CHAPTER 14 – SQUEEZE, DON'T PULL
1051 Words
ELI'S POV
Something happened last night.
I don't know what, but Colt is in the kitchen with his feet on the table and a grin on his face that's too wide for 8 AM, and when Layla walks in, the air between them changes in a way I can feel from across the room.
She pours her coffee. He steals a sip without asking. She doesn't stop him.
That's enough information.
Then Rafe walks in and Layla says something to him I can't hear from where I'm sitting, and whatever it is makes his jaw tighten. He puts his arm around her shoulders briefly – almost protectively – and walks her out of the kitchen without a word to anyone.
I look at Colt. Colt is still grinning.
"What?" he says.
"Nothing." I close my sketchbook. "Everyone's acting weird."
"I'm always weird. This is baseline."
He's deflecting. I know him well enough to know when the grin is real and when it's armour.
This one is real. Which means whatever happened last night was good. And it involved Layla.
I don't examine why that thought sits heavy in my chest. I don't have time to, because my weapons session with her is this afternoon and I need to focus.
She walks into the back room at 3 PM and she's wearing her hair down and I lose my train of thought for a full two seconds before I recover.
"Sit." I gesture to the chair beside the workbench. "We're doing reassembly today again."
She sits. I walk her through the disassembly – slide, barrel, spring, frame – and she listens with the same focus she gives everything. Her hands are careful but she gets the reassembly wrong twice.
"Here." I say as I move behind her.
My hands close over hers to guide the grip and my chest is against her back and I can smell her shampoo and I need to focus.
"Squeeze." My mouth is closer to her ear than I planned. "Don't pull."
She adjusts. Gets it right. I should step back. I don't step back.
"Again," I say, and my voice goes lower than I mean it to be but she thankfully ignores it.
We move to sparring after.
She's gotten better – Rafe's sessions are making her faster, and Colt's are making her instincts sharper. She comes at me with a combination that almost lands, so I catch her wrist and redirect and she comes again and this time I have to actually move.
"Good," I say. "Again."
She swings. I block. She twists and tries to hook my leg, and I grab her waist and take her down and pin her to the mat. One hand on her wrist. One knee between her thighs. My face inches from hers.
She's breathing hard. I'm breathing hard. Her dark hair is spread across the mat, and her eyes are wide and looking up at me and I can feel her pulse hammering under my fingers where I'm holding her wrist.
Then she shifts underneath me – trying to escape, or trying to get closer, I genuinely can't tell – and her hip presses against me and we both freeze.
She felt it. I know she felt it because her lips part and her eyes go dark and her body stops moving entirely.
And although I know I should absolutely get up, I don’t because I’m staring at her beautiful face.
"Eli–"
"Don't." My voice comes out strained. "If you say my name like that right now, I'm not going to be able to–"
She says my name again. Softer. Like a question and an answer at the same time.
I kiss her.
I don't decide to – my body makes the decision without consulting my brain, and then her mouth is warm and open against mine and her hand is in my hair and I'm pulling her off the mat and pressing her against the wall and she wraps herself around me like she's been waiting for exactly this.
She kisses differently from how I imagined. Her hands are on my face and then my chest and then pulling at my shirt, and I press her harder against the wall and my hips grind into hers and the sound she makes almost takes my knees out.
"Eli – God–"
I'm breathing so hard I can barely think. My mouth is on her neck, and her fingers are digging into my back, and I can feel every inch of her body against mine through our clothes. My hand slides up her thigh and she gasps and pulls me closer and I'm losing control in a way I never lose control and I don't care.
"God, Layla–" I can't finish the sentence because she kisses me again and rolls her hips against mine and my forehead drops to her shoulder. "Layla. I can't think when you do that."
"Then stop thinking."
I lift my head and look at her. Her lips are swollen. Her eyes are dark. Her chest is rising and falling against mine. She's the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life, and I have drawn her face a thousand times and none of them got it right.
I'm about to kiss her again when there's a knock on the door.
We both freeze.
"Layla?" Thea's voice. "The second round of bloodwork came back. I need you to come to the clinic. Right now."
Layla looks at me. I look at her. Whatever was happening between us suspends mid-air like a held breath.
"I'll be right there," she calls, and her voice is steady even though her hands are still gripping my shirt.
She lets go slowly. Steps away from the wall. Straightens her clothes. Looks at me one more time with an expression that tells me this isn't over – not even close – and then she walks out.
I stand in the empty room with my back against the wall where her body just was, and my hands are shaking.
I look down at them and wonder if they’re shaking from fear or anticipation, and then I decide that it’s a problem for future Eli to solve as I go back to sparring alone.
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