Page 52 of Between the Lines

“Come on now,” I prompted. “You’re telling me it just feels perfectly natural and…neutralto you?”

He let out this sexy-ass chuckle and shook his head. “Neutral…I can manage neutral. Natural? No comment.”

I laughed. “This isn’t ano commentkind of situation,” I said. “Be real about it.”

“What do you mean? What are you asking me?”

“If doing these things together, acting together, all of that…does it not faze you?”

“Of course it phases me,” he said. “I don’t think anybody can do something like that with an ex and claim to not be fazed by it.”

“Well yeah, but we’re not talking aboutanybody, we’re talking aboutme and you,” I said. “I can think of a couple exes I’d be hella uncomfortable doing things like that with. People I would outrightrefuseto do things like that with.”

“So you’re notreallywondering if I’m fazed by it— what you really want to know is…if I enjoy it,” he said, brow raised.

I wanted to deny his assertion, but realistically, I couldn’t.

So instead, I nodded.

“I’m doing the job, Ellie,” he answered with a shrug. “In those moments, I’m doing all I can to just be professional. It’s not about if I like it or not.”

“So you don’t know, or you don’t want to say?”

“Like I said…I’m trying not to think about it.”

“In those moments?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, but what about right now?”

“What about it?” he countered, fixing me with a curious gaze.

When I didn’t say anything, he dropped his gaze to my lips.

And then, the next thing I knew…he was kissing me.

This wasn’t the first time recently—we’d done much more as Luna and Shaw.

But like he said…this was different.

This wasn’t Luna and Silas.

This was…Ellie and Shaw.

And the feel of his lips, the soft caress of his hands as he grabbed me at the waist to pull me into him was so achingly familiar it made my chest hurt, in the best way. Like a long, cool drink after a walk in the hot sun, I soaked it all in.

Lapped it all up.

I…wasn’t even that sure how we’d arrived here, but I had zero desire to overthink it—I just wanted to sink into him, to stay likethis, unquestioning, as long as I could before any sort of reality brought me back.

We weren’t supposed to be doing this, I knew that, but who gave a shit?

Now that he’d pulled me onto his lap, and had his hands sunk into my hair, pulling me closer to his mouth, it was entirely too easy to kiss him back, giving as much of his energy back to him as I could.

In the position we were in, I could feel him getting hard against me, between my legs, which probably should have been my sign that this was going further than it should. Instead, I leaned intothattoo, letting the natural urge to grind into his lap take over until Shaw let out a grunt, finally releasing his connection to my mouth.

“Shit,” he groaned, meeting my gaze. “What are we doing?”

---