Page 17 of Keeping Ava

“No,” I cry out, fighting a different set of emotions creeping in. Panic.

In the blink of an eye, I go from needing to come, to rushing out.

The bathroom smells of his soap, and my body is thrumming with a hunger I don’t know if I can control around him. I need to get inside my room before I get caught or jump his bones.

Within seconds of the door closing, I have the water off and a towel around my body, clutching my change of clothing in my hand. There’s no time for that. I need to get back inside the safety of my room.

One foot in front of the other, I open the door and rush out without thinking, not seeing what is in front of me, and I slam into a wall of muscle.

A wall with strong hands that grab onto my hips to steady me. Whose fingers dig in, pulling a tiny whimper from me as I clutch my towel to keep it in place. This wall smells like my kind of heaven and yet beckons me to become a sinner as our eyes meet.

Heavy lidded, his brown eyes smolder and my breathing hitches. He licks his lips, and I bite the inside of my cheek while taking a step back. And then another.

Every processor in my body is blaring red and telling me to abort. To run.

To remember why we can’t be.

“Ava,” Elijah says low, the timbre of his voice flowing over my skin like a caress, his large hands clenching at his sides. “Are you—”

“Bye!” I yell out then, interrupting him. He’s looking at me, and my body can’t handle his nearness. Without a backward glance, I leave him just outside of the bathroom and rush into my room.

I don’t stop until I’m inside, door closed and cursing my own stupidity. He’s a temptation I can’t avoid, and it could end in disaster for us.

We can’t.

Even if I want him.

Maybe I should ask for a different—

I stop that train of thought in its tracks. Feels wrong.

Because no matter how much I should, I won’t. There’s only him.

I want Elijah near me even if it’s just within the same building. Same home. Protecting me.

“How the hell do I make these desires go away?”

Truth is that the answer might just be scarier than the question.

Chapter 6

Elijah

“Fuck,” I hiss low, rubbing my eyes. A mixture of anger and exhaustion consumes me, and a headache is forming at the back of my skull, making it harder to concentrate. It’s pounding and all I want to do is rest, but I can’t.

Rest; something now foreign to me. I haven’t had a single good night’s sleep since Ava arrived. Each encounter brands me. She holds a power over my being no one else has before.

The sight of her in that towel all those days ago almost annihilated my resolve. Because job be damned; I want her.

Badly. Insanely.

Get it together, Ford. You have a job to do.

Right. My job. The one I seem to not give three fucks about lately when I’m near her.

Focusing back on the laptop in front of me, my eyes feel the strain—everything on the screen becoming a bit blurry as I read through the latest information Perez sent me early this morning. The electronic file contains information that very few know, and if the media got wind of its severity, we’d have a panic on our hands.

The sudden mass of bullshit calls and sightings everywhere will pull us away from what can be an actual capture. I’ve seen it before; prank calls and false information flood our offices, and manpower becomes thin as we work to confirm each one.

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