Page 127 of Cross the Line
Finley rolls her eyes like we’re feeding her platitudes. I shouldn’t have suggested we teach pedals and stick on the drive. The snow’s cleared, but the gravel’s slick, and Finley’s too skittish.
“Eli’s right.” I catch her hand and press an apologetic kiss to her knuckles—because this was my terrible idea.
Enveloping her hand in both of mine, I squeeze as Eli adds, “You’ll figure it out, and you’ll be whizzing around LA in no time.”
“Hell, you might even teach Slow Poke a thing or two,” I chuckle, finally getting a quiet laugh from her as Eli pinches that spot by my hip that makes me giggle. “Seriously, stop doing that.”
“Did you just…giggle?” Finley guffaws.
Her shoulders are shaking with her amusement, blue stare brightening to a summer hue.
“Yeah, he did,” Eli declares, surprising me with a quick kiss to my forehead before he’s out of the car and opening Finley’s door.
She’s in his arms before I recover from the breezy affection. The way he is so open about us around people leads me to think he likes staking his claim. He wants them to know who belongs to him. And I like it.
This isn’t a feeling I’ve ever had before. Longing to be owned by another is completely new to me. However, as I watch him fold Finley into his chest, I ache to be in that hug. To kiss her with his same veneration. To be kissed by him with equal reverence.
I scramble over the console, back the car onto the drive, and join them. Finley turns to me, lips glossy and kiss-swollen, jaw pink from Eli’s scruff and the cold. I tug her close and skim a kiss over her flushed skin, savoring the warmth as it seeps through the cold bite of the wintry breeze.
“Eww,” Isla squawks from the porch. “Get a room!”
At her remark, I suck Fin’s bottom lip into my mouth and hook the pocket of Eli’s down jacket, tugging him flush to Finley. With our girl sandwiched between us, Eli wraps his arm around us. As his palm presses to the flat of my back, he laughs at the slurry of snow powdering over us.
“Break it up, lovebirds! It’s girl spa time,” Kailey hollers over Isla’s grumbles as a packed snowball clumps the back of my head so hard my teeth snag on Finley’s lip.
A low groan vibrates from her, the low, needy kind that shoots straight to my cock.
Another snowball smacks the side of my face when I flip the girls off. It only spurs them on, which has Finley in stitches and Eli chuckling when we finally pull apart and go inside.
We’re running up the stairs, still laughing, when Dad steps out of his office. His expression stops me cold. When The Sire joins him on thelanding, concern carving his features, I know our day is about to take a sharp turn.
“I was coming to find you guys,” Dad says, schooling his face. “My guys got back to me earlier, and I’ve just finished going through the report they sent over.”
“Personally, I think we should enjoy the holidays and deal with all the madness afterward,” The Sire says, offering a big smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.
Eli stiffens, straightening to his full height beside me while Finley looks over her shoulder at the two of us. Eyes as big as her panic.
After we gave Dad her phone for him to courier to his tech contact, we haven’t addressed the messages she received. Every time Eli and I tried, she shut it down to protect the Christmas spirit.
Finley’s been adamant she’s okay, but her ashen expression says otherwise now. Coiling my arm around her, I tuck her into Eli and me.
She’s between us, her hand gripping Eli’s when she asks Dad, “Do you know who did it?”
Nodding, he edges around The Sire, backing into his office. “I can show you the report now, or we can wait until the holidays are done.”
“Now’s good,” Eli says, pulling Finley with him.
I watch them go into the office, my feet glued to the hardwood floor as my heart wrenches up into my throat for the second time in minutes. Except, this time, there’s a pang of disappointment and jealousy at how quickly the two of them band together. Like it’s just the two of them against the world, and I’m here, on the outside, looking on.
I know it’s my insecurity rearing its ugly head. I know that it’s a habit of a lifetime for them to seek each other out for strength and comfort. They’ve depended on each other for so long, it’s second nature.
My insides knot tighter with the faint smile The Sire gives me when I walk past him. His hand squeezes the back of my neck the same way it used to when he met me in the tunnel after a loss when I was a kid.
“Deep breath, Peanut,” he whispers as we shoulder through the door together.
Breathe? Who needs that right now?I shoot him a look that he answers with a wink as he crosses the room to the window seat.
Eli and Finley take the armchairs opposite the fireplace. Dad perches on the edge of the loveseat to the side of them, leaning over the coffee table where three neat stacks of files are laid out in front of him. It’s highlighter and tabs galore, like his case files with post-it notes on the front of the manila folders scrawled with a prioritized to-do list.
