Page 121 of What We Burn

Eli pulls his shirt off in one motion—his body, all pale muscle and ink, an atlas of the life he’s lived and the pain he won’t talk about. The scars on his arm, the tattoos on his ribs and back—including the one I drunkenly gave him—that all mean something, nothing and everything. He is strong, tense, deliberate. And he looks at me like he’s going to consume me.

He kneels over me, his knees pinning my thighs apart, and runs his hands from my wrists—testing the knots, the tension—down my arms to my shoulders, slow enough that I feel each nerve ending light up in sequence. He lets his touch linger on my neck, brushing my choker with the rough pads of his fingers, and then drags them lower, skating over my nipples until they tighten, pebble-hard, under his gaze. I squirm, and the rope bites deliciously at my wrists.

I expect him to take—for Eli to be rough, the way he was in the kitchen, at the club, to just fuck out his anger and let the world reset to zero. But he doesn’t. He makes me wait. He makes me ache for it—just like I’ve been doing to him.

“You’ve been keeping this from me,” he says, sliding his hand between my legs and slipping two fingers inside, moving back and forth. But then he stops. Holds them there, not moving, not giving in.

“You hurt me,” I spit, fighting the urge to writhe and take what I want. “You needed to earn it back.”

“And have I?”

I laugh once. It comes out thin and wrecked.

“Not fully.”

His fingers flex inside me. A warning pressure that makes my whole stomach tighten.

“Why?”

“Because you don’t get to act like I matter one day and like I’m a liability the next.” The words come hot now, easier because they’ve been living in me for weeks. “You don’t get to shove me out when I’m inconvenient and then decide I’m yours when I scare you. I needed to know if you wanted me, Eli. Me. Not just when I’m easy. Not just when I fit in the box you can handle.”

His expression hardens as his free hand comes up and brackets my jaw, firm enough that I feel his control in the bones of my face. My pulse is everywhere—between my legs, in my throat, against the silk at my wrists.

“I wanted you,” he says quietly. “From the beginning. That was never the problem.”

“Then why did you try to send me away?”

He releases my face and his fingers slide out of me. I almost swear at him for the loss, but he drags that same wet hand up my stomach instead, over my ribs, between my breasts, and cups my throat.

The scar there burns under his palm.

“The problem,” he says, voice lower now, rougher, “is that wanting you doesn’t sit where I put it. It doesn’t behave.” His thumb strokes once over the side of my neck and my whole body tightens. “You get into everything, Sage. My work. My head. My fucking sleep. Every line I built—every wall, every boundary—” He swallows. “You keep breaking them.”

“Good.”

The word springs from my lips.

“Yeah,” he says. “That’s the problem.”

I tug once against the rope, making it creak, reminding both of us what this is.

“Stop acting like I’m the only one who has to bleed for this.”

“You think I haven’t?” He leans in close, and my anger sharpens.

“I think you’ve been bleeding in secret and expecting me to be grateful for the stains.”

His jaw flexes and my thighs tighten around him.

“You think if you let yourself want me all the way, it breaks something,” I say, quieter now. “But I’m already broken, Eli. So are you. Join the fucking club.”

He kisses me.

A collision. Teeth and heat and all the restraint he’s been white-knuckling finally snapping its leash. I make a sound into his mouth that’s half anger, half relief, and he swallows it, one hand still at my throat, the other braced by my head. He kisses me like he’s trying to shut me up and confess at the same time.

I kiss him back just as hard.

Because screw him. I’ve wanted this version of him almost as badly as I’ve hated him for hiding it.