“He touched you, Elijah,” I say softly and watch as his body stiffens and he gasps.
Elijah startles, turning around. He looks terrified, yet instantly aroused at seeing me. He also seems intrigued, and more than a little confused. His wide eyes roam my naked body, and then come back up to my face, blue orbs boring into my golden ones. I look down to notice his erection tenting his jeans. My Little Lamb, always horny for me.
“You were watching me?” he murmurs, barely audible, and I narrow my eyes at him.
“I’m always watching you, Elijah.”
“He’s just a friend,” he says, lips wobbly.
I take a step forward, then another, until I’m crowding him. “Is that what you call it when your breath hitches and your pulse stammers beneath someone else’s hands?”
Elijah shakes his head, taking a step back, but stopping before he can burn himself with his candle. The fucking candle he lit to pray to his God. To beg for forgiveness. “Az, that’s not fair?—”
I almost give up the fight altogether when my name falls from his lips. When he’s shortened it. Made it his own. But I don’t.
“Fair?” I spit, caging him against the altar, moving the candle to the corner so I can rest my hands on either side of him. He trembles beautifully, panting breaths falling from his lips. Lips I want to fucking devour but refuse to. “You summoned me. Named me. You offered me your desire, and I came. And now you dare to tremble for another man?”
“Micah didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Maybe not.” I narrow my eyes on him. “But you did.”
Elijah stays quiet as I press my body to his, anger boiling and spilling over. My chest rises and falls against his, and the warmth of him is enough to make me spiral. I feel like a feral animal trying not to show my teeth, and I’m definitely failing.
“Did he touch you here?” I ask against the shell of his ear, brushing his wrist with my fingers lightly. “Did he whisper your name as if it’s sacred? Did he see how you bend so prettily when you’re close to breaking?”
Elijah gasps, and my nostrils flare as I try to rein myself in. But it’s impossible. I feel sharp. Possessive. All consuming.
“Why does it matter?”
I pull back and lean into his face instead, our foreheads almost touching, and now we’re sharing breath. “Because you’re mine,” I whisper. “Because when you cry out in the dark, I answer. Not him.Me.”
Elijah sucks in a sharp breath, his bottom lip trembling, his eyes filling with tears. It reminds me of a few nights ago when I visited him and he had this same expression on his face. When guilt was eating him alive. I left him alone after that, trying to convince myself that it wasn’t meant to be. That he’d never accept me into his life. He’s too busy trying to serve his God, his church, his brothers. There’s no space for me there, and I convinced myself to let him be. Until today, when I realized I couldn’t see him with another man. One who clearly wants him. I let it go the other night because Elijah rejected him, but he’s clearly not giving up.
I’m not letting Elijah go.
Not now.
Not ever.
“If he touches you again, I’ll tear him from your memory,” I growl against his lips, tilting my face until our noses brush, and I feel his lips shiver against mine.
Elijah flinches. “You’d hurt him? My best friend?”
“If you want me to,” I whisper, brushing my knuckles against his cheek and fighting the urge to press my lips to his. “Do you?”
Elijah doesn’t speak, but his body says everything I need to know. My hand slips around his throat, not tight, just claiming. Elijah shivers, making a needy little sound at the back of his throat.
“Sayit,” I growl. “Tell me who you belong to.”
Elijah closes his eyes, and I feel his pulse pounding against the palm of my hand. My chest heaves as I wait for his words, and even though it’s just a split second, it feels like an eternity.
“You.”
I smile. “Show me.”
Elijah gasps, then crashes his lips to mine. He kisses me like he’s sealing a covenant, lips parting until he sucks on my bottom lip roughly. He’s lost to passion, biting and tugging at my lip, completely out of control. He thrusts his tongue into my mouth impatiently, and I suck on it until a groan tears from his throat.
Elijah pulls away, eyes wide.
