Not in Love

ELI

Eli wasn’t one for naps.

It had been a problem back in college, his near pathological inability to fall asleep during the day, especially when pregame rest had been mandatory; now that he’d escaped the NCAA exploitation machine, it only meant that any sleep he didn’t get at night couldn’t be made up for.

Rue had no such issues. She was breathing evenly a minute after he’d settled her on the bed. He sat on the edge of the mattress and stared for a long time, feeling creepy and teenage-ish and helpless to stop, feeling euphoric and smitten. He couldn’t remember ever experiencing anything like this, which meant that he should tread carefully, that she could be dangerous.

He pushed a strand of damp hair behind her ear and made his way downstairs.From NôvelDrama.Org.

Forty-five minutes later a summer thunderstorm was in full swing, and Rue padded into the kitchen wearing yesterday’s clothes and not the T-shirt he’d left out for her on the bed, folded on top of a pair of Maya’s sweats.

He’d never been less surprised.

Her gaze skittered to Tiny, napping blissfully on one of his many beds, then flitted to the bowls of whipped cream and fruit on the counter, then landed on the pan near the stove. “What are you doing?”

“Fulfilling the promise I used to lure you here.”

“You have done that.” She looked sleepy and beautiful and confused. He had to physically restrain himself to avoid pulling her into him.

“The other promise. I said I’d cook for you, remember?”

“You don’t have to.”

Do not hug her. Do not kiss the tip of her nose. Do not run your hand up and down her back. You don’t have to stick your fingers in her hair, and you most definitely do not need to fucking smell her throat. It’ll just send her running faster than a reminder that you still own Kline’s loan. “Come on, Rue.” He gave her a chiding look. “I can’t just fuck you nonstop without feeling like more of an asshole than I actually am. I’m going to have to feed you, just to keep you alive and responsive. No offense, but I’m not into the alternative.”

She glanced away and then lowered her eyes, which was interesting. Atypical. Then said, “I’m weird about food.” He kept his face straight. Made no movement. She was skittish, and he didn’t want to spook her. He watched her swallow, twice, and offered no reaction when she added, “I struggle with non-sit-down meals. And with time constraints.” She held his eyes. “I’d rather not eat than eat in a hurry or standing up.”

“That’s not weird.” It did, however, make his chest icy and heavy. What she’d said about Alec feeding her. Tisha’s picture. The obvious fact that she was a food engineer who focused on addressing food insecurity. He wasn’t going to connect dots until she asked him to, but he reserved the right to nurse the cold, aimless anger that began churning at the bottom of his stomach.

“Not a huge fan of eating on the go, either.” He opened a drawer and casually took out two place mats. “Glasses and plates are in that cupboard. Make yourself useful, Dr. Siebert.” Her face betrayed nothing, but there was a trace of relief in her shoulders.

“Is this French toast?” she asked once they sat at the table.

He poured coffee in her cup. “Yes.”

“And this is the fancy dish your fancy chef ex taught you to make?” She sounded skeptical.

“Never said that the dish had to be fancy. And I recommend you try it before you say one more word you will regret.”

Her eyes narrowed, but she poured syrup on her toast, covered it with some of the fresh cream and the mix of berries, brought a bite to her lips with the air of someone who was doing him a big favor, and after chewing for a handful of seconds covered her mouth with her hand and said, “Holy shit.”

He gave her his most told you so look.

“What the hell?” She seemed affronted. “How?”

“Secret recipe.”

“It’s French toast.”

“As you now know, not all French toast is created equal.”

“You’re not going to tell me what’s in it?”

“Maybe later.” He took a sip of his coffee. “If you behave.”

She took more slow, leisurely bites, eating in a precise, methodical way that reminded him of the morning spent in her lab, and he watched her with a sense of accomplishment that couldn’t possibly be justified.

What the fuck was she doing to him?

“I have a request,” she said, dabbing a napkin to her mouth.

“I told you, it’s a secret.”

“Not that.”

“What, then? A story?”

“It doesn’t have to be. You don’t have to…I don’t need the terrible parts, if you don’t want to share them. I just want to know about your ex-fiancée.”

Ah. “What, precisely?”

She scouted for the perfect question, then settled on: “Who broke the engagement?”

“She did.”

A pause. “Why?”

“Because I didn’t love her the way she wanted to be loved.”

Rue tilted her head. “What does that mean?”

By now it had been long enough that when he thought about McKenzie, the only feelings left were affection and gratitude. Their last conversation, though…

You are a successful adult man, and yet you put more effort into some harebrained vendetta you’re chasing with your codependent friends than into being actually happy. You will choose your stupid revenge plan over me anytime, and we both know it.

You want to be in love with me. You want to wake up in the morning and think of me. You want to want me, but you just don’t.

You can’t fix it, because this is not about what you do—it’s about what you feel. The kind of love I’m looking for, not everyone has the capacity for it, Eli.

McKenzie’s words may no longer be the sharp knife they’d been three years earlier, but the sting remained. “Not enough.” His tongue roamed the inside of his cheek. “She meant that I didn’t love her enough.”

“Was she right?”

A beat, and then he forced himself to nod. That was what hurt the most.

“Are you two still friends?”

“Friendly. She wanted a clean break, but I hear from her more now that she’s found someone else and is…happier than she’d ever been with me, for sure.”

“Are you jealous of him?”

“I…maybe. A little. McKenzie was—is—fantastic. I couldn’t give her what she needed, and I’m glad she’s getting it from someone else. But I can’t help being…” He made a resigned gesture. “Envious might be more accurate.”

Rue stared at the heavy rain, pondering the matter like it was a complex set of assays to be performed. “Couldn’t you? Give her what she needed, that is. Or did you just not want to?”

It was such a loaded, deceptively barbed question, Eli almost wondered if she’d ever spoken with McKenzie. But Rue was guileless. And curious. “I don’t know. I hope it’s not the former.”

She nodded. “I might be like that, too.”

“Like what?”

“Incapable of loving people the way they deserve.”

“Really? What about Florence? Don’t you love her?”

She glanced away. “I thought I did. I know I do, but maybe not enough, if I’m betraying her by being here with you.” She took a long, calming breath, then looked at him again.

“What about romantic love?” Eli’s heart pounded, and he wasn’t sure why. “You think you could manage that?” he asked her.

Asked them.

“Maybe. Or maybe some people are too broken. Maybe…maybe things have happened in their lives, in their past, that have damaged them so bad, they’re never going to get happy endings with the loves of their lives.” She pulled up her knees and wrapped her arms around them. “Maybe some people are meant to be tragedies.”

A knife in his fucking stomach, that’s what Rue was. And a mirror he couldn’t bear to look into. “So, is this my chance for a Q and A?” he asked, wanting to change the subject.

“What would you like to ask?”

He considered gently introducing the topic, but Rue was a fan of plain speaking. “Why don’t you want penetrative sex?”

“Because I don’t like it very much.”

“Any reason in particular?”

“No. No traumatic story or medical issues, at least.” She shrugged. “It’s not that I actively dislike it. I just can’t really come like that.”

“Ah.”

“I wouldn’t mind it if that’s all there was—there are other things that won’t make me come and I’m happy to do. Obviously.” She held his eyes, unflinching, and every single delicious thing she’d done for him was suddenly there, in the forefront of his mind. “But in my experience, penetrative sex usually leads to two outcomes, and neither is good.”

“What outcomes?”

“A lot of men see penis-in-vagina sex as the end goal and forget everything else. Skip foreplay, move straight to the fucking, get their own, completely forget about their partner—which is not what I’m looking for. And that’s the best scenario.”

“The best?”

She sighed. “It’s better than them deciding that they absolutely need to get me off during the sex, which almost always ends up with them dragging it out to the point of pain. I can’t come from that, which means that we’re at a very unpleasant impasse that forces me to fake an orgasm just to get it over with.” She looked so genuinely offended, he couldn’t hold in his laughter. He liked this about her: the way she went after her own pleasure, demanded her due. He liked her, period, even more now that the pieces were starting to form a defined picture in his eyes.

Ask me for anything, he thought, anything at all, and watch me give it to you. Whoever came before me, they had no idea. I’m up for the challenge.

“Why?” she said. “Would you like to do it?”

“Are you asking me if I want to actually fuck you?”

She nodded.

He held back a smile. “You can answer that on your own.”

“Fair enough.” She forked another neat piece of her French toast, balanced it with a perfect amount of berries and cream, chewed it for longer than it took Eli to scarf down a sandwich on his lunch break. Then asked, without hiding her amusement, “Are you anticipating curing me with your magic cock?”

That was exactly what he’d been hoping, of course. The idea of her coming with his dick inside her was intoxicating all on its own, but the idea of being the first to make her come like that was stuff he would get off to well into his old age. A permanent place in her sexual history. Something that would make her remember him. It was a fantasy, an inappropriate one at that, but Eli tried to avoid punishing himself too much for thoughts that remained contained in his own head. Self-loathing, he’d found, only got him so far.

“There’s nothing you need to be cured of,” he said, fully believing it. “But you might like it. With me.”

“Right. Because of the aforementioned magic cock.” She was teasing him, like she had that first night, before she’d known that she was supposed to hate him. He loved every minute of this.

“Because earlier you told me that you’ve never been with someone more than once. I have, and I can tell you that knowing your partner for more than two hours goes a long way when it comes to having great sex.” He didn’t mention that he wasn’t so sure anymore. That she had redefined the concept of sexual compatibility for him. “I’d like to try, if you’re up for it. If you come, good. If not, I’ll still enjoy myself, and I can get you off half a dozen different ways before. And afterward.”

She bit into her lower lip, mulling. “You won’t get offended if I don’t like it?”

“You like it when I put my fingers in you, don’t you?” So discordant, the clinical way they were discussing the science of fucking and how transportive it felt when they were actually doing it. At least, how he felt. She was never going to allow him to get close to her in any nonphysical way.

“It’s different,” she reflected. “Your cock is much larger. And you know how to use your hands.”

He should have recorded the sound bite. “I know how to use other things, too.” He tried to say it as matter-of-factly as possible. Didn’t succeed.

“I’m sure you think so.” Her mouth twitched in a small smile. So did his. “What if I say no?”

“We continue on as we started. With no complaints from me.” And a whole lot of gratitude.

She nodded. “I’m open to trying. But if I find it boring and yawn in the middle of it, don’t take it personally.”

“Noted.”

“And I will not fake an orgasm for you.”

He bit the inside of this cheek. “Likewise.”

They stared at each other from across the table, condensation rolling down the half-full orange juice glasses, amusement vibrating between them. They were both aware of the improbability of the conversation they’d just had, over breakfast no less. They were both having fun. “I also have a question.”

He nodded at her to go ahead.

“The kink stuff.”

He leaned back in his chair and studied her closely. “What’s your question?”

“I think you can answer that on your own,” she parroted back at him, and he shook his head, giving up on not grinning.

“Do you want to know what I’m into?”

She nodded.

“Are you going to get scared if I tell you?”

“No. People can have all sorts of desires and avoid imposing them on others without their consent. I trust you.”

That was dizzying. And definitely pornographic. Rue Siebert, trusting him. He could do a lot with that knowledge. Play around with the possibility. Maybe, if the stars aligned, act on it. “I enjoy…calling the shots.”

She was silent for a beat. “I think I already knew that.” He wasn’t surprised, not after their conversation in one of Kline’s labs. “You’re good at stopping yourself, but sometimes I can tell that you’d rather be…”

He waited for her to finish. When she didn’t, he said, “In charge?”

She nodded again, and he smiled at her reassuringly.

“Is it something you need? To enjoy sex?”

“No. Some of the best sex I’ve had incorporated no elements of that.” With you, he didn’t add.

“Was your fiancée into it?”

“She was. We were very well matched in that sense.”

“Do you have a…sex dungeon?”

“I live in Texas, Rue. I don’t even have a basement.”

She hid her smile in her knees, then asked, “Did you hurt her? During sex?”

He shook his head. “It wasn’t something either of us was interested in. It’s more about control.”

“You taking control?”

“It would be more appropriate to say that she surrendered hers, within the context of sex. These kinds of relationships require trust. Boundaries. Lots of false starts and abrupt stops as we figured it out. Some trial and error.”

“So, if there was no pain…?”

“I’d tie her up. Blindfold her. Hold her down. Tell her what to do. Do you know what orgasm denial is?”

“I speak English.” Her look was faintly offended, and he huffed out a laugh.

God, what he wouldn’t give to pin her down on this table. Show her exactly what he meant. “There you go, then.”

“You know,” she mused, “a guy I met on the app spanked me, once.”

He let out a silent laugh. “Look at you. A professional kinkster.”

“I know, right?”

“What did you think of it?”

She seemed unimpressed. “It was mostly ridiculous.”

Eli wanted to lean forward. He wanted to smooth out the vertical lines between her brows and tell her that he was right there, and she didn’t need to think about some asshole who was probably shitty in bed and couldn’t get her off, because he had her, he was willing to learn her, he was consumed by her. But he didn’t, because it would have sent her running. And the question she wanted to ask was swelling between them, stretching the silence to the limits of its comfort.

He didn’t need her to say it. But fuck, he wanted her to. “Come on, Rue. Don’t chicken out now.” He watched her swallow. Her lips remained sealed, so he clucked his tongue. “It’s not like you.”

She seemed to agree, because she met his eyes squarely. “Would you like to do that with me?”

Under the table, his hand and his cock twitched at once. He thought about pulling her into his lap. Locking her in this house and throwing away the key. About the things he could do to her. Discovering her limits. Figuring out what she liked. Having her at his mercy. Making her enjoy it. She had no fucking idea how much fun they could have, just the two of them. “If you wanted to try, yes. Some of it.”

“Like what?”

“Nothing that would push too hard, too quickly. Just you, letting me be in charge. And we’d talk everything over.” His blood thudded loudly in his veins. In anticipation. Or worry that she might change her mind. “You could stay for the day. We could…experiment.”

She blinked. “I should go home.”

“Why?” He tried for an easy grin. Not too eager. “It’s not like you have any pets.”

She rolled her eyes, but she was amused. “I do have plants to water.”

“The cactus you bought at the grocery store last week will be fine.”

She chewed on her lower lip. He studied her long, graceful fingers drumming against the table, remembered how they’d felt wrapped around him. “Won’t Maya be back?”

“Not until tonight. And I overheard her tell her friend Jade that I’m an incel. I’d love to show her that I do have some game.”

She laughed softly, and Eli knew that he had her.