Page 24 of Passing the Red Line
Her right-hand lands on my chest and she pushes me back ever so slightly. She looks up at me from under her eyelashes and I could be wrong, but from what I can tell, she has lust swimming in her eyes.
Never did I think I was going to see Eliana throw that emotion at me, yet here I am, experiencing it and it’s causing my body to buzz.
Maybe one night together will get her out of my system. Maybe we can have one night and tomorrow we can go back to hating each other. Hating each other would definitely make working together a whole lot easier.
Eliana flexes her fingers against my chest, caressing the fabric of my shirt like she is contemplating on whether she should rip into shreds or not.
“Maybe I didn’t like my other choice because I had a bad day, and I was hoping that my actual choice would help me forget it.”
Help her forget.
I can do that, but before I agree to anything, I have to ask her a question that might cause her to knee me in the groin.
“And if I hadn’t shown up, would you have gone home with him?”
If Miguel wasn’t my friend, and she had gone out tonight and I had stayed home, would she be in his car right now, heading to his place with the hopes that he would make her forget her bad day?
Eliana shakes her head and doesn’t hesitate in answering. “Before you showed up, I had planned on getting a car and heading to your house, or at least to the beach. I was going to sit by the water and wait and see if you would have come out. That or maybe I would have knocked on your balcony door.”
She was going to seek me out.
The last two times we’ve been within five feet of each other we were at each other’s throats. We both spewed words of hate. Yet, someone how with all that we’ve said to each other, she was still going to come to me to comfort her.
She doesn’t know me. She hates me, hates what I do for a living, and yet she was still going to come to me.
Knowing that does something to me.
I place my hand on top of hers and keep her from pulling away.
Her hand is soft and I know without a doubt that every other part of her will be too.
“I thought you hated me.”
She nods. “I do, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting you to fuck me.” Her hand slides from under mine and she slides it up my neck until I feel her fingers in my hair. “What do you say, Rodriguez? Can you put our differences aside and make today a whole lot better for me?”
Who am I to deny her when she asked so nicely?
“Let’s go and I will fuck this day out of existence.”
CHAPTERSIX
Eliana
Every single rulethat I have set for myself when it comes to men, more specifically to hockey players, went out the window the second that Christian told Miguel that he was going to take me home.
I don’t know what it was about that specific moment but seeing him act like that was enough to get every single nerve inside my body to wake up.
That was exactly what I had been hoping for from the second that I saw him walk into the bar earlier in the night. Up until that point, I was trying to convince myself that I shouldn’t go to Christian’s house after leaving the bar. I was going to do everything that I could to talk myself out of the idea that sprung into my head after seeing an Instagram message during my lunch hour. I hated the guy, hated his profession, and he hated me. There was absolutely no reason for me to head down to his beach house and seek him out all because I wanted to forget a few messages.
I tried to figure out why I would even want to turn to Christian in the first place, and the only thing that I could come up with is that even though he was a hockey player, he was the complete opposite of the one that hurt me last. Even though he hated me, he would care enough to make me feel good and possibly make me feel worthy of having my body worshiped. It was a bad idea, but I still wanted to do it.
At least, I did for most of the day and for part of the evening.
When I got to the bar, after Miguel had invited me when he saw I was down earlier in the day, I tried to talk myself out of executing my plan. I was so close pulling the plug and not heading down to the beach when I was done at the bar. So damn close, but of course that all went to shit when I looked up and saw Christian walking in, heading to the little group I was with.
It was as if life decided to play a dirty trick on me for wanting to throw my plan in the trash. Even more dirty when life decided to leave only one stool open right in front of me.
I tried to act as if him being there didn’t affect me. I tried to not stare at him as much as I wanted to and for the most part I succeeded.
