All the Little Lights
Page 82

Elliott waited until the front door closed before he spoke again. He shoved his hands into his jeans pocket. “Want some help?”
“Almost finished.” I stood, breathing hard, placing my hands on my hips and blowing a stray hair from my face.
He smiled. “You’re beautiful.”
I pressed my lips into a hard line, trying not to look as flattered as I felt. “You’re silly.”
“Aunt Leigh wants to know if you’ll come over for lunch.”
“Oh. Mrs. Mason has plans for us, I think.”
“Okay,” he said, unable to hide his disappointment.
“Her sister’s family is coming . . . I’m sure she won’t miss me.”
“Really?” He looked up.
“Want to see the room?”
“Your room?”
I grabbed his hand, feeling his large fingers between mine. “Not technically.”
We walked down the hall, and I pushed open the door. It was so much lighter than my bedroom door at the Juniper. Everything in the Masons’ house was lighter.
“Wow. Nice,” Elliott said, snapping a few pictures of me before sitting on the bed. He bounced a few times and then pushed down on the mattress. “How’d you sleep last night?” He pointed his camera around the room, taking pictures of things that seemed mundane to me but that he would somehow make interesting and beautiful.
“Okay.”
One side of his mouth turned up. “I was hoping you’d say that. It would really suck if you slept better without me.”
“Well, I don’t,” I said, sitting next to him. I rubbed my hands together.
“You cold?” he asked. Elliott pulled his hoodie over his head. His T-shirt came up a bit with it, exposing the bronze skin beneath.
The sweater swallowed me, but he stared at me like he looked at his favorite photographs. He lifted the camera, and I looked down, letting my hair fall in front of my face. He swept back the tawny curtain with one hand.
“Please?”
It took me a long time to answer. “Wait until I stop blushing.”
“I can edit that. But I’ll wait.”
As the heat began to subside from my face, I nodded, tensing when Elliott lifted the camera to his eye and turned the focus. After the first few clicks, it became easier, and I began to look into the lens as if I were looking at my boyfriend.
He stood, shooting me from different angles and sometimes taking shots of random items in the room. He bent over and stood close to my music box, snapping a picture, and then turned and captured me watching him with a smile on my face.
“Wow,” he said, peering into the display. “That’s the one.” He walked over to me, turning the camera.
“When did you get a digital camera?”
“It’s a graduation present from my mom. She’ll be back tonight.”
“Oh,” I said.
He sat next to me, chuckling. “She’s not that bad.”
“It’s just that I’m pretty sure she hates me. And now that you’re in all this trouble . . .”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Does she know that?”
“I’m sure Aunt Leigh has explained more than once.” The washing machine buzzed, and Elliott popped up. “I’ll get it.”
He disappeared for just a few minutes. “Darks drying. Lights in the wash.”
“You’re very nice,” I said.
He winked at me. “I finally get to hang out with you at home. I want to make sure you invite me back.”
My lips parted as I realized that what he said was true, and I covered my mouth.
He gently pulled my hand away and leaned down to kiss me, pressing the soft, plush lips I’d grown to love against mine.
Something about the way Elliott held me made me want him to hold me tighter, so I dug my fingers into his back. He reacted, cupping my face. He was tall and, yes, the size of an NFL football player, but his large hands were gentle. Elliott couldn’t have hurt Presley with them.
His tongue slipped inside my mouth, caressing mine, wet and warm. I hummed in satisfaction, lying on my back and bringing him with me.
His hands and the way his mouth moved were different. His pelvis settled between my thighs, and he moved against me, his jeans feeling rough and somehow erotic against my skin.
Elliott jerked as he kicked off his shoes, and then he reached over his head, pulling off his T-shirt. The skin of his back was soft and smooth, and I couldn’t help but run my hands from his shoulders to the two dimples at the small of his back.
His hand moved beneath the hoodie he let me borrow, touching my bare skin just above my hip, his thumb dipping just past the elastic band of my panties.
We kissed so much and for so long that my lips began to feel raw, but still, Elliott waited for me to let him know where I wanted to go and how far.
His jeans rubbed against me again as he touched his forehead to mine. “I have . . . you know,” he said, seeming out of breath.
The thought of condoms led me to realize he was talking about safe sex, pulling me out of the moment. I leaned away from him, looking down at his lips. “Oh.”
“That’s not why I came over, though. I’ve had it since the last we . . . you said we should have, and we should. So I got some. Just in case. But we don’t have to.”
It was painful to watch him stumble over the words, his mouth clumsy when seconds before his hands had been so sure.
I touched my index finger to his lips, leaning up to kiss him. His shoulders sagged. He already knew what I was going to say.
“Thank you for doing that. But not yet.”
He nodded, sitting up. “That’s fine. I don’t want you to feel rushed.”
“Good,” I said, pulling down the hoodie. “Because it can’t happen here.”
He kissed my forehead. “I’ll wait on the couch while you get dressed. Lunch is in an hour.” He padded across the room.
I stood. “I saw Mrs. Mason put the remote in the drawer of the end table,” I said before he closed the door.
“Thanks, babe.”
I crossed my arms over my middle, hugging myself and grinning from ear to ear. He’d never called me that before, and I didn’t know I was the kind of girl who would like that—actually, I was definitely not the kind of girl who would enjoy such things. But the sound of Elliott so casually loving me filled my entire body with an indescribable joy. I was giddy. Those two simple words made me feel euphoric.
I froze. All my clothes were in the laundry room. “Crap,” I hissed, reaching for the door.
Elliott knocked. “Catherine? Your clothes are dry.” He slipped a clothes basket into the small opening he’d made. “You can still wear my hoodie. It looks good on you.”
“Thanks, babe,” I said, feeling brave enough to try it out since he had. I took the basket, and he left an arm in, reaching for me. I took his hand, and he pulled my hand through the small opening and kissed it.
“I love you, Catherine Calhoun. No matter what happens, know that.”
His words felt like a sunrise, a sunset, a beautiful dream, waking from a nightmare. It was every wonderful moment balled into one. “I love you, too.”
“I know. That’s how I know everything is going to be all right.”
“I’ll get dressed, leave Mrs. Mason a note, and then we can go,” I said through the door. I slipped his hoodie on over my shirt that now smelled like Mrs. Mason’s bright house instead of the dark, dank Juniper.