Hurt the One You Love Read online

  She looked at him watching her. "What?"

  "It's just . . ." He stopped himself.

  Simone looked at him, the mug held in both her hands. A kind of understanding dawned in her eyes. She looked at the cupboard doors, several of them still hanging open. Then the mug in her hands.

  "Oh. Guidelines," she said.

  Elliott walked past her to shut the cupboard drawers, the sound of each a lot louder than he'd intended. When he turned, she'd settled herself at the table. She turned the mug around, around and around. He didn't sit across from her. He stayed standing at the counter.

  "I'm very particular," Elliott said.

  Simone laughed. "Baby, I know that. You like things a certain way. You're very precise."

  "I've lived alone for a long time, that's all. It's my house. I like it to be the way I like it."

  "Nothing wrong with that. I like my house the way I like it, too." She paused, looking around, then back at him. "How long have you lived here? I asked you last night, but you never answered."

  He hadn't on purpose, because answering it would require explaining other things he didn't want to get into. "A long time."

  "Was it your parents' house?"

  He hesitated before replying; she was so freaking astute. "My stepmother's house."

  "You lived here when you were a kid?"

  "No. Not until I was seventeen."

  "That's still a kid," Simone said.

  Elliott frowned, thinking about being seventeen. He hadn't felt like a kid. "I didn't grow up in this house, if that's what you meant. I moved here when I was seventeen and lived here until after college. I bought it from my stepmother after my father went away."

  "Where did he go?" Elliott didn't answer her. To give her credit, Simone got the hint. She shrugged. "Families are always messy business."

  That was an understatement. He looked around the kitchen, trying to see it through her eyes. It was outdated. Worn. The appliances in Harvest Gold, the wallpaper covered with wagon wheels and the silhouettes of covered wagons.

  "I used to have a place on the river," he said, uncertain why he was revealing that to her.

  Simone looked impressed. "Nice. Swanky. How come you moved back home?"

  "It's not . . ." It wasn't home, not exactly. "Well, I owned it, so why pay rent? And I didn't want to leave it empty. Didn't want to rent it. I figured I'd fix it up and sell it, but I just haven't gotten around to it."

  He braced himself for the questions about why the house was empty, what had happened to his stepmother. Why it wasn't "home." But Simone didn't ask him that. Instead, she gave him one of those slow, sexy smiles that rose the hairs on the back of his neck and made him remember the sounds she made when she came on his tongue.

  "So your guidelines are, don't mess up stuff in your house. That's just a matter of respect, Elliott. I can handle that. I'm kind of a slob, but I can be careful. I'm not," she added, "a total dick either."

  He wasn't about to tell her that she was the only woman he'd brought to this house since he'd been in college. She'd smile if he said it. Maybe she'd comment, maybe she wouldn't. But then she'd know, and it would give her the wrong impression, that somehow this was something more than it was.

  "I don't like dating," Elliott said bluntly.

  It took a little longer for her to reply to that one, and for a moment he was sure he'd made her angry again. Then Simone sipped coffee and smiled, at first tentatively. Then brightly.

  "At least not more than once or twice," she said.

  "I don't want a relationship. Long-term. I haven't ever been good at it, and I don't do well with someone else asking things of me."

  Simone frowned. "Barry asks things of you."

  "Relationship things," Elliott said. "The kinds of things you're supposed to do with a girlfriend. I don't do them. I don't like to do them."

  "You don't like to be kind or generous or loving?" Simone asked quietly.

  "I don't think I am kind or generous or loving."

  Her brows went up at that, but she didn't say anything.

  "I mean things that women want. Like flowers. Or spending time together. I like my space."

  "Well, if you must know, I hate cut flowers. They're a ridiculous waste of money, and I'd rather have a box of expensive chocolates. And I like my space, too, Elliott. Listen . . . we've been together a few times. I'm not asking you to be my boyfriend." She looked irritated, but focused again on the coffee before smoothing her expression. "You know, it is possible for a woman to be okay with just fucking someone every once in a while without all that other stuff. Especially when the sex is so great."

  He smiled at that. "It's that great, huh?"

  "Elliott," Simone said, "I never pictured you as a guy who needed his ego stroked."

  "How did you picture me?"

  She studied him for a moment, then smiled. "Powerful business man. Wears a suit and tie every day to work, and they always fit you like you've had them tailored just for you, but they're the same ones. You have what, seven?"

  "Six. You counted them?"

  "No. I just paid attention. Made a guess." She sipped her coffee.

  "You paid attention to me."

  Something shifted in her gaze for a moment. "You're a hard man not to notice. We rode the elevator a lot of times before you ever paid attention to me."

  That was the truth, and he felt bad about it now. "I'm not just a suit and tie."

  "I know that, too."

  They stared at each other for a few long, silent moments. "I should have noticed you before that night I took you to Barry's party."

  She laughed, shaking her head. "Yes. You should've. But did you ever think that maybe I never wanted you to, before?"

  "Is that true?"

  "Maybe," she said, like she was considering the truth of her own words. "Or maybe the universe had never conspired to bring us together until that point. Did you think of that?"

  "The universe." He laughed and poured his now-cold coffee down the sink. "You need a freshener?"

  "Yes, please."

  He poured them both new cups, adding cream but no sugar to hers. She watched him and took the mug. She sipped.

  "You paid attention," Simone said in a low voice.

  She sounded surprised, which in turn surprised him. "I'm not a total dick, you know."

  "No," she said with a small smile. "Not totally."

  "Do you always say what you think?"

  Simone shook her head and tucked a fringe of hair behind her ear. She pulled her knee toward her chest with her toes curling over the edge of the chair and exposing the graceful lines of her bare thigh. She stared into her coffee cup, so he didn't have to worry she'd catch him staring at the shadow between her legs, hoping to catch a glimpse of that private place.

  "Not always." She shrugged. "But I try to be honest. There's hardly ever any point in not saying what you think, unless what you think is deliberately hurtful. And if you hide what you think and don't say it, how can you ever expect anyone to give you what you want or need? Unless you ask for it? C'mon, Elliott. You ask for things. I bet most of the time, you get them, don't you?"

  "Yes. In business. Yes, I almost always do."

  Her gaze held his over the rim of her mug as she sipped. "But not in your personal life?"

  "I get what I ask for there, too."

  "Are we back to the guidelines?"

  He knew whatever he said was going to piss her off or come out sounding mean, but she had just finished saying there was no point in not saying what you thought or felt. "I'm going to hurt you, Simone."

  "I hope so," she said. "I told you, I like it."

  His cock stirred at the throaty tone of her voice. He tried not to smile, but dammit, everything about her made him break his control. "That's not the kind of hurt I meant."

  She stood, scraping the chair back on the linoleum. On bare feet, one in front of the other like a dancer, she padded toward him. She slid her hands up his chest to link behind his