Page 83 of Hard Lessons
I kept my eyes on her. “I said thatwasthe plan. Things changed. I changed!” I held my hands out, my fingers outstretched.
“Oh yeah? When? Was it before or after I bought the paper that you wrote and then blackmailed me with?”
I felt the anger inside of me rising once again.
“After,” I said between clenched teeth.
She laughed and shook her head. “I can’t believe this.” Her pacing started back up. “All of this has been nothing but some sickfuckinggame to you.”
“No, it hasn’t.” I stood up. “I’ll admit that everything I did was fucked up. I wish I could take it all back, but I can’t. But I’m not going to let that stand in our way. Yes, things between us were fucked from the start, but that doesn’t mean that what we found in one another wasn’t real.”
“Yes, it does!” she yelled.
“You’re angry. I get that. You have every right to be, but I’m not going anywhere. I’m right here, and I’m going to stay right here so I can remind you over and over again that what we had was real. Everything I said to you, I meant.”
“Why did you come here, Elliot?” she asked weakly.
“I came for you. I came to fix this.” I took a step closer. “I came to get you back. I can’t live without you, Evelyn. I don’t want to.” I took another step. “And I know you feel the same way. I would chase you to the end of the world to prove to you how far I’m willing to go.” I took her hand in mine, and when she didn’t pull it away, I pulled her against my chest. “If you want to knowhow far I’ll go to get you back, I’ll go anywhere you tell me to go, Evie. I’ll go to hell and fight my way back.” I cupped her jaw and tilted her head back.
Our eyes met and locked.
“I’ll do anything you want. Just don’t push me away. You don’t even know how badly I need you.” I pressed my mouth to hers.
She opened for me, and I thrust my tongue inside. The moment her sweetness washed over me, I melted. Everything fell away. I forgot that Gabe was just outside her door, probably listening to every word we said. I forgot how fucked up things were between us. I forgot about everything except her and me. I got lost in her, just as I always had. I picked her up against me and pressed her back to the wall. She gasped when I throbbed against her center. She was only wearing a tiny pair of cotton shorts and a t-shirt. I pushed my hands up beneath her shirt and found her chest bare. Her nipples instantly hardened against my palms, and she moaned when I pinched them.
She fisted my hair and kissed me harder. I moved one hand between us, running my fingers up her inner thigh until I was pushing her shorts out of the way to rub against her center. She was dripping with excitement, making it easy for my fingers to thrust into her.
“Fuck, I can’t wait to be inside you again,” I said against her lips as I ground my palm against her clit.
She broke our kiss. “No, Elliot.”
My brows knitted together as I looked into her lust-filled eyes. “No, what?” My fingers stilled inside her.
“We can’t do this anymore.”
“Nothing has changed, Evie.” I removed my hand from her breast and wrapped it around her throat, holding her in place as my other hand worked harder to push her over the edge.
She wrapped her hand around my wrist. “Everything has changed, Elliot. I-I don’t trust you.”
Her words were like a slap to my face. After all these years, after everything that had happened between us, she was letting the bad have more power than the good.
“You don’t mean that,” I said thickly, removing my hand from between her legs. I grabbed her hip and squeezed, trying my hardest not to let her slip through my fingers, but I could tell by the look in her eyes that she was falling away from me.
“I do mean it. I want you to go.”
“What? No.” I couldn’t believe what she was saying. How could everything change so quickly for her? Nothing had changed for me. I still wanted her. I still needed her. And I was still losing her. The pain was unbearable. There was so much pressure on my chest that I couldn’t take a breath.
She pushed against my chest, trying to make me go away, but I fought to hang onto her and lifted her against me. “Don’t do this. Don’t fucking do this, Evie.”
Tears welled up in her eyes. “Put me down!” She pushed harder.
“No. Fuck! Evie, just listen to me,” I pleaded. “Please, baby. I need you to listen.”
She bucked against me, screaming for me to release her.
God, I couldn’t let her go. I loved her. I loved her more than I’d ever loved anything in my entire fucking life. She made me feel alive again. She made me feel seen. She made me…Fuck, she just mademe.
A loud crashing sound cut through everything else, and the next thing I knew, Gabe was ripping me away from her.
