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If nothing else came from this tragedy, maybe she could finally be brave enough to shake off the shackles of her mother’s opinion and live her own life. It occurred to her now to wonder if Kim had had any regrets, things she wished she might have done differently. Surely, she had. Everyone did. But Eloise had the chance to change things. To make different choices for herself before it was too late. She wanted to grab that chance and she thought she owed it to Kim’s memory to live her life as fully as possible.
Eloise lingered on the walk back to the office, her mind full of possibilities. She wanted to forge a future separate from her mother’s expectations, mend her relationship with Sarah and Chloe, find out what part Ethan wanted to play in the rest of her life.
As Sun Valley loomed into view with its glass front and neatly manicured landscaping, she realized she also wanted a different job. Something that didn’t fill her with dread and lay like a dark cloud over every other aspect of her days. She had devoted so much time to this path that she wasn’t sure what else she’d be qualified to do, but she had a lifetime to figure it out.
Until then, she’d keep the secret close to her heart, an impossible fantasy that she was certain she could move into the realm of possibility if she just put her mind to it.
One day she wouldn’t have to walk up this sidewalk and imagine Kim’s body the way it had been when she’d found it. No more sexist coworkers. No more numbers to tally or papers to file. No more silent elevator rides or high heeled shoes.
She’d start looking at options and putting together a plan.
* * *
“You told off your mom?”
Ethan sounded impressed but Eloise couldn’t see his face as he stood behind her in the shower and rubbed shampoo into her scalp so she couldn’t be sure. “Not exactly, but I did make a few very pointed comments.”
“Little rebel.” He was laughing at her, but she didn’t mind. “What did she say?”
“She did a lot of indignant sputtering and then I hung up.” Even hours later, it still felt like a dream. She had never hung up on her mother before and she’d also refused to answer the series of increasingly outraged calls and texts Deborah had sent throughout the afternoon. “It felt great.”
“I’m sure it did.” He had finished with the shampoo and moved on to nibbling at her neck, leaving her hair piled high in a sudsy mess on top of her head.
“You have to let me rinse. I taste all soapy.”
“You taste amazing.”
“Clean bodies first, dirty thoughts later.” She’d developed a sort of mantra for their showers, a reminder that often went unheeded as he pinned her to the shower wall with his head between her thighs.
“You like my dirty thoughts.”
“I never said I didn’t, but I’d like a clean smelling man in my bed tonight.”
He grinned and handed her the soap, a clear challenge in his lifted brow. “I’ll let you make me as clean as you want me.”
“We’ll see.”
She washed him slowly, rubbing suds into the skin of his shoulders and his neck before working down across his chest and stomach. The muscles flexed under her touch and his cock was already hard and jutting toward her, but she ignored it. She cleaned his legs and feet one at a time, crouching low and peering up into his eyes with her best sexy smirk.
“Turn around.”
He turned toward the back wall of the shower and let her rub soap over the backs of his legs and each firm ass cheek. He was ticklish at the sides, just above the hips, and she took extra time there to torment him before moving on. There would be a price for that later, and she knew he was probably already thinking up ways to torment her in return, but she felt powerful watching him jump and struggle to remain still under her caress.
She turned her attention to the broad expanse of his back, up his spine and toward his shoulder blades, where the unmarked skin met the tattoos from his arms. She’d spent hours learning the lines and colors from the shoulder down, but far less than that on the ones this far back.
There was a skull just behind his right arm with a snake curled around the bottom and across from that, behind his left, a cracked 8 ball ...
The bar logo, she remembered. That must have been why it had seemed so familiar to her the day they’d visited Dylan at the bar.
“I never looked at this one so closely. This is from the bar, right?.”
“Hmm?” She tapped the tattoo when he glanced back at her curiously. “Oh, yeah. I designed the logo when Dylan took over. He wanted to rename it, so it had less association with his dad.”
“Right.” That made sense and some little sliver of tension she’d been holding slipped away now that she’d placed the familiarity of the image from that day. “It’s clever.”
“I’m very clever.” He turned around and caught her in a soapy hug, pulling her beneath the spray as she squealed and cursed and tried futilely not to get shampoo in her eyes.
“Ethan!”
