Eliza heard the glass doors open behind her but ignored Craig as she continued her trek to her room, far away from him, as fast as her legs could carry her. He grabbed her arm and yanked her around.
She glared up at him, for the first time realizing the difference in their heights. He never used that to his advantage; Eliza wasn’t certain he did so now, either. The glare, the hot, angry glare he gave her, the way his lips twisted in the heartbeat before he spoke, the confusion mixed with the anger told her more about Craig Grant in those moments than in all the years previous.
“What the hell do you think this is?” he demanded.
“I know what the hell this is,” she shot back. She was angrier than she thought she had the right to be. “You’re the one who wants to make it something it’s not.”
His beautiful brown eyes narrowed, and he rocked back on his heels. “What are you talking about?”
Eliza’s eyes widened at his question, stunned. The very confused, very open question. “I can’t believe you’re asking me this,” she ground out.
She did not want to have this conversation with him. Not when betrayal beat through her, when he toyed with her like this. They were friends, recently friends with extremely sexy benefits, but still friends. And friends didn’t make fools of their friends.
Embarrassment heated her cheeks. Maybe she didn’t know him as well as she’d thought. Eliza tossed her head in indignation. “You really need me to educate you?” she demanded. “Fine.”
Taking a deep breath she leapt in with both feet, her eyes wide open. “This was a fling, friends with benefits.” She gave voice to her thoughts, but the words sounded tawdry when said aloud. “A bet I decided to lose, nothing more.”
Craig’s eyes still narrowed, his hands curled at his sides in loose fists. He radiated anger and confusion, but mostly anger. He stepped forward, just a little closer. “Why?”
“What do you mean, why?” she asked, still clinging to indignation. “You need a laundry list?”
She cleared her throat and stepped back. A little room, a little distance between them. “I know you and I know you have to change accessories in your bed fairly often. And I don’t want to be with somebody who’s constantly looking for the next best thing. I gave you this time so we could have fun, enjoy each other. But I don’t think this should turn into anything else. It needs to be just these few days, just this week, because I need to find somebody who wants me.”
Eliza paused, breathing heavily now. Insecurities and resentment, and even anger at herself for giving in, were battling each other. “All of me,” she added. “And who is satisfied.”
“You have a pretty low opinion of me, don’t you, Eliza?” Craig raised an eyebrow, the nonchalant playboy at the fore.
But Eliza heard the hurt in his voice, the wounded-ness he tried to hide. Had she imagined that? Wanted to hear it? Wanted him to be wounded, to be hurt, because it’d make her feel better?
“I thought we were better friends,” he added.
No, she hadn’t imagined the hurt behind the words. She stepped closer then stopped. She couldn’t touch him, uncertain what she’d do, or say, if she did.
“We are friends,” she said in a husky voice she barely recognized. “And that’s why I know you so well. A girl’s got to protect herself, Craig.”
His hand rose, as if to touch her. As if to cup her face, caress her cheek like a true lover would. Eliza’s heart stumbled over itself, and she forgot how to breathe.
“You don’t have to protect yourself from me,” Craig said softly. “Because clearly you don’t know me that well. I didn’t challenge you because I was bored, Eliza. I challenged you because I wanted you to stop looking in the wrong places for a guy who wanted you when there was one right in front of you.”
A band tightened around her chest. It squeezed and tightened until she needed to step back in a desperate bid for air. She didn’t know what to do or say, didn’t know to react. Her heart pounded painfully as Craig’s words raced round and round in her head.
“What the hell are you saying?” she managed.
“When was the last time you saw me with a woman on my arm?” Craig asked. “That wasn’t you?”
Eliza opened her mouth to answer but then realized she didn’t know the answer to that.
“When was the last time you were alone on a Friday night?” he asked. “And you didn’t have a date with another guy?”
She licked her lips as that answer, also, sprang immediately to mind. And it wasn’t the answer she’d expected.
“I might not have realized it myself,” he admitted ruefully in the silence of her stunned acceptance, “but I always gravitated toward one woman.” He raised a hand, and now he did caress her cheek. “You.”
Eliza released her breath in a long sigh. She swallowed and shook her head and scrambled for footing, to inject a note of reason into her tone. She wasn’t certain she succeeded. “That doesn’t mean anything, Craig. It just means we’re friends.”
“Why doesn’t it mean we can’t try something else?” he asked, still rational and logical.
She wanted to rage at him, wanted to prove him wrong, but couldn’t even muster the energy to do so. Eliza studied him for long, silent moments. He looked so open, but that openness made no sense. Not to her. Not in this situation.
“Because I know better,” she admitted in a quiet voice. “I wish I didn’t know better, but I do. This isn’t going to work between us,” she said with a smile to ease the tension tightening through her and between them. “We’d kill each other.”
Craig dropped his hand from her face and pinched the bridge of his nose. Shaking his head, exasperation coloring his tone, he said, “Or maybe we’d have a lot of fun while we figured everything out.”
“I don’t want to take that chance, Craig.” She nodded but wasn’t sure why. “Yeah, we had a lot of fun these last few days. But it was a spring fling in the Hamptons. I thought when we got back to the city, we could snap back to normal.”
Her mouth was dry and it hurt to breathe. But Eliza couldn’t tear her gaze from Craig’s, and she couldn’t move.
“Don’t be scared, Eliza,” Craig said in the softest, most reasonable voice she’d ever heard from him. It gave her goose bumps and made butterflies flutter in her stomach. “There’s more to both of us than what’s on the surface.”
“I don’t think there is,” she said on a breath of laughter.
He smirked down at her, his head tilted. He didn’t touch her again, and she confused herself by wanting to feel his hand on her cheek. Skin to skin.
“There is,” he said with that half-smile, half-smirk. “Why are you so afraid of trying this?” he asked. Still quiet. Still soft. No doubt still expecting her to explode. Or run.
“You’ve tried it with other men. Including,” he added with a twist of his lips, “married ones.”
“And you know how that ended,” she shot back, but it lacked some of the bite she expected. “You don’t let me forget it. Craig,” she began slowly, “this is worse than those other times. Worse than Mr. Jerk Married Ex, worse than that architect, and way worse than that hot bartender. They might have all been infantile idiots, but they…couldn’t hurt me the way you can.”
Oh, wow, that confession scraped across her nerves and burned her throat. She needed to get away.
“And there’s only one woman on the face of this earth who can tear me in two.” He stopped, his lips pressed hard together as if to halt his next words. Craig took a deep breath and Eliza watched some of the anger leave him.
“I can’t guarantee anything,” Craig said softly, and Eliza wondered if he said that as much to her as he did to himself. “Life is life. But I want you. I want you in my life and I want you to be part of it. Come on.” He grinned now, that slow grin that seemed designed solely to heat her blood. His words were still quiet, but held that undeniable ring of honesty in them. “You can’t deny we’re good together.”
He took an infinitesimal step closer. “You can’t deny how we fit.”
Eliza raised an eyebrow but couldn’t find the words to deny his. Or to call him on the smooth talker in him.
He leaned down and kissed her, a slow, gentle brush of lips, a slow build of passion that simmered just beneath the surface. When Craig pulled back, Eliza had to blink up at him. Confused, lost in his kiss, she struggled for control, to grasp that control back. But her legs were shaky and her heart beat unsteadily in her chest, so unsure.
“Don’t be afraid.”
And then he kissed her again. Deeper than before, his tongue slipping against hers, drawing that passion from a simmer straight to a boil. It sparked along her nerves and tingled through her until Eliza forgot all the reasons kissing Craig would only lead to heartache.
Or maybe she kicked those reasons to the curb. Even though she wasn’t wholly convinced by Craig, her body seemed to want something else. Something more.
Because there was nothing on Earth like kissing Craig, Eliza decided. He drew her close and pressed into her, soft and passionate as he deepened the kiss even further. She heard a whimper and knew it was from her. Opening fully to him, Eliza wrapped her arms around Craig.
He walked her backward in a leisurely dance, their bodies pressed together, still kissing in that hurried, gentle way that burned through her and made her crave more.
It took Eliza a moment to realize he led her out of the living room, to his bedroom; when she did realize, she was glad. She’d already made love to him on the living room floor once today. Right now, she wanted to take her time. Wanted to taste him, feel him move slowly inside her, each kiss stretched out.
She pushed all her doubts away. The little voice whispering in her ear about how this wasn’t real, a profoundly bad idea. Eliza didn’t want doubts; she didn’t want the uncertainties that seemed to plague her relationship with Craig.
She simply wanted the perfect physical release of having Craig.
Upstairs, on his bed, she lay over him. Kissing down his chest, she felt his hands on her hips, holding her steady, and shivered at the feel. One touch from Craig was enough to make her forget even her own name. Forget her hesitations about this relationship with him.
The more this happened between them, the more often they made love, the more she’d hurt when it was all over. Eliza wanted to believe she could be that hardened New York woman who jumped into a fling with one of her best friends only to walk away. Unscathed.
Now, Eliza was unsure if she was that woman anymore.
She didn’t know what was happening or why she let Craig convince her continuing this between them was a good idea. Her body definitely wanted him. But her mind demanded to know what the hell she was doing.
This couldn’t end well.
But those thoughts were for when she wasn’t currently kissing down his chest, when she wasn’t tasting the salt on his skin or feeling his muscles react to her touch. When his hands weren’t cupping her breasts. He smelled of sex and rain, and she breathed deeply of the scent. It made her shiver in arousal even as she cupped his cock, stroking his hardness.
“Eliza.” Her name sounded like a harsh plea.
Grinning, she moved to lie beside Craig. Eliza stretched to the nightstand and reached for a condom. She heard his muffled groan even as he leaned forward and kissed her breasts, taking one aching nipple into his mouth and tasting it. She whimpered and clenched the condom in her hand even as she held him close.
Slinging a leg over his hips, she rolled the condom on and took him once more in her hand. In the dim light of the storm, Eliza only saw Craig. If she didn’t want him so much, if she didn’t crave him so much, she wouldn’t have given into his kiss and allowed this to happen again. But then Craig cupped her cheek and kissed her with that slow, drawn-out kiss, and it didn’t matter.
Eliza guided him into her and gasped against his mouth once he was fully seated. She was close, so close. Craig rolled her onto her back, rose above her, and moved. He leaned down and kissed her with every thrust, her arousal building and building until she thought she’d explode from it.
Her hands dug into the bedding, but she knew that faint anchor wouldn’t be enough. She didn’t want it to be, wanting to crash and fall into this pleasure with Craig.
His eyes on hers, he moved harder, faster, and before Eliza could prepare, his fingers found her and she did explode. She cried out, her legs locked around him and hips grinding against his as her climax tore through her.
Eliza felt Craig, his thrusts erratic as he sought his own climax, and when he came, when he groaned her name, his teeth biting down on her shoulder, she held him close.