Page 34 of Break the Ice
I want to touch her so bad, but I can’t. That same need that Jayden said he sees in her runs through me all the time.
The craving torments me. Hammering at my walls, threatening to crumble my resolve to protect her from myself and the past.
I can’t hurt her like that.
Tracing her gaze back down my chest, Finley continues eating me up with her eyes, and I can’t help doing the same even though my head is screaming at me to look away. To pull back.
I shouldn’t be ogling her like this.
I can’t touch.
I keep telling myself all these things, and yet my feet are stuck to the ground when she stops in front of me. Dainty hands hover over my chest while her face lifts to mine.
“My word,” she hums before sucking in another breath. “Your body… My God, it’s… you’re…”
The wonder in her voice has me torn between pulling her close and pushing her away. Her pout is pressed together, and her nasally breaths are visible when her fingertips ghost over my chest.
As they graze my collarbone, I whimper at her touch. The sound is choked and needy, hanging in the air between us so heavy that I feel it push me closer to her.
“You’re—you’re so beautiful,” she murmurs, pressing her hand over my erratic heart.
All that’s going through my head are JJ’s words:Everything inside her is begging for you to touch her.
Inching closer, Finley licks her lips. They’re right there, waiting for me to throw caution to the wind and taste her. Take what’s always been mine.
Moving my hand from my towel, I grip her hip and close the space between us. As I lower to her, she rolls up onto her toes to meet me, her other hand grasps my wrist over the leather braid she put on me years ago and…
“My god, Elijah, you’re so darn pretty.”
Pretty.
I pull back, my blood chilling at the word. Bile burns up my esophagus as the word echoes in my ears. Her blue eyes pierce mine. Blue eyes that I’m too familiar with.
Such a pretty boy.
I can’t breathe. Everything inside me stiffens.
My hand clamps around her wrist, so tight that her face scrunches when I pull her hand off my chest just as the alarm goes off again in the distance.
“Shoot,” Finely sputters, her eyes glazing over with tears. “I’m sorry.”
She doesn’t need to apologize.
She’s not the problem. It’s not her… it’s me.
I’m the messed up one. I almost tell her that. Instead, I force a chuckle that comes out throatier than it should.
Taking a few steps back, I ask, “Why’re you hiding in my closet?”
The space between us makes it easier to think. To get my head together so I can rationalize and get my anxiety in check. As I turn away and pull some shorts and a t-shirt, I sense her stare following while I head back to the bathroom.
“I wasn’t hiding,” Finley says, sitting on my rumpled bed when I turn to look at her.
The sight of her cross-legged on my sheets gives me pause. Her light brown hair is a disarray of natural waves teased from tossing and turning in her sleep.
Sometimes when I’m wide awake at night, I can hear her walking around the apartment. I watch the light from the hallway bleed beneathmy bedroom door. It doesn’t matter how much I want to go to her; I need the time away from everything to center myself and reset.
“I was looking for something else to wear. I can’t go out in your t-shirt and underwear,” she gives me a coy smile.
