Page 51 of Take What Hurts

The mattress moved under her as Elliott adjusted herself, and the headboard creaked as Elliott leaned back against it. Mackenzie heard the whoosh of breath that Elliott pushed out of her body before she spoke. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” Mackenzie’s brain wilted with the unspoken admission—there was something wrong.

And all the worry and irritation and the frustration that had been climbing to a crescendo in Mackenzie’s body erupted out of her as she twisted herself to face Elliott, hand slapping the mattress as she did. “Then what is going on? You’ve been weirdly distant. Like, literally. You’ve kept yourself as far away from me as you could possibly be and⁠—”

“Mackenzie—” And Mackenzie heard the pleading in Elliott’s voice, but the strangling constriction in her chest—of fear, of uncertainty—forced the words out of her mouth.

“No, Elliott.” The words were firm and low, trying to ensure whatever this was didn’t wake Grey and Nancy. “I’ve asked you more than once if you’re okay in the last week—apparently, you’re ‘good’ and ‘fine,’ but it sure doesn’t seem like it. I sat through that damn-near-entirely silent car ride this evening and said nothing. I’ve listened to your excuses about being busy or tired or—or whatever.” She swallowed hard around the lump that had formed in her throat. “And now, I want to know what is going on. Like, what’s really going on, I mean.”

Elliott growled, and indignation at the frustration Mackenzie heard in that one sound surged in her body. She swallowed it as Elliott scrubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands and puffed out a breath. “Fuck, Mackenzie. Can we not do this tonight? It’s late.”

And with that, a renewed kernel of fear unfurled inside her and started to grow. “Not do what?”

Elliott’s hands waved wildly in the dark, and she sputtered out, “This. This conversation.”

“What conversation?” Then—with a hot wave of nausea—vision spinning. “Did I lose you?”

And finally—mercifully—the dam broke. “Jesus, Mackenzie. Why are you being so obtuse?” Mackenzie tried to muster an ounce of offense but found she couldn’t in the face of Elliott’s clear distress. “It’s self-preservation.” Elliott shoved a hand through her hair and groaned. “We agreed that we would do what your firm asked of you and ‘stay on the down-low’”—her fingers made quotation marks in the air beside her head—“and ‘hang out,’ and sure, that sounded fine at the time, but—” She broke off with a cracking choke, and Mackenzie heard her throat click with a hard swallow.

“Mackenzie, god. It’s—I. Fuck. It’s not what I want. A-and,” she stammered, “I don’t want to push because I don’t want to ask too much of you, because I don’t want to lose you and when I’ve pushed in the past it’s ended. Always.”

Through the rambling, her eyes were wide and shining in the darkness. Desperate. Mackenzie heard how rapidly Elliott’s breath came, and it cracked her chest in two as hot tears started to well in Mackenzie’s eyes.

Elliott let out a racking sob followed by a deep, fortifying breath. “Because when I try to read the fucking room, it’s like I’m reading the whole damn book in a different fucking language. And for the first time I worry that I am reading the book in the right language and that the more time you’ve spent with me, the more you’ve learned that I’m a lot. Too much. Too inexperienced in every conceivable way. And so, I—I’m worried that—that the request from your firm—that it’s just a convenient way out for you. And I know you said before that it isn’t, but, like”—she slapped a hand on the bed—“you didn’t know before. You hadn’t seen me in action. And now you have, it makes sense. That you’d, well. That you’d want an easy way out. But I don’t—I—I can’t.” Another sob punched Mackenzie in the deepest part of her gut. “Fuck—” Elliott choked out the word. “It just all makes me ache.”

She stared at Mackenzie, who couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything but stare right back at the stunning human being who was breaking apart in front of her. All because—and it was clear now—she wanted her. And she thought, for a reason Mackenzie could only assume Elliott’s own brain had concocted in an attempt to sabotage any modicum of happiness she might deserve, that Mackenzie didn’t want her back.

Elliott’s eyes glistened, imploring in the dark as she went on. “You kissing me, touching me; me kissing you, holding you.” Mackenzie shivered with the words as they spilled out of Elliott. “You being the way you are with my family—god—all of it makes me feel fucking warm and hopeful and fucking sad all at the same time, because it feels like we’re more than friends. But, Jesus, if you feel even close to what I feel. If you feel this much all the time, then I don’t know how it’s not breaking you too. But you’re so composed, and you seem so—so happy with”—she waved her hands wildly in front of her—“with this situation. Eating at my parents’ dinner table like you’ve been doing it for years. Texting with my mother, who looks at you like you’re already part of the fucking family. Spending time alone with me doing”—her features pinched in a way that shot pain straight into Mackenzie’s spine—“what we’ve been doing. Fooling around⁠—”

Elliott heaved in another breath around another sob, and Mackenzie could only stare wide-eyed. The creeping flush darkening her skin. The glistening of tears on sharp cheeks. A strong, veined hand running repeatedly through dark curls. Elliott was beautiful—someone to be worshipped. Even as she was breaking.

And right then, Mackenzie knew. She knew she’d look back on this moment when her hair was gray and her face was lined and would feel the same swelling of elation in her chest that she did right now. All because of the fact she would forever, for all eternity and as long as they both lived, have the privilege of being able to identify the exact millisecond, in all the milliseconds that made up her life, that her heart surrendered the last minuscule piece of itself and she fell completely and irretrievably in love with Elliott Jackson.

She wanted to say something. To intervene. She tried. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. And Elliott continued. “And so, the only thing that makes sense is that you don’t feel this way. You couldn’t possibly. And the thought of being only your friend. Of only having you that way, when you look at me so fucking softly. It is breaking me in here.” A hard thump on her chest. “Because all I want is to be the person you trust to take what hurts away from you and wrap you up and never let you go. You’re all I want.” Elliott finally paused, breath heavy from the head of the bed, chest shuddering with tears. Then, quietly: “So no, you didn’t lose me, because I don’t think you ever could.” Mackenzie gasped in a breath around the burning thickness in her throat. “You’re everything, and I’m afraid that for the rest of my life I’ll live in this strange purgatory, just… wanting you and never being able to have you.”

Then Elliott was silent and frozen against the headboard. Mackenzie watched the way Elliott’s shoulders set in panic—could almost see the cogs in her brain whirring—convincing her she’d gone too far. Said too much. Mackenzie imagined the prophecy Elliott’s traitorous brain had constructed was, moment by moment, crystallizing in her mind. Imagined Elliott’s body was responding, beginning to transform her into a hunk of cold stone where she sat. Immobile. Imagined images of imminent loss had begun to plague her.

An urgency rose in Mackenzie. To calm Elliott—smooth the panic out of her shoulders. To take the portion of her mind that fed the nightmarish machine Elliott battled with and cut it out like one would a tumor. To convince her that her brain was a traitor. So with a shaking breath, she scrubbed the tears from her eyes, and, voice low with emotion and need and straight-up desire, she finally found the words.

“Elliott, I am as broken as you are. And I don’t want to be friends.”

She saw the flicker of confusion and hurt crack across Elliott’s face before Mackenzie launched herself across the bed.

TWENTY-EIGHT

ELLIOTT

Everything stopped. Elliott’s brain short-circuited as she took in the soft press of Mackenzie’s lips. The weight of her hands in Elliott’s hair. Pulling. Tugging. Mouth working hers open. And then every cell exploded to life when Mackenzie’s soft gasp hit her ear canal like a fucking earthquake and her tongue slid desperately against Elliott’s. Spurred by the ferocious clenching between her legs, Elliott had Mackenzie on her back in a second, and she reveled in Mackenzie’s wide eyes and the whimper that pushed past her kiss-swollen lips. She kissed a line from Mackenzie’s mouth down the column of her neck, tonguing the soft, fresh skin there and tracking back up to her left ear, swirling her tongue around the shell, eliciting a moan from both of them. Elliott sucked hard on the earlobe, and the answering huff of hot breath on her neck shot straight through her to her core, wet heat drenching her boxers.

Elliott pulled back and smirked at Mackenzie’s noise of incensed consternation and the way her eyebrows drew together in confusion. Squeezing her eyes closed, Elliott tried, with effort, to calm her thundering heart as she sucked in a breath. Despite the desire that raged through her, Elliott forced herself to stop. Pause. “Mackenzie. Are you sur⁠—”

“Do not finish that sentence.” Mackenzie was breathless. Voice rasping. Pupils blown and eyes flashing in the dark. And it only escalated the heat that rose steadily in Elliott.

She wanted Mackenzie. More than she’d ever wanted anyone. Wanted to touch where Elliott knew Mackenzie was hot for her. Wanted her tongue, her fingers—any part of her body—on Mackenzie. Wanted to taste the wetness Elliott had felt through layers of clothing in the past weeks, that Elliott knew would be the sweetest thing she’d ever had in her mouth. Underneath her, she felt her desire mirrored in Mackenzie, who fucking trembled with it.

“I mean it. I am so fucking affected by you I can hardly breathe sometimes, Elliott. Please.”

Elliott watched the trembling in Mackenzie’s bottom lip, and she gently ran the pad of her thumb over it. Stilling it. Dragging her thumb gently to graze Mackenzie’s chin. Sliding it past her teeth. Watching in fascination as Mackenzie’s lips closed around it and sucked. Hard.

“Fuck. Oh—” Elliott managed to breathe out, and she slid her thigh between Mackenzie’s legs, Mackenzie releasing a strangled groan when Elliott’s bare leg connected with the seam in her pajama shorts. Elliott wasn’t sure whether it was voluntary, but Mackenzie’s legs fell open and Elliott moaned at the feeling of hot wetness that pressed into her skin. She adjusted herself between Mackenzie’s legs and lowered her hips to Mackenzie’s, bringing their mouths back together while they struggled to pull off Elliott’s sleep shirt.