Except my fix wasn’t quietly sleeping and the second I opened the door, my eyes connected with Eli’s. The room was dark, but he hadn’t closed the curtains so there was enough light from the city street lamps to see his face. He was sitting in an armchair that he’d dragged in front of the balcony doors which were open, allowing the light din of traffic and street noise to filter into the room. And despite it being early summer, the night air was cool enough that the room was almost uncomfortably cold. Eli was still wearing his street clothes and the bed hadn’t been disturbed so I had no doubt he’d been in this exact position for a while.
Eli’s eyes held mine as I closed the door behind me. I expected him to say something, to ask what I was doing there, but he just stared at me, his eyes shrouded with sadness. I had no idea how much time passed as we watched each other, but Eli was the first to finally move. He pushed up from the chair and walked around it and towards the bed. Once he reached the side of it, his fingers reached up for the first button on his shirt. He never once took his eyes from me as he slowly worked all of the buttons free and then peeled the shirt off and dropped it to the floor. I held my breath as he reached for the button on his pants. I knew I needed to turn around. To walk back out of the room. To pretend I’d never walked into it in the first place.
I didn’t do that. I didn’t do anything except stand there and watch as Eli unhurriedly revealed his body to me bit by bit. When he was naked, he didn’t move, didn’t try to cover himself. He just waited…a silent offering.
One I knew I would take…I couldn’t pretend that it wasn’t the real reason I’d come to his room in the first place.
My feet felt heavy as I made my way to stand in front of him. I waited for him to say something, to ask questions about what this all meant…to insist that it meant something. But he didn’t. He just held my gaze for a moment before dropping his eyes so he could search out the hem of my shirt and push it up. He undressed me as slowly as he’d undressed himself and when the last of my clothes hit the floor, I reached for him. He came willingly and matched me kiss for kiss, touch for touch and I finally felt the knot in my chest loosen. I only stopped kissing him long enough to grab the packet of lube from my wallet and then I was lowering him to the bed.
I was too needy to do anything but slather some lube over my length before pushing into Eli’s body, but instead of protesting, he held on to me and lifted his hips to meet the powerful thrust that had me bottoming out inside of him in one move. I couldn’t stop kissing him as I surged into him over and over and I reveled in the way he clung to me. For all I’d said and done to him, he never held himself back from me as I sought the peace I so desperately craved and when he came apart in my arms, he told me he loved me, setting off my own nearly painful orgasm. When I forced myself to pull free of him and roll off his body, Eli lay there for a few seconds and then climbed to his feet. He didn’t say anything as he walked around the bed and disappeared into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. I heard the shower come on a moment later. The dismissal stung and I fought the urge to follow him in there. Except I had no right to expect any different.
I shook my head in disbelief. After everything I’d done and said to him, he’d still told me he loved me.
Self-hatred consumed me as I yanked on my clothes. Eli always had and always would deserve someone better than me. And he’d see that himself in a few short hours when he saw the world I’d come from and that had still rejected me. Then I’d watch him climb on Ronan’s plane to go back to a life that didn’t and shouldn’t include me. And I’d go back to my life the way it had been before I’d ever set eyes on him.
But as I closed Eli’s door behind me, I wondered why the hell the idea no longer appealed to me.
Not even a little bit.
* * *
“Morning,” I heard Jonas say as I entered the kitchen, my bag in hand. I hadn’t expected to find anyone up and about since it was only four o’clock in the morning. He was sitting at the table drinking what looked like a homemade latte. The overhead light wasn’t on, but the light above the stove was so I didn’t have trouble making out his features. His eyes shifted to my bag. “You know Mace as well as anyone,” he said. “You really think he’d let you leave like this?”