Page 232 of Cross the Line
Before I can draw in a breath, he’s rushing me—big hands gripping either side of my jaw while he studies my face. My busted lip and stitched brow. The rough pad of his thumb softly trails my grazed cheekbone as he exhales.
“Fuck, Jayden… Baby…”
I hiss at the sharp sting when I lick my throbbing lip. “Yeah, well, you should see the other guy,” is the stupid joke I make to ease the tension.
Except none of this is a joke, and the tension doesn’t budge.
The emotions roiling through me are at a constant high. Eli’s worry is ripe in his shallow breaths. I can smell the minty zing to it with every short exhale that brushes my skin.
When I open my mouth again, his crushes to mine before I make a sound. Hard lips take mine in a gentle caress. It’s fucking magnificent. Everything I need. A balm that seeps to the marrow of my bones, soothing the wretched torment.
“That’s from our girl,” he murmurs along the gaping line of my lips. Then, canting his face, he touches his mouth to mine again. “And this, Sunshine…thisis from me.”
With his hands clasped around my face, Eli licks into my mouth. The leisurely stroke of his tongue over mine sends a frisson of heat through me as he guides me deeper into the room. My body presses to his while my hands anchor on his hips. Holding him where I need him. With me. On me. Any way I can get him.
The taste of him invades my senses. Peppermint tinged with the metallic tang of blood from my lip as our kiss goes from tender to desperate. Calloused fingers dig into my nape with the same urgency that our bodies grind together.
Eli’s groin rocks into mine when my back hits the wall. Rough hands roam my neck, pushing beneath the lapel of my suit jacket, then guide it off my shoulders. He tosses it on the armchair and moves to unbutton my shirt.
Dark eyes peruse the bruised lines on my torso where Presley’s hits hammered my pads into my chest. When they lift to mine, he lowers his lips to the bruise circling the base of my neck, tracing the sore line with open-mouthed kisses while he discards my shirt.
Then his hands are on my skin, and I can’t catch my breath to moan how incredible it feels—Eli’s touch, the reverence twinned with barely controlled yearning.
“You had me going out of my mind,” he breathes, dragging his mouth to the left side of my chest.
With a quick nip, Eli pulls back. He straightens to his full height and makes quick work of unbuttoning his shirt, shucking off his slacks, and trailing backward to the bed. He sits on the edge.
My pulse thrums to a new beat, a needy rhythm that languishes at his missing touch.
Following him, I toe off my shoes and loosen my belt. I don’t strip my pants because I’m naked underneath, and as much as my dick is aching to lose myself in Eli, now isn’t the time for it.
I want to touch him, kiss him, love on him. I always do. Nevertheless, before any of that, I need to talk to him.
“Gerry’s called a meeting tomorrow morning.”
The lump in my throat swells. I swear it was gone a moment ago; now it’s back, cutting off oxygen to my brain.
Eli doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to—I hear the sharp intake of his breath, then an audible swallow.
“We don’t know it’s a worst-case-scenario kind of meeting,” he finally says. “We don’t know what he’s going to say or what?—”
“Eli, I have a two-game suspension and a ten-thousand-dollar fine. We know what the franchise is going to do.” My heart sprints until my lungs burn. “I fucked up.”
“No,” Eli growls, draping his arm around my shoulder before he shuffles back on the bed and takes me with him. “No, you didn’t…You didn’t.”
He turns on his side, resting the edge of his face on his forearm, tracing the bruises on my chest with his soft gaze.
“If they sack me?—”
“Gerry isn’t going to sack you over a fight, Jayden. It’s unheard of.” A long finger touches my throat, trailing along Presley’s fingerprints on my jugular. “You didn’t go at him any harder than he went at you.”
“Yeah, but I went for him?—”
“After he pinned me to the boards.” The harsh timber in his voice lifts my stare to his glossy eyes. “Any of the other guys would’ve done the same.”
“Any of the other guys wouldn’t be your boyfriend… his sister’s boyfriend…”
His hand trails to my jaw. He leans closer; the tip of his nose brushes my cheek before his lips nuzzle the corner of my mouth. “JJ, it’s going to be okay, Baby. You’re too integral to the team for them to void your contract over a fight, and you’re too important to me to let you go without one.”
