“What, Zeke?!” His eyes are wild, chest heaving.
“What the hell just happened to make you fly out of there like your damn pants were on fire?”
Shaking his head once more, he huffs out a laugh. “Nothing good would’ve come from the rest of that conversation.”
“And why not?” I’m being deliberately obtuse, and we both know it.
“Because.” He blows out a breath, raking a hand through his hair. “Because I would do something I know I shouldn’t, and then I’d have to feel bad for not feeling guilty about doing the thing I shouldn’t have done.”
My pulse is racing, body heating, every nerve in my body alive. “Like what?”
“Zeke…” My name comes out of his mouth like a plea. A desperate attempt to stop whatever is happening between us right now. The thing is, though, I don’t think it can be stopped. I think whatever it is has been brewing for a while… a long while, and it’s only a matter of time before it explodes…Again.
“Like what?” I repeat, voice quiet and husky. There’s less than a foot between us, so close I can see the pulsing of the vein in his neck and the slight quiver to his lip.
It’s so quiet, you could hear a pin drop. Elias lets out a shaky breath, thrusting both hands through his hair before bringing them up to my face.
“Like this,” he whispers before standing on his tiptoes, and sealing our lips together.
My hands find purchase on his hips as my tongue glides along the seam of his lips, groaning when he opens for me. Time stands still as I slip inside and taste him. I’ve wondered several times over the last year what it would be like to kiss him again. It doesn’t take long for us to get lost in one another; his arms wrapping around my neck, our bodies flush. The whimper that falls from his mouth when I take his bottom lip between my teeth lights me up like a shot of adrenaline straight to the vein.
I’m starving, and he’s breathing a life into me that I am so greedily willing to take. I never want to let him go, but I have to. All too soon, the sound of a car door closing pulls us from our bubble.
Shit. That has to be Hilda.
“Oh my God,” Elias pants.
Pulling apart, we right ourselves before the sound of a key in the deadbolt rings loud in the quiet space.
“Go,” I tell him, tipping my chin to the top of the stairs. “I’ll deal with Hilda.”
Like a deer in headlights, he gapes at me before nodding and barreling up the stairs seconds before the front door is pushed open.
Hilda jumps when she sees me. “Oh, hello, sir. You startled me.”
“My apologies,” I mutter with a smile. “I was just heading up to bed.”
“Have a wonderful evening, sir.”
“You too, Hilda. Thank you.”
Once up the stairs, I stop outside of Elias’s bedroom, my hand on the handle. Every part of me is screaming to go in there and finish what we started, but when I go to twist the knob, it’s locked.
“Fuck,” I hiss under my breath.
Staring at the door, like I could burst it down with my mind alone, I clench and unclench my fists at my sides. He’s back behind this wall he put up for us, and there’s nothing I can do about it. It’s fucking maddening.
Stalking to my room down the hall, I undress down to my boxers and my white undershirt, climbing into bed under the covers. Shocking to no one, sleep is nowhere to be found.
Chapter Fifteen
Elias Carnell
I’ve officially reached a new low. A new level of crazy.
Unsurprisingly, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about everything that took place last night. The too-quiet dinner with Zeke and Katie, the tension-filled movie time. Zeke apologizing for spanking me, and then admitting to not being able to forget the night we met. And the fuckingkiss.
Of course, that kiss is at the forefront of my mind. It waseverything.
