Black Diaries

28. Up in the Night

A very, very, very long time later, the door of my apartment closed behind me with a soft click. Jill was reclining on the couch like an ocean goddess on vacation. Apparently she had decided to wait for me, in case I really did need rescuing from a sex dungeon. The moment I came in, she looked up from the book she was reading, and yawned.

"Ah, there you are. So, how was it at the beach? Cold and boring, hm?"

I looked at her—but I wasn't really seeing her. My eyes looked past her, to a beach on a distant island.

"No," I said, dreamily. "I don't think boring is the right word. And it definitely wasn't cold."

❤☠❤☠❤☠❤☠❤

What followed was a rush of dates, each one more spectacular than the last. Elliot took me to half of the most expensive restaurants in the city, to a picnic on top of the Empire state building, a dinner on a private sailing yacht, a weekend trip to Key West, and so on, and so on.

"He's so dark and mysterious, and simply unbelievable!" Sighing, I leaned back in the cafeteria chair and gazed dreamily at my cup of coffee. But I wasn't really seeing it. I was seeing Elliot's dark eyes, gazing at me from the other end of his luxurious private jet. "Half the time I think he wants to jump my bones, and half the time he seems a million miles away. It makes me want to grab him and shake him until he spits out what the hell is his problem! I just don't know what to make of him."

On the other side of the table, Jill sipped her coke. "And this is the man that you swore to me—only a couple of weeks ago, mind you—you had no romantic feelings for whatsoever?"

I blushed. "Yes!"

Jill smirked. "Just checking."

"I don't! Have romantic feelings for him, I mean!"

"Okay."

"You believe me?" I asked, suspiciously.

She shrugged. "Certainly not. But if you enjoy lying to yourself, who am I to object? Everyone needs a hobby."

"Jill!"

"Did you do the nasty with him yet?"

"Jill!"

"I'll take that as a no, girlfriend. But you have the hots for him—that's plain as the nose on your face."

"There's nothing whatsoever romantic between the two of us," I declared, haughtily. "Yes, all right, we happened to kiss once or twice—"

Jill raised an eyebrow.

"—Well, all right, maybe more often than once or twice, but still, that doesn't mean anything! He's never even mentioned the word love. In fact, he warned me specifically not to get involved with him that way. He's bad news, and I have a broken heart, and we both know that it's better for the two of us to stay away from each other."

"And yet," Jill pointed out with another grin, "you still go on fantabulous dates together where you have hot, intense makeout sessions."

I didn't bother to deny it.

The mad rush of dates continued. Almost every night Elliot swept me away to a secret spot, away from the world, where there was only us two and maybe the stars above. Jill was right about one thing: we kissed. Oh, how we kissed. I had never before experienced something like Elliot's kisses. Matt had been all right, and Chuck powerful and ravenous, but Elliot... he put special meaning in every movement, seductive mystery in every touch.

So why do you keep denying there's something special between the two of you?

The answer to that, of course, was easy: because I had to. I wasn't ready to fall in love again, and Elliot knew it. He knew that my heart had been broken twice over, and that I had almost sworn off love. Although I could see the magic word sparkling in his midnight blue eyes whenever he looked at me, he never spoke it, and I wanted to kiss him for it.