“Serves you right, Marcus Marinos,” Kat Brady said as Marcus groaned and dropped his head to the countertop. It was the next morning after the party and Marcus was a little worse for the wear.
He squeezed his eyes shut against the bright morning light through the window. Kat—his and Eli’s second mother and Jay’s real mother—had come over to cook them breakfast, the way she often did after a big party. Kat, a very young 60, leaned on one of her Keds and then the other as she deftly pushed food around the frying pan with one toned arm. The smells coming from the stovetop both made Marcus’s stomach rumble and turn over in potential nausea.
“So many pretty girls,” Marcus groaned into the crook of his elbow.
Jay and Eli laughed from the breakfast table. Jay, health nut that he was, hadn’t had anything to drink last night, and he’d already been out surfing that morning, his hair wet from his shower. Eli hadn’t slept well, but he’d stayed in bed for a long time, nursing a bad mood.
He was irritated because he wanted to go for a run and couldn’t. He was irritated because he wanted to go to football practice and couldn’t. He was irritated because Jay and Marcus had stayed up late and cleaned up after the entire party. And he could clean up after his own damn party, damn it. And most of all, he was irritated because Tia Camellia had left his house with serious doubts about him.
He could see it in her eyes. And he had serious doubts himself. Doubts that he’d get to see her again. And that just really bummed him out.
He rubbed at his ribs, at his incision, which was starting to itch as it healed. But mostly he was rubbing at the spot in his chest that she’d healed with her surgeon’s hands. The part that felt like it was attached to Tia on a tether.
“So what happened with Tia last night?” Jay asked, crunching on one of the apple slices his mother laid out for them. “Thanks, Ma.”
Kat accepted a kiss on the cheek. “Who’s Tia?”
Eli might have considered evasion with anyone but Kat Brady. The woman was impossible to lie to. “Tia Camellia. She was my surgeon in the hospital. I invited her to the party last night.”
Kat scooped eggs onto Eli’s plate. “Marcus, get your ass over here, hangover or not. We’re eating breakfast together. Tia Camellia? Is she one of the Camellia girls you three went to high school with?”
Eli nodded and then made puppy dog eyes at her until she relented and gave him another scoop of eggs. Marcus practically fell into the chair beside Eli and grunted gratefully when Eli poured him a cup of coffee.
“It’s such a shame about those girls’ parents,” Kat sighed as she put some eggs on her own plate and sat down at the table with her boys.
“What happened to her parents?” Jay asked.
Eli’s stomach turned over.
“You remember Marty Hightower?” Kat asked Jay.
He squinted. “Your hairdresser? Sure.”
“Marty was the Camellias’ next door neighbor for a long time. And about this time last year she was crying while she gave me a haircut. Told me that both the Camellias, Roger and Darlene, had been going downhill health-wise. And that their daughters had had to put them into a home for people with dementia and Alzheimer’s. Both at once. Can you imagine?”
Eli pushed his food away. No, he couldn’t imagine. To lose both your parents at once? And to such a cruel disease? One that kept them physically there but mentally gone? That was just cruel. His stomach twisted for the heartache Tia and Laura must have gone through.
“That’s awful,” Marcus said, his voice low as he huddled over his cup of coffee. “I wish I’d known.”
“Me too,” Jay agreed.
Me too, Eli thought. Although he wasn’t sure what he would have done. He didn’t even remember who the Camellias were a year ago.
“It sounds like it was hard on those girls.” Kat continued, pushing her stylish salt and pepper hair back from her face. “The older one ended up breaking off her engagement about the same time. Some doctor who worked at the same hospital. But Marty never liked him in the first place.”
And now Eli was really done eating. She’d been engaged? And the engagement had ended about the same time her parents had to be put in a home? His heart ached for her.
“Wow.” He reached for his coffee.
“So, now that the mood has been effectively wet blanketed by my lovely mother, care to tell us what happened with Tia?”
“Sorry!” Kat raised her hands in surrender. “Don’t kill the messenger!”
“Nah, that’s ok, Kat.” Eli waved his hand in the air. “I’m glad you told us. Yeah. There’s not a lot to tell. Except that Sylvie Peters walked in on me about to kiss her. And then Tia got paged to go to the hospital and she pretty much left without saying goodbye.”
Marcus squinted his eyes. “She probably didn’t say goodbye because she was in such a hurry to get to her shift.”
“Yeah.” Eli pushed eggs around on his plate. “No. She was upset about something.”
“Probably upset about Sylvie Peters walking around your house like she owns the place.” Kat raised an eyebrow at Eli.
Eli raised an eyebrow right back. “You think Tia has a problem with my dating history?”
Eli knew he was a famous guy and that he ended up in the tabloids a lot. But he thought everybody knew that most of that stuff was made up. He was successful with women, don’t get him wrong. But he hadn’t slept with half as many people as he was rumored to.
Kat raised her second eyebrow up to match the first. “I think most women would have a problem with it if it walks in on their first kiss with the man in question.”
She had a point. Eli sat back in his chair and sent a chagrined smile to his second mom, scraping a hand over his stubble. “Fair enough. Maybe trying to kiss her at a party filled with exes wasn’t the greatest idea.”
“How’d you do that?” Jay asked his mother.
“What?”
“How the hell did you get him to admit that in like twenty seconds? That would have taken me at least a month.”
Kat shrugged, scooped a bowl of fruit salad for Marcus and scooted it down the table. “Mom magic.”
***
The shift that Tia had left the party for had been pure hell. There’d been an accident on I-60 and fifteen people had needed emergency surgeries of one kind or another. She hadn’t tended to them all on her own, of course, but there’d been plenty to do. And twelve hours after she’d arrived at the hospital, Tia dragged herself out.
It had been 24 hours since she’d last been asleep and it was all she could do to drive herself home. But it wasn’t just her body that was exhausted. It was her mind as well.
Every moment she’d had last night that she hadn’t spent intensely focusing on her patients, Tia’s mind had been on Eli.
She chewed over and over what Laura had said to her. The bottom line was that her sister was right. This wasn’t about starting a relationship with the guy, for god sakes. This was about scratching an itch she’d had since she’d first seen him in the halls freshman year of high school. She didn’t necessarily need to grapple with who he was as a man. Because she wasn’t trying to fit into his life. She was just trying to feel that buzzy, warm spark for a minute.
And somewhere in that long, stressful night, she’d gotten used to the idea that she wanted to kiss him. She wanted to kiss him really badly. She wanted to do a hell of a lot more, actually. But she knew she wasn’t going to let it get that far.
Tia had rarely let it get that far in her life. There’d been a fairly pedestrian year of lukewarm sex with her first boyfriend in college and then a few awkward encounters here and there in medical school and beyond. And then there’d been Owen. Who she’d genuinely loved. Who’d elicited real feelings of lust and love in her. And the sex had been… okay.
It had frustrated him to no end. He prided himself on being good in bed. Tia was too needy, not sensitive enough. Nothing he ever did was enough, he used to say. She hadn’t thought to argue with him. If every woman he’d ever been with had told him he was good, and then he’d been so mediocre with her, she figured it really must have been her. Something she did or didn’t do.
She never figured it out. And when she’d ended things with Owen, she’d been genuinely relieved that that part of her life was over. Feeling obligated to be sexually available for her partner. It had become a chore. And she knew that was her own fault. If she’d been able to get some spark into the bedroom then it would have been more fun for both of them.
Tia sighed as she pulled her car into her driveway, dragged herself through her front door. So what she needed was a really good kiss with Elijah Bird. She needed that thing that she’d wanted so badly in high school.
She didn’t need a relationship. She didn’t need to get tangled up in his complicated life or his complicated dating history. She didn’t need to get eventually relegated to his harem. And she certainly didn’t need Elijah Bird to find out how terribly underwhelming her sex skills apparently were.
No. She needed one, whopping prom night kiss. And then she could move on. Get over this crush that had been bothering her day in and day out since he’d been on her operating table.
Tia stripped off her scrubs and showered quickly. Yanked on a tank top and some flowered pajama bottoms. She quickly and efficiently brushed her teeth and shuffled into her bedroom, fully ready to face plant into bed.
Her phone vibrated on the night stand. And her heart clenched. It was a text. From Football, Muscle, Flame.
Hey! Hope your shift at the hospital went alright. I’m really glad you came yesterday. And Tia, at the risk of sounding too eager, I really, really want to see you again.
Tia groaned and face palmed. The exclamation point in the text ricocheted through her brain. She could just picture the smile of his that went along with it. On some guys, the extremely genuine words might sound simpering or needy. Not Eli. Not Mr. Sexy-Friendly. She sighed. He was going to stay under her skin until she did something about it. Her life was just going to continue to unravel while she perpetually obsessed about the one who’d gotten away in high school. She couldn’t stand another minute.
Tia slammed her feet into some slip-on shoes and stomped out to her car.
***
Jay and Marcus and Kat all left shortly after breakfast and Eli had the house to himself. He shot a quick text off to Tia, putting all his cards on the table. It had been half an hour and she hadn’t said anything, and Eli tried not to let it bother him.
His phone rang and his heart leapt before he saw his head coach’s name flick across the screen.
“Bill.” Bill Best was actually, well, the best. In the game and in life. When Eli’s knee had been blown out during a game, he’d been right there by his side. And then he’d been by his side each step after that. During the arduous recovery. And then when the knee surgery had led to further complications, Bill had remained steadfastly in Eli’s corner.
“My man.” Bill’s deep, bellowing voice came loud and clear through the phone. It cheered Eli to hear it. His man. That’s what Bill had called him over and over. The second you’re ready to come back in, Eli. You’re my man. The very second. “How you feelin’, son?”
“Eh.” Eli tested his ribs with the flat of his palm, winced against the pain. “I’m alright. Still a few weeks out from great.”
“A few weeks, huh?”
Eli knew what he was asking. They had a lot of decisions about the upcoming season. Eli had been training like he was going to be playing. Starting. And then the accident. Now he and the coach had to decide if he was going to one: play at all this season; two: play at the beginning of the season; or three: be put on the injured reserve list and be eligible to play at the second half of the season. The third option was definitely the best case scenario for Eli’s recovery options. But it would also mean that the coach would have to cut someone else from the team when Eli got back on the roster halfway through. It was something he didn’t want Bill to have to do.
“Yeah. I’m not there yet, Bill. I’m having trouble just being on my feet for any length of time.” Eli could lie to himself about his recovery, but he couldn’t lie to a man whose career depended on knowing Eli’s status. A man who had other men’s careers to consider. And a man who’d been so good to him through everything.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Eli.”
“I know. It’s no good for the team.”
“Screw the team, son. I’m saying it’s no good for you. You’ve had well and good your share of physical pain these last few years. I wouldn’t wish it on you, boy.”
Eli cleared his throat and found he had to get up and pace to have this conversation. He sidled down the back hall, touching picture frames as he went. “Thanks, coach.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Do you want it this season? You know we’re keeping you, Eli. And if you want it, truly want it, I’ll do whatever I can to get you back on the field. But if you’re wanting to rest another season, well, 30 feet is a hell of a long way to get dragged, son.”
Eli rolled his shoulder and winced as the big scab on his back pulled. “Can I think on it?”
“Of course.”
“Thanks for calling.”
“Don’t be a stranger, son.”
Eli hung up the phone, feeling strangely energized and bereft at the same time. Coach was giving him an out if he wanted to sit out another season. But did he? He thought of the bone grinding, muscle snapping intensity of practice. He thought of the crippling nausea before a game. The focused, laser-like intensity of each play. No. He didn’t want to fucking sit out. He wanted to play football. He wanted to heal and sprint and sweat and work with his team. He was sick of rattling around his house. Taking things one step at a time.
Eli found himself wandering through his study and he sat down on the love seat where Tia had sat the night before. Absently, he picked up the yearbook that they’d left out. He flipped to her picture and smiled. Pretty. And nerdy.
Letting his mind wander to the last few weeks of high school, to when he’d gotten the yearbook, he flipped to the front. There was a single, torn out page. Eli traced the ragged edge of the torn page. He knew exactly what had been there.
Eli tossed the yearbook aside and lifted up his hips to slide his wallet out of his jeans. He opened it up and slid a folded piece of paper out from behind his license. And there it was. Creased and yellowed, soft with age. A note that someone had left for him. He didn’t know who. A note he’d read a thousand times.
Eli’s head came up when his doorbell rang and he tried not to groan as he hefted himself out of the love seat. The doorbell rang again and then again as he made his way through the house. And again.
“Coming!” he yelled, steps from the door. He swung it open, nearly taking it off the hinges.
And there she was. Dr. Tia Camellia. In her pajamas. Eli blinked at her but couldn’t stop the grin that spread like wildfire over his face. “Hi.”
“Hi,” she replied, stepping from one foot to the other. She wore a tight black tank top that did really, really nice things to her chest, and long flowery pajama pants. Her hair was damp and braided back off her face.
Eli’s mouth went dry and his hands went damp. “You wanna come in?”
Tia took a step forward and then hesitated. “I just—There’s something that’s been bothering me.”
“Oh?”
Two quick little steps and Tia went up on her toes as she planted her hands carefully on his shoulders, so she wouldn’t bother his injuries, and lifted her serious, luscious mouth to his.
Oh thank god, she thought to herself. She’d been worried that it would be earth shattering, life changing. But it was just a kiss. Just a kiss like any other kiss. Sure, it was nice. And he smelled good. And, god, his hands were so large they pretty much covered her entire back. And that noise he’d just made, a single, happy groan, well that was pretty cute. But it was the angle they were kissing at, that’s what was making her dizzy.
And it was a warm morning, that’s why flames licked up and down her body.
Hell, who was she kidding? This kiss was the most incredible kiss of her life. Tia’s hands tightened on his shoulders as his mouth slanted across hers. She couldn’t help the moan at the back of her own throat just like she couldn’t keep her tongue from tasting his bottom lip.
Eli’s hands tightened at her back as he hauled her closer to him, keeping her up on her toes. He got the strange feeling that the earth was tipping off its axis. She was warm and minty and he wanted to drown in her. One of his hands made its way to her braid and he couldn’t help but hold her by that silky tail.
He wanted to drag her into the house, pick her up against the door and sex away this burning ache she’d ignited within him, but he knew they weren’t ready for all that.
So instead he settled with tipping her head back, deepening this kiss and grinning against her mouth when the move elicited a moan from her. The sun shone full on them and slowly, Eli started to hear the sounds of his neighborhood around him again. Three doors down they were mowing the grass.
And then the tips of his fingers graced over the skin that was exposed at the bottom of her tank top and his mind went completely, utterly blank again.
It was the softest, sweetest mouth he’d ever kissed and he yanked his own leash to keep from ravaging her. But he couldn’t help but taste and taste that soft little tongue. He couldn’t stop himself from sipping at those lush lips. Eli’s arm tightened around her back and he tried to drag her even closer. But the movement was just a little bit too much for his ribs and he winced.
“Oh! Eli. Your ribs.” Immediately she was stepping out of his arms, her face pulling into a look of total concern and contrition.
It was a great testament to the incredible power of that kiss that the reminder of his injuries didn’t put a damper on his mood at all. “It’s alright. I’m fine.”
“Okay.” She bit her lip and danced on her heels for a second. “I’m gonna go.”
“Come inside.”
“Eli—”
“I have all this great cranberry juice and nobody to drink it with.”
That got a laugh out of her. A real one. And he felt like he could bench press a car as he shut the door behind her.
She glanced around, tugging at the bottom of her tank top. “You cleaned up everything so fast, from the party.”
“Yeah. Jay and Marcus did it since apparently I’m too much of an invalid.”
Humor came over her eyes as she stepped through his house, touching this and that. “I never would have guessed they’d be such mother hens.”
“We look out for each other. You thirsty? Hungry?”
She shook her head. “Exhausted is more like it.”
“Wait.” He took in her attire and connected some dots. “Have you been on duty all night? Have you slept yet?”
She shook her head and yelped when he tumbled himself onto the couch and then grabbed her wrist, took her down with him.
“You haven’t slept in 24 hours?” he asked, throwing his arm over the back of the couch and tilting himself to face her. “And you still came over here to kiss me before you hit the hay?”
She drew her knees up to her chest, her eyes big behind her black glasses. She nodded. This time, Eli was the one leaning in. He cupped her face in one of his large hands and steadied her. He could see that her initial adrenaline was fading and some unsteadiness was taking its place. He wanted to steady her. He wanted her to lean on him.
“Come here, doc.” And then they were kissing again. Lost in the warm heaven of one another’s mouths.
Tia found herself tugging at the collar of his t-shirt, just wanting to touch a little more skin. He was doing the same with the bottom of her tank top. But when he dropped his mouth to her shoulder, kissed and nipped along the thin strap of her tank top, Tia found herself shivering.
Sensing that she wasn’t quite there yet, Eli kissed his way back up her neck. He couldn’t help but scrape his five o’clock shadow against her. The caveman part of him hoped it gave her just a tiny bit of beard burn. Something she could find in the mirror and blush about while she thought of him.
Growing bolder, she sucked his tongue into her mouth and her knees came down from her chest. She planted her weight on the couch and leaned over him so that Eli had to tip his head back to keep kissing her. The hair that had slipped loose from her braid tickled at his cheeks and he felt as if she were surrounding him in every way possible.
His hand traveled the length of her back, all the way up to her slender neck. And on his way back down, Eli skipped over her ass and crooked his hand in the back of one of her knees, hitching her leg over his hip.
And then she was straddling him on the couch, kissing his brains out with all their clothes on and it was so hot. And so high school.
She was a welcome weight on top of him. Her body was a string pulled tight, one hand clinging to his hair and the other opening and closing over the t-shirt at his shoulder.
Eli’s hands wanted to roam, but he got the impression that anything could scare her off right now. And the only thing he wanted to do was make her sink further. Into him, into the moment, into the kiss. So he planted one large, open hand on her back, over her ribs. And the other hand he used to grip the back of her knee, holding her to him.
Tia felt like she could just do this for the rest of her life. Take great, drowning sips from his masculine mouth. His flavor was addictive. Soft and strong. She could taste toothpaste and a faint trace of salt. He smelled like a fresh shower and his skin was warm and slightly dewy, but she couldn’t be sure that wasn’t just the way he was.
She would have expected Eli to command the kiss. To drag her, unerringly, into heated passion that only rose and rose. But it wasn’t like that. Eli was with her, meeting her, matching her, reading her. He was her complete partner in the kiss. And as his hand clamped and unclamped against her knee, she got the impression he was as much a prisoner to this moment as she.
This wasn’t a kiss with a destination. There was no race to the finish line. Both of them simply wanted to keep doing exactly what they were doing. For every moment that the kiss deepened, heightened, tangled, there was a moment of lightening as well. One of them would tear away, breathe, turn back to press a feather light touch against the other’s mouth.
Her lips were smudged and faintly bruised, he realized as he studied her through a cloudy haze. Every few minutes he was pulling away from the kiss to simply look at her. Study that gorgeous, serious face as he rode with her through lust. Desire looked good on her. So good, in fact, it was like a kick straight to the teeth. Her silvery eyes became heavy lidded and lazy. Her color rose, peach in the endless field of golden skin. And as she leaned back to study him as well, her rose-colored tongue licked along her pouty bottom lip.
He realized that as aroused as she obviously was, she was also extremely fatigued. Her breaths were fast and shallow as one of her thumbs traced his pulse point. Her full weight pressed in his lap as her exhausted body started forcing her to relax. The lust warred with the sheer weariness of her last 24 hours, and she started melting in his arms like wax.
He’d never felt so tender and so electric in his entire life. He wanted to spear into her and then lap her up like a bowl of cream. He knew—ribs be damned—that he could take them both on a crackling, earth-shattering ride right now. But he couldn’t bring himself to peel himself back from her. Not even to slide her tank top off. Not when her soft, warm breasts pressed into his chest. When her delicious little tongue was pushed into his mouth.
He was prisoner to this moment, to the confusing, delicious, lazy-hot heat of what they were doing.
When her eyes started to get heavier and heavier, he knew he couldn’t be selfish anymore. He could keep worshipping at the altar of her mouth for hours, but she was extremely tired. And he knew just how fatigued she was when he slid her sideways without protest. Eli wanted nothing more than to follow her down to the couch, to tangle and twist with her.
But her eyes drifted shut the second he placed a pillow under her head. And when he slid out from under her, she merely scooted into the warmth where his body had just been.
Eli slipped her glasses off her face. He grabbed an afghan off the back of the couch and tucked it around her, giving himself just another moment to gaze at her gorgeous, relaxed face. And then he stepped back, tip-toed out of the room, and let her sleep.