Page 194 of Cross the Line
“I don’t care about genetics, Finley. I care that you wear his fucking sins like they’re yours. Even though you areallgood.” My hands lift to his jaw, canting his face to mine, and he repeats, “You are my glue. You’ve held me together since we were kids, and you’re what really brought JJ and me together.”
“You didn’t need me to bring you together. He’s loved you from the moment he laid eyes on you. The first feeling I had when I met him was how much he cares about you. I felt his affection and devotion to you like it was an echo of my soul. You didn’t need?—”
His arm coils tighter, drawing me flush to him before coaxing one of my legs over his, and I settle onto his lap.
“The truth is—” Gentle hands brush my slick hair from my face. “—that I was too ashamed, too confused, and too afraid of what it meant to feel the way I do about him. To love him. To want him. I brought you here and… I watched you with him. Him with you. How he cared for you and loved you, and it dawned on me that he has cared for me and loved me the same way. You brought us all together.You.”
“I wish I could change who I am…” I breathe into his neck.
My skin is still so sensitive from the scalding water when he rubs his hands down my back that I whimper.
“I don’t. I love who you are and the way you are. Who you’ve always been and how you’ve always been.” The words whisper over my face while thick fingers tunnel into the hair at my nape, and his palms hold my jaw. “You have saved me time and time again.You.If I am still here today, it’s because of you…”
Before my brain can catch up with what’s happening, His mouthfinds mine—soft, reverent, so careful that it undoes me. When his tongue licks along the seam of my lips, I open on a sigh and drink him in. Every last drop of the reassurance and certainty he pours into me, until my bones remember who we are. Who we’ve always been.
Eli’s hands trace my spine, slowing at the top of my ass. “I want this, Finley. This beautiful woman,” he murmurs between fevered kisses along my jaw, nipping my ear.
His large palms cup my ass, and when I rock into him, his big bulge presses to the top of my slit.
Pushing to his feet, he hitches me up his body with a groan. “Any other version won’t do. It’s not you. And I want you.”
My feet cross at his ass, keeping me glued to him as he walks us back into the bedroom. When he’s laid me on the bed, Eli makes quick work of taking off his soaked clothes.
Then he stands there, watching me laid out for him. Hunger deepens his roiling stare as he lowers himself onto the mattress and crawls over me. Every inch of him is perfect as he braces himself on top of me. His elbows on either side of my head as his groin slots with mine.
We stay like this, molded to each other, for a while. His hard flesh stamped on mine. Hot breaths soaking into the crook of my neck. The silent moment becomes fractured with the rampant pounding of our chests. Two halves of one heart, begging to come together again.
When I buck into him and his tip finds my entrance, he eases himself inside of me. Taking me slowly, inch by slow inch, with ragged breaths.
“I love you,” he murmurs into my ear, the length of his body inching higher over mine. “Love you so fucking much, Finley-James.”
I nod, tipping my head back with the wanton bow of my body as he sinks all the way inside me. Bottoming out with the most perfect sizzle of pain.
“Eli,” I breathe into his mouth. My voice is hoarse with the brine stinging my eyes.
He isn’t fucking me. He’s making a promise with his body. Each stroke, unhurried and deep, a benediction that leaves me trembling.
“I don’t just want you, Angel. I need you,” he tells me as I cross my ankles at his back and press him closer.
“I don’t want you to stop. Don’t ever stop… Please…Please… I need you to love me forever,” I sob into his gaping mouth.
“For eternity,” he retorts, nipping my lips with the same force as his hips thrust into me. “You’re always going to be mine. My precious, sweet girl…”
It’s the tremble of his breaths that gives his tears away. It’s his stuttering heartbeat drumming into my chest that says all the words his mouth can’t form as we move together. Slick skin on slick skin.
The slowness of his caresses is punctuated by the toe-curling grind of his hips every time he hits home.
“Eyes on me, Finley-James,” he demands, one palm cupping my face, canting it back so that my stare is on his.
It’s wet, and soft, and… “Fuck.”
“I wanna see you. All of you as you take all of me,” he grunts into my mouth with each thrust that spears deeper and deeper.
His drives fill me to the point of delirious pain—a bruising force that promises to leave me sore and aching for days.
I’m lost to the raw need and emotion swirling in his eyes, pouring everything that’s in his heart—my heart—into my hammering chest.
He’s breaking me open. Leaving me bare and raw. Completely torn apart and overwhelmed by how fundamentally bound we are.
