Chapter 9
980 Words
Elliot
The moment he pulled back, the silence hit harder than the kiss.
Celina stood there, breath uneven, eyes dark and searching, lips still parted like she was bracing for something else—an argument, an explanation, another invasion.
Elliot stepped away instead.
Deliberately.
With effort.
He ran a hand through his hair, grounding himself, forcing the need back under control where it belonged. The urge to touch her again was sharp, insistent—but this mattered more.
Her.
Not his hunger.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” he said quietly.
She didn’t speak, but she didn’t retreat either.
“That doesn’t mean I didn’t want to,” he added, honest in a way that felt dangerous.
“It means I won’t act on impulse with you again.”
Her expression shifted—confusion giving way to something more fragile. Something like relief tangled with curiosity.
“You’re very good at leaving people off balance,” she said.
“So are you,” he replied.
Another charged silence stretched between them, no longer volatile—just heavy with everything unsaid.
He gestured toward the hallway. “There’s a town car downstairs. It’s yours tonight. Wherever you want to go. Home. Back to your friends. Anywhere.”
Her brows drew together. “You’re not coming?”
“No.”
That surprised her.
“I need to put distance between us before I forget why it matters,” he said. “And you deserve the chance to decide how you feel without me standing this close.”
She studied him, suspicion flickering—but so did something else. Respect, maybe.
“You always do this?” she asked. “Pull away when things get real?”
“Yes,” he answered simply. “And I’m trying not to.”
He turned before she could say more, already regretting the space, already knowing it was necessary.
“I’ll be in the shower,” he added. “Take the car when you’re ready.”
He left her standing in the kitchen, heart still racing, lips still burning.
Behind the closed bathroom door, water thundered down his back as Elliot braced both hands against the tile and exhaled hard.
Control had never felt like this.
Not like resistance.
Not like restraint chosen instead of imposed.
Celina wasn’t a temptation.
She was a decision.
And for the first time in years, Elliot Blackwood wasn’t sure which way he wanted to choose.
The bathroom door open.
Elliot went still.
Water streamed down his back, steam filling the glass-walled space, the sound loud enough to drown thought—yet he felt her presence instantly, like a shift in gravity.
“You always run like this?” Celina’s voice cut through the spray. “Drop a moment on someone and disappear?”
He turned slowly.
She stood just outside the shower, arms folded, eyes bright with anger and something far more dangerous—need.
“You were supposed to leave,” he said.
“I was deciding,” she shot back. “You don’t get to make that choice for me either.”
The words landed. Hard.
He shut the water off, droplets clinging to his skin, pulse loud in his ears. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I know,” she said. “That seems to be your favourite sentence.”
She stepped closer. Close enough that the heat between them had nothing to do with steam.
“First you take control,” she continued. “Then you hand it back like it burned you. What is your problem with me, Elliot?”
He swallowed.
“You,” he said honestly. “You are the problem.”
Her breath caught—not in fear, but recognition.
“I don’t do half-measures,” he went on. “I don’t touch what I’m not prepared to be responsible for. And I don’t trust myself around you.”
Her hand came to rest against his chest.
“Then stop trying to be in control,” she said softly. “Just be here.”
He broke.
Not violently.
Not recklessly.
He kissed her like a man choosing to fall.
Slow at first—testing, asking—his mouth brushing hers, waiting for her to pull back.
She didn’t.
She rose onto her toes, fingers sliding into his damp hair, answering him with a hunger that startled them both.
The kiss deepened—heat, breath, the press of bodies, restrained but unmistakable. His hands framed her face, thumbs brushing her jaw as if memorising her.
When he finally pulled back, his forehead rested against hers, breathing uneven.
“This is as far as I go tonight,” he said roughly. “If I keep going, I won’t stop.”
She searched his face, then nodded—flushed, shaken, alive.
“Okay,” she whispered.
The restraint in her acceptance nearly undid him.
Celina
She woke in the middle of the night to unfamiliar darkness.
For a moment, panic flared—then she felt him beside her. Warm. Solid. One arm heavy at her waist, breath slow and even against her shoulder.
Elliot.
Memory flooded back in fragments—steam, heat, his mouth, the way he’d held her like she mattered.
Her chest tightened.
She slipped carefully from the bed, heart pounding, pulling on her clothes with trembling fingers. She didn’t leave a note. Didn’t trust herself to.
The city greeted her quietly as the town car took her back to the pool house, the night air cold against her overheated skin.
She stood in the dark afterward, pressing a hand to her lips.
She had never felt that before.
Not the hunger. Not the pull. Not the terrifying certainty that she had crossed into something she could never undo.
She lay awake until dawn, staring at the ceiling, body still humming, mind racing.
No longer untouched.
And somehow, impossibly, already changed.
- Writer
