That Thing Between Eli and Gwen (18 page)

“I wasn’t overthinking. Wondering what to get is a valid concern. You eat mostly healthy anyway, so I wasn’t even sure about Chinese. But it’s better than pizza, right?”

He snickered, shaking his head at me. “Chinese food is worse for you, but it’s all right, I'll eat anything.”

I should have gotten pizza!

“And now you're thinking you should have gotten pizza.” He laughed, dishing out the food for us both.

“Stop doing that.”

“Stop making faces and I wouldn’t be able to know. Rice or noodles?”

“Always rice,” I said.

His eyes paused on the small gift I had brought over as well. It was wrapped in plain brown paper from my apartment.

I saw him reach for it, so I took it back.

“Food first,” I said, holding it behind my back.

He gave me an odd look but said nothing, handing me my plate and reaching into his wine fridge.

“Oh no, you're almost out of your dad’s wine? I feel like it’s my fault.”

“I’m nowhere near being out. My mom has a whole cellar full at the house. Besides, we know how it’s made. We can always have more produced if we really want to,” he replied, grabbing glasses and following me to the living room. He sat close by.

Once more, I smiled at his soft couch. “One day, when I move into a bigger place, I’m going to get myself this same couch.”

“Are you still using your apartment as a makeshift studio?” He took a bite and stopped, looking down at his plate. “This is amazing.”

“When it comes to food, no one knows better than Stevie. Wasn’t the food at her wedding great?”

“I thought you disliked the fish?”

“I did, but I’m pretty biased against all fish not from back home. I’m not even sure why I bothered,” I said, taking a bite.

“Do you miss it? Cypress?”

I nodded. “Some days more than others. I love New York. After you’ve lived here for a while, it’s kind of hard not to. But I miss the open spaces, and the nature. Once, when I was nine, we ran into a herd of baby deer, and I remember wanting to take one home with me so badly that I cried when my dad told me to leave them alone. His reasoning was, he would be sad if someone thought I was pretty and decided to take me home, which was really horrid now that I think about it, but I understood what he meant.”

“The photos you showed at Stevie’s wedding were cute. It’s completely how I envisioned you. I’m sure you must have given your parents one hell of a time.” He laughed.

“Not really.” I sighed. “My parents never really tried to tell me no, so I always tried to do my best around them.”

“Why?”

Putting my plate down on his coffee table, I faced him. “I’m going to tell you something sad, but please don’t worry about if I’m still hurt or anything like that. For the most part, I’m really okay.” I could tell he felt a little lost. “I’m only saying this because you fought with your brother. So when I was twelve, my brother came back from college and told my parents he didn’t feel like a guy. He said he hated looking at this person in the mirror that wasn’t him. It was killing him on the inside. He planned to become a female, and my father lost it.” I whispered that last part.

“He was so angry he almost had a heart attack. He told my brother to never come back to his house ever again…not until he ‘got his head on straight’. My brother, he tried. He tried as hard as he could to change himself to be more like what my father wanted, but that just made him hate himself more. No one talked about it. Then, a year later, he committed suicide, and only a few days after that, we each got letters in the mail from him. Mine was him telling me how much he loved me, and wanted me to be the best Guinevere in the history of Guineveres, and also to take care of his puppy, Taigi. To my parents, he said that he loved them, even though he knew he disgusted them, and that he hoped they could one day forgive him. My father cried for weeks, and my mom couldn’t even get out of bed.” I hated talking about my past. I had told no one this, not even Sebastian.

“When I go home and hug my father, I always wonder if he regrets what he said to my brother, if he would have preferred to have two daughters instead of one daughter and a dead son. The only reason I’m saying this to you—and I’m sorry for making this evening so depressing—is because hearing Logan felt like I was hearing my brother. The same thing, just this time it’s about music. Is it really the same? No. Yes. I’m not sure. All I know is, we all get one life, and it’s hard enough without the people we love trying to stop us from completing our dreams. Could he go out there and completely fail as a musician? Sure. It happens to millions of people, and I’m sure there will be more than enough people who will tell him he isn’t any good, or that he will never make it. Believe me, I know, because I’ve met all of them.”

Many of them were still waiting for me to fail.

“He just needs his big brother to love him anyway. I get that you love him and want him to be happy, but whether he fails or not, he just needs you to be in his corner.” When I finished, I handed him the present I had wrapped.

Unfolding his arms, he took it, not looking up at me.

“I lied to you and your mother…well, and the world before. When I painted my
Whispers of the East,
it wasn’t for my grandparents. It was for my brother. I’ve just never told anyone about him, and I didn’t want my parents to be hurt if they ever saw it. The anniversary of his death is Friday, and your mom said your father died a week after that. So, I made a large-scaled one to give to her, and had small copies made and framed for you and Logan.”  

Eli

My hands shook as I unwrapped the paper, and when I saw it, I felt like someone was squeezing my heart. The painting was so good it looked like a photo, and she had drawn a picture of Logan and I all grown up alongside my mother and father. We were all laughing at something, and it felt so real, like he had actually lived it along with us.

“Guinevere…” I didn’t even know what to say, so I put the frame down next to the lamp and kissed her. My mind was racing, I felt ten million different things, and the greatest of all was just to be with her…for as long as she would let me.

She shifted onto my lap, and my hands went under her shirt as hers gripped my hair.

“Eli…” She moaned as I kissed down her neck. “I want this with you, but I want you to want it, not just in return for the painting.”

Flipping her onto her back, I stared at her. “I want this for all of that and more, because you make me feel…you make me feel things I can’t describe. If you tell me to stop, I will stop.”

She pulled open my shirt, smiling to herself. “I see all that running does a body good.”

I reached for a condom in my back pocket when she stopped me.

“I’m on the pill,” she replied, and it was music to my ears.

Grinning, I kissed her once more, biting her bottom lip. Returning the favor, I ripped open her shirt, kissing both of her breasts before I trailed my tongue down her stomach, pulling off her jeans and underwear as I went.

“Ahh…” she moaned, reaching up to hold the couch when two of my fingers slid into her. She rocked against me.

“Eli!”

She shivered when I licked her. Her leg on my shoulder, my tongue buried itself in her, tasting, drinking all of her in, my fingers never once stopping.

“Eli…ahh, Eli… I…I—ahh…I can’t,” she said.

Or at least I thought she did, but I wasn’t sure between all of her moaning and her hands pushing on my head, keeping me going.

“Eli!” She came, her body arching up.

Sitting up, I wiped the corner of my mouth, grinning at the sight of her underneath me, her chest rising and falling with each breath.

“Kiss me,” she demanded.

How could I deny her? Her tongue rolled over mine and I moaned, knowing she could taste herself on my tongue.

With a slight push, she was able to get me onto my back, hopping on top of me. When she did, she took off her bra, dropping it on the ground next to me. Sitting up slightly, I grabbed her breasts and took one into my mouth. She gasped when I bit her nipple.

“Eli…I…I want you,” she said, undoing my pants and reaching for me.

I twitched in her warm hand. When she stroked me so slowly, I lost my train of thought.

“Guinevere,” I gasped, letting go of her breast and thrusting into her hand.

“I want you in me.” She kissed my lips quickly and repeated each word.

Holding her waist, my breathing shallow, I almost came when she lowered herself onto me.

“Fuck,” I hissed.

She was so damn tight, all of her clenching around me. With her hands on my chest, she rode me, her hair falling to the side, mouth partly open, moaning my name over and over again as she did.

 I couldn’t take it. At this rate I was going to lose it. Pushing her onto her back, I lifted up her leg, pounding myself into her, her breasts bouncing with each fuck.

“Oh, god,” she cried out, hands on my shoulders. “Eli…fuck yes!”

The more she screamed out, the more I needed to hear it and the faster I went, to the point where the lamp next to the couch fell to the ground and the couch shifted with us, but I didn’t care.

Her body arched up, and I was on my knees, gripping both of her thighs. I could barely see straight. “So good...” It was more than fucking good; her body was driving me toward madness.

“Eli!” she screamed my name, reaching her second orgasm.

Picking her up, her arms wrapped around me, I slammed into her, and she kissed the sides of my face. And, because she was either the cruelest woman I had ever met or the very best, she spoke dirty to me.

“Fuck me hard, Eli,” she moaned, biting my ear. “Don’t let me stop screaming, baby.  

"I want more! Fuck me more!” she cried out, her nails running down my back.

She’s killing me.

“God, ever since you kissed me, Eli, I’ve wanted you to fucking take me like this.”

“I will, repeatedly.” I spread her legs wider, enjoying how body her tilted up to the sky and, hugging her to me, I couldn’t hold back any more.

“Ahh!” I came, my eyes closing to keep the room from spinning.

We both stayed there, neither of us moving from each other, her arms around my neck and mine against her waist as we took deep breaths.

When she finally relaxed, she sat atop me, making sure I could see into her eyes.

“Next time, you need to scream my name,” she whispered, kissing my lips softly. “I want to hear you cry out Guinevere when you come.”

I grinned, placing my hand on the side of her face. “You are not at all as innocent as you seem.”

She ran her finger over my lip.

I took it into my mouth, biting it.

“Some people become different when they drink or get high. For me, it’s sex. It’s like something clicks in my head, and I want nothing more than for you to keep going. Thank you, I had forgotten how much I missed this.”

“You are a vixen…my vixen.” I wondered what else I would find out about her.

“Fuck me like that again, and I’ll be anything you want me to be, Dr. Davenport,” she said softly as we kissed again.

Thank God for her.

Chapter Fifteen

What’s Said In Bed

Guinevere

I woke up, and the first thing I noticed was how soft the bed was. I ran my hand over the blue satin sheets and the memories flooded my mind. I could still feel his skin under my fingertips. Sitting up and taking the sheet with me as I did, I heard the shower running. The clock beside me said it was only 1 AM.

I can make my escape now…or I can join him.
My heart rate quickened. I knew my answer and let go of the sheet.

I wasn't sure why I was like this. If I went a while without sex, it was like I forgot how great it was, and then when I had it again, it was all I wanted…like a child who had candy for the first time. Odd was the fact that I had only ever had sex with one other man, Sebastian. He had been my first, and I had thought he was good. I’d had nothing to compare him with, but Eli…I now understood why my bedroom wall had shaken like it did.

Everything in the marble bathroom was coated with steam, and yet I could still see the way water dripped down every muscle and toned ab right down to his legs, and how he had cute dimples on his white ass.

“Eli,” I whispered, just loud enough for him to hear me.

He turned, wiping the water from his blue-green eyes and brushing his dark black hair back. His eyes wandered down my naked body, taking it all in and, opening the shower door, he held out a hand for me, using his body to shield me from the hot water until I got used to it. He held me, his hands resting on my ass.

“Did you just get up?” he asked.

I nodded, running my hands up his stomach. “I thought about leaving before you came out.”

“You made a much better choice,” he replied, one of his hands coming up to cup my cheek.

I leaned into it.

“We’ve crossed a bridge, and there’s no going back. I don’t want to. I want what happened last night to happen repeatedly.”

 “Which part?” I kissed his chest. “The part where you made me come with your fingers and tongue? Or the part where I rode you…no, it has to be when you flipped me down and fucked me like a whore on your couch.” I kissed his chin. “Whatever part, I’m more than happy to do it again.”

He pushed me up against the wall, his hands on either side of my face. “Keep talking like that, Guinevere, and you won’t be able to walk out of this shower, or my apartment, for that matter.”

I smirked. “You promise?”

His lips crashed down on mine, his hand cupping between my legs, and as I moaned he broke away slowly, his hand never stopping…not that I would let it. I held on to it, rocking right into the palm as he watched me.

“You are sinfully beautiful, Ms. Poe,” he whispered.

With my free hand, I grabbed him, enjoying how he throbbed in my hand.

Holding on to the wall and to me, Eli grinned as he closed his eyes, lips parting as I stroked the length of him.

He let go of the wall, gripping my hand, his eyes sharp and focused as he stared at me.