
and long. Not good. With care, she unpeeled her body from his and
stretched. “Well,” she said, sitting up and hugging her knees. “I
have to go.”

He sat up. She stood. Panic lit inside of
him. When would he see her again? “Any sales tomorrow?”

“Nope. I’m surprised there’s been any this
winter, the weather and all.” She dressed without pretense. Her
voice was all business. Again. “I have enough merchandise to get me
through January. Maybe longer. I don’t know. If there are
more….”

Silence. Nice and awkward. He pulled his
pants on, put on his glasses and walked with her toward the
door.

“At least I didn’t wake up to a note this
time,” she said, leaning up to kiss his chin.

“Ouch,” he said and pulled her close. He
kissed her nose. “I’m never going to live that down, am I?”

She sent him an admonishing look past her
lashes. “Not likely.” She slipped her feet into her shoes. “It
wasn’t a very nice note, after all. Short, but
not
sweet if
you ask me. Not as cold as leaving no note at all, I suppose, but
still, not nice.”

Elliott frowned. He knew he’d waited too long
to call but how could his note have her so miffed? “Not nice? What
was so mean about it?”

She frowned, facing him. “Seriously? How
about ‘
forget
me’? I’ve never been asked to forget a person.
It stung.”

“What are you talking about? I never told you
to forget me,” he said.

Brooke snorted, gaze scanning the entryway
tile. She bent and retrieved her keys. “Uh, yeah, you did. I got
the note, remember?”

Elliott crossed his arms. Anger prickled up
them. Was she calling him a liar? “I wrote forgive me. Not forget
me.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense. ‘You fell
asleep, forgive me’?” She finger quoted the air and her expression
went well beyond disbelief. More like contempt. “I think I would
know the difference.”

“Well you’ll excuse me if I say you’re wrong.
I think I do know the difference. One, I have chicken scratch
handwriting, thus the brevity of the note. Two, why in the hell
would I want you to forget me? I spent three days in a mind fuck
trying to figure out why I liked you so much. I couldn’t forget you
if someone paid me, so I certainly wouldn’t ask you to.”

By the time he finished, her mouth hung open
and his arms were akimbo.

Brooke straightened, she snapped her mouth
shut. She shook her head and turned away. “I have to go.”

He didn’t miss the tremor in her voice. “No.
Don’t go. Not like this.”

She faced him. “Elliott, I can’t do this. Not
right now. I’m recently divorced and fighting my way to find my way
into a new life and… I just can’t handle this getting
complicated.”

“I’m not asking for anything, Brooke. I was
just setting the record straight.”

“But you said—.”

“I know what I said. Look, don’t worry about
what I said.” Shit. What could he do to calm her down? He tried a
smile, his best panty-melting grin. “Just think of it as you don’t
have to sleep alone tonight. No big deal.”

She scrunched her chin. “Alright. If you say
so.”

“I do.” He put his hands on her shoulders and
steered her to the door. “Now, get out of here before I attack you
again. You have work to do, remember?”

She scooted off, all that worry lining her
face moments before, gone. Elliott sighed inwardly. Disaster
averted?

Fifteen minutes later, his doorbell rang.
Elliott clapped his thigh in triumph. She’d come back again! He
managed not to sprint to the door but couldn’t stifle his joy.
She’d come back.

Ready to gather Brooke into his arms and take
her up the stairs, Elliott swung the door open. He stopped dead.
Millie stood on his doorstep, battle ready. Brooke was nowhere in
sight. The pit of his stomach steeped in dread.

“We need to talk,” Millie seethed and didn’t
wait to be asked in.

Chapter Twenty-one

Millie didn’t wait for an invitation.

“Sure. Please. Come on in,” Elliott said, his
tone menacing.

Mille rolled her eyes. So she wasn’t welcome.
Did she care? Not a scintilla. “Look. I’m not here to be rude.” She
strode to his living room, spun and faced him. “But I’m not going
to have this conversation standing on your doorstep. So, let’s play
nice and humor the rude chick for just a few minutes, shall
we?”

If she didn’t already want to shred his ego,
she might have been willing to give the guy credit. He wasn’t the
least bit intimidated or defensive over her arrival. Yet.

“Like I said,” Elliott gestured at the couch.
“Come on in. Any friend of Brooke’s is a friend of mine.”

Oh. He was good. Guilt jab to the heart.
Nice. “That is exactly what I’m here about.” She sat down and
didn’t wait for him to join her. “Brooke.”

Elliott scooped a blanket from the floor and
began folding it. He didn’t speak. Didn’t really need to. Here
about Brooke. No shit, Sherlock, right? Right.

Millie ignored his bare chest and met his
stare. “You’ve probably noticed a bit of animosity toward you on my
part.”

He draped a blanket over the chair and
crossed his arms but still didn’t sit. Fine. She could do this with
him standing.

“You don’t approve,” he said. It wasn’t a
question.

Damn it to fuck, where was the
presidential-esque speech she had all rehearsed before turning the
car off? “If you mean, I don’t approve of you and Brooke, then no.
I don’t approve. But, it turns out, that doesn’t matter.
Apparently,” she said, thinking of AJ’s painstaking, dreary lecture
this morning. “You and she are adults. Able to make adult choices.
Poorly thought out as those choices might be, I have no say
whatsoever.”

“Then why are you here?” Elliott’s brow crept
downward. “To warn me off?”

“No. I think we’re a bit past that. And,
according to some, I’m in no warning position. So, I’m here to try
to salvage this gigantic mess.” Her mess.

One of his golden brows quirked up above the
rim of his glasses. Why was he being so damned collected about all
this?

Millie wished she had a drink. This was going
to be harder than she imagined. Maybe she should have gone to
Brooke first. No. AJ and she had gone over this again and again.
This was the only way. She needed leverage. She had less than a
week to come to terms with the fact that Jason wasn’t looking like
a good prospect, but Elliott might be a viable one.

“What mess is that?” Curiosity tinged his
angry tone.

Inconceivable but true nonetheless. Elliott
Jovovich should have been long gone, hit it and quit it by now.
Three out of these three weren’t going to live happily ever after
unless Millie turned things around fast. The stupidest part of it
all was, while AJ had all sorts of forecasts, he wouldn’t give her
any specific advice. Nope. Just conjecture.

Oh, and she’d apparently caused a stir on the
other side.

Millie waved off the question. Too much
information and he would only think she was crazy. “It doesn’t
really matter.”

One, she hated that a whole section of Heaven
seemed to be sitting around taking bets on her matchmaking success.
Why should they even know about it, let alone care? She wanted to
tear up holy pages just thinking about it.

Two, the large part of the joke appeared to
be her total lack of information. Cover her eyes, spin her around
and laugh as she tried to pin the love on the donkey. All the
while, she was the ass.

Three, all she could think about was AJ.
Losing him. Not just losing him, but knowing a bunch of judges and
do-gooders watched and waited for it like a pack of hungry teens,
popcorn in hand, drooling over the impending carnage. AJ. Her heart
panged. She should have kissed him. More than that. She should be
tearing off every last stitch of clothing and give Heaven something
to stare at.

But she couldn’t. “What matters is
Brooke.”

“So you’ve said.”

Try and save Brooke or give in to pent up
lust and yearning. No time for both. In the end, Brooke won. Didn’t
look like Millie was going to get much more than a brief friendship
consolation prize for her, though. Not with her brain sticking in
reverse every other minute.

She cleared her throat and met Elliott’s
waiting gaze. He appeared unmoved by her stiff silence. “I need to
know how you feel about Brooke,” she bit out. This would all be so
much easier if she could see the chemicals.

“I don’t see how that is any of your
business.”

“Right. Well, uh, it is and it isn’t.”

“No, it isn’t. At all. And you should leave.”
His pecs flexed.

Millie put her hand up. A white flag wave of
sorts. “You win. Alright? It is none of my business. But, if you
would pretty please maybe have a seat and indulge me a little, for
Brooke’s sake, I promise, I’ll leave and vow to keep my big nose
out of it.” Liar, liar.

He took his time, but in the end, sat in an
armchair across from her. Better. At least they were eye level now.
Maybe she could get this right after all.

Now, where to begin? Oh yeah, and be sure to
leave out all the I’m-supposed-to-find-Brooke-true-love-or-lose-AJ
stuff. Check. “Elliott Jovovich. Middle child, felon dad, departed
mother. Never been in a serious relationship.”

“You’ve been paying attention.”

“I’ve been trying to but, in truth, Elliott,
you have been keeping me distracted from my real focus. Jason
Munkle.”

“Don’t you mean Brooke?”

She took a deep breath. “No. Right now, I
mean Jason. Brooke is my best friend. I know you know that so don’t
give me that what’s-the-point look, alright?”

He shrugged and leaned back. “What do you
care about her ex-husband? Better yet, why should I?”

Millie laughed and not because it was funny.
More from twinges of delirium. She’d been crazy to come here. She
couldn’t tell him anything and yet was supposed to get so much. The
way she was going, he’d be calling Brooke from the bathroom and
telling her about her backstabbing friend and poof, Brooke would
never speak to her again.

She plunged onward. “Brooke is still in love
with Jason.”