“I will. But what if he does know where you live, and waits for you there? What if he follows you?” He watched her ponder the situation. “Do you have a neighbor you trust? A friend? A brother?”
She laughed once, silently, in a wistful way that Eli didn’t understand. “Not quite.”
“Okay.” He nodded, experiencing the opposite of annoyance at the thought of what would have to happen. “I’ll drive you home, then.”
Her look was long and even. Eli wondered why her wide, limpid eyes felt like a punch to the stomach. “You’re suggesting I get in the car of a man I do not know to avoid being harassed by a man I do know?”
He shrugged. “Pretty much.”
She bit her lower lip. Suddenly, Eli was more physically aware of another human being than he remembered being in a long, long while. “Thank you, but I’ll have to pass. The potential for situational irony is a bit too high, even for me.”
“I don’t think this qualifies as situational irony.”
“It would if you turned out to be a serial killer.”
Smiling wasn’t going to win him any points, but he couldn’t help himself. “You were going to go upstairs to a hotel room booked under my name and spend hours alone with me.”
“Hours?”
The way he was feeling at the moment, more than that. “Hours,” he repeated. She held his gaze for every letter. “Seems late in the game to worry about whether I’ll murder you.”
“A friend knew where I’d be and how to check on me,” she countered. “A second location is a whole different beast.”
“Is it?” He had no business being this pleased by her self-preservation.
“Vincent’s a dick. But for all I know, you’re the Unabomber.”
Vincent. She knew the dickhead’s name—and Eli still didn’t know hers. Fucking irritating. “Unabomber’s dead.”
“That’s what the Unabomber would say to throw me off,” she deadpanned, unknowable. He couldn’t tell whether she was flirting, making fun of him, or dead serious.
It was exhilarating.
“He made bombs and solved math theorems. He didn’t kidnap young women.”
“You know a lot about the Unabomber for someone who supposedly isn’t him.”
Eli looked up at the ceiling to hide his amusement, exhaling slowly. Then he straightened. Took his wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans and the driver’s license out of his wallet. Dropped it on the counter, right by her hand.
“What’s this?”
He leaned back against the counter without replying, and she nimbly picked it up. Her eyes shifted between him and the picture on the card, as though solving a Find the Difference puzzle. “Eli Killgore,” she read. “This is not a reassuring name, Eli.”
He frowned. “It’s Scottish.”
“It sounds like the name of someone who trims girls’ pubes and sews them into dolls. You look younger than thirty-four. And are you really that tall?” He sighed heavily, and she returned his license, straight faced. “So we’ve established that your last name is closely related to the term ‘blood splatter.’ But I still don’t know that this isn’t a fake ID you made to lure women into your mothdecorated lair.”
“I bet you think you’re so funny.”
“Actually, I know I’m not. I was born without a sense of humor.”
He huffed out his amusement. She was fucking with him, had to be. And Eli was apparently very willing to let her continue, because he pushed his entire wallet toward her. “Knock yourself out.” He watched eagerly as her slim fingers opened it, wondering why her elegant movements seemed to be unlocking some kind of long-hidden fetish part of his brain. She brought it to her nose to smell the leather (an odd, inexplicably appealing move), pulled out a random credit card, then another.
“Eli Massmurderer,” she said.
“Not my name.”
“You have a library card.” She sounded bemused, and he clucked his tongue.
“Here I am, trying to help you out in a difficult situation, and you repay me by being surprised that I can read.”
She smiled, something small and mysterious that shouldn’t have sent a thrill up his spine. “I thought you’d be more of a Planet Fitness cardholder.”
“Not at all condescending.” He tried not to grin and failed. But it was okay, because she kept methodically rifling through his life via the wallet, stopping to peruse the more interesting pieces, once humming audibly. Eli felt it like a physical thing, a thrum through air and flesh. Like her slender fingers were peeling out the layers of him, slowly, inexorably.
“Well, you do have health insurance, which hopefully covers the necessary amount of murder-prevention therapy,” she said dispassionately before folding the wallet and handing it back to him with a solemn nod. She gave one last look at the doors, where Vincent was nervously smoking a cigarette. Still in wait.
“This is one consistent wallet. Despite the fact that your name is literally Carnagemonger.”
“Not literally. Not figuratively, either.”
“Regardless.” Her lips curved in the shadow of a smile. Eli felt it in his marrow, wrapped around his balls. “Mr. Killgore, you may drive me home.”
3
IT WOULD HAVE BEEN FUN
ELI
His heart skipped a beat, then thudded hard. He felt oddly, foolishly like running a victory lap around the bar. He curbed the impulse and said, as dryly as he could muster: “What an honor.”
“You’re welcome.” Another unsmiling nod. There was something astonishingly effortless about this woman. Like she had no interest in being anything but herself.
“Am I allowed to know your name now?”
“No.”
“Figures.” Eli sighed and handed her his unlocked phone. “Take a picture of my driver’s license, text it or email it to a friend, and then let’s go. Share my location with them, too.”
“Is this an order?”
Yes, and an out-of-place one at that, but she didn’t seem too put off. Whoever her friend was, they were close enough that she had their number memorized. She sent a picture of his license, typed a short explanation that Eli forced himself not to peer at, and returned the phone. Then she gracefully hopped off her stool.
Fuck, she was tall. Even in flats, her eyes were only a handful of inches below Eli’s—and, no use in denying it at this point, right on the verge of spectacular. He forced himself to look away.
“You’re sober enough to drive, right?” she asked.
“Yeah. My plans fit better with sobriety.”
“Very well.” Her words were somewhat queenly, and his grin widened.
“You know you’re not doing me a favor, right?” he asked, even though she was. With Vincent around, he couldn’t have let her return home alone without losing whatever peace of mind he had left, which was very little.
She blinked at him serenely, and he was briefly certain that she could read his mind. The filthy thoughts he couldn’t rein in. The way her sweet scent seemed to settle inside his brain.
No. She couldn’t, because she was obviously relaxed with him. Trusting enough to send him on a bit of a power trip. Still difficult to decipher, but his gut told him that she didn’t mind prolonging their time together any more than he did. “Come on. My car’s in the parking garage.”