“Oh,” Tia’s eyes softened from silver to a soft heather gray when she opened the door to her apartment. “You look handsome.”

His stomach flipped at her compliment. He’d tried to look handsome. So he was pleased that he did. But it was the first time in about a decade that he’d actually prepped for a date and it was getting under his skin a little bit. He’d showered and shaved and tried on two different shirts before he settled on this one. Who did that? Not Elijah Bird. Effortless was kind of his calling card. And yet, here he was on her doorstep, flowers in one hand, take-out Chinese in the other, and practically dripping in effort.

She stepped back to let him in but held up a hand to stop him when he leaned down to kiss her.              

“Wait. I haven’t showered yet from the hospital. I’m sorry. I know I’m late. But I got held up after our phone call and I raced home but—”

“That’s okay,” he shrugged. “You wanna shower now? I can entertain myself for a little bit.”

“Yes,” she answered immediately. “I really, really do.”

She stepped back and gestured around at her house. “Make yourself at home.”

She scurried away to the back of the house and Eli was thrilled to have a little time to himself in her house, amongst all her pretty little things. It had jumbled him up to see her again. More than he thought it would. He set the Chinese food down in her kitchen and took a deep breath. Turned and started to look around.

There were a spray of odd magnets and wrinkled photos on her fridge, most of them featuring Tia and Laura together, laughing, dressed up for clubbing or Halloween. There were a few herbs on the windowsill above her sink and mismatched mugs hanging on hooks from the underside of the cabinets.

The wood floors were worn and scratched but obviously well lived in. Eli liked the array of kitchen chairs around the breakfast table that was about an inch deep in newspapers on one side and had her car keys and a pair of earrings on the other side.              

The many windows were slightly open, letting a good breeze work itself through her house. Something he noticed was true in every room, as he wandered through. She liked the night air on the inside of her house, apparently. And she liked white, gauzy curtains.

The house was fairly small. Just a little living room connecting the kitchen to the back hallway she had disappeared down. But it was homey and inviting. There was a framed Van Gogh print on the wall and two of Georgia O’Keeffe’s cow skulls framed side by side. She’d painted the walls a good, strong blue. Her large sectional couch was puffy and comfortable looking, and there were pillows in every color imaginable tossed over top of it. She had shelves and shelves of books, just like in her office. She used all manner of things as bookends. A little copper apple, small potted plants, just another book, balancing diagonal to keep the rest from tumbling. There was a thin layer of dust on her shelves and on the ornate, iron mantle on one wall, as if she usually cleaned but hadn’t gotten around to it that week. And, as he turned and grinned, he saw that there was a huge flat screen TV peeking out from behind the slightly ajar doors of an entertainment hutch.

He saw that something was flickering over the screen and when he got closer, he instantly recognized ESPN. She must have been watching it when he’d arrived. It made him grin even more.

Man. He really liked her. He really, really liked her.

Just when he thought he had her figured out. The prim and proper Dr. Camellia: everything about her perfectly ordered and in its right place. And then he sees her house and it’s colorful and a little messy and totally relaxed. He just, really, really liked that.

Eli turned at a small noise and grinned at the chubby little dog that waddled out to greet him, curly tail wagging like a maniac.

“Well, hey there.” Eli went down to a knee, wincing just the tiniest bit at the pain in his ribs, and reached a hand out to the dog.

Who apparently could come no further. As soon as Eli bent down, the dog flopped over onto its back instantly, still wagging and presenting a perfectly pink little belly.

“Ham, you’re giving it up too easily!” Tia’s voice came from the back hallway as she stepped into the living room.

Eli literally lost the breath out of his chest. She wore leggings and a large blue t-shirt, her damp hair piled on top of her head, and spring green glasses. She looked so cute. And about fifteen years old.

“You named your dog Ham?”

Tia walked over and joined him on the floor next to her dog. “Don’t you think it suits him?” Giving in to temptation, Tia bent over her lovable little puppy and scratched the heck out his belly, cooing the whole time. “You’re supposed to make him work for it, you little floozy. You can’t give up the belly on the first date!”

Eli was so charmed his eyes nearly crossed. Professional, competent Dr. Camellia was dressed like a teenager and making kissy faces at her dog. Yes. Just yes. He slipped an arm over her shoulders and when she looked up at him, he simply pressed his lips to hers, unable to wait another second.

She made a warm, undone sound in the back of her throat and just let herself be kissed. There was no fighting it. No reason to at all. Eli’s mouth was strong and demanding against hers and her body went tight with the electricity of it.

What was meant to be a happy, friendly, satisfied kiss instantly transformed into a desperately hungry one. Eli’s hand traced down her back and suddenly he was laying her down on the colorful rug laid out over her golden hardwood floors.

He was vaguely aware that he was moving faster than he meant to. That he’d meant to come over here, flirt with her and kiss her goodnight. Maybe they’d rub up against one another on the couch again. But he knew that he really didn’t want to push her. She’d said they wouldn’t be sleeping together, and though Eli wasn’t exactly stoked about that, he wanted to respect it.

But then her legs were clasping around his hips and he was lying on top of her on the floor. His lips were suddenly clasped to her pulse point, his tongue tasting her warm skin, still damp from the shower. She moaned for real now, nothing but ragged desire in that sound.

She wanted. She wanted him. And it sent explosions of triumph and yes! and thank god all the way down his spine. He couldn’t believe what it felt like to be wanted by her. He was gasping against her collarbone, one of his hands traveling the whole damn length of her body and the other cradling her head against the floor.

And her hands too, were busy. One curled into the collar of his button-down shirt and the other was somehow underneath his shirt at the back. Her soft, sure hands were dipping into the muscles that lined his backbone.

He licked along the collar of her shirt and Tia arched back, the cradle of her skull pushing into the palm of his hand. Her legs tightened around his hips and he felt the heat of her, even through his jeans.

Something woke up inside Eli. And part of it was known and familiar. Lust, pure and raw. But the other part of it was something new. Something untrained and live and he wasn’t sure he liked it, but he knew he needed it. The feeling rode him the exact way that he wanted to ride her, demanding, consuming, and desperate.

A rapid thump, thump, thump on the floor beside them had both of them turning their heads. And there sat Ham, fat pink tongue lolling to one side as he eyed them through bug eyes and wagged his tail against the ground.

Tia and Eli burst out laughing at the same time.

“Wow,” Eli murmured. “Some guard dog you’ve got here. A strange man can eat you for dinner on your living room floor and he’s a cheerleader.”

Tia, still giggling, reached out to pat Ham’s friendly head as Eli helped her to her feet.

“I think Ham’s just really receptive to my mood.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, he could tell how much I was enjoying that.”

“Oh yeah?” he repeated, this time with a lascivious grin and a waggling of eyebrows.

Tia rolled her eyes but couldn’t help smiling. “If I wasn’t so hungry, I might drag you back to the ground and prove how much I liked it.”

Eli cleared his throat. Work. Talk about work. Something that was safe and innocuous. He was really trying to respect these damn boundaries. Boundaries she’d set but was barely respecting herself. “You didn’t get a chance to eat at work?”

Tia grabbed mismatched dishes out of her cabinet, some iced tea from the fridge for both of them and slid the newspapers on the breakfast table even further to one edge. Eli brought over the Chinese food and they both sat.

“No, today was absolutely crazy. I was in surgery all day.”

“Did it, uh, go well?” He served her some fried rice and then himself. He was hungry, but his stomach turned a little bit at the thought of the surgery not going well.

“It did,” she said. “But you don’t have to ask about that. I know it makes a lot of people uncomfortable.”

He nodded, grateful that she understood. “So it was just busy? That’s why you called it the shift from hell?”

“Yeah, and…” she speared a shrimp and pushed it around her plate.

“And what?”

She took a deep breath. She obviously wanted to tell him about Owen. She trusted herself to know that there was definitely a reason that she’d brought this topic up in the first place. “And my ex-boyfriend cornered me and we had to rehash the past.”

Eli stopped eating. “He came to your workplace?”

Tia waved her hand through the air, swallowed a huge bite of egg roll she’d just taken. “No, it’s his workplace too. He’s also a surgeon at the hospital.”

“Oh.” Eli couldn’t say, exactly, why that piece of information was so deflating. But for some reason it annoyed the shit out of him. The errant thought crossed his mind that her ex wouldn’t mind talking about how her surgeries went over dinner. In fact, he’d probably be able to add insights here and there. Unpack the intricacies of it. He cleared his throat. Get your head in the game. “What do you mean, rehash the past?

“Oh, he wanted to know why I haven’t been returning his calls or texts.”

“Why haven’t you?” Maybe it made him a dick. But he wanted to hear her say it out loud.

“Because it’s so completely over. And he’s kind of a give-him-an-inch-he-takes-a mile-type of guy.”

“What ended it?”

“Oh. Well.” Tia served herself some sweet and sour chicken to buy herself a little time. This was about to be a whole lot of information all at once. If she chose to give it to him. Or she could go loose and vague. “I realized that we weren’t right for one another. For a lot of reasons.”

“Like…” he prompted. Again, he knew he was being a dick. But he really, really wanted to hear her point out all the reasons her surgeon ex-fiancé wasn’t the right guy for her.

She smiled a little half smile, like she knew exactly what he was doing. “Well, for one, a lot of the… thrill had gone. We weren’t super, I don’t know, compatible in that way anymore.”

In that way? Did she mean in the bedroom? Eli tried to imagine not being compatible with Tia sexually. It just did. Not. Compute. He could make love to her knees and be sexually fulfilled. The woman just did it for him.

Tia’s eyes dropped, with something that looked suspiciously like shame, and she pushed her food around her plate. “But also, I’d had a really hard time before we broke up. I don’t know if I mentioned it, but both my parents are in a home for people with dementia or Alzheimer’s. And it was a really tough decision to put them there. And it was even harder to pack everything up and get them there. And then we had their whole house—mine and Laura’s childhood home—to deal with and pack up and sell. And god. It was so much work.”

“And he didn’t help?”

Tia scoffed. “God no. He didn’t help for any of it. And honestly, he was resentful of all the time and energy I took to arrange everything. He said it took away from our relationship. Which was true. It was definitely true.”

“Of course it was. Because you have to be able to lean on your closest relationships in moments like that. You know how much of a dick I was to Jay and Marcus after my mother died? They didn’t hold it against me. They helped me through it. And then when it was time for me to shape up and stop being a dick, they helped me with that too.”

Tia nodded. “Right. Well, that’s how I knew we weren’t fit for each other. Because of all that. The break-up was hard. It didn’t drag out, but it was a terrible day. I think I put it off for so long because he’d met my parents when they were still a little bit with it. They knew him and knew I was serious about him. So I think a part of me wanted to stay with him as a way of staying connected to what my parents wanted for me when they were well.”

Eli nodded. What was that feeling spearing through him like white hot lava? Was that jealousy? Was he actually jealous of this prick for getting to meet Tia’s parents before they got sick?

“And it must have been hard because you were engaged.”

Tia cocked her head to one side in surprise. “You knew?”

“Yeah,” Eli smiled sheepishly. “Jay’s mom’s hairdresser used to be your next door neighbor.”

“Marty Hightower?” Tia gave a delighted little laugh. “Figures. She always had a big mouth. But a good heart.”

Part of this story was still really bothering him. “You said he cornered you?”

“Not physically. But yeah. He pulled me away from a patient’s family and started in on the whole thing, wanting to know if I was still serious about not getting back together. And then you called.”

“And I’ll bet he didn’t like that.” Eli tried to keep the smug tone out of his voice.

“No. I thought he’d leave me alone after that, because I went in my office and closed the door to talk to you.”

“But he didn’t?”

Tia shook her head and swallowed another bite. She’d been shocked when she’d opened the door to see that Owen was still out in the hallway, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall. And absolutely staring daggers at her. “No, he waited for me. Wanted to know more about you.”

Eli sat back. “Did you tell him?”

Again, Tia shook her head. “No.”

Why? he wanted to ask. But didn’t. He was pretty sure he wasn’t going to like whatever the answer was and he didn’t want to spoil the effervescently happy thing they had going on that evening. “So he just wanted to keep talking?”

“Yeah. And then I realized that he was probably trying to intentionally make me late leaving the hospital. And I left.”

Eli didn’t like it. He didn’t like it one bit. But she was a grown woman. And she was highly intelligent. If she wasn’t too worried about it, then Eli figured he would keep his thoughts to himself on that one.

“Tia?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad you realized he wasn’t right for you.” Eli grasped her hand across the table, a tight and sure grip that had her heart skipping.

“Me too.”