Elden’s hair was loose, brushing his shoulders. My fingers twitched as I had the overwhelming urge to run my hands through it. The tee he was wearing underneath his cut again struggled to contain those arm muscles I could drool over.
“Where have you been?” I demanded, hand on my hip, trying my level best not to look at the bed in the corner.
I had been alone with Elden on exactly one occasion—the rooftop three days ago. When he’d kissed me.
When he’d taken me off the face of the earth and placed me somewhere completely different. Then left. Left me to question everything. To think about him nonstop and wonder what was wrong with me. I’d never thought about a boy like this. Never let one rattle me so.
But this wasn’t a boy.
This was aman.
And he made me feel like more of a woman than I ever had in my life.
“A trip.”
The air vibrated as I waited for more, his eyes gluing me in place, his gaze shaking my resolve.
But nothing more came. No explanation. I figured I wasn’t really entitled to one, but was I? I was just the teenage girl who was staying with the club because of my family connection. I was just a kid to him. Except, I wasn’t. Not since the second we’d laid eyes on each other.
“A trip where?” I asked, losing whatever battle was raging between us in our silence.
He stared at me without answering.
“A tripwhere,Elden?” I repeated, my voice sharper this time.
His gaze didn’t leave mine. “I’ve got shit to do,” he clipped, trying to dismiss me.
Except, if he were trying to dismiss me, he would’ve broken his gaze, turned his back on me, walked me out of the room and slammed the door in my face. He did none of those things. He just kept staring at me.
My knees quivered. My breath shallowed. For a brief moment, I totally forgot my reason for being here, I totally forgot every other reason for being on this earth except for being able to meet his stare. For a moment, I existed solely for Elden, for this second, where we stared at each other without saying a word. I lingered in the moment because it made me feel like I was his. Because that’s how he was looking at me. Like he was claiming me in some way.
I realized, in that moment, that no one had ever reallylookedat me before. No one had seen me like this man did.
Yes, my friends, my family may know me better, but no one had looked at me likethis.
I broke out of the moment like I was reaching the surface after flailing underwater for an almost terminal amount of time.
“Elden.” His name simultaneously tasted sweet and sour. I hated that I didn’t have an ownership over it, yet something carnal told me he was mine. “Where were you?”
Silence reigned for a few moments longer. “Taking care of business.”
I put my hands on my hips, irritated at his placid demeanor, his vague answers. Again, I ached for a kind of kinship with this man so that those answers were mine. I wished that I had a valid reason to be stomping in here demanding answers without feeling like a child.
“Club business?” I clarified.
He shook his head once.
Something fluttered in my stomach. “Did this business take you out of the country?” I asked.
His jaw was hard as he crossed his arms across his impressive chest. My gaze slid to the way his considerable biceps flexed with the movement.
Something decidedly below my stomach pulsated. Desire that I rightly shouldn’t have felt so soon after my procedure bloomed between my legs.
Then again, this man had awakened something inside of me just days after my procedure. It said more about me than it did anything else.
My eyes went to his knuckles… They were bruised, red and scabbed.
My heart beat faster.