Ellie found James curled up at the bottom of the stairs. It should have been hilarious to see a man that big—all bulging muscles and hard edges—curled up and trying to sleep on one stair, but somehow, it wasn’t funny at all. Somehow, it was just sad.
“Come on, big boy,” she said, leaning over to get him up. “Time to find your bed.”
James groaned but helped her help him up the stairs. He half-led her, half-leaned on her past several doorways until they arrived at a large room in the back of the house. Of course, two of the four walls were windows and Ellie caught glimpses of the ocean through the dark night. The house was fricking amazing, even if it did have months’ worth of trash and laundry and who knew what else piled everywhere.
James wandered over to the king-sized bed and fell face down onto it. With a sigh, Ellie put her hands on her hips and shook her head before sliding his shoes off his feet.
She dropped them onto the hardwood floors. “Let’s get you all the way into bed. Roll over for me.” She reached up and grabbed a shoulder, pulling gently.
James responded by rolling over and pulling her down on top of him. His mouth crushed hers, his tongue pushing past her lips as if he’d been invited. He ran a hand up her side and cupped her breast. He tasted of liquor and the stubble of his beard raked across her face. His touch was rough as he mauled her breast, and still she felt warmth pool between her legs.
When he pulled her closer, she didn't pull away.
Not at first. Because, no matter how completely wrong all of it was, how totally sure her brain was that doing anything with James that night would be a huge mistake, her body was completely and utterly fine with what was happening.
She kissed him back. Ran her hand up his strong arms, feeling the cords of muscles tighten and bunch under her fingers. She opened her mouth and invited him to deepen the kiss and for a few magnificent moments, the only sounds in the room were a mix of their breathing, the hiss of the sheets, the roar of the ocean, and the pounding of her heart. His hand slid under her shirt and his calloused skin grated across her ribs as his drink-numbed fingers fiddled with the clasp on her bra.
For whatever reason, that knocked the sense back into her. “No.” She pulled out of his arms. “James. Not like this.”
She would have liked him to protest. Would have liked him to give her a reason to succumb to her body’s desire to make that mistake with him. It wouldn’t have taken much. Just one little grunt would have done the trick.
But James didn’t protest. He didn’t say anything, really. At least nothing she could make sense of. He cleared his throat and curled up, eyes already rolling closed.
Heart still pounding and lips still raw from his kiss, Ellie pulled the covers over him and wandered downstairs. She dug a pen out of her purse and found a piece of paper. With just a few words, she left James a note explaining how he got home and that his bike was still at the bar. Then she cleared a big clean space on the counter and put the note in the middle next to his keys. There was no way he could miss that in the morning.
Finally, still unable to let go of the kiss…
…still half wishing she’d gone ahead with the mistake of sleeping with him…
…Ellie let herself out of James’ house and drove home.
Chapter Four
Ellie
Alarms sucked. Especially alarms set for four in the morning. But alarms that went off at four in the morning after you’d been out way past your bedtime? Those were just plain awful.
Ellie fumbled for her phone, desperate to stop that god-awful noise, then pushed herself into a sitting position. Her head hurt and her eyes were blurry, but she’d known the morning would be hard when she agreed to go out in the first place.
Good Beginnings opened at six. Every morning. Without fail.
When she’d agreed to meet the guy who never showed the night before, she planned to either use work as an excuse if things went badly, or be resigned to a hard morning if things went well. She wasn’t sure how to classify the way things went the night before other than, it had been interesting. Things had been very interesting, indeed.
She took a quick shower and squeezed her hair dry. One of the great things about curly hair was that it didn’t take as long to get ready in the morning. Just a few quick squeezes with her towel and the humid South Carolina air would take care of the rest. And the time she saved on her hair, she spent on her makeup. She liked feeling pretty and nothing made her feel better than some extra time in the mirror, doing her best to look fresh and natural.
By the time her ‘time to leave’ alarm went off, Ellie felt much more awake, though she was fighting a small headache. Small price to pay for getting to make out with James fricking Moore!
Had that really happened?
Like, was that really a thing she could put on her list of Things I’ve Done?
Heck yeah, it happened!
She replayed the memory of being stretched out across him, in his bed, his lips on hers, his hands all over her body and it felt really, really good.
“Can’t believe I didn’t go through with it,” she whispered as she let herself into the café and flicked on a few lights. She got
