Page 177 of Break the Ice
Her laugh deepens with another snort, and my chest does all manner of crazy gymnastics. Then that joy-dazed look from last night lands on me, the one I promised I’d put on her face every damn day, and I can’t not kiss her.
I’m mid-maul when the buzzer rattles.
As I pull away to go grab our food, Eli stops me, giving my shoulder a hard squeeze with a tip of his chin that saysstay.
Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but a flicker of hope sparks in my chest.
Cradling Finley’s face, I nudge her nose with mine, strumming my pout along hers.
“He wants this, too, Jayden,” she whispers into my parted mouth. “I feel it, you know?”
I eat up the words from her lips, nipping at them while my thumbs stroke along the warm apples of her cheeks.
“It’s pulsing, you know, right here,” Finley rasps, dragging my hand down her neck to the swell of her tits where her heart is thumping wildly. Pressing it harder into her supple curves, she inches it down to her belly. “And here… it’s fluttering like crazy.”
The heat of her words winds through me, and speech becomes a lost art. There isn’t an argument anyway. It’s true. I feel it too.
Much like the ache of longing, the promise hums in every cell. Like the warmth of the sun in winter, it permeates through me with a thrill I can’t subdue.
“Oh,” Finley murmurs as we break for air. “I like the music you play at the gym. I also loved the songs we danced to at the bar.” Her lips pucker with a bashful twist before she sighs, “And I really like this one too.”
“I’m sensing what you like is what’s happening while the music plays.”
“How perceptive…” Finley eats up my chuckle with a playful nip of my lip. “Every time I hear those songs, I’ll remember these moments. Doesn’t matter where I am… I’ll feel the way I felt during them.”
“Hot and bothered?” I tease, dragging my chair closer so we’re still touching when I lean back—thigh to thigh, arm to arm, sneakers bumping. “Basically, you’re saying you, beautiful creature, are a horn-dog.”
Color blooms from her cheeks down her throat as a giggle shakes her. “Jayden Morrow,” she sing-songs, twining our fingers on the table. “I am what you make of me.”
“If that’s so,” I say, kissing her temple as Eli returns with a broad wooden platter loaded in both hands, “I want to make you happy, Finley-James.”
“You already do.” Tilting her head to the side, she glances up at me. Her expression is pulled into a serious pout before she adds, “Not justme, either. I might make Elijah smile, but happiness goes deeper than that. Happiness is having the possibility of being who you are without fear of judgement. It’s not just me you give that to, is it?”
She pauses as Eli sets the tray down and talks us through each dish, leaving my heart blown wide-open by her words. I’m choking on all my feelings, incapable of forming any coherent thought or stringing a sentence together while he makes Finley a falafel wrap and then one for me.
Fuck, I’m done for.
I’m a total goner.
And fuck me, I love it.
CHAPTER 54
ELIJAH
My heart panics when we reach our floor. As though he feels it too, Jayden wraps himself around Finley and walks her to our door, peppering kisses across her shoulders like he might not get the chance to do it again.
I don’t know what it says about me that I want him to do it again. For them to keep touching each other. All I know is that being with them like this, watching them together makes me feel more like myself than I’ve ever been.
“Don’t go,” I tell him when he starts backing towards his door.
Jayden pauses mid-step, mouth hanging open like he doesn’t know what to say. When I look at Finley, she just smiles.
I don’t know what to do. What to say...
“What do you want to do, Elijah?” Finley asks, slipping a hand into mine.
When I look between her and Jayden, he comes closer. “If we’re going to do this,” he gestures between the three of us, “you have to communicate. I need to know what you want, Eli. What you’re okay with beyond the kissing and the flirting. And if that’s all you’re comfortable with, that’s okay. If you just want to hang out like before, I’m good with that, too. But you need to speak up cause I don’t want to hurt you.”
