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“It doesn’t matter, Elijah. It—”
“Of course it matters, Tal. We hurt you.” He made a face, then grimaced in pain. “Fuck. You should’ve let Mason and me keep hitting each other. It’s the least we fucking deserve.”
A fresh trickle of blood fell from his nose, and I grabbed another tissue to dab at it, shaking my head. “Maybe I don’t like seeing people get punched in the face.”
“I dunno.” He chuckled softly. “That one you laid on Mason looked pretty solid.”
I hated the reminder of that night, and I knew Elijah could see it on my face, see my expression shutter.
When I tossed the bloodied tissue onto the coffee table with the rest of the first aid supplies, he caught my hand again, curling my fingers into a fist and wrapping his own around it.
“He deserved it. And more,” he murmured.
We both stared at our joined hands, suspended in the space between us, and every atom in my body felt the connection in that touch as his fingertips grazed over my skin.
Then Elijah lifted my fist to his mouth and pressed soft kisses to each of my knuckles.
“Why does it always have to be about who hits who?” I asked, and I wasn’t sure if I was asking him or the universe or myself. “Why does it always have to be about cruelty and revenge?”
His deep hazel eyes flicked up to gaze into mine, his lips still brushing over my knuckles.
“I don’t know. But we hurt you. We deserve to be hurt. It’s just the way the world works, I guess.”
“Why doesn’t anything ever feel good? Why is it always about pain?”
I couldn’t stop watching the press of his full lips as he worshipped my skin, dropping small kisses on the ridges of my knuckles. His own hand was bruised and red, smeared with a small streak of blood from the pain he had inflicted.
“Does this hurt?” he asked softly, and I knew he was talking about more than just the physical contact.
The tears that had been building in my eyes spilled over, and I nodded almost imperceptibly, gaze still locked on him. It did hurt to be touched by him so tenderly, but in a different, sweeter way than the other hurts I’d experienced recently.
It… overwhelmed.
“I’m sorry, Talia.” His expression tightened with guilt again, and he started to release my hand, but for some reason I couldn’t quite understand, I wrapped my fingers around his, preventing him from letting go. His grip tightened on mine a little, and he glanced up at me cautiously. “Can I try to make it not hurt?”
I dipped my chin in another tiny nod, not even bothering to wipe away the tears that fell in twin tracks down my cheeks. I rarely cried, but it felt like a valve in my heart had been opened, and I didn’t know how to shut it again.
Elijah opened my fist slowly, turning it over so he could plant kisses across the plane of my palm. When he moved up to my wrist, a small noise fell from my mouth, and he glanced up at me, his gaze questioning. But I didn’t stop him, and I didn’t pull away.
Because this didn’t hurt.
It felt good.
And after every shitty thing that’d happened over the past year, the feel of Elijah’s lips on my skin was like sipping a glass of water after a thousand days in the desert.
He pushed up the sleeve of my hoodie a little and worked his way higher, over my forearm. When he glanced up again, I didn’t hesitate. I pulled out of his grasp long enough to unzip the black jacket and shrug it off, and as soon as I tossed it aside, Elijah took my hand again. Now my entire arm was bare, and he didn’t waste the opportunity, trailing his mouth over the inside of my wrist and up my forearm, making goose bumps rise on my skin.
When he scooted forward to the edge of the couch, I matched his movement, perching on the edge of the coffee table as our legs brushed against each other’s. His lips found my shoulder, then my neck, and now the fire in my skin was spreading deeper, so deep inside me that it warmed me from the inside out.
He kissed along my jaw, and I tilted my head to give him better access, struggling to keep my eyes open. My eyelids drooped as sensation overwhelmed me, pulling me under like a drug.
“Does that feel good?” he whispered, and I nodded without speaking.
It felt better than good.
It was like the antidote to everything bad in the world.
And maybe it was a lie. Maybe it was another manipulation, another trick. Maybe all his words of apology had been empty and meaningless.
