Page 66 of Ominous: Part 1
I look up to find him staring at me, rain slipping off the edge of his upturned nose. He still doesn’t touch me, like he knows what I’d do if he did.
“What do you want, Eden?” He continues our conversation from upstairs like we never stopped talking. “Whatever it is, whoever it is… I can be it.Anything.”
I let my hand slip down over his skin, loving the feel of every muscle, all the strength in his body. His torso jumps beneath my palm, and I love that, too. Affecting him.
I let my fingers stop at the soaked waistband of his jeans. “I want the truth.” I lick my lips, breathing hard.“Of you.”
14
Eli
Her body ishot against mine. She didn’t last long after we came inside, and this time, there were no nerves masked with cool detachment. She simply demanded I take her to her room, by which she meantmyroom, because even though there are two guest rooms in this house, there was zero chance she would sleep with walls between us.
And now, for the first time, despite her answers in my car last weekend, there are no guards up.
The string of lights over my double closet doors are on, the faintest glow of blue, and as rain spatters against the glass of my balcony, thunder and wind still raging outside with flecks of forked blue-violet, I watch her sleep.
She fumbled with her boots. I helped her slip them off. I offered her the checkered bag she left in my car when we went to Dom’s. She snatched it clumsily, sauntered to my bathroom, closed and locked the door. Drunk, sleepy, crashing, but not completely out of it.
Even her phone is plugged into the charger she brought, set on the nightstand beside her, empty save for a matching lamp to my own nightstand.
When she walked out of the bathroom, she was in oversized, gray pajama pants and an enormous white, cropped shirt with the wordsWilmington, NCscrawled across it in pink. Now, the faded print is hidden, because she’s slipped my dark blue covers over her chest. She had started on her side, but quickly rolled over, and she’s vulnerable here, her arms bracketing her head on my pillow.
She had her hair down when she walked out of that bathroom too, and I felt a pang of longing I didn’t get to take her braids out.
I can smell the mint on her breath now as she sleeps, and I think it’s cute, the fact even though she was exhausted and not quite sober, she still made sure to brush her teeth.
I’m propped on my side, elbow bent, head in my hand, my bottom thigh against her body, feeling every inch of heat she radiates as she sleeps. Does she ever get cold?
The ceiling fan spins on high overhead, a thing I did for her because she mumbled something about white noise and getting hot at night.
I watch as the breeze ruffles a strand of hair from her face, still damp from our jog in the rain.
She’s beautiful with her guard down. She was beautiful with it up too, but this version of Eden would believe anything I told her. Maybe she wouldn’t remember it in the morning, but there would be no questioning looks, no narrowing her eyes, no turning her back on me.
No walking out.
She’s softer like this.I want her like this, only for me.
I could touch her. Tell her anything I wanted to.
Confess.
My free hand is between us, the fitted sheet heated from her body. An inch, and I’d brush against her ribcage, over her shirt, under the covers.
I force my gaze back up to her face.
Her lashes appear even longer with her eyes closed. I realize they’re more straight than curved, which is why I couldn’t quite tell just how long they were until now.
No makeup on her face, I assume she washed it off in my bathroom too.
I press my fingertips into my mattress, gritting my teeth. My hands ache, wanting to touch her. I’ve gotten off to the memory of her inside my head in this bed. More than once. More times than I’d ever say out loud, even before we first spoke in the library.
Over a month now, I’ve fantasized about Eden.
And here she is, in my bed.
And it was easy.
