Chapter 149: I Want You
** Eli **
Holy shit did this girl pick up her teasing skills fast.
Eli would’ve commended her for being such a stellar student, if not for the warmth of her palm already sliding stealthily across his groin, tracing dangerous circles in dangerous places and turning the words on his tongue into a barely stifled groan. The shimmering heat he felt earlier was no longer a mere shimmer, stoked into hissing flames with every wicked touch of her hand.
If she continued any further ...
"Harper." Eli caught her hand, and it took a tremendous amount of effort to break their kiss a second time so that he could look her in the eye. He hesitated for a moment before whispering the question, "Are you sure about this?"
They both knew what "this" was, and they both knew the answer. But he had to ask. Because when she kissed him like that, touched him like that, he knew it wouldn’t be long till the familiar feeling of losing control consumed him. And today—
Today, she had already shattered his guard and left it in pieces on that beach. If they started anything now, he wouldn’t be able to stop at all.
Harper held his gaze without the slightest sway, as if expecting the question all along. Instead of answering, her hand glided up from his waist, mapping a soft and tingling path along his abs that made him suck in a shuddering breath. She grazed past his stomach, his chest, and stopped with her palm pressed flat against his heart.
"You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this day." Her voice was a chiming melody that completed the drumming of his heartbeat under her touch. "Don’t you dare back out on me at the last minute. I want you, all of you."
... There were no words for all the things that the confession made him feel.
For a moment, Eli was sure that his heart had stopped, and when it started beating again after a long stretch of awestruck seconds, it pounded with a rhythm so wild that he was sure she felt it under her palm.
"... How are you real?" It was all he could manage to say before crushing his lips back onto hers.