I hear the front door slam and begin thinking that maybe Jackson’s said something to piss off Holly before they’ve even made it out of town. The lights are on and the bathroom door is closed, but I haven’t bothered to lock it because I knew no one would be home before I’d begun pruning. I’m halfway considering standing up and scooting out of the bath to flip the lock in case an axe murder’s just walked through my front door when the bathroom door flings back on its hinges and Elijah comes striding in, angrier than a red-bellied black snake. He immediately begins toeing off his boots and socks. His back is to me as he lifts his shirt over his head and he hasn’t even noticed that the room is otherwise occupied.

I’m torn between watching the show and stopping him from shedding his remaining clothing when I feel a cough sneak out my throat, spoiling all my fun.

Elijah whirls around. “Shit, I’m sorry. I thought you were out.”

“Is that why you’re in such a bad mood, or did your Girl Friday call and cancel your date?”

“Girl Friday?” he asks, and both his dimples pop out. He’s holding his hand against his chest, which I guess isn’t all that odd, considering I did just scare him half to death. He takes a moment to drink in my body stretched out in the tub. I know he can’t see much on account of the half bottle of bubble bath I poured in but that doesn’t stop his mind from wandering. I know because I can see it in his eyes. “Where’s Jack and Holly?

“He took her cranky, pregnant arse out to a movie.”

“Like a date?”

“Honestly? I don’t know. I don’t ask any more. Holly and Jack are complicated.”

“Well, if anyone knows complicated, it’s you and me.” He laughs and runs his hand over the back of his neck and his newly cropped hair, which I think he is growing out again after I told him women like something to hold onto when they come. Hey, don’t judge me; I’d just consumed half a bottle of Johnnie Walker when he’d asked what I thought of his new cut.

“True.” I smile up at him.

“I’ll, ah … I’ll leave you to it,” Elijah says and turns to leave.

“You can take a shower if you want to. It’s nothing either of us hasn’t seen before.”

“Maybe so, but that doesn’t mean I’ll have the restraint to keep my eyes from wandering and my hands to myself.”

“Elijah, take a goddamn shower.”

“Still just as bossy as ever, I see.”

“Ha! I’m worse now than I ever was.”

“Alright, if you insist,” he says, and makes a move to undo his jeans but catches me staring and straightens up. “You keep looking at me like you want a taste, baby girl, and I’m not gonna lie, I’m gonna let you have it.”

My gaze shoots up to his smouldering one and I quickly avert my eyes. “Sorry. Old habits die hard, I guess.”

“Yeah, no shit,” he replies as his eyes trail over my pink flesh. He breathes deeply and turns around to remove his jeans and slip into the spray of the shower, which is situated directly in my line of sight. The clear glass does nothing to hinder my view of the hot water cascading down over Elijah’s perfect bum. He keeps his body turned away from me as he lathers and rinses and then he stands beneath the spray with his hands against the tile and his head bowed.

I could live a thousand lives and never forget the way he looks, the way it feels when his large, powerful body engulfs mine, the way I feel about him. All of him. Not just the good, but the bad too. I miss his hands on my body, I miss his mouth claiming mine with his own. I miss touching him and being touched and for once, my need to be claimed by him, completely, overrides the caution I have in my heart.

The desire to touch him is so great I don’t give myself a chance to second guess it as I quietly rise from the water and pad over to the shower. Opening the door, I step into the steam filled cubicle covered neck to toes in bubbles.

I see the moment that Elijah emerges from inside his own head and realises he is no longer alone. His shoulders stiffen, his head rises and he slowly turns to face me.

“Ana?”

Shock quickly turns to desire as his eyes slide over me and he wets his lips like he wants a taste too. I place my hands on his chest and push him back against the tiles. He places his too-large hand over mine and holds it to his chest. The skin beneath my palm feels hot and slightly raised. I begin to pull my hand away but he pushes it harder against his flesh, like he doesn’t want me to look.

“Let me see,” I say and when he shakes his head no, I plead.

Elijah closes his eyes and removes his hand. On his left pectoral is a new tattoo. Where there used to be a gothic graveyard scene with his sister’s name now sits an intricate antique-looking compass emblazoned right over his heart, but instead of sporting the traditional North, East, South, West icons a simple cursive A is written at each of the compass points. Beneath it are the words: “Conscience is a Man’s Compass”.

Holy shit! Was he saying that I was his moral compass?

I tear my eyes off the beautiful tattoo—and it is beautiful, not just the sentiment behind it but the artwork, too. “When did you get this?”

“We finished the last of it tonight.” He looks down at me, like he’s expecting me to freak out. Instead I trace my fingers over the lettering with a wistful smile. “You didn’t wonder where I was going every Friday night?”

“I wondered. I just didn’t think it was my place to ask.”

“Ana, there isn’t a single thing you could ask of me that I would refuse.” He smiles down at me and my heart just about leaps out of my chest. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

I didn’t actually, but I don’t doubt his sincerity now as he says it.

“I love you,” I blurt out, and for the first time, I feel vulnerable telling him that. Since he got out all I’ve done is try to shove him into a box he never fit in to begin with. Elijah was never my friend. Someone that you love and desire that much could never be just a friend. It was stupid of me to believe we could be anything less than this.

“I know,” he says, and his face lights up with the admission. He brings his lips down on mine and lifts me so that I have no choice but to wrap my legs around his waist. I can feel the length of him pressed against my belly and it starts a heat unfurling again in my core, seeking him out, calling out to the fire within him.

“I want inside you so fucking bad, baby.”

“I want that, too. I’m just … scared,” I mutter.

Elijah cocks his head back to look at me. “Of me?”

I shake my head. “Of the pain. I’m terrified, actually.”

“I promise you, baby girl, it’s not going to hurt. I’m gonna kiss you all over and then I’m going to eat you out until you’re screaming my name, and then I’m going to do what I should have done the day we met and make that beautiful pussy mine.” He grasps the nape of my neck, and kisses the space below my ear that drives me crazy. “Okay?”

His lips keep up their wonderful assault on me and I can only nod my acquiescence, and then he’s shutting the water off and carrying me into my bedroom without bothering to dry us off.

He lays me down on the bed and covers me with his body. His lips seal over mine, his tongue gently coaxing. There’s none of the brutality that usually comes with the two of us clawing at one another in an effort to get closer, and I think I understand why now. Because now there’s nothing between us, there’s nothing holding us back, all our cards have been laid on the table and there are no more secrets. There’s also no more fear. Just love and desire and an aching need to fill one another up.

Elijah intensifies the kiss and I fall willingly into him, into moulding my body to his. I can feel his heartbeat echoing my own, a steady pounding rhythm that reverberates throughout my entire body and centres itself in the core of me.

I moan into his mouth and he answers back by easing himself away from my lips to stare down at me. His big hands smooth the hair back from my head and he places a gentle kiss to my nose before kissing a wet trail from my throat to my breasts. He sucks a nipple into his mouth and pleasure arcs through me. I moan and he ceases sucking long enough to smile up at me. “You like that baby girl?”

I nod. “I love anything that involves your mouth.”

“Well, isn’t that a nice coincidence? I fucking love using my mouth,” he chuckles, and trails that perfect mouth down over my stomach, coming to a stop over my pubic bone where he places a series of gentle kisses before darting his tongue out to tease my clit. He settles himself between my legs and gently licks and sucks all around my lips, avoiding the one spot where I need to have him.

“Please, Elijah?” I beg, “I need to feel you on me.”

He groans and lowers his head to my mound, gently prying apart my lips. His tongue darts out once as his eyes meet mine up the length of my body. “I’m gonna take real good care of you, baby girl.”

And then he begins laving at my clit, suckling and stroking and I feel my insides quicken. He eases one finger inside and then another, and begins working them the way he did that night in the lounge room and my brain goes into meltdown, though the desperate need to come is suddenly replaced with the urgency of having more of him inside me, around me, driving us both toward release.

“Elijah please?” I beg, unable to stand the wait any longer. I’ve been waiting for this moment since the day we met, and now that he finally gets a green light he wants to dick around? “I can’t wait any longer. I need to feel you inside me.”

“Fuck me, Ana. Do you have any idea what you do to me when you beg?”