Page 39 of Dare To Live

“Move on.” My voice is flat and I’m still fucking echoing what she’s saying.

She scrambles off the bed and comes toward me. I’ve never wanted to bolt so fucking fast in my entire life. My mind is screaming that it’s a trap, that nothing good is going to come of me even considering her suggestion.

I grope behind me for the doorknob and yank it open. “I’m going to take a shower.” I step backward out of the room.

“But Eli—”

“No.” I stride down the hallway to the bathroom, step inside and lock the door. Spinning, I lean against it and blow out a breath.

No fucking way.

I’m not even going to entertain the idea. Not because I don’t want her. I do. But because I know that the second I have her again, there’s no way I’m going to let her go.

Chapter 23

Arabella

I stand outside the bathroom door. No matter how much he might want to deny it, I’d felt his erection this morning. The steel hard length against my hip. A painful ache had spread through me when I woke up, and I’d been filled with the need to have him inside me again. I’m sure that being intimate with him would fill the emptiness I’ve been living with for the past ten years.

He held me through the night. Kept me from drowning in a panic attack. I can’t help but believe it means something. That he still feels something for me.

Was the sex between us really as good as I remember, or did I imagine it?

Eli was the first boy I’d slept with. But that’s what he was. A boy, not a man.

Could he really have been as good as I remember? Am I looking back with rose-tinted glasses, my mind making it out to be more than it was?

Neither of us got closure. Now that we’re older and more mature, surely we can handle the intense intimacy we’d shared. No messy emotions, just the physical side one last time before we both walk away. Maybe it will finally exorcize the tangle of emotions still between us.

Decision made, I try the handle, but the bathroom door is locked. “Eli?”

“Go away.”

“Please, hear me out.”

“No.”

“But we have the perfect opportunity here.”

“Not interested.”

The muffled sound of water running comes from behind the door. An image of Eli’s muscled, naked, tattooed body slick under the shower fills my head. My body is warm all over.

Maybe he’ll be more inclined to listen if I feed him.

I make my way into the kitchen, get the coffee started and dig a packet of bacon and a carton of eggs out of the refrigerator.

Eli wanders into the room just as I’m filling two plates. He’s dressed in a pair of sweats that ride low on his hips. His chest is bare, tattoos on display, and it makes me pause for a second. Yet another difference between the boy and the man. The boy would never have walked around shirtless.

His dark hair is damp, the wet strands curling at the ends and it’s long enough to brush over his shoulders every time he turns his head. I take one of the plates and a cup of coffee over to the table, as he takes a seat.

He eyes me for a second before his attention drops to the fried bacon, eggs, and toast heaped on his plate. “If you think you can seduce me with food, think again.”

I grab my plate and cup, and then join him. “No, I just like cooking, and after last night, this is my way of saying thank you for taking care of me.”

“I don’t need your gratitude.”

“Well, you still have it.”

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