Ex-Daredevil by Zoe Lee

Chapter 21

Eliott

Monday morning was a relentless shitshow with one of my other cases, and so I didn’t have time to be excited or nervous about that afternoon’s meeting with Gavin until about ten minutes before he was due to arrive. Barley’s case was moving along smoothly, which I was both pleased about in the way that it meant things would be fair and still serve Barley’s interests, but also meant it wasn’t a challenge. If it weren’t for getting to see Gavin even more often because of the case, I would have been annoyed about its smoothness.

So when I suddenly had those ten minutes to prepare, I sat at my desk and concentrated on keeping my body under my control. I did it, but it was difficult. Our date over the weekend had been… more than I’d ever imagined one could be with him. I hadn’t gone out with anyone in a long time, too focused on work and feeling content enough between that and spending time with my friends. But Gavin was irresistible, sexy and smarter than I’d first gauged him to be. He had layers and little contradictions. There were pockets that seemed like shyness or like he wasn’t sure what was and wasn’t allowed, ones I assumed stemmed from his inexperience with real dating, versus casual hookups.

The idea shouldn’t have appealed as much as it did; while I believed that first experiences are powerful and formative, I didn’t have any fantasies or kinks about being someone’s first anything. With Gavin, it was more like his willingness to tiptoe into new territory for him made me proud that somehow I’d been the one to inspire him to do so.

The quick knock and the sound of my office door opening had me standing up fast.

“Hi, Gavin,” I said, coming around the desk.

But an impish smile or a teasing comment on my suit didn’t come.

He slid his messenger bag off his shoulders, holding it over his torso like a shield.

Unprepared, I stepped back awkwardly and ran one hand through my hair, covering it by asking like he was any other guest, “Would you like something to drink? Soda, coffee?”

“No thank you,” he said.

His tone was almost stiff and my brows knit as I got myself a bottle of water and wrenched off the lid, drinking half of it in an attempt to cure my suddenly dry mouth.

“How are you?” I tried.

“I’m actually really busy today,” he said. “I’m hoping we can get everything wrapped up in thirty minutes today, I have a million things left to do after this, so…”

Now I was hurt, so my response was a curt, “If that’s what you need, certainly.”

I sat down in my chair, woke up my computer, and brusquely began to go through the list of items we needed to discuss. If I was brusque, he treated me as though I were simply his boss’s lawyer, every answer concise and helpful, but there was no teasing, and he barely looked up at me so I couldn’t read what was in his stunning purple eyes at all.

When we were done, in only twenty-five minutes, he began to pack up.

Confused, but now also supremely irritated, I stood up and paced towards him.

He looked over at me, those eyes finally directly aimed at me.

“What’s going on?” I demanded bluntly.

“What do you mean?” he hedged, slinging his messenger bag over his head and across his body, then pulling his braid out from beneath it.

“I—” I hated this feeling, suddenly feeling young and like I’d been slapped by his distance. “I had such a good time over the weekend, after the ballet…” My throat closed and I felt like an idiot when he didn’t leap to reassure me. I stumbled on, “Did you not…”

His face twisted up and he swallowed hard, his fingers twitching where they strangled his bag strap over his ribs. I was watching him so closely, looking at every flicker of his eyes, but I couldn’t figure out what was happening, my heart sinking. “Look, it’s just that, I—”

“Never mind.” I exhaled harshly and whirled away, pacing back to my desk. I stood behind it, laid my hands on its cool surface deliberately and leaned into them. “I suppose you don’t owe me anything but common courtesy, even after… So if you don’t want to be here, don’t want to be honest or answer a simple fucking question, then just go already.”

This room, this tense, indecipherable moment, was the last place I wanted to be.

But I forced myself to hold eye contact with him. His expression fractured, his purple eyes dimming so they looked like an ordinary brown, and his slim shoulders slumped.

“Eliott.”

My name cracked on his lips.

“I’m a grown man, if I did something wrong and you don’t want to see me again—”

“No!” he shouted, startling me so badly that I bit my tongue, the faint taste of iron coating the inside of my mouth. “No,” he repeated just as vehemently, but much quieter.

His lips folded into his mouth, disappearing into a faint line of darker pink, then he walked determinately to the other side of my desk. His thighs pressed into the edge of it. His hands loosened their grip before he put them on my desk, his pose mirroring mine.

“If you think I didn’t love every second of this weekend, then you’re a fucking idiot,” he declared, his eyes flaring back to life. The disparaging tone and the fire behind it came as a scalding relief, sounding like the Gavin I knew. His face sharpened into mulish lines. “I just—I just walked in here and you look so sophisticated and perfect, and I was feeling all nervous like some stupid teenager, which is dumb after the weekend. Or maybe I’m so nervous because of this weekend, I’ve never really… felt like this before. So I thought, like, instead of just talking to you, I’ll play it cool and be as sophisticated as you, and then—”

“You’re the fucking idiot,” I hissed. “It’s taken all of my focus not to gush about how much I loved our weekend, being with you. I’m sorry if my focusing face looks… aloof.”

“‘Aloof.’ You and your fancy words. You mean bitchy.”

A laugh barked out of me at that and I shook my head, one of my hands sliding to reach for his braid and twine it around my hand and wrist, for once not worried that someone outside my office might see us.

“I’m nervous too, you know,” I murmured as we both watched his purple-streaked hair coil around me like a snake. “It’s been a long time since I dated someone, and I don’t even know if you think this is dating, let alone…”

“I want it to be,” he rushed out. “The weekend was great, but then after I left, I just thought, I have no idea what I’m doing, I have no idea what you’re thinking, and then you—”

I cupped his jaw and flicked my tongue over his lips before I dipped into his mouth to flirt with his tongue, regaining my balance.

“I do, too, Gavin,” I promised, so relieved, because this weekend had been wonderful and intense and had my heart thumping. “I want this to be serious, and I’ve been tiptoeing around it because I was worried you weren’t there yet, if you’d ever be. I should’ve been clearer about how much I want this, with you.”

“I don’t even know what seriously dating means.”

If he hadn’t sounded so frustrated, I would have been a little offended by that. “We’ve been dating since the night you met me at the bar, in my opinion,” I said steadily. “I’m not seeing anyone else, not talking or texting anyone else. You’re the only one I’m interested in.”

“Okay,” he said with a little hitch. “Me, too. I mean, I’m not seeing anyone else either.”

“That’s good, because I’m monogamous,” I told him, “just to be perfectly clear.”

“I, uh, I went on a date, before I met you at the bar that night,” he admitted with a wince. “But I was just thinking about you, so I cut it short and called you. And…”

He tapped his thumb on my desk, so I nudged it with mine. “And?”

“And in the spirit of being perfectly clear… I haven’t slept with anyone else since a while before our diner hookup,” he said, acting like he was afraid I’d think it was weird.

“Same. Is it silly if that makes me really relieved?” I whispered with a little smile.

With an almost shy smile, he said, “Yeah, a little, but it’s kind of hot too.” But then his expression flickered and he demanded, “Wait, what about you? What about three date guy?”

“Oh my god, I did not sleep with three date guy!” I exclaimed, rolling my eyes.

He brought our mouths together again, this time with his typical assuredness and exhilaration, and I absorbed it and let it heal the sting of our first miscommunication. He kept kissing me through that, until I was sucking in quick, desperate pants between kisses, until I was assured and exhilarated too, until I was straining across my desk to get closer.

“Now I really might be late,” he said, finally pulling back reluctantly.

I slowly unwound his braid from my hand and wrist, so unready to stop touching him yet, and stole another hard, deep kiss before I released him completely.

“Go,” I rasped.

He backed up, almost flipping backwards over the chair he’d been sitting in during the meeting, and his grin was as devilish and delighted as it had ever been. “I’ll call you later?”

“Anytime after ten, I’m meeting my mom and one of my sisters for drinks tonight.”

“Ooh, tipsy Eliott,” he teased, blowing me a kiss before he sashayed out of my office.

I wandered out in a daze and found Mia with her chin cupped in her hands, her thin eyebrows lifted high. “Good thing he’s not a client,” she said, and I winced and opened to my mouth to apologize profusely for my unprofessionalism. But then she added with a smile, “Because if he was a client, then you could get in trouble for dating him, and I’d hate that.”

“I’d have to quit,” I mumbled.

Her mouth fell open and I realized that it was probably the first truly personal thing I’d ever said to her, which was uncomfortable and humbling, because we’d worked together for years. “I’d hate that even more, Eliott,” she said firmly. “You’re the best boss I’ve had.”

“Oh.” My shoulders dropped from where they’d been creeping up. “I like you too, Mia.”

“Now you better get back to work so you can finish on time and go have a life.”

That was more like the Mia I’d known before today, so I smiled and agreed, “I’d better.”