Chapter Twenty-Seven
The weeks that followed made Elle feel in turns happy and content, then anxious and jumpy. Ross wouldn’t keep his damn hands off her, no matter where they were, which wasn’t exactly unpleasant, but made her worry about appearances and propriety. The ease with which he’d guided her out of the gloom of a decade’s worth of man-draught into the light of pure erotic pleasure shocked her if she gave it any serious thought.
Considering that her first and only sexual experience had been with an older man who’d deflowered her in the most perfunctory, mechanical way possible, then had taught her every trick in the book—like how to give the right blow job, how to relax into an orgasm herself. How to be at home with her own body, exploring it with Him for the first year and a half, using soft handcuffs, blindfolds, mild pain as pleasure.
But after that, when He’d convinced her to leave with him for the jobs in Chicago, once they’d moved into the too-expensive flat and they’d begun working side by side, all of that had changed in a brutal blink of an eye. She shook her head to dispel the evil, something she was having better luck with lately and no wonder, considering Ross kept her either on the knife edge of an orgasm or spilling over into it, rolling around in it, reveling in it with him in a way that surprised and thrilled her.
Working with him—something she’d dreaded since that was what had seemingly spoiled things for her once before—was even an erotic experience. He’d tease her, brush her neck or arm or ass with his fingertips. He’d send overtly dirty text messages out of the clear blue sky, with her sitting on one side of the table at lunch, Austin or Evelyn, or some other brewery employee between them and carrying on a conversation as if he had not just described how he’d make her come so hard she’d squirt. Something that still made her slightly uncomfortable in its description but certainly not in its actuality.
She’d never come so many times or in so many ways. She had no idea it was even possible. And his body was her playground. His massive dick was no less impressive and stunning than the first time she’d laid eyes on it. It still hurt when he was fully inside her but she didn’t care. Because it was his favorite way to come—buried deep inside her, as she rubbed her piercing against his pubic bone. He would cry out so loudly she had to slap a hand over his lips, worried the thin walls of the hotel would betray them.
She’d even convinced him to forgo the condoms. He’d balked, saying he’d had too much unprotected sex and didn’t want to do anything that might harm her. So, she’d dragged him to a doctor’s office and ordered the barrage of tests to ensure them both that he was, in fact, completely clean. When he’d looked into her eyes and asked, innocently and with some earnestness, if she worried about getting pregnant, she’d said no. That the Monster had taken care of that and they’d have to talk about that more later.
He’d dropped the subject. And thrown out his stash of Magnum-sized condoms.
She’d slept every night since their first one together wrapped up in his arms, in his hotel bed. While the practical side of her realized that arrangement wasn’t sustainable, for the moment, she was content to let it sustain her as her new reality.
Three weeks after their first date, they’d finally caught up to the aggressive production targets. To celebrate, Evelyn and Austin threw a company-wide party, going so far as to close down the pub on a Tuesday night and catering in food so Melody and her staff could relax and enjoy.
“Wear the black dress,” Ross insisted as they got ready after a long, hot, sexy shower together.
“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s not that kind of a party.”
“It’s whatever kind of a party we want to make, dear heart. And I think you look like a knockout in that thing. I want to show you off.”
“Show me off, eh? Don’t you think everyone pretty much already knows we’re together? Evelyn’s assistant did catch us screwing in the women’s locker room and you don’t make any effort to curb yourself at work, Herr Grabby Hands.”
He reached for her and dragged her onto his lap, lifting up her hair and kissing that spot he’d found at the nape of her neck that drove her up the wall. She squealed and slapped his shoulders, before giving up and kissing him—hands down, one of her top two favorite things to do with him—her man.
“You are so naïve. This man belongs to no one. He’s amused by you, that’s all. And soon enough, he’ll be over you and your incessant anxiety attacks and lame emotional outbursts,” her inner nag reminded her. But both the inner nag voice and The Monster’s had faded so much in the face of Ross’ onslaught, she barely heard it.
“Aus! Lustmolch! We have to go,” she gasped, pulling away from him and standing up. Her towel had ended up on the floor so she grabbed it and headed for the closet, where she’d been keeping a lot of her things lately.
“Oh, all right. Buzz kill.” He smacked her ass lightly on his way past, whistling as he brushed his wet hair and tied it back.
“Tell you what,” she said, pulling the dress off a hanger. “I’ll wear this, if you’ll keep your hair down.”
“Like this?” he asked, yanking out the leather tie and doing a model-worthy head swing.
“Yes. Like that.” She stepped into the dress, then reached for a pair of panties in the drawer she’d appropriated. But he grabbed the small scrap of silk from her, tossed them to the floor and stood over her, grinning that grin that made her knees melty. “Excuse me, but I needed those.”
“No. You won’t be needing those at all.” He pulled up a pair of black jeans, then stuck his arms into a neatly pressed, soft blue button-down collar shirt. “I want access, just in case I get an urge…you know.” He waggled his eyebrows at her like a fool, but she laughed and rolled her eyes at him, feeling happiness seep through her again, against her own better judgment.
They arrived as the party was headed into full swing. The music was blaring and the place packed with their brewing personnel, office staff, cleaning crew, kitchen and wait staff. Austin, Brock and Evelyn were acting as bartenders for the night. They’d set out a huge jar for tips, all of which would go to the Fitzgerald Charitable Trust, a non-profit that Austin had set up and put Brock in charge of managing.
As they stood in the door, initially unnoticed, Elle held back, pressing herself against Ross’ side. He kissed her hair then raised his arm and hollered to the room, “The superstar has arrived. Please make way!”
The room turned with a collective cheer that died on their lips. It was an odd, seemingly scripted moment that sent a jolt of anxiety all the way through Elle.
“I need a god damned beer. Somebody get me a good one?” Ross tugged at her, but her feet felt mired in concrete as the eyes of everyone in the room—people she knew, had worked with, liked and even considered close friends—locked onto her. Many mouths were agape. Hands with glasses in them were paused, mid lift to mouths. “What’s the matter with you idiots?” Ross bellowed good-naturedly. “Never seen a beautiful woman before? Jesus. Close your mouths. You’re depleting my oxygen. Come along, my love, ignore these peasants.”
He held out his hand. She stared at it, then put her palm in it. That seemed to break the collective trance. Both Melody and Evelyn ran up to her, chirruping and otherwise making admiring noises. But her ears were buzzy. Her head spun. She never should have worn this damn thing. It was too showy. She shouldn’t parade her happiness with Ross around either. It was bad luck.
As if sensing her panic, Ross tugged her to him as he stood in the middle of a circle of fellow brewers and others. Someone pressed a glass of stout in her hand. Austin was standing up on the bar, swaying more than a little. “Here is to you all,” he yelled, quieting the din. “All you amazing assholes. Without every single one of you we would not be celebrating selling over a million god damned dollars’ worth of Fitzgerald Brewing Company liquid today.” He raised his glass. The room parroted him.
“But of course, mostly to me,” Ross declared, holding up his beer and letting go of Elle long enough to run a hand down his chest.
“Nah, I’d say mostly to the woman to your immediate right,” Austin claimed, winking at Elle. Her face flushed hot but she held her glass higher.
“Who? Oh, yes, her,” Ross said, eyeing her in an odd way. He held his glass out to her for a private toast. “I’ll drink to her any day of the week.” The room let out a sigh and several sarcastic “Aw, isn’t Ross cutes?” but Elle had ears and eyes for one man. Her man.
“I love you,” he mouthed to her. She flinched, sucked in a breath, and sipped her beer.
“As you well should, my friend.” Austin had materialized next to them. His dark green eyes were shiny and his words ever so slightly slurred. “You need to catch up,” he said, poking Ross in the chest. “Somebody get me some shot glasses.”
He brandished a bottle of bourbon, something expensive, Elle had no doubt. But bourbon wasn’t her thing. If she weren’t drinking beer, she preferred wine. Hard liquor did nothing but give her an ugly headache.
“Fuck that, ya pussy,” Ross hollered, wrenching the cork from the bottle and knocking back a huge slug before passing it back to his friend. Austin did the same. Evelyn tugged her arm. As she moved away from him, Ross turned, concern in his blue gaze. “You all right?” he yelled over the increasingly loud party.
She nodded, lifted her glass, winked and followed Evelyn toward the bar. She didn’t really want to not be standing with Ross but she knew they were grown-ups and expected to behave that way at a social gathering. She kept her eyes on him as he was approached by brewers, kitchen staff, the night cleaning crew, and slapped on the back, hugged, or kissed.
A warm feeling was spreading through her, starting in her chest. Partly the second beer she was drinking, she knew, but also in large part due to the fact that for the first time in her life she felt a part of something, surrounded by people who loved and cared about her.
“They’re gonna get shit-faced, fair warning. Austin already told me that was his goal tonight.” Evelyn was leaning opposite her, letting Brock handle the beer pouring. They’d set up a self-serve liquor bar, confiscated everyone’s car keys at the door, and arranged for a phalanx of taxis and ride share cars to be ready at a moment’s notice should anyone want to leave.
“Yes, I can see that,” she said, sipping and watching him, her man, her Viking hero, her lover, work the room like a pro.
“So, Trent and Melody have invited us all up to his cabin, in Petoskey.”
Startled, Elle faced her friend. “Us?”
Evelyn smiled. “Yes. Us. You, me, Austin, Ross, Brock and his…current squeeze.”
“Oh.” Elle covered her discomfort by draining her beer. Brock immediately snatched up the empty.
“You look amazing, lovely Elisa,” he said with a wink before fetching her another. When he returned, Elle grabbed his arm.
“You have a squeeze?”
He blushed adorably. “Yeah, well, she’s a bit of a blast from my past. But…hang on, duty calls.” He ran down to refill more beers, bantering easily with the staff and pouring like a pro.
“Did you try these?” Melody walked up holding a clear plate piled high with what looked like coconut encrusted shrimp. “Mi Dios, they are like heaven.” She dipped one in an orange sauce and ate it, then put the plate on the bar between Elle and Evelyn. “So, did you ask her?”
Evelyn nodded and ate one of the shrimp. Elle sipped, not hungry, suddenly nervous, as if a door had opened somewhere and a cold wind had blown across the back of her neck. She reached into her small bag for her phone for some reason, and gazed at the screen, as the words there registered.
The room narrowed to the smallest pinprick of light. All the rowdy party sounds faded, leaving nothing but the rapid, echoing beat of her heart. The words seared her retinas, branded onto the front of her brain, and sent a rush of bitter bile into her throat.
Showing off, Elisa. Pretending everything was okay. That’s what you get, silly cow.
“Um, excuse me?” She hopped off the barstool and pushed her way through the crowd. Plenty of people tried to stop her, to compliment her brewing abilities, her dress choice. But she pressed on, apologizing randomly as she went. Finally, she reached the back hall connecting the pub with the original brewery. She paused, hand to her throat, trying to calm her breathing.
“Elle?” Evelyn’s voice carried down the hall from the kitchen. “You all right?”
God, she was such a mess. Everyone always had to be looking out for her. She hated it.
Without answering, she ran for the brewery, the place she felt happiest—well, the second place she felt the happiest lately. After a month of running twenty-four seven, the space was oddly dark and quiet. But the residual odors soothed her. She leaned against the huge kettle, currently empty and sparkling clean, ready for the next day’s normal level of production, still clutching her phone in one hand.
“You knew He’d do this, eventually. He probably followed your progress to Germany and back, to brewing school, then as you hopped around trying to find somewhere to land. Silly bitch. He will always find you.”
She slid to the floor, arms around her legs, face pressed to her knees, trying, and failing, not to cry.
“Elisa!” Ross’ voice boomed through the empty space, bouncing off all the stainless surfaces and echoing in her ears. “Where are you?”
“Here,” she said, before clearing her throat and getting to her feet. She had to leave. The Monster would come and He would take her away, and He would kill any man who’d touched her—much less touched her the way Ross had been for the last few weeks. “I’m here.”
He emerged from behind the line of fermenters. “What happened?” He held out his arms. But she stayed put. She couldn’t do this to him. It wasn’t fair.
“Nothing,” she said, swiping at her eyes.
“Bullshit,” he spat out. “Sorry, I’ve had too much to drink already. Ugh.” He leaned against the kettle next to her.
“Don’t be sorry. I am ruining your party. I’m the one who’s sorry.”
The German flowed between them, allowing her to rest her brain from non-stop translation. “It’s all right.” He draped an arm around her shoulders. She let him, but steeled herself against anything else. “Want to go home?”
She snorted at the concept of that silly hotel suite being their ‘home’. She truly was a naïve fool. At that moment, what she wanted was space. She’d been with Ross almost non-stop since their first night. And while she relished all of it—the meals, the working together, the arguments over brewing issues, sitting and watching movies late at night, and most of all the wild, amazing sex—she suddenly desired a night alone, to think and plan her next move.
“Your escape, you mean,” the inner nag said, sounding smug. She nodded, as if agreeing with it.
“You go back to the party.” She stepped out from under his arm, already feeling bereft but knowing it for the right thing to do, the only thing she could do. “I mean it.” She put her palm alongside his newly trimmed beard. Dear God, she loved this man. It really was too bad that reality had reared its ugly head and she wouldn’t be allowed any more of him than these past few weeks. He kissed her palm, then her wrist, making his way up her inner arm. She let him, shivering, but blocking the impulse to respond. “I will stay a bit longer,” she said, pulling him toward the door. “Then I’ll get a ride home.”
“You are so fucking gorgeous,” he said, grabbing her as they circled behind the row of fermenters and backing her up against one. “So bloody amazing.” He propped his hands over her head and laid a Ross-patented toe-curling kiss on her, making her rise on her tiptoes and wrap her arms around his neck. One of his hands was between her legs, as he held their lip-lock. His finger found its target and he teased her piercing, rubbing it until she came with a squeak and a full-body shiver. He grinned and pulled his hand from under her skirt. Putting the finger he’d used on her in his mouth, he winked at her. “I told you going commando was for the best.”
“Going…where?” She fumbled with his belt buckle, his zipper, needing all of him so badly she tasted it on the back of her tongue. He hissed and put his hand on the fermentation vessel behind her as she released his erection from his jeans and boxers. Her ears rang, her heart pounded as she gripped his newly familiar dick in one hand and slanted her lips over his, gripping his shoulder with her other hand. “I want you, Ross,” she whispered into his mouth. “I need you inside me. Now.”
“That would be a serious health code violation,” he whispered back, lifting her hips so she could wrap her legs around his waist. “You minx,” he said, exhaling as she shifted so she could take him inside her. Pressing her up against the tank, using his strong legs to hold her up, he leaned into neck. “Come on me, my darling. My Elisa. I want to feel you come on my cock.”
He slid the strap of her dress aside and sucked her nipple into his mouth as she rolled her hips, gripping and releasing, while rubbing the tiny jewel against him. The amazing sensation of being so completely filled by this man forced tears down her face. He groaned and sucked harder, pressing the small of her back into the cool stainless steel. He released her, looked into her eyes and said it again, sending a shiver down her spine and a spike of agony through her brain. “I love you, Elisa. I love you. I… Oh, shit…” He groaned into her neck, thrust hard and she felt his warmth spill into her even as she was pulsing from the strength of her own climax. “I love you,” he whispered, kissing her all over her face before finding her lips.
“I… I…”
He lifted her off his cock and set her on the floor before reassembling his jeans and smoothing his shirt tail over his zipper. She stood, shaking and sated and horrified at this whole fucked-up situation. “I know you’ll say it when you’re ready,” he said, stroking her cheek with the back of his knuckles, then taking her hand, kissing it and tucking it into his elbow. “Need a tissue?”
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.