Embracing Ellie: Chapter 26

She’d been had. Swindled. Taken advantage of.

Hemi had tricked her and fled in the night, leaving her in the cold aftermath of a misapprehensive infidelity. A real infidelity.

And now her beloved husband was here—his life shattered—the man she loved seeing his wife in flagrante delicto, naked in another man’s bed.

A cold ball of iron dread formed near her heart. Shame and fear cast her into bottomless terror. Not that she’d been tricked—but that she’d harmed Danny.

She gathered all the surrounding bedding, drew her naked feet under its protection, and wished there were enough material to cover what she’d done—what Hemi had tricked her into doing. There wasn’t. Even if the bedding stretched from corner to corner and cocooned her to suffocation, it wouldn’t be enough.

“Danny,” she whispered. “Danny, he . . . he told me . . . ”

Her scalp went hot and damp; fear widened her eyes. Her voice was tight, but still breathy and pleading.

Danny stepped closer to the foot of the bed, and pale light from the kitchen showed his face. His eyes were narrowed in scrutiny and confusion. He put up his hands in a placating gesture.

Hemi hadn’t done this only to her. He’d done it to poor Danny.

She said, “He . . . tricked me.”

There was movement on his left, and Danny noticed—his narrowed eyes swaying away from her and out of the bedroom. Now she heard a noise, like something heavy dropping to the floor from a low height. Footsteps then—the light from the kitchen broken up by movement.

Hemi appeared in the doorway, lugging a heavy bag, the strap over his shoulder. He was dressed in a flannel shirt and faded jeans. He stepped into the room, pausing when he saw her and Danny engaged in an emotional interplay. He raised his eyebrows, saying nothing, but his expression wondered if he was interrupting.

Danny said to him, “She said you tricked her.”

Hemi smiled, slung the bag off his shoulder, and set it on the floor by the bed. “Tricked her how?”

Danny looked at her. “Tricked you how?”

With the bedding wrapped around her, just her hot-cheeked face showing, she sat up higher and rested her back on the headboard, trying to make sense of her awakening. “What’s going on?”

Hemi and Danny regarded each other, then Hemi turned his face to her. He nodded toward Danny, saying, “Look who’s here.”

When she said nothing, Hemi raised his eyebrows and turned away, saying to Danny, “One last bag, yeah?”

“Thanks, Hemi,” Danny said.

When Hemi was gone, she lowered her bedding cowl and frowned at Danny. “Why did you say that?”

Danny shrugged, stepped closer, and sat on the corner of the bed. He looked handsome in his dark coat, hair brushed back from his face. There was a measure of wounding in his eyes—that superior, commanding look watered down enough that she saw some vulnerability there. She kind of liked the vulnerability. She scooted closer, extended an arm from the bedding, and touched his face. He kissed the pad of her thumb.

She asked him again, “Why did you say that? You can’t believe I did . . . ?”

Danny smiled, but it was wan and as watery as the look in his eyes. He said, “I can’t believe you started without me.”

She patted his cheek, unsmiling. “You did that on purpose.” The natural response here was anger, but she felt little. Not because of relief, but because Danny had shown his hand for the first time in a long time, exposing a weakness in his emotional reservation.

He smirked a little. “You did start without me.”

“That was cruel,” she said—and meant it.

“I wasn’t trying to be cruel,” he said. And she knew he meant it, too.

They looked at each other for a long while in the dim, moonlit room—Hemi in the kitchen, moving things around and clinking bottles. She’d been intimate with Hemi—been with another man sexually for the first time in her life. Now she was with her husband, and though they’d both made the events happen, she couldn’t shake a sense of wrongdoing. She knew Danny felt it as well. It was uncomfortable sitting next to the man she loved because she knew things had changed—knew they’d changed—but didn’t know how yet.

“We’re not off to a good start,” she said.

“No. I don’t think we are.”

“Tell me what I did wrong.”

Danny shook his head. “You did nothing wrong. It’s all me. I was on top of the world until I wasn’t. It was coming in here and seeing you asleep. Not wearing anything. I guess it took me off guard.”

“We should have talked it through first.”

Danny looked up, eyes a little hopeful, smile barely there—but there. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“You really put me through the wringer.”

Now his smile widened. The more it widened, the angrier she became about his cruel statement when he’d found her. But she didn’t want to be mad at him. She wanted him to love her just the same as he always had. She didn’t smile, but she didn’t look away.

He said, “You have a guilty conscience.” She frowned, and he raised his eyebrows. “That’s why you’re mad at me.”

She said, “You like that I have a guilty conscience?”

“Of course I do,” he said. “It means you love me.”

She scoffed. “Don’t try to sweet-talk me now. You scared the crap out of me.”

“You felt bad. You felt bad because you love me.”

“Of course I love you,” she said. “That isn’t some grand revelation here. I trusted you were behind the messages you read to me. When you came in and said that, I thought . . . he took advantage of me. That he’d—you know—ruined me. Ruined my marriage. Like he was . . . a criminal.”

Danny put his face in his hands and sighed. “I was doing so well. I was doing great with this until I saw you in bed.” His hands came away, and he straightened, drawing in a big breath. He let it out. “I had planned something else. I thought it would go a different way when I came in. I pictured something else happening.”

She said, “What was that?”

Danny turned to look over his shoulder, as though seeing himself coming through the door and doing it right. He turned back to face her. “Lie down like you were. Humor me, please.”

She sighed and looked at him warily, then complied—bringing the bedding up and around her as she tossed herself back onto the mattress and squirmed onto her belly.

Danny called her name, and she raised her head and turned. She said, “What am I supposed to say?” Yeah, she was being bratty, but he deserved it. And she couldn’t help it anyway—probably much the same way Danny couldn’t help trying to alarm her into terrible fright. He’d probably hoped she would laugh. And she hoped he would enjoy her minxish resistance to setting the scene back a few minutes.

“Say my name,” Danny said. Light, hopeful.

She breathily whimpered, “Danny?” her voice soap-opera quavering.

Danny took what she offered, knowing he was lucky to get it. He paused a beat, then—hidden in the dark, his voice as low and masculine as he could manage—he said, “Looks like you started without me.”

She couldn’t stop a stupid smile. She covered it with her hand and laughed.

Danny said, “What?”

She dropped her hand. “That’s what we had to start over for? It’s the same thing you already said.”

“Yeah, but I said it more . . . Come on, Ellie. Cut me some slack.”

The smile stayed. She said, “What were you going to do next?”

In the kitchen, Hemi cracked a tray of ice cubes to loosen them from their cage, then dropped a few into some glasses. Danny looked toward the kitchen, then back at her. He stepped forward, prowled onto the bed—catlike. He took her in his arms, grabbing her and the bedding, and she swooned, loving his embrace. He tried to kiss her mouth, but she offered her chin and her neck. Danny obliged, hesitant at first, as she figured he parsed what her lip-refusal might mean. Yes, she’d had another man in her mouth tonight.

“You look amazing,” he said, soft and low. “Are you naked?”

She nodded, and he growled, biting her collar. Then he rose up again, sitting over her while she looked up into his eyes.

He said, “What did I miss?”

“Hemi didn’t tell you?”

“I want you to tell me.”

She kissed the inside of his forearm. “Did Hemi send you pictures of me in the hot tub?”

Danny nodded, his eyes still on hers.

“You set this whole thing up?”

“I did.”

“The masseuses, the champagne . . . ”

“Yes, and yes.”

“You wanted me to be unsure of whether it was real?”

He nodded again.

“It was exciting,” she whispered—a wild admission—pulling up the bedding and hiding her mouth.

Danny chuckled. “I hope it was.” He traced hair from her brow and tucked it behind her ear. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she said.

He lowered his mouth to kiss her cheek. This time she offered her lips if he’d like them. He took her kiss, and she understood it as acceptance. Danny knew why she’d refrained, and it didn’t bother him. Kissing her mouth was more important than some bravado a brutish facet of him might inspire. It was small but meant much. Their kiss lingered, and she brushed her nails through his hair and held the back of his neck. His kiss grew lustier, but he held back, scooping her in his arms again but not getting on top of her, trying not to dominate her.

He stroked her cheek again. “I’m only human. I thought I was ready, but maybe I wasn’t.”

“Why did you orchestrate this if you might not be ready?”

“An opportunity as perfect as this one would never happen again. I had to take advantage while I could. Or I knew it would never come up ever again.”

She smiled. “I don’t know how you did it, but you made it perfect.”

“You’re not mad?”

“Danny, it felt like you were here the whole time. You made it fun and dangerous. You’re crazy—like, so crazy—but you made something unbelievable happen. I never looked for it, and I shouldn’t, and neither should you”—she chuckled and shook her head—“but you still . . . you let me pretend you weren’t here even though I could pretend you were.”

“You had a good time.”

“You gave me an amazing time. An amazing day.”

“And you’re really not wearing anything under the covers?”

The small smile she held faded—not from unhappiness but from seriousness. She said, “No, I’m not.”

“You slept with him?”

She shook her head. “I mean . . . we slept side by side, but I didn’t sleep with him. No.” No, but pretty close. “Hemi didn’t tell you anything? Didn’t text you?”

Hemi’s arm appeared in the doorway, giving them privacy but intruding nonetheless—walking in arm first and presenting a cocktail in a short glass, the ice tinkling. “Danny, come get this, mate.”

Danny looked over his shoulder, seeing the disembodied arm protruding into the bedroom. He looked back at her. “I wanted to hear it from you.” He backed off the bed and walked to the doorway, taking the icy glass from Hemi.

Danny said, “What is it?”

Hemi said, “Manhattan.” He moved a little closer, looking into the bedroom, catching Elena’s eye. She smiled but looked away, strangely bashful. Hemi said, “Hope you’re all right, yeah?”

Danny said, “We’re good, Hemi. We’re really good.”

Hemi and Danny spoke low, and she couldn’t hear what they said. She looked over to see Hemi retreating back to the kitchen, where he showed off his bartending skills—one of the things she knew about him from their daylong date.

Danny returned to the bed, his attention on the cocktail Hemi had prepared for him. He sipped at the side of the bed, then drank some more.

She said, “Liquid courage?”

He chuckled and wiped his mouth. “Something like that. . . . Boy, that’s really good,” he said, holding the glass up to admire it. He sniffled and cleared his throat, blinked heavily. “It kind of burns, though.” He cleared his throat again, his expression narrowing to one of concern. Before she could ask if he was serious, he was clutching his throat and dropping to his knees by the bed.

***

Nearing the ending of Embracing Ellie now, and thinking of changing the cover image. What do you think of something like this: