CHAPTER ELEVEN
Two thoughts filled Eli’s brain as he slanted his mouth over Scarlett’s. The first was that kissing her should feel impulsive and reckless and crazy. The second?
Was that the first thought could take the direct path to hell, because Scarlett felt fucking flawless in his arms.
Their lips touched for only a second, two at the most, before Scarlett pulled back slightly to stare at him. Dread trickled into his belly on a reality chaser, and Jesus, Mary, and all the saints, had he seriously just kissed her?
“God, Scarlett, I apologize.” Eli blinked. “I was out of line. I—”
Before he could speak or react or even form a scrap of thought, she pressed up to kiss him back.
For a sliver of a second, Eli stood stock-still, locked into place. Although the connection of their mouths was the same as it had been only seconds ago—just lips on lips, barely moving—this kiss was different. It wasn’t born of shock or excitement or impulse. It stemmed from want. Hot and pure.
And he wasn’t holding back.
Eli shifted forward, increasing the contact between their bodies in a hot rush of movement. With a sweep of his tongue, he parted Scarlett’s lips, coaxing them open just enough to capture the taste of her exhale. Her breath drifted out on a sigh that Eli felt against his chest, and yeah, closer.
He explored her mouth in slow, deliberate strokes. Lowering one hand to the column of her neck and spreading his fingers wide, he hooked his thumb beneath the angle of her jaw to hold her steady while he pushed harder against her lips. Scarlett made a sound in the back of her throat, caught somewhere between a moan and a fierce, feminine growl, sending a relentless ripple of want all the way down Eli’s spine as he kissed and licked and searched.
Closer.
As if she’d formed the thought a fraction of a second before him, Scarlett altered her grasp on his shoulders, pressing forward for motion rather than contact. They moved a handful of steps until his back hit a solid surface—barn wall, probably—but at this point, she could’ve backed him up against a bed of flaming barbed wire and he wouldn’t have cared one whit. The only thing that mattered was that Scarlett was still flush against him, her mouth under his mouth, her firm, full breasts on his chest. He wanted to taste every part of her all at once.
Starting with that sharp tongue.
Eli sucked her lower lip into his mouth, teasing the skin there until she opened wider to let him in. She met his every move, her tongue sliding over his in hot strokes, and her teeth nipping and teasing with just enough pressure to make his cock jerk behind the fly of his Levi’s.
Fuck. Yeah. Closer wasn’t going to be enough.
“Scarlett.” Eli broke off from her mouth with an exhale that came from deep in his throat. Starting a trail of open-mouthed kisses that got harder as they descended, he coasted his mouth over her jaw, unable to keep from lingering by the soft spot just below her ear before continuing his path over her neck.
“Ah,” Scarlett moaned, more sound than actual word. “God, do that again,” she demanded, and suddenly, he found himself loving the hell out of the loose neckline of her shirt.
“You’re bossy.”
The grin he’d buried in the hollow of her throat doubled as she answered. “You already knew that. Now hurry up and kiss me. Right . . . there.”
Her fingers closed over the cotton of his T-shirt, forming hot fists at his shoulders, and once again Eli was done holding back. He swiped his tongue over the indent between her collarbones, gripping her hips to maximize the tight, hot connection between their lower bodies. His cock throbbed in response, the friction of Scarlett’s body—so soft and sweet despite the demanding, almost primal push of her hips against his—taking him from desire to reckless need in less than a breath.
Eli lifted his head, his lips so close to Scarlett’s that he could feel her breath as she let out a tiny moue of frustration.
“You want me to keep kissing you?” He dropped his gaze to her slightly swollen mouth, his hand sliding from her hip to her rib cage before his brain registered his libido’s command to move.
Scarlett met his stare with a bold one of her own. “Yes.”
“Then say it.”
Her brows edged upward, and she tested him with her silence. But that dark want welled up again to dare his hand higher, his fingers cupping her breast with only enough pressure to tease.
“Eli—”
“No,” he interrupted, his heart slamming an insistent rhythm in his chest. “I’m bossy, too, Scarlett. I want to hear you say the words.” His thumb inched higher, so close that he could feel the hard edge of her nipple through the thin cotton of her top and the even thinner lace of the bra he’d seen earlier. “I want you to tell me what you want”—his thumb slipped closer to the tight peak, his cock growing even harder as his next words formed in his mouth—“and exactly where you want it.”
But then Scarlett fractured his control with a single, simple word.
“Eli,” she whispered against his skin. “I want you to keep kissing me.” Her gaze dropped to the connection between his hand and her body, her smile instant and wicked.
“And I don’t want you to stop at my mouth.”
He closed the slight space between them out of sheer instinct, crushing his mouth to hers in a near-punishing kiss. Curving his fingers more firmly beneath Scarlett’s breast, Eli ran the pad of his thumb over her nipple, dark satisfaction rippling low through his belly as she arched into his touch on a moan. The sound was so deliciously wild that he repeated the move just to hear her make it again. Their kiss grew more intense, rough with need, and Eli crushed his mouth to hers so hard his lips ached. But God, Scarlett felt so reckless and crazy and perfect, it was all too easy to forget how they’d gotten here, what they should be doing . . .
Good Christ, what was he doing?
Reality crashed into him like a gallon of ice water, and every single part of him froze before his eyes flew open and he shifted back with a start.
“Scarlett.” This time, her name was an apology. But dammit—dammit! He’d literally just gotten the break he so desperately needed. He should be focusing on the farm now more than ever, but instead, he’d been T-minus six seconds from impulsively stripping Scarlett naked and making her scream his name in the middle of the freaking horse barn.
Had he lost his ever-loving mind?
Scarlett’s eyes fluttered open on a delay. For a second, her expression was dazed, completely caught up in the moment that passed. Then her dark-green stare filled with understanding just as Eli’s gut filled with the dread of having put it there.
“Are you . . . oh.” She lifted her fingers to her mouth for a second before pressing her lips into a hard line. “You stopped on purpose.”
“Yeah.” He ran a hand over his crew cut in a move that would’ve been a jab of frustration had he actually had enough hair for the movement. “Yeah. I did.”
Scarlett’s eyes flashed with an emotion he couldn’t quite name but knew he didn’t like. “So you think us kissing was a mistake,” she said.
“It was”—Impulsive. Sexy. The hottest kiss anyone has ever laid on me, bar fucking none—“probably not a good idea,” he managed, clamping down on his inner voice with a shake of his head. He needed to get his brain back online, and he needed to do it five minutes ago. “We were both excited about the video segment being a hit and got caught up in the moment, but I shouldn’t have been so forward. I’m sorry.”
“And you believe that? You believe this was just some heat-of-the-moment thing, and that we should forget it ever happened?”
Scarlett looked at him, and of all the times she could’ve bucked her penchant for broadcasting her emotions without apology, she had to choose now to go the unreadable route?
Eli paused, the word “no” burning a hole in his rib cage. But he couldn’t lose track of what was important now. He had to get Cross Creek back in the black so he could go back to normal, and normal didn’t include a woman who could so easily blow the composure he’d spent the last ten years of his life crafting. No matter how insanely hot their kiss had been.
So Eli said the only thing he could.
“We’re going to have to work together on these video segments for the next three weeks, and that really needs to be our focus. So yes. I think we should forget this ever happened.”
A heartbeat passed, then another before Scarlett took a full step back over the packed-earth floor.
“You got it, cowboy. Already done,” she said, pivoting to pick up her camera bag before walking out of the barn without so much as a backward glance.
Scarlett burrowed deeper under the hand-stitched quilt that had come with her borrowed bed, trying like mad to talk herself into going back to sleep. But the clock on her also-borrowed nightstand read 3:45 a.m., and if she were going to drift back off to dreamland, she’d have done it an hour ago.
Instead, she was lying here at the most obscene hour Saturday morning had to offer, torn between supreme frustration and the sort of insistent want that could only be quelled by an ice-cold shower or a white-hot roll in the sheets.
Cold shower for the win.
Throwing the covers from her legs with a curse that would make a sailor turn crimson, Scarlett got out of bed and padded the six requisite steps to the bathroom. She had a full day in front of her with today’s farmers’ market. Might as well get a jump on things.
Even if, despite that kiss and diss, what you really want is for Eli Cross to get a jump on you.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” she muttered, yanking back the shower curtain and cranking the faucet handle as far toward the “C” as she’d be able to bear. So the kisses she and Eli had shared had been hot enough to qualify as a fire hazard, and maybe she’d been just a teensy bit brash when she’d told him not to stop at her mouth. But he’d made it wildly clear that he wanted to focus on the work and nothing but the work, and in truth, that wasn’t an entirely terrible plan. The video clip of the two of them had—however unexpectedly—gained a metric ton of exposure for both Cross Creek and FoodE. Maybe the kisses really had just been nothing more than heat of the moment excitement.
That had made her climb him like Mount Everest. And beg him to put his mouth on her. In all. The right. Places.
Scarlett swiped her toothbrush from the vanity’s barely there ledge, scrubbing her pearly whites with more enthusiasm than the job probably required. Everything was working out as planned. Hell, there had been so many hits on the page of Cross Creek’s website that linked to Camden Valley’s farmers’ market that she’d had to grab a ride home from Emerson at eight last night because all four Cross men had still been cramming their box truck full of produce with no sign of stopping. Mallory was getting the exposure she needed for her magazine. Eli had agreed to do more video segments with Scarlett to keep it that way. Cross Creek was sure to have a banner day at today’s market, where she’d likely snap an SD card’s worth of fabulous images.
What she really needed to do was forget those kisses just like she’d said she would and keep her eye on the damned ball.
With one final swish, she finished brushing her teeth and got into the shower. Scarlett made quick work of getting clean, then getting dressed, and by the time she’d added a hi-there with both her hairbrush and her mascara brush, she was past due for a caffeine fix. She made her way to the kitchen to start the process of making a latte big enough to do the backstroke in, flipping her cell phone into her palm while she waited for her espresso machine to work its magic.
Oh my God, woman, you are a fucking genius! read the first in a string of text messages from Mallory, and okay, Scarlett had to admit, there were worse ways to start a day.
She leaned back against the counter, a tiny smile edging at the corners of her mouth as she read on. The video of you and Eli—who is freaking adorbs, BTW—is still bringing in a high volume of steady hits to FoodE’s site. Mallory followed up with some numbers that made Scarlett’s eyes go wide, and holy crap. She made a mental note never to underestimate the power of some well-placed tweets.
At any rate, I know you are asleep right now but wanted to say definitely send me whatever video you shoot tmw at the FM as soon as it’s a wrap. I’ve had over a dozen food bloggers ask when it’s coming and I want to give ppl round two ASAP to keep them clicking!
The espresso machine let out a soft beep—hello, elixir of life—and she pushed off the Formica, quickly glancing at the last message in Mallory’s one-sided text stream.
And srsly, call me when you can, b/c I need the dirt on Farm Boy! Pls tell me all that flirting isn’t just for show. At least one of us should be getting laid!
Scarlett’s stomach squeezed, and she sent up a fast-but-fervent prayer that Emerson had left a giant bottle of scotch in one of the kitchen cabinets when she’d moved out.
“Come on,” she whispered, putting her phone down and turning toward the fridge to grab the soy milk and get the hell on with her morning, once and for all. She and Eli might have to flirt for the camera and for the people who showed up at the farmers’ market today, but it was all in the name of work.
Speaking of which . . .
Two lattes and a piece of wheat toast later, Scarlett had gone through all the photos she’d sent to Mallory over the course of the last week, dividing them by subject and cross-checking the ones of produce against any information she could find in her notes on Camden Valley’s farmers’ market. She was tapping out the last of her list of things to photograph today when a knock sounded off at her door. Her heart did the samba in her chest, but she pressed a hand over the front of her dark-green tank top to cover the commotion. Eli had said he wanted to stick to business. She could totally do that. They’d be professional. Polite. Work only.
But the perfectly professional, perfectly polite greeting Scarlett had worked up in her head completely disintegrated at the sight of Eli standing on her doorstep with a charming-as-hell smile on his face and a brown paper bag in his hand.
“Morning.” He extended the bag, looking hotter than anyone had a right to. Seriously, who made a hoodie and a pair of banged-up jeans sexy? At five o’clock in the morning? It just wasn’t right.
“What’s this?” she blurted as she took the bag from his outstretched hand, and God, could she be any more graceless?
If Eli was bothered by her distinct lack of a filter, though, he sure didn’t show it. “This is a vegan breakfast burrito.” He paused, tipping his head slightly as he added, “And we can add that to the list of things I never thought I’d say.”
Scarlett blinked, trying to piece the words together in a way that made sense. “You bought me a vegan breakfast burrito?”
“No. I made you a vegan breakfast burrito.”
The shock pumping through her veins must’ve taken a detour over her face, because Eli took one look at her and backpedaled. “Okay, sort of. I went up to the main house an hour ago to get a bunch of crates that didn’t fit in the box truck, and Owen was making breakfast burritos. I helped him come up with one for you that fits the bill.”
“Why?”
Scarlett clamped down on her lip just a second too late to bite down on the overly bold question, but to her surprise, Eli just laughed.
“What, is breakfast some sort of sacrilege once you cross the Mason-Dixon Line or something?”
Seriously, she needed to build some sort of immunity to that here-comes-trouble smile of his. Either that or she was going to have to head back to that cute little town where she’d gotten her coffeepot for some cute little batteries to fuel her cute little vibrator.
“No! Nope, mmm-mmm,” she barked, chasing the burn from her cheeks with a sweep of her fingertips. Sure, Eli was good-looking. (Fine. He was sex on a stick. Potato-potahto). But they needed to stay professional, and anyway, she was here to capture all the compelling aspects of his family-run farm. Current emphasis on family.
Scarlett cleared her throat and wrenched her thoughts back to the straight and sex-free narrow. “I mean. Um. Breakfast is perfectly normal in New York, along with all the other places I’ve been this month. I was referring more to the all-together-now thing. Your family just seems a lot closer than most.”
An odd expression whisked through his eyes, but his cocksure grin took over again before Scarlett could be certain she’d seen the blip, let alone try to identify it. “Yep, that’s us. We Crosses are thick as thieves.”
Shouldering her camera bag, then the backup bag she’d had waiting by the door, Scarlett nodded. “I know. Don’t get me wrong—I think all the family powwows you guys have are great. Breakfasts. Saturday dinners. They’re just way outside of my wheelhouse, is all.”
Eli reached out, clearly meaning to take one of the camera bags from her grasp, and after a second’s worth of her hesitation, he said, “I know you can manage both, probably in your sleep. But leaving you with all the gear and me with the burrito bag seems a little out of balance, don’t you think?”
“I suppose,” Scarlett answered slowly, handing over the secondary bag as she grabbed her keys and followed him over the threshold. “Thank you. For the help and for breakfast.”
“You’re welcome. The farmers’ market runs from seven to two, and sometimes things can get a little hectic. You never know when or if you’ll be able to slip in a decent meal, so we tend to kick things off with something pretty hearty just in case.”
Hell if that didn’t make a boatload of sense, not to mention help to explain why Owen and Eli would get up so damned early to actually make breakfast rather than simply grab and go.
Scarlett moved to the passenger side of his pickup truck, lifting the paper bag with one hand before using the other to open the door. “So what’s in it?”
“Potatoes, onions, red bell peppers, and cilantro—all fresh from the greenhouse and cooked in canola oil—and some black beans and salsa. Along with salt and pepper and some cumin Owen dug out of the spice cabinet,” Eli said, getting into the truck beside her.
“Wow.” She took the foil-wrapped burrito from the bag, her mouth starting to water at both the smells and the description of her breakfast. “That’s totally vegan.”
He pulled out onto the main road, his smile obvious in his words even though his face was mostly hidden by the predawn shadows. “I told you it was.”
“No, no.” Scarlett closed her eyes, a pang unfolding in her belly as she scrambled for a do-over. “What I meant was, not a lot of people who aren’t vegan know what really is vegan. Much less how to make a meal that legitimately qualifies. It’s actually impressive.”
“Oh. Well, don’t give me too much credit. I just Googled ‘vegan breakfast burrito’ and you got lucky—we had most of the stuff in the pantry. Sorry to say we were fresh out of tofu crumbles and soy cheese, though.”
Eli named the products with such a straight face that Scarlett had no choice but to cave in and laugh. “You’re not just trying to butter me up because we have to share screen time together, are you?” She waved a hand through the air to erase the question as soon as it had launched. “You know what, don’t answer that. This burrito smells fantastic, and it was really nice of you to make me breakfast. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, tipping his chin at her but keeping his eyes on the road in front of them. “And for the record, yes.”
Scarlett unwrapped one corner of the burrito to take a bite, fighting back a moan as the flavors and textures registered with her taste buds. The heartiness of the potatoes mixed in with the light, bright burst from the cilantro to make a perfect play on opposites. But the peppers refused to be outshined, and she took another three bites before she finally slowed down enough to speak.
“Yes, what? And holy Moses, can your brother cook,” she managed past the party in her mouth. God, even the salsa had just the right ratio of flavor to kick.
“Glad you like it. The yes was to answer your question. The burrito is partly a peace offering. Not because we’re shooting more videos, but . . .” Eli paused just in time for Scarlett’s pulse to start double-timing through her veins. Especially when he finished with, “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable yesterday in the horse barn.”
“You didn’t make me uncomfortable,” she said, then amended with, “Your delivery might have pissed me off a little”—because brain-to-mouth filter or no, she wasn’t scaling back on the truth—“but in the end, you’re right. Us kissing was pretty impulsive. We’ve got three weeks’ worth of video segments in front of us, so we should probably stick to business.”
“And you’re okay with doing that, even though I pissed you off?”
Although Eli asked the question with all his usual clear-and-present charm, something in his voice told Scarlett he really cared about her answer.
So she gave up a grin along with the truth. “Yeah, cowboy. You and I are cool. Just as long as you promise me one thing.”
“And that is?” he asked.
“You’ll show me how you and Owen made this burrito. Seriously. I’ve had breakfast on six of the seven continents, and I’m here to tell you, this thing is insane.”
Eli’s laughter filled the cab of the truck, warming her all the way through before settling into that cocky smile of his.
“You got it, bumblebee. Just make sure you finish your breakfast. If the last twelve hours’ worth of traffic on Cross Creek’s website is any indication, you’re gonna need all the energy you can get.”