Eli (Mallick Brothers Book 4) Read online

  Contents

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  - PROLOGUE

  - ONE

  - TWO

  - THREE

  - FOUR

  - FIVE

  - SIX

  - SEVEN

  - EIGHT

  - NINE

  - TEN

  - ELEVEN

  - TWELVE

  - THIRTEEN

  - FOURTEEN

  - FIFTEEN

  - EPILOGUE

  - DON'T FORGET!

  - ALSO BY JESSICA GADZIALA

  - ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  - STALK HER!

  ELI

  A Mallick Brothers Novel

  --

  Jessica Gadziala

  Copyright © 2017 Jessica Gadziala

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author's intellectual property. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for brief quotations used in a book review.

  "This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental."

  Cover image credit: Shutterstock .com/gpointstudio

  DEDICATION

  To Autumn Schmidt.

  For the name.

  For your instantaneous and unrelenting love of Eli.

  And for being an awesome human being <3

  PROLOGUE

  Autumn

  No one buys dildos at eight o'clock in the morning.

  I learned that my first year of business while I fought with spreadsheets, cried over the light bill, and stocked bright pink butt plugs onto shelves.

  It was also why I was sitting outside a coffeeshop in Hollydell right outside of Navesink Bank because, apparently, in a town full of twenty different fast food restaurants, having an actual coffeeshop was too much to ask.

  The season was proving temperamental. I had woken up to forty degrees, but it was steadily on its way to the sixties, so I had grabbed my double shot mocha frappe to sit at one of the wrought iron tables-for-two right out front, flipping through the pages of a glossy magazine like I had all the time in the world.

  I did.

  I opened my store around ten-thirty on weekdays which gave the moms plenty of time to drop the kiddos off at school before dropping in for a new Rabbit, or tongue vibe, or - if there was an anniversary coming up - a mutually enjoyable cock ring or set of edible panties.

  In case it wasn't infinitely clear here - I own a sex store.

  They call it, officially, a "novelty" store or an "adult toy store." But let's be real - it's a sex store. I deal in making sex even better than it usually was. I was a smut-slinging, vibrator-advising, proud owner of Navesink Bank's only sex store: Phallus-opy. Because naming it "X-anything" or "toy-something" was cheesy and unimaginative. Plus, when you went the "toy" route, there was the off-chance of someone getting the wrong idea and coming in with a kid. With "phallus" in the name, there was almost no chance of that kind of awkward screw-up.

  Don't want to scar the kids for life with the sight of a twelve-inch monster cock in rainbow leopard print or a unicorn-horn-shaped, glitter-infused butt plug.

  Heaven forbid.

  I shook my drink, watching the full-fat whipped cream melt down into the skim concoction. Call it balance. Like how I was going to have a salad for dinner. Followed by a huge slice of the chocolate cake I had picked up at the bakery over the weekend. And don't try to tell me that the fat and sugar in the oversized slice of cake actually made the choice of a light salad null and void because, well, no one wants that negativity in their life. Just let me live with my delusions.

  "You've got to be fucking kidding me!" a woman's shrill voice had my head popping up. Shrill was not a good sign at eight in the morning. Someone was going to get his balls handed to him. "You won't even stop to talk to me? Seriously?"

  Oh, boy.

  Crazy chick then.

  This would be good.

  I sat back in my chair, taking a sip out of my straw, watching as the duo came into view from the side of the building where the lot was situated.

  And, yeah, damn.

  Maybe it was my underused libido talking, but he might have been the best-looking man I had ever seen.

  He was tall with a lean, strong body. A swimmer's build, it might be called. Even though the morning was running toward chilly, he had on a white tee, showing off some ink on his arms that I had a sudden urge to inspect closer.

  Naked.

  After we'd toured my bedsheets.

  Okay there Autumn, get a grip of your hormones.

  The body was nice, sure. He definitely wouldn't get kicked out of any woman's bed. But it was the face that made you feel like you were gut-punched.

  Gorgeous.

  That was the only word even close to good enough to describe him.

  He had those good, old-fashioned chiseled, masculine features - a cut jaw, strong brows, a straight nose, lips that were pressed in a firm line but you knew would feel good kissing and sucking you all over. His hair was black, a little long, falling down his forehead. But the eyes, damn. Those eyes. They were the lightest kind of blue, almost transparent. With that dark hair and that perfect face? Oh, yeah, I could see why this woman was willing to go full-on crazy-ex-girlfriend at eight in the morning for a man like that.

  She was pretty too. Gorgeous really, but in a cold kind of way. She was tall, lean, with long ice-blonde hair, blue eyes, and just a tad too much makeup considering she was naturally attractive.

  "Eli, come the hell on," she said, grabbing the man's arm, making him stop, exhaling his breath slowly, like he was trying to prepare himself for something wholly unpleasant. "I know you couldn't have been serious about it being the dog or me."

  Oh, yeah, he had a dog too.

  Somehow, I had been so wrapped up in his face that I hadn't noticed the bright orange leash in his hand that led to, well, the ugliest dog in the world.

  His hair was sticking up in patches, a mix of colors like that of a border collie, but with a flatter snout, straight-up ears, giant feet, one bright blue eye, and one gray one.

  U-G-L-Y.

  But, let's face it, he was a puppy. So no matter what, he was adorable with his flopping pink tongue, twitching ears, and wagging tail.

  My eyes went back up, shamelessly eavesdropping. I felt a smile tugging at my lips.

  He chose his dog over her?

  Now that was a good man, wasn't it?

  "We've been through this," the man, Eli, told her in a patient, but barely holding onto it, tone.

  "Yeah, and it's ridiculous!" she hissed, jutting out a hip, her hand waving down her body. "You'd trade all this - and let's not forget the wild sex - for a stupid, hideous dog that destroys your apartment. And, I might add, my very expensive shoes."

  "For which I bought you new ones," Eli shot back in a calm tone. "In fact, I bought you three pairs because you threw such a fit."

  This was better than TV.

  "I was with you before you found that hellbeast."

  Oh, boy. She was jealous of the dog. Bad enough that she felt that, but she was expressing it? Yeah, jealousy was never a good look to wear on your sleeve. It was even worse when it was jealousy for a hideous, troublesome, but obviously loved puppy.

  "And it wasn't working then either, babe,"
he said, shaking his head at her, eyes almost a little sympathetic.

  "It was working just fine. What? Just because I didn't fit in with those freaking chicks..."

  "My sisters-in-law," he corrected.

  "Yeah, whatever. Just because we didn't get along, you were going to dump me?"

  "Honestly, yes," he said, shrugging.

  "Choosing your family over your girlfriend, Eli. What the fuck kind of man are you? Oh, wait, I know. One I won't be wasting this good pussy on anymore." With that, she stormed off, adding a bit too much hitch in her giddy-up as she did, thinking she was showing him what he would be missing.

  Oh, shit.

  I actually had to press my lips together to keep from laughing out loud at that.

  Because, quite frankly, it was sad.

  Not for him.

  But because that whole display was a bit, ah, needy on her part. First, the begging for attention. Then, when it was clear she wasn't going to get it, trying to have the last word.

  Pride, that woman had a lot of it.

  What was with people not being mature enough to just... accept that things weren't working out, and move on? Scenes at coffeeshops before a decent hour in the morning were, well, kinda pathetic.

  "Don't listen, Coop," the man said, drawing my attention again because, yeah, what a voice. I always had a thing for voices. I drooled over accents, over those gravel-and-glass ones that some men had. This guy, though, his voice was smooth. I swear it slid over the skin like silk, bringing shivers. He was kneeling down at the post out front that had clips to tie up your dogs so you could run inside, threading the orange handle in through one of the holders. "You're not ugly. You're... alright, you're fucking ugly. Sorry, there's no way around that fact. But those shoes you ate were hideous to begin with," he told him, rubbing his head as the dog's tail wagged obsessively. "I'll bring you a treat," he declared, moving off inside.

  He didn't even look at me.

  This maybe should have offended me.

  Most women wanted to be noticed by hot guys.

  Hell, I even was apparently his type with my height and blonde hair, though I was just a sight more curvy than his ex.

  That being said, I was pretty secure in who I was.

  And, you know, sometimes you just weren't in the mood to interact with the opposite sex. We've all been there, in the grocery store running late, feeling sweaty and annoyed at life in general, and some dude's eyes catch yours, and you just know they are going to engage you, so you hurry off in the other direction.

  After a run-in with a, ah, spirited ex, the dude likely just wanted a double shot of coffee, and to get on with his day.

  I looked over at the dog whose different colored eyes were watching the door where his owner disappeared with clear devotion. A dog that ugly, he had to be a rescue, a street pup, some accidental one-night-stand between two dogs who likely looked decent on their own, but never should have procreated. His devotion to his owner likely ran deeper because he had known the mean pang of hunger, of cold, of being alone in the world.

  Gotta love a man who rescued dogs.

  And loved his family.

  And dumped chicks who got along with neither.

  As if my thoughts had summoned him back, the door chimed as it opened, bringing a gust of sweet air from all the varied sugar syrups inside. He walked out with an extra large hot coffee, one I figured he took black because men like him usually did, and a doggy bag for, well, his actual dog.

  It must have been a tradition too, because the dog was jumping and whining as soon as he saw it.

  "Alright, how about we try that sit thing again?" he suggested, putting down his coffee, reaching into the bag to produce one of the beige, somewhat lumpy-looking dog cookies the shop offered for this very reason. Hollydell was a shopping town, all the stores close together, and most people walked their dogs around when the weather permitted. It was smart business. "Coop, sit," he ordered, trying for a demanding tone that the dog took to mean: jump around like a lunatic. "Coop, sit down."

  I was smiling at the show when it happened.

  It came out of nowhere, making my stomach plummet, and my heart fly upward, a fluttering, foreign thing somehow lodged up in my throat.

  One second, the man was trying to train his unruly dog.

  The next, sirens were screaming, and tires were screeching as two police cruisers came to an abrupt stop right beside the man and his dog.

  The doors flew open, producing a cop from each car in their typical blues.

  "Eli Mallick!" the first cop, someone on the young side and a bit too - ah - out of shape to be able to chase down any perp, called, his voice full of the cocky authority a badge gave some weaker men. "Stop right there!" he added, hand touching his holster on his belt, despite the fact that the man hadn't moved an inch.

  No, in fact, he almost seemed to let out a held breath, like he had been hoarding it for a week, and gave a small nod.

  I reached for my hand instinctively, bringing up the camera on my phone and switching to video, having seen far too many instances of abuse of power from cops not only on the news, but with my own two eyes in Navesink Bank. And these were NBPD cops, not Hollydell. I knew better than to try to interfere, but it was smart to record it. You know, just in case.

  "We have a warrant for your arrest," the second cop added, tone much more reasonable, body relaxed, hand holding out a sheet of paper.

  My stomach twisted at the scene, realizing that this hot guy, this dude with the crazy ex-girlfriend who his family didn't like, with the ugly and untrainable dog, was about to be locked up.

  I had seen more than a few guys in Navesink Bank get picked up. When you lived within a hotbed of criminal activity as I did, it wasn't even an unusual sight.

  But somehow, this one was making me uncomfortable. Maybe it was as simple as the fact that the man didn't seem like a criminal. I mean, not that anyone actually did look like a criminal, but still. He just seemed like an average dude.

  Possibly he just had a lot of unpaid parking tickets, right?

  "For aggravated assault."

  Oh.

  Okay.

  Well then.

  Not parking tickets.

  "Put your hands behind your back, asshole," the jackass cop demanded, reaching for cuffs. Eli moved to comply, but for some reason, the jackass cop grabbed his wrists and the back of his neck, turning him, and slamming him down onto the hood of the cruiser.

  The impact made my stomach twist as an objection worked its way up my throat.

  But then Eli's eyes were on mine from his position bent over the hood. Seeing my lips part to say something, he shook his head at me. My shoulders slumped as the metal click of cuffs - a sound I was maybe familiar with for other reasons - filled the air, and the man was yanked back upward.

  "Finally got one of you motherfuckers," the cop added, shoving him down into the back of the cruiser.

  I ended the video as the cars moved off, my heart a frantic beating, my hands oddly shaky even though I hadn't been involved at all.

  Then I heard it.

  Whining.

  I looked over to find Coop jumping hard, lunging toward the street. Each attempt had his body flying back as the leash pulled against the post. But there was no stopping him. He whined, whimpered, barked as he tried desperately to get free, to get to his owner.

  "Okay," I said, standing, trying to keep a soothing voice. "Okay, buddy. It's okay," I crooned as I got closer, making a reach for his collar. "Calm down. You're going to strangle yourself," I went on, untying the leash as I reached for the body of the dog, trying to hold him still from the midsection, so he didn't keep pulling on his neck.

  Feeling my touch, he looked over at me. And I swear, his little mismatched puppy eyes were frantic. Don't try to tell me dogs didn't have emotions like that, because they totally did. Coop did. He was worried about his owner.

  An owner who he likely wouldn't see for a good, long time.

  What was I su
pposed to do here?

  I couldn't just leave the dog there, tied to a post, losing his ever-loving mind. The owners of the coffeeshop would likely call animal control or something. Then, what? He would end up at the pound? Ugly and untrainable as he was, he wasn't going to get adopted. And our local shelter was open-admission. They put the dogs down when they had been around too long.

  I wasn't going to let some dog be killed because his owner beat someone and went to jail.

  So, ah, I guess I just got a dog?

  I liked dogs.

  In fact, I loved dogs.

  Growing up, I had always had one.

  They always slept at my feet, followed me around.

  Dogs, as far as I was concerned, were the only things on the planet that would love you more than they loved themselves.

  That was, well, something any sane person would want.

  The problem being, I lived in an apartment that didn't allow pets. So I had just sacrificed that lifelong love because the rent was fair, the place was huge, and I worked quite a bit.

  That being said, I did own my business. If I could maybe try to train the crazy thing, I could take him to work with me so he wasn't alone.

  The no-dog rule, well, I would find a way around that.

  "Coop," I said, making the dog's head twist, looking up at me with curiosity. "Want a cookie?" I asked, reaching to the table where his owner had put his coffee and the bag down. I reached in, producing the thing that smelled heavily of peanut butter.

  And, I kid you freaking not, the dog sat without being told to.

  "Good boy!" I cheered, giving him the whole damn cookie as I reached down to ruffle his hair that stuck up all over his head in patches. "Good, good boy. I'm sorry about your owner," I said as he ate his cookie. "I know I'm not him. But I am kinda rescuing you right now too. You can learn to love me, right?" I asked as he finished the cookie, then planted his feet on my bent knees, and gave me a huge, peanut butter kiss.

  So, yeah, I had a dog.