To Love a Man (2 page)

Ellie contrarily clutched them that much tighter to her.

He raised a bushy eyebrow at her and stared down at her in what she knew he wanted to think was an intimidating manner, but she just raised her own eyebrow, lifted her chin and stared back up at him, in what she knew for certain he
wasn’t
going to think was an intimidating manner in the least. To her surprise, he leaned his face closer to hers, so, of course, she had to meet his action, and pretty soon they were practically nose to nose.

“You know,” he said, and she could feel his breath on her face, “I’m trying to ignore the urge to kiss you.”

Ellie gasped as he reached for the keys – almost in slow motion, the cocky bastard – and took them from her limp fingers with a big grin on his face, starting the car and roaring them away from the scene of her greatest humiliation.

Which he had come very close to making her forget entirely about. She had to give him kudos for that at the very least. “That was sneaky, rotten, and underhanded.”

He executed as much of a bow as he could in the cramped confines of the car. “Thank you. I majored in Sneaky, Rotten and Underhanded. It’s nice to know my degree didn’t go to waste.”

Despite the fact that a few minutes ago Ellie would have sworn that she would never smile again, she found herself wearing a stupid grin. “Why am I not surprised?”

He drove the car with the easy confidence of someone who had been trained to do so in the worst of situations. “So, you and the boss have a history?”

Her smile disappeared as if it had never been and he was loath to see it go, but he was also incredibly curious. He’d never seen Cal react to anyone that way – he was usually almost freakishly controlled. 

“You could say that.”

The smarter thing probably would have been not to bring the subject up at all. But he was curious and it was for sure that he wouldn’t get any information from Cal. He wasn’t even sure if he was going to be fool enough to bring it up to him. So he mused gently out loud, “What could a cute little girl like you
possibly
have done to a man like Cal Jennings to get him to throw you out on your gorgeous behind like that?”

Despite what she considered to be his backhanded compliments – she hated to be called ‘little’ and her behind was much too big to be ‘gorgeous’ by today’s wraithlike standards – Ellie did not deign to so much as look at him, much less answer his musing question, forcing herself to be content staring determinedly out the window.

“All right, I’ll stop asking stupid questions.” As much as he wanted details, he realized that it was definitely the wrong time for that particular tactic. He wanted her smiling, not looking as if she’d just lost her best friend.

Or, perhaps more accurately, hadn’t quite gotten over a lost love?

“That’ll be a refreshing change.” The snarky comment slipped out of her mouth before she had a chance to catch it, and then – despite his chuckle – guilt washed over her. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to be nasty when you’ve been nothing but kind to me. You’ve gone way out of your way and probably put your future with Cal Jennings in grave jeopardy, and I do appreciate it.”

“That’s all right and you’re welcome.”

She guided him to her house and Cruz flatly refused to just let her make her own way in. Since he had retained his possession of her keys, she didn’t have much choice but to let him have his way. She couldn’t get into her house without them.

He came around to the passenger’s door and tsked at her for trying to get out herself, lifting her as if she weighed nothing and carrying her to her door, where she took the keys from him and opened it. And he didn’t just deposit her on her stoop as she’d imagined – far from it. He walked right in to lay her gently on her small loveseat, propping her injured foot on a convenient throw pillow. Then he went so far as to rummage in her freezer, returning to the small living room – which his large presence only seemed to make even tinier – with a bag of frozen peas that she’d been saving for a beef stew that was, instead, carefully placed over her already puffy ankle.

“The ride over here with it hanging down couldn’t have helped much. Are you hurting?” he asked squatting down beside her.

Ellie sighed and covered her face with her hand. “Yeah. I have some ibuprofen in my—”

He was already out the door to retrieve her purse.

When he returned, not only with her purse, but also a glass of water and three of the anti-inflammatories in the palm of his hand, she took them with surprising obedience, saying, “Thank you so much for everything you’ve done.”

Cruz smiled down at her. “You’re welcome. Is there anything else I can get you or do for you?”

“No, thank you.” 

“I wish you’d go to the ER for that, though.”

“I know, and if it gets worse, I promise, I will.”

He continued to stare intently down at her, making her almost more nervous, all of a sudden, than she had been before Cal had discovered her presence. She wasn’t at all used to having a strange man in her apartment, and despite his chivalric acts towards her, he
was
a stranger.

“I guess I should be getting back.”

“I hope you have a job to get back
to
, considering how blatantly disloyal you’ve been – gallant and gentlemanly, no doubt – but you know Cal isn’t going to see it that way,” Ellie mused ruefully.

He startled her by chuckling at her concerns. “Don’t you worry about Cal and me. It would take a lot more than this for him to get rid of me.” He walked over to her door. “If you need anything, don’t hesitate to call me.”

Ellie looked puzzled. “I don’t have—”

“Yes, you do. When I got your purse, I used your phone to call me. Now we have each other’s numbers.”

Normally she would have been incensed at his invasion of her privacy, but somehow she couldn’t quite summon the level of indignation she should have felt, considering what he’d done for her. A thought struck her, and she had to admit to a certain amount of curiosity. “But how are you going to get home now?”

He grinned down at her. “At the same time I called my phone from yours, I used mine to call a buddy who is also on staff at the ranch.”

The Jennings estate didn’t really have a name. Everyone just called it ‘the ranch’.

“Ah, well, that’s good. Thank you again, Cruz.”

He smiled and managed to make her feel as if everything was right with the world, somehow, even though everything really was in the crapper. “You’re very welcome, Ellie. Stay off that foot.”

Wearing a patently false smile, she rolled her eyes and singsonged, “Yes, sir.”

“That’s more like it.”

He closed the door on her snort, leaving Ellie to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening stewing, considering the possible ramifications of what she’d done.

***

Her ankle hadn’t swollen too badly and was only a little dark looking. She kept her blood levels of ibuprofen steady, and that almost eliminated the pain. And, although it was sore and stiff, she managed to hop around on it on an as needed basis. She tried to be as efficient as she could when she felt she couldn’t avoid using it, getting up to hit the bathroom, grab a nutritious dinner of chips and dip, and turning on a marathon of
Lost
on Hulu to be instantly reminded of just how much she’d loved it the first time around, even though she was somewhat bummed to already know the ending.

She fell asleep relatively early, but was awakened around twelve-thirty by the sound of knocking, and looked to the TV first, but it had already responded to its sleeper timer and shut off. But it couldn’t possibly have been anyone knocking at her door. No one who knew her would ever think of coming over without having called or texted her first; as affectionate and gregarious as she was with her friends, she was a very private person.

But then there it was again, much louder, much more insistent and demanding this time. Someone was definitely not knocking on her door, they were banging on her door.

The question was: did she feel inclined to answer it, considering that it was the middle of the night and she was injured, and whoever it was didn’t sound in the least friendly?

Then she realized she was not going to be given a choice.

“Open up, Elise. Your car is in the driveway and I know Cruz brought you home.”

What the fuck was he doing here? Who did he think he was? Did he think he was going to throw her out of her own home after having thrown her out of his?

As if he’d read her mind, the next thing he said was, “I’m not leaving until I talk to you, Elise.”

She recognized that tone and was horrified to realize that it still had the power to affect her – her panties were growing wetter by the second.

“And don’t think I won’t call your landlord – who is Jim Evans, I believe – and make—”

Fed up and frustrated beyond belief, Ellie swung the door open abruptly. “Make him open the door for you? Make trouble for me? Make him evict me?” she filled in, trying to mirror his feet-wide-apart power stance, but wobbling so badly on her injured foot that she finally just brought it up next to her good one and balanced it on her curled toes. “Do your worst. But, then, oh, gee, you’ve already done that, haven’t you?”

When she would have slammed the door in his face, she found that he’d already taken a step in and she couldn’t have closed the door around him without a twenty mule team.

And she had thought that Cruz had dwarfed her tiny living room. Cal Jennings practically
wore
it.

He closed the door and she heard him lock it behind him, but even as he took a threatening step towards her that nearly plastered their bodies together, she continued to stand there, precariously balanced though she was, glaring up at him, her jaw set, arms folded defiantly across her chest.

She was not going to let him bully her in her own home.

But she was entirely unprepared for what he did next, bending down to pick her up in his arms –
What was this thing men had all of a sudden for carrying her around?
She wondered – and stalking to her couch, claiming the middle of it and positioning her with surprising gentleness on his lap.

She was also entirely unprepared to deal with the way that her body responded to his autocratic move – it literally melted. It was as if it had only been yesterday since he’d touched her intimately instead of some unbelievably long amount of time. Her response was to the point where she worried that she was going to leave a spot on his pants if she didn’t get up soon.

Ellie also knew – from previous experience – that Cal was unlikely to do anything to or for her that he didn’t
want
to do.

It didn’t help her situation one bit that he looked, sounded, and smelled as if he hadn’t aged a day in what was it? Eight or more years? She didn’t want to think how long. She didn’t want to think at all as her senses were stirred to a fever pitch by the memories that even just the innocent act of breathing filled her with. Every bit of him smelled like leather – she remembered that the scent of it clung to him even if he wasn’t wearing it at the time. His cologne might have changed – he was wearing Polo back then – but whatever it was, it still smelled perfect for him. And the only other scent he exuded was pure, confident, dominant man.

And she’d always been a sucker for that. Emphasis on the sucker, she thought wryly.

He still had a full head of jet black hair that matched his obsidian eyes. By this age his father had been bald as a cue ball, but Cal seemed to be keeping his hair length a bit longer than before. And he had very nicely groomed stubble that, for the slightest instant, made her wonder what it would feel like if he put his face between her legs before she reeled that thought back in.

But she had to give it to him – he didn’t grope at her at all. That really wasn’t his style anyway. One hand rested possessively at the small of her back and the other casually along the outside of her bare thigh, just slightly below the line of her shorts. The contact made her want to fidget beneath his touch, but she did not want to do that; not only on her own account, but also on his.

She’d be very surprised if he wasn’t already at full attention. If it weren’t for the pants of his very expensive looking suit, she could feel his demanding presence pressing blatantly against her bottom. But she was doing her best to ignore it.

Like it was going to be easy to ignore something that
big
.

Ellie shifted uncomfortably on his lap, wishing he’d say something or let her down preferably. But he seemed entirely too content just to sit there and look up at her, as if he was cataloging every new line on her face or shadow under her eyes.

“So, you’re here to apologize?” she ventured bravely, looking down at him, resisting the urge to loop her arms around his neck the way she’d done without hesitation to Cruz.

He laughed. “Not likely.”

“Well, then,” she said, renewing her struggles to get away from him and doing nothing but making that impressive bulge grow to even more impressive proportions.

“Sit still now, or I won’t be responsible for my actions, Elise Marguerite,” he bit off.

Her body quieted immediately, despite the fact that her brain wanted to give him the finger, and no amount of wheedling or cajoling her body parts would get them to disobey him. They recognized their master, even if she was wholly unwilling to.

Cal reached up and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, attempting to gather her to his chest, but she resisted him every step of the way – so that she ended up there a few seconds later than she might have. That was about the extent of her ability to stop him from doing what he wanted to her – to delay the inevitable for a frighteningly short amount of time.

“How’s your ankle feeling?”

She tried to pop up again, but the hard arms around her simply wouldn’t allow it. “Fuck. You. Cal.”

Somehow she could hear that his eyebrow had gone up even though she wasn’t looking at him. She just
knew
.

“Do you think your mother would have approved of such language, Elise?”

The tone of his low, rumbled words sent a tidal wave flooding through her panties, but she did her best to ignore it, returning sharply, “As I said before, do you think your
brother
would have approved of how you treated me this afternoon, you son of a bitch?”

In seconds she found her head craned back as his big fist wrapped itself into her honey blonde tresses, forcing her to arch her back, her braless breasts swelling and peaking entirely against her will. “That’s why I’m here, buttercup,” he hissed. “I thought you knew better than to ever show your face in my house again, but apparently not.” His other hand stroked itself down her body from her shoulder to her knees, palming her taut nipple through the thin fabric of her cheap, seen-much-better-days tee shirt for the barest of seconds, rubbing the side of that big thumb over the crest once, twice before following her ribcage down to the curve of her waist. His fingers claiming as much territory as they could as he molded his palm to the generous proportions of her hip, then behind it to cup her bottom and squeeze painfully, making her stiffen and try to push away from him, however futilely.

In fact, she didn’t move so much as an inch. She was expending all her apparently inconsiderable might, and she didn’t move one single, solitary inch. His touch softened and his fingers began to knead rather than punish – which of course was exactly what she didn’t want. They finished their trip by slowly travelling down the outside of her thigh to her knee.

But it was the return trip that had her trying to clamp her legs together, because his fingers weren’t on the
outside
of her leg any longer, and if she let him cup her intimately, he would
know
. He would know how much her body still craved him, even after what he’d done to her – then and now – and that was
not
acceptable.

But there really wasn’t anything she could do to stop him. She already had both hands around his thick wrist, trying to tug him away from her. But, as with trying to escape, she might as well have not bothered. “I
will
scream, Cal. You know I will,” she threatened, only to have him look up at her with a grin so evil she knew that she was doomed.

“I
do
know – and that’s what I’m counting on. I used to love making you scream. Don’t you remember? Especially after I’d overcome all of your... objections, one by one and made you cum uncontrollably while I was doing it, even before I’d make you stretch yourself around my cock.”

Damn, she should never allow him to talk to her. She should never allow him to touch her. The problem was that, in their relationship, she had never been the one who was doing the
allowing
, and apparently, despite the fact that she was older and much more mature, basic things like that don’t change in a person.

He was her dominant and she was his submissive. Her body wouldn’t recognize him as anything
but
that. The hunger for him and the perfect way he’d treated her – in that vein – that she’d barely succeeded in suppressing even this many years later, flooded to the forefront. Her body demanded to be satisfied by the only man who seemed capable of doing so. He was the last man on the planet that she should want to touch her like that, and the last one, she would have thought, that would have been willing to do so.

But apparently she was wrong.

She was so intent on maintaining her hold on his wrist to stop him from discovering her nasty secret – that he’d probably just insult her about – that she didn’t even realize that she was being lifted up and carried again, this time into her bedroom. “No, Cal, stop!” she yelled, but too late.

He laid her down on the bed quite a bit more gently than she had expected him to, careful of her ankle as well as cradling her head until she was stretched out almost, but not quite beneath him. She still had a death grip on his wrist that he proceeded to completely ignore, slipping an enormous knee between hers. Again, he was careful that his big foot didn’t accidentally hurt her, while still making sure that she had to keep her legs open to him – and, injured as she was, she could really only fight against that one legged. But Ellie had a feeling that even twelve legs wouldn’t have helped her against his strength.

With one of her hands still wrapped around his wrist – the other arm uselessly pinned beneath him – and his eyes drinking in hers, he brought his hand up between her legs and it was as if she was wearing neither undies nor shorts.

He didn’t have to say it; she could see the naked triumph in his eyes as she closed hers against the look in his. Those knowing fingers rubbed gently but insistently over her, making her shudder with the force of the tidal wave of desire that nearly left her faint. And he was still touching her over her clothing!

Ellie’s hand released his as if it had been scalded, not wanting it to seem as if she was encouraging him or – heaven forbid – guiding him. He didn’t need any help, anyway. He knew her body better than she did, by far.

Her breath ragged, to her eternal shame, she tried again. “Cal, please, don’t—”

But at that moment he grew even bolder, slipping his hand under the elastic waistband of her shorts, slipping callused fingers beneath her panties at the same time. Slowly, very slowly, his fingers returned to claim that which he now knew was still his. He watched the heat rise in her face while she rolled her head back and forth on her pillow and whatever coherent, cogent words she was going to say turned into a groan so plaintive that it was very nearly over for him before it had really begun.

She was delightfully swollen and soft and he had to close his eyes for long seconds in order to try to regain some sort of control over himself. When he opened them again, she looked just as gorgeous as ever. Even more so than she had when she was younger, despite the sadness he saw in her eyes.

And who was to blame for that?
His conscience asked pointedly – which he had long since stopped listening to, but which never seemed to give up on him.

He intended to banish that sadness in the best way he knew how. He watched her closely as his let his middle finger find her first, cautiously skirting around her clit to follow that luscious path to paradise, elated to realize, when he found what he was looking for, that he was being drowned in her juices.

Dear God, she had thought many times when they were first together that she would never survive his lovemaking. But now she was absolutely certain she was going to die if he didn’t stop what he was doing – and just as certain that she was going to expire if he didn’t. Her heart was slamming against her ribcage, her breath was exploding out of her raggedly, her body wanted to offer itself to him in the most obscene manner. But at least she was able to stop herself from canting her hips to ease his access.

Barely. Just barely.

As he teased her entrance with the barest tip of his finger, she hissed at him and he chuckled. “Someone is impatient, hmmm?”

For the first time that evening, as he slid his middle finger into her and he felt the heated depths of her body tighten even further around it, he leaned down and took her lips, not asking, offering no apologies, not in supplication, but demanding that she yield to him, that she submit to him. His teeth nibbled at her lips when she tried to deny him, his spare hand finding a hold again in her hair, tugging her head back less than gently and taking full advantage, when she gasped, to plunge his tongue into her mouth to claim every bit of it that he could, tracing over her teeth and boldly caressing hers before beginning to echo the rhythm he was establishing with his finger.

Dear God, was she really going to let him do this to her? After what happened eight years ago? After what happened eight
hours
ago?

Her body’s unequivocal answer was,
Hell, yes!

No one had ever made her feel like he did, the undeniable proof of which was probably running down his wrist at this very moment. Besides, she’d already tried to stop him. It was like trying to stop a tank. 

Her mind whirred with the germ of an idea – not a good one, mind you, but an idea just the same. Two could play at this game.

She reached out with the only hand she had available. She tugged his shirt out of the waistband of his pants and undid the buttons, starting from the bottom. Then deliberately aiming high, she found his brick-outhouse-abs beneath his shirt. When Ellie laid her palm flat over the bare skin of his stomach, she got a bit of a reward – a deep groan against her mouth. And she wasn’t about to stop there. But instead of going high, she went low and unbuckled his belt, then undid the button and pried down the zipper of his pants, not even bothering to drag them down. She just peeled them away enough that she could reach in and cup him, over his underwear, giving him a firm squeeze that had him half moaning, half chuckling as he moved away enough to catch her eye.

“Holy—” His breath caught as she gave up fondling him over his briefs and slipped her hand beneath the waistband. She slid her hand – with the slightest, most teasing of touches – all the way down him and beyond, to cup his balls, and he sighed almost prayerfully, “—Mother of God!”

Ellie had to admit, it was certainly nice to know that she could affect him as much as he did her. 

But then he reached down to encircle her wrist with two fingers, bringing it above her head to be held by the hand that had been buried in her hair.