JADE
Later that evening, I realized that there was one good thing about Eli buying out all my spots in the class: it left a ton of s’mores for us to eat without other students around.
Eli hadn’t said another word about our personal dilemma, and I certainly hadn’t encouraged him. In fact, I’d been relieved when he’d asked me about other methods of getting fire if there was no fire starter available.
I’d taught him how to make a bow drill and a hand drill. Surprisingly, he’d been able to get an ember with both of them. By the time we’d finished, it was dinnertime.
Since it was only an overnight beginner class, I’d pulled out the hot dogs and s’more fixings for dinner.
“Mine is done,” I said as I watched my marshmallow turn a nice golden brown.
Eli chuckled as he handed over the graham crackers and chocolate. “You like to eat,” he said with humor in his voice. “I think you’re the most unusual woman I’ve ever met.”
Yeah. Okay. So I had downed several hot dogs before I’d started in on the s’mores. I’d stopped counting how many I’d inhaled after the first few.
I turned my head and glared at him. We had a nice fire going, and I could see the glint of amusement in his eyes.
I shrugged. “I do like to eat. I’ve never been a woman who could exist on salad and water. And I burn a lot of calories. But what’s so strange about that?”
Expertly, I slid the marshmallow between the crackers to melt the chocolate, giving the treat a good smash after it was in place.
“Nothing,” he answered. “I like it because I love food myself. I guess I’ve just never found a woman who liked it as much as I do.”
I moved from a kneeling position and plopped my ass on the ground beside him. I’d noticed that Eli could consume more food than I could, and that was saying something.
“I have four brothers,” I said, like the statement explained everything. “They all love to eat, but there was a time when we didn’t have enough money to feed all of us. Now that I have the money, I think I’m making up for lost time.”
“What did you do when you couldn’t all eat?” he asked.
“We survived. We rationed until we could get enough money to buy more groceries.”
I took a big bite of my cooled-down s’more and closed my eyes as the sweet taste exploded on my tongue.
After being poor and hungry, I guess I appreciated food more than most people.
“What happened to your parents?” he said in a husky voice.
I opened my eyes, only to realize he was watching me intently. I swallowed before I answered, “My mom died when we were young. Noah was barely out of high school, but he still managed to keep us all together. We never really knew my father.”
It was still hard to talk about the man who had sired us. We’d gotten to know our father through Evan and his siblings, and none of it was good. He’d been a mean, abusive man, and I actually felt lucky that he’d never been around much.
After I consumed the rest of my dessert, I licked my fingers until they weren’t sticky anymore.
When I looked up, I could see the ravenous expression on Eli’s face.
I held out the box of crackers and the chocolate. “Do you want more?”
He shook his head. “No.”
The tension between us was still there, but the discomfort had eased for a while during the period that I was teaching him some new skills. Now it was back with a vengeance.
I looked away from him, unable to keep my eyes locked with his without falling under his seductive spell.
“So will you tell me about how you ended up sharing the same father with the East Coast Sinclairs now?” he asked huskily.
I let out a quiet sigh, glad he was at least trying to make normal conversation. “Only if you can keep it a secret. It’s not like we’re hiding it, or that it’s in any way our fault, but gossip gets out of control. I already have every local guy in Citrus Beach trying to date me for my money, and some reporters have started hounding me for my story.”
Now that Brooke had been home and found out about her inheritance, there wasn’t much danger in telling Eli the truth. It had already leaked. But I didn’t exactly want the whole world to know.
“I’d never repeat anything you tell me in confidence, Butterfly.”
Strangely, I believed him. “It’s not a pretty story. Martin Sinclair married his first wife and started a family on the East Coast. But he also married my mother after he already had a few children with his first wife.”
“His first wife? He had two?”
“My father was a bigamist. I have no idea why he married my mother when he already had a wife. But I don’t think my mother knew until he was already dead. She never told any of us the whole story before she passed away from an aggressive cancer.”
“So none of you had any way of knowing that you shared blood with a rich and powerful family,” he concluded.
I shook my head. “Not until I decided to do an ancestry DNA test. Since I love primitive survival, I wanted to see if I had any Native American blood. Really, we had no way of knowing my father’s ancestral origins. So I was curious about our heritage on his side. There was a sale on the test, so I decided to go for it.”
“So you matched with one of your half-siblings?”
“Evan. The oldest.”
“I know him,” Eli revealed. “Not well, but we’ve had some business dealings together. He is a cocky bastard, but not a bad guy.”
I finally turned my head and smiled at him. “I think most of it is bravado with Evan. He put his DNA on the sites because he had suspicions that he might have more family in the world somewhere. When he settled his father’s estate, he put a portion of our father’s fortune aside and kept it growing in case we were ever found. That’s a lot more than most rich people would ever do for their father’s bastard kids.”
“Agreed,” Eli mused. “I guess he’s a lot nicer than I thought.”
“And look who’s talking about being cocky,” I said. “You’re not exactly humble or considerate yourself. Is that a billionaire thing?”
“Is your conclusion because I left you waiting at my office?”
I nodded.
“Believe it or not, I’m actually very punctual. I have to keep a tight, organized schedule. But we had a crisis that day that forced me to push your appointment back. A lot of people were about to lose their jobs. Sometimes emergencies happen.”
“Somebody could have told me,” I argued.
“I told them not to. I was afraid you’d leave if you knew I was going to be tied up,” he confessed with a mischievous grin.
Dammit. He was giving me that panty-dropping smile again, and damned if I wasn’t ready to let go of my sensible cotton briefs because of it.
“I really want that land, Eli,” I said in a hesitant voice, determined to change the subject. “I promise I’ll take care of it.”
I didn’t want to get into an argument again about him leaving me in his waiting room for an hour. I had a feeling he was sincere about what held him up, and if he really had to save jobs, it was well worth the wait I’d had to deal with while he did it.
But I had my opportunity to try to convince him to part with the backcountry property I wanted, and I was going to take my best shot.
As a pained expression passed over his face, I was almost sorry I’d started up the conversation again. “I can’t, Jade,” he answered sternly.
“Why?”
“It’s personal,” he grumbled. “And I still don’t entirely understand why you want it.”
I took a deep breath. “Like I said, it’s an important wildlife corridor. If the land gets developed someday, the wildlife could end up trapped, and they could start inbreeding because they don’t have access to a wider genetic pool. Tons of species use that passage to expand their territory, and the backcountry is important to me. I grew up exploring there. It’s what got me interested in ecology and wildlife in the first place.”
He was quiet for a minute before he asked, “Inbreeding? Like the mountain lions in Santa Monica?”
I was surprised he’d even paid attention to that, or knew about it. Most people outside the wildlife field weren’t aware of it. “That’s a very good example. Everything built up around the mountain lions, and they had no open corridors, so they were essentially trapped. Inbreeding can lead to congenital defects, and it threatens the entire population there. If there’s no genetic diversity, they’ll likely become extinct in that area.”
“I’ll protect it, Jade. I’ll never develop it,” he answered hoarsely. “But I can’t sell.”
He sounded so troubled that I dropped the subject. “Okay.”
I wanted to push him for the reasons why he’d refused to sell, but the desperate tone of his voice told me it was something highly personal.
We sat in silence for a few minutes, but it wasn’t an uneasy quiet.
Finally, I asked, “Is there anything else you’d like to learn before we head out tomorrow?”
“A lot of things, actually,” he said in an earnest tone. “I’d like to pick your brain some more. You’re as intelligent as you are beautiful.”
“I wish you’d stop saying things like that,” I blurted out.
“Why?”
“Because you’ve known far more attractive women, so it makes me uncomfortable. I’m okay with who I am, so I don’t need fake compliments.”
“How do you know that you aren’t the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen?”
I rolled my eyes, but he probably couldn’t see me since I was staring into the fire. “The A-list actress and the two supermodels you dated are pretty much a dead giveaway.”
“I’m not with them anymore. I’m with you,” he stated simply. “Did somebody do a number on you, Jade? Because it sounds to me like someone made you feel like you aren’t perfect, which you are, whether you see it or not.”
“I’ve always been a geek,” I shared. “In high school, I was the girl every guy avoided because I was a tomboy. But I didn’t really care all that much. I was happier just being outside alone.”
“What about college?”
I shrugged. “I was still a geek. I had one boyfriend, and he ended up leaving me without a word after I helped him through his master’s degree.”
“He was probably intimidated by you, and he’s a total idiot if he didn’t hang on to you. His loss; my gain.”
What my brother Aiden had said about insecure guys just yesterday popped into my head. “I’m not really intimidating.”
“You are,” he countered. “But I personally get turned on by a woman who can handle a knife better than I can.”
A laugh escaped my mouth. “You’re crazy.”
“At least I’m honest,” he said.
I stood up. “I think I’d better get to bed. Are you pitching a tent, or do you want a bunk?”
My conversation with Eli was getting dangerous. If I didn’t stop it now, I might start believing that he actually did see me as more attractive than the women he’d dated, and just the thought of that was ludicrous.
Eli rose and blocked my way to the cabin. “Hey,” he said in a low, fierce tone. “Don’t ever let anybody make you feel like you aren’t a woman worth fucking fighting for. Your ex was an idiot, but that’s about him, not you.”
I felt tears start to pool in my eyes, but I blinked them away. “It’s not just that,” I said quietly. “What guy wants a woman who would rather eat like a pig or spend the day outside instead of dressing up and going out to a club or something?”
Eli stepped forward and dropped a kiss on my forehead. “Me,” he said gruffly. “And I’ll take a bunk. It’s too damn cold to sleep outside.”
I nodded and led the way inside, trying to ignore that nearly unstoppable desire to throw myself into his arms and beg him to give me the mother of all orgasms.
For some insane reason, Eli Stone really did want me.
And I was getting pretty tired of fighting my own insane attraction to him.