Page 193 of Cross the Line
The stench of vomit infiltrates my nose as I pace the length of the shower. My pajama tank is stained with sickness and glued to my skin.
Every turn I take about the enclosed space, my thoughts escalate. Free-falling into a pit of rejection.
“You didn’t fuck me until Jayden did. You only fuck me when he’s here… when he’s there… when…”Oh, God.
“Stop,” he snaps. “That’s not true.”
“Tell me the last time it was just you and me.”
His face falls because he knows it’s been years. He knows it as well as I do that it’s the truth, and that’s why it’s fucking killing us. Because, in spite of all the words he’s saying, reality doesn’t back them up.
My ragged breaths rasp around his. “What if?—”
“No.”
Taking a step forward, his hand grips my waist. When he yanks me close, I slam my hands into his chest.
“I can’t bear the thought of hurting you. Of making you relive what he did to you every time you look at me.” With a hard shove, I push him away, only for him to pull me closer.
A growl twists his pretty mouth. “That’s not true. You don’t. You’re not him. Y-yo-you’re perfect, Fin.”
This time, when he attempts to tug me into him, I brace my hands around his neck, keeping him at arm’s length.
“Liar,” I spit. “You’re lying and?—”
The words slam back down my throat with a choked cry when his hand cuffs my wrist and lifts both my arms overhead. I’m on my toes, his other hand clawing into my waist.
“The only lie I ever told about us was that I could resist this. That I could bring you here and not have you.” Pushing me up against the wall, he pins me to the tiles. “Your eyes, his eyes… What I see doesn’t change how I feel,” Eli bites out, pushing his throat deeper into my hands. “Doesn’t change that I want you. I need you so fucking badly that I feel sick with it sometimes.”
“Eli…”
His face drops inches from mine. The hot spray beating down on us as he grips the straps of my tank top and tears it off me with a grunt, followed by my shorts.
“What-what are you doing?”
“Making you see and feel what you do to me. How I see you. How I feel you in every goddamn cell of my being.”
Each of my breaths comes harder and faster. Jamming at the back of my throat in hoarse whimpers with every second Eli stands flush to my naked body.
His eyes burn into my chest, straight through to my pounding heart.
The water shuts off at the same time as his arm wraps around my torso, and he buries his face in my neck.
“At first, I saw him all the time, and I was afraid of what you would think of me if you knew. I’m still afraid that when you realize I love you more today than I ever have, you’ll look at me and—” He swallows the rest of his sentence with a shake of his head. “I don’t want you to look at me differently.”
My heart is freaking out. Starting and stopping. Pinballing between my ribs.
Eli finally looks at me again. “I know I’m not the same person I used to be.”
“Neither am I.”
“I’ve never stopped loving you, Fin. I’m never gonna stop.” Tears glaze his eyes. “And Jayden isn’t a distraction to take my mind off you.”
“I know that. I know you love me, too.” The stricken lines of his face wreck me. “It’s… I… You’ve been with him, Eli. Just him. You told him. Just him…”
He sinks into the built-in bench, drawing me between his thighs. “Telling JJ was easy compared to telling you. He already hated Presley.”
“I hate him, too!” His forehead drops to my belly on a sigh. “But they don’t share DNA.”
