“Sex. I didn’t know it could feel good.”
I swallow roughly, wrapping my arms around his back and threading my fingers through his hair to massage the back of his head. There’s a knot of dread in the pit of my stomach and a stab of pain in my chest when I ask, “Did someone hurt you?”
He shakes his head, his damp hair tickling my neck. “No, but I felt pressured by people around me to do it. I’ve always had this aversion to touch unless it’s on my terms. I’m okay with the team trainers touching me because it’s in a professional sense. I can compartmentalize their touch as helping me and preventing me from injury.And you know how I am with, like, textures and things on my skin. Both times I tried, I couldn’t get hard because I was stressed-out about everything. My brain was going so fast I felt dizzy from it. Then they called me weird and a freak and said they wished they’d gone for the other twin, so I’ve never wanted to do it again.”
My spine stiffens. A ball of anger flares in my chest, and I’m unable to stop the bite in my tone. “They what?”
“Yup.” He lifts his head, and his eyes are filled with so much shame my heart fractures. “It’s always been the way.”
With one hand still in his hair, I bring the other to his jaw. His smile is tired.
“I love it when you do that,” he says quietly.
“Do what? Touch you?”
“Hold my face. Ethan does it to Jacob, and I always thought it looked nice.” A contented sigh leaves him as he relaxes into my palm. “I was right. It’s really nice.”
I press my lips to his and try to kiss away his worry and negative thoughts. I can’t change how people have treated him in the past, but I can change how they make him feel going forward. I can be the one to make sure he knows how fucking amazing he is so those negative thoughts have no place to sit in his mind.
Pulling my mouth away from his, I take a deep breath and try to keep my voice steady as I say, “As long as I’m on thisearth, you will never question your worth again. You hear me? If anyone tries to make you doubt yourself, I will rip them apart with my bare hands.”
He presses his lips together firmly, but the muscles in his cheeks betray him. The widest grin breaks out on his face before he hides his face in my neck again.
“I’m falling in love with you, Lieutenant,” he murmurs against my pounding pulse. “And it kinda scares me a little.”
I kiss the side of his head, tightening my hold on him as he wedges himself deeper in that spot behind my ribs. “I’m falling for you too, El. So fucking hard.”
“When are you working again?” he asks me as we lie in bed the next morning. His head rests against my chest, his fingers drawing shapes against my skin. We haven’t moved except to turn the TV on so the room wasn’t silent for him.
“Not for another few days. Why? What are you thinking?”
He glances up at me. “Will you come to my game tomorrow?”
“Sure, if you want me to,” I say, brushing his hair away from his face.
“I do. You can sit in my seats. Although they’re next to Alex, and he’ll probably be there because he comes to most of the home games, so he’ll probably talk to you.”
“I’ve met Alex before. He’s a nice guy, but I’m happy to buy my own ticket. I don’t expect it for free.”
He shakes his head. “No. I want to see you in my seats again. It made me really happy last time you did that.”
I cup his jaw and angle his head up so I can kiss him. “Then I’ll be in your seats.”
Elliot grins and settles back on my chest, only this time, he raises my arm. He bends it slightly, then rests his chin in the crease of my elbow. He uses my forearm to squeeze his face into my bicep and giggles.
“What are you doing?” I ask around a chuckle.
“Putting myself in bicep jail.”
My lips quirk. “Bicep jail?”
“Yeah. I think this is going to be my stop-thinking zone. As soon as my brain gets busy, you’ve gotta put me in bicep jail. Squeeze the bad thoughts right out of my brain.” He demonstrates by squeezing his head with my arm again.
He stretches to grab his phone from the nightstand and opens the camera. He switches it to selfie mode, then holds it up. I laugh at the image of us on his screen. His cheeks are squished together, causing his lips to pout. He snaps the photo and giggles to himself as he sets it as his lock screen.
“Will you send me that?” I ask, realizing it’s the first picture we’ve taken together.
“Yup.”
