Page 98 of Pack Frenzy
I slip my hand under the jacket in answer and rest it on her knee. I hold her hand, and I feel like a damn teenager again.The film carries us through quiet breakfasts and a promise at a station, and a monster waiting at the end of an alley that only one boy can see.
Her breath catches when I draw two fingers up the inside of her thigh. Two inches. Then two more. She tips, lashes low, mouth parted likeyes.
We’re not alone. That should matter more. It doesn’t.
“Jess,” I murmur—a question, a warning.
Her hand finds my wrist beneath the jacket and presses—guiding, not begging. Higher.
I’m not a saint. I’m a man who’s been told “not you” in a hundred careful ways; who learned restraint so well I could teach it. I slide my hand higher.
Soft cotton shorts. The first brush of my knuckles at the seam steals my breath. She’s hot there. Slick. Her scent opens like a fist unclenching, sweet and lush and a little unsteady.
I make nothing-shapes on her skin, careful, patient, never where she’s desperate, until her breathing goes rough and the little tendons in her wrist jump under my thumb.
Onscreen, the monster is not a monster. Jess bites her lip. I can feel the thoughts in her body—don’t push, don’t perform, don’t make me pick.
I don’t.
I find the edge of cotton and ease two fingers under, slow enough she can tell me no.
“Color?” I breathe—quiet, hopeful, too earnest to be cool.
“Green, Eli” she whispers. “Bright green.”
I feel that everywhere. Jesus.
Heat. Wet. I want to put my mouth on her. I want to drag her into my lap and saymineinto the place she breaks open. I want a hundred things I don’t take.
I circle her clit once, lightly. Her breath stops. Again, a hair more pressure.
Her breath drops from chest to belly, becomes something heavy and inevitable. I keep my eyes front and work here theway I do everything—precision, patience, respect. No hurry, no showing off. Just steady, quiet heat until it’s all there is.
Rowan adjusts in his seat, face tipped toward the ceiling like he’s counting ductwork. Cassian’s hand scrubs over his mouth. Somewhere, someone munches popcorn in the quiet of the movie during the main characters making love.
Jess trembles. Doesn’t hide it. I lean shoulder to shoulder, anchoring her to something that won’t ask for anything back.
“Eli,” she breathes, the sound lost in the score.
“You’re good,” I murmur into her hair. “Breathe.”
I press two fingers inside—shallow, then slow, deeper. She takes me like she’s been waiting. My own restraint is barbed wire I hold with both hands; it bites, and I don’t let go.
I curl just enough to find the angle that bows her spine, stroke there in even passes while my thumb makes small, careful circles over what’s swollen and slick andoursto keep secret in the dark.
The music swells. A promise kept. Jess tightens around my fingers, thighs trying to close on my wrist, breath coming in punched little sounds she buries in my shoulder. I keep her there—balanced—until her hand knots in my jacket and she comes with a muffled whimper I feel against my throat.
Rowan studies the EXIT sign like he wants to bolt—drag all of us back to the cabin. Cassian coughs like the soda went down wrong. I don’t look at either of them because I know what they want…her.
But right now,I’mthe one she’s letting in. Not biology. Not the bond she has with Cassian. Me.
I ease her down, ride the aftershocks with her, then slip out and straighten the jacket like the world is delicate—likesheis. Her scent is everywhere—sweet, claiming, ribboned around my ribs.
My cock is a steady ache that’s been building for fifteen minutes, but I don’t move. She doesn’t owe me anything. She never will.
Onscreen, dawn. A rooftop. Last lines about choosing the place that feels like breath. Then the credits roll.
“There’s a mini-scene after the credits,” I tell her.
