“I know.” Her thumb brushed over my knuckles. “I know, and I’m sorry. I just…” She swallowed, her voice small. “I’m scared, Sawyer. I don’t know what I’m doing most of the time. But when I’m around you, I want…more. I just don’t know if I’m ready for more or if I even know how without being too much.”
I let her words sink in—let myself feel every damn inch of them. I squeezed her hand.
“I’m not asking for everything,” I said, my voice rough from the pure fucking weight of wanting her. “I just need to know if this,” I lifted her hand, pressing it to my chest, right over the thundering heart, “is real, or if I’m a fool for thinking it could be.”
Her fingers curled against me.
“It’s real,” she breathed—and then she climbed into my lap.
“Ellie.”
Her finger pressed to my mouth, silencing me. “Shh.”
“You’re drunk,” I rasped.
“I know exactly what I’m doing.”
“You don’t,” I bit out, fighting every instinct inside me. “You think you do, but you don’t.”
“Tell me what I know again.” She leaned in, kissing a line along my jaw—soft, sweet, devastating.
“Ellie,” I warned, my voice shaking.
“No.” She smiled against my skin. “Say it. Ellie baby. Call me Ellie baby.”
I gritted my teeth, hating how fast I caved.
“Ellie baby,” I groaned.
She moaned softly, a sound that damn near broke me, and I leaned in to capture her mouth. My eyes rolled back in my head at the feel of her lips against mine again, and fuck, I wanted more.
But I pulled back.
“I’m not touching you,” I said through clenched teeth.
She pouted. “Why not?”
“Because you told me twice this couldn’t happen again.” My hands fisted against the seat beneath her, desperate to hold on. “And I’m not stupid enough to fall for it a third time.”
Her eyes gleamed, lips hovering near mine. “So what happens now?”
My chest burned. My body screamed for her.
“If you need something tonight?” My voice was strained. “Fine. Use me. Ride me. Do whatever it takes to forget the world for a few hours. But I’m not laying a single hand on you until you’re sober, looking me in the eye, and asking for it.”
She trembled in my lap. “And your words?” she asked. “Can I still have those?”
Fuck. I nodded once.
“You sure you can handle that?” I rasped.
“Try me.”
Her hips rolled once, slow and devastating. A taunt. A threat. A fucking promise. I groaned; the sound ripped straight from my chest.
“Tell me what you’d be doing to me if your hands weren’t staying put,” she said.
I closed my eyes for a beat, forcing every muscle in my body not to betray me.
