Page 104 of Ecstasy
I can hear her swallow.
“I should go upstairs.”
“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”
Silence.
Silence, save for everyone upstairs. Everyone I don’t want to see. I wonder if she wants to see them. I wonder who she is, when she isn’t playing this role.
“Alex is—”
I tighten my hold on her. “Fuck Alex.”
“Eli, you don’t—you don’t even know me. This isn’t a good idea. Not tonight.”
I pull her closer to me, and her hands rise to my chest as she looks up at me, the breath startled from her pretty little mouth. “Does he know?” I wrap one arm around her back, using my other hand to brush a lock of hair behind her ear, trailing my fingers down to her neck, where I rest my hand against her collarbone. “Does he know about those scars, baby girl?”
In the dim light pouring in from upstairs, I see pink blooming on her cheeks. “Why are you so obsessed with—”
“With the ways you hurt?” I ask her, leaning down close, pressing my brow to hers.
She doesn’t answer me, but I can feel her pulse beneath my hand on her collarbone, and it picks up speed.
Knowing that it’s because of me…thatI’mdoing that to her…
“You saw me,” she says, her voice rough, interrupting my thought. “You watched me that night. You watched me. But you didn’t stop me—”
“Would you have wanted me to?” I tilt my head, angling my mouth over hers. I can smell her breath. It smells like alcohol and hard candy and I wonder what she did in that bathroom. I want to press my lips to hers. I want to feel her mouth crashing against mine.
“Eli, I don’t think we should—”
I brush my hands down her side, skimming her waist, beneath her shirt. “Tell me to stop.”
She doesn’t say anything.
She doesn’t move away, instead, she leans closer. It’s such a subtle movement, if we were further from one another, I wouldn’t have noticed it. But we’re not, and her lips brush mine.
“We shouldn’t—”
“Tell me to stop,” I tell her again. “Tell me to stop and I will. I’m not like him.”
“That night, you weren’t going to stop.” Her lips move against mine, and fuck, I want her.
My dick is aching with her being so close to me. All the blood has rushed from my head and all I want is her.
I fucking want her.
“That night it was Alex that stopped,” her voice is little more than a whisper. “And you pushed me onto him. You pushed me and your fingers…”
I’ve already apologized for this shit. I don’t want to talk about this again. And those very same fingers she’s referring to dig into her skin. “What, baby girl? Tell me what I did.”
Her hands are still on my shirt, but slowly, she uncurls her fist. She uncurls each smooth finger and she slides it under the sleeves of my t-shirt, and my chest tightens with her touch.
“You hurt me,” she tells me in a whisper. A whisper that I feel against my mouth. “You hurt me, and you watched me hurt myself and you—”
“What the fuck are you doing?”
Alex’s voice startles her.
