Eli didn't realize he had fallen asleep until he awoke with a start. He was still sitting in Lani's living room but she was not there. A single light was left on. Eli stood, stretched his back and looked around the empty room with all of Lani's belongings. The throw pillows, the afghan blanket. It felt strange to be there without her. In the days he'd stayed, wherever he was Lani was there too right beside him, smiling, laughing, hugging him, kissing him saying that she missed him if he left the room for less than five minutes. And all of this out of nowhere. Just a month ago, Lani was saying she couldn't return his feelings now all of this at once when he had a new job out of town that was a mere days away.

Maybe he was being unfair and under normal circumstances, he would give her all of the time in the world. That was his plan until she rejected him last month. His next move was to get as far away from Salem as he could. Now everything was different and it was a complete mess. Eli closed his eyes and sighed. In any case he had his answer. Lani flat refused to verbally reassure him after only five days. She said she needed more time, a luxury he didn't have at the moment. The apartment was so quiet Eli wondered if Lani was at home or if she had left. He wanted to go to her room to check. Only sheer willpower kept him from following that instinct. He grabbed his jacket and looked around one last time at the little world they had inhabited together for a few days. He focused on the details. The color of the walls. The empty place where a vase used to be. Lani kicked it over by accident during a spirited round of foreplay-one of many. He'd send her a new vase from Baltimore. No matter how long he lived he knew the time spent with Lani would remain in his heart forever. There was a such a sense of hope and possibilities, for awhile anyway.

He went to the front door and reached for the knob.

"Eli...Wait..."

Eli closed his eyes and shook his head at the sound of Lani's voice. This was getting worse and worse and worse. He turned to her and realized his mistake right away. Lani stood at the foot of the stairs with a tragic expression on her beautiful face. She was wearing leggings and an oversized t-shirt, her hair was in messy waves cascading like a waterfall over her shoulders. There was nothing intentionally seductive about her right then, yet she was as captivating as he'd ever seen her. Silence stretched between them until Lani finally spoke. Her voice calm and resolute.

"I know we're at an impasse, but I was wondering," she fiddled with the hem of her t-shirt, then clasped her hands together, "if you would go to Marlena's with me tomorrow. Maybe an impartial professional can help us."

"If that is what you need, I'll do it." Eli said without hesitation. "But a shrink isn't going to change my mind, Lani. Either we commit to building something real or I'm gone."

"You are so fixated on hearing exactly what you want to hear that you are not comprehending anything else I say. Eli, I do not want you to go. You know this, but that is not good enough for you." Lani took a deep breath and held up her hands. "Anyway, I don't want to get into it again tonight. We just keep going around in circles. If we must argue let's do it in Marlena's office tomorrow."

"Yeah, that sounds like it's going to be a whole lot of fun." Eli frowned.

"It'll be fine," Lani smiled warmly at him.

"The things I do for you Lani Price. Handcuffs and now a shrink. I'd rather have a root canal than go see a shrink."

"You'll be okay. We will be okay."

"A root canal without anesthesia."

Lani laughed, "It's not going to be that bad. We'll be doing it together. And as we found out these last few days," she threw hair over her shoulder and fixed him with a pointed look, "anything we do together is nothing short of amazing."

Eli was not sure how it happened-since when they first started to talk, Lani was near the stairs and he was at the door-but somehow during their brief conversation, they'd drifted together. Everything had this dreamlike quality and he had a nagging suspicion none of it was real. She was now within an arm's reach. He took her hands in his even though he knew with them one touch was too much. She was absolutely irresistible, but Eli had to admit, he didn't put all that much effort into resisting. He attributed his lack of self control to months of suppressed emotions, now unleashed and intensified. Taking inventory of his feelings, he was somehow soothed by the exquisite defenseless he felt just then as he pulled Lani close and placed his lips on hers. He could not help himself as he surrendered to her luxurious softness. Lani responded sighing softly and moving her lips against his. He broke the kiss to look into her eyes. His every need could be satisfied by this one woman. If only.

"I should not be kissing you right now," he leaned in to kiss her again before drawing back. "Everything is way too fucked up. This only makes matters worse. What we have been doing these last few days without making sure we were both on the same page might end up being very destructive"

"Very, very destructive," Lani agreed and moved in to deliver several brief kisses all around his mouth. "But that's okay because we're getting help tomorrow."

"So let's continue to destroy everything tonight."

Lani laughed pressing her face into the crook of his neck before looking up at him again. "How is it that I can laugh with you, be completely turned on by you and yet be absolutely furious with you all at the same time? You gave me an ultimatum and I'm still pissed about that."

"So these are still angry kisses."

"Very, very angry kisses."

"You know you have me wondering."

"Wondering what?"

"If I do this, would you still be mad at me." He turned her so her back was too him. He moved her hair aside and whispered in her ear describing in minute detail what sensually erotic action he could take to assuage her vexation. Lani gasped and shivered. Eli was still fascinated by what Lani revealed about herself whenever they were together. One thing he'd discovered over the last five days is he always got quite a reaction when he told her what he wanted to do to her.

"You're wet right now aren't you?" He asked rhetorically since he usually did most of the talking when they made love. Lani talked up to a point, especially if they started out by playing one of her games, but when things got seriously heated, she became less verbal instead expressing herself by sighing and moaning. On several occasions she screamed his name, otherwise she didn't say much. He slid his hand under her t-shirt, beneath the elastic of her leggings and panties until his fingers made contact with the slick folds of her womanhood. He first began with an unhurried exploration of her creamy depths before moving higher, zeroing in on the hard erect little bud, massaging slowly and carefully at first and then mercilessly as Lani began to rotate her hips in a circular motion grinding alternately forward into his hand and behind her against his growing erection. He ran his tongue along her neck. When he believed she was close to orgasm, he told her that after she came on his fingers, he was going to bend her over and make her come even harder on his hungry tongue. He planned to continue in the same vein, but suddenly changed his mind and decided to take a different path.

"Lani, do you love me? Tell me you love me."

"Yes...Yes, I love you Eli," Lani exclaimed as she shuddered and quaked through a powerful release.

Eli was aware that Lady Officer would point out to him that if a confession extracted while under duress was inadmissible, so was one obtained during orgasm. Still he could not describe what hearing those words coming from her mouth did to him. Before these five days they spent together, he had wanted her. Now his desire had quadrupled, solidified and could now be described as boundless, infinite, eternal. "I love you too," he said holding her as her breathing slowed and returned to normal. "You have no idea how much I love you, Lani. No idea."

Lani turned to face him. He anticipated her wrath for the forced confession, but instead she locked her lips on his and kissed him deeply and passionately.

Later that night, while Eli slept beside her Lani wrote furiously in her journal. It was like another weight had been lifted, one that she wasn't even aware that she had been carrying. "I can't believe it, I said it! I said it!" she wrote. After months and months of being in such denial. A denial so complete, she was not aware of the feelings she'd been harboring for Eli, long before even that first night they spent together last year. Then she wrote "I'm in love. I'm in love. I'm in love" in a single column down one page and onto the next.