Chapter 15
JAYDEN
The smell of vinegar is as nauseating as the slight pressure from Finley’s hand holding the compress she made on my shoulder blade.
I knew it the second Jones smashed the wind out of me with his shoulder that it was going to leave a mark.
But this is fucking outrageous, I can’t move without the bastard bruise sending a slash of agony to the pit of my stomach.
“You should see Doc in case the damage is deeper than we can see,” Eli says, leaning over his kitchen counter.
Giving me one of his rare lopsided smiles, he rests his chin on the stone surface. Deep brown eyes stare into mine, and instantly all arguments brewing in my head disappear.
He’s fucking gorgeous like this. Looking every bit his twenty-three years rather than the stoney demeanor he usually holds. His blond hair is loose and tousled in all directions now that it’s free from his taut man bun.
I’m lost for words, admiring the sight of him watching Finley taking care of me silently. Maybe I’m wrong, but he looks far too content in the moment. Almost as though he’s enjoying it—his girl touching me.
It’s a crazy thought. Stupid. No guy would enjoy their girl being tactile with his teammate or best friend.
Right?
“Right,” Finley hums, her fingertips tracing over my sensitive skin send a shiver down my spine while she tells me, “Once the bruising goes down, you’ll be fine.”
Her touch is warm and soft, tentative with a little tremble that has my abdomen pulling tight around my stomach.
Slowly, she kneads a careful path to the center of the patch, applying just enough pressure that I hiss, but don’t jump out of the stool like a pussy.
“It always hurts at first,” Eli says, his eyes meeting mine again. “It’ll get better a lot faster.”
With an exhale, I encourage my muscles to relax while I focus on the veins of the granite. In the corner of my vision, Eli’s fingers drum on the counter, and even when I divert my gaze away, my fingertips ache to reach out to his.
Obviously, I don’t.
Instead, I go back to taking him in—his worried expression has my chest constricting around my lungs. Enough that I can’t drag in a breath to hiss every time Finley rubs my shoulder a tad harder.
“The vinegar with the light massage should get enough blood circulating into the bruise to break up the clot. It won’t hurt as much after that, and it’ll fade in no time.”
“How do you know so much about bruises?”
The air thickens with an icy chill as Eli diverts his stare back to Finley when she stiffens behind me.
Instantly, a sick feeling takes over me.
It’s nothing to do with the Motrin or Tylenol, or the sudden, firm weight of her hand on my shoulder blade, and everything to do with the bitterness hollowing out Eli’s stare to a blacked-out glower.
The conversation we had when we were on the road revolves around my head.
The cult they were raised in. Their sadistic ways. Punishment...
“It’s… umm…” Finley sucks in a shaky breath. “I… ugh…”
“Havenview life,” Eli states.
The ice in his voice is so sharp that it cuts through me.
Why would anyone want to hurt her?
How could anyone hurt them?
Worse, how could they make it a religion?
They’re so innocent. So perfect. Finley with her kindness... her sweetness. And Eli... he’s the most honest, upstanding person I’ve ever known.
I don’t get it. I don’t want to get it. Because it’s wrong. Period.
Every single muscle in my body wrenches with an urge I’ve never felt before. To lock her away... make sure nobody touches them again.
Suddenly, Eli’s refusal to take her out of these walls seems more than justified. More than reasonable.
“You need to relax your muscles,” Finley tells me, going back to kneading my shoulder while Eli clears up our plates from dinner and puts on the Florida game from today.
We’re playing them again in a couple weeks, and they’re on a streak since we played them almost a month ago.
“No way,” Eli scoffs from the sitting area behind me at the same time as the commentator announces the early goal. “Twenty seconds in, and Florida has the lead.”
“They’re not playing around,” I say with a sigh when Finley places the warm compress back on my shoulder blade. It feels so good that the acetic smell barely bothers me anymore. “Did they pull off the Krejci-Torres move?”
“Yeah, literally Krejci drives through the center and Torres slaps it in.”
“We got to get smart with Andy,” I tell him, leaning up so Finley wraps the compress onto my shoulder blade with plastic wrap before adding a heat pad and wrapping it once more.
“Maybe we get Bruce and Rio to play out Krejci and Torres’s move next practice, and we can work on some defense options? What do you think?”
I swivel to look at Eli, but I’m met with Finley’s coy smile. “Leave it on overnight, okay?”
The lightest blue eyes I’ve ever seen darken to a shimmering turquoise—warm ocean—as her stare slowly tumbles down my chest to my stomach. They widen when I stand, and my navel piercing is in view.
Like what you see? I almost smirk at her, but then I catch Eli watching us both, and an unsteady, unsure sensation balls the words in my chest.
Things may be complicated between them, but he’s my partner. More than that, Eli is my friend. I think he might be the first guy I’ve ever felt this instinctual closeness with.
So even though, Finley’s presence lights up this need inside me that I’ve never felt before, an urge that pulls me closer no matter how hard I dig my feet into the ground and resist it, I can’t go near her. Touch her.
Want her.
I can’t risk hurting Eli. Most certainly, I can’t fuck up our friendship because some dark, hidden part of me is too fucking stupid to recognize what my head and body already know: I need him, too.
Maybe more.
I don’t know.
All I’m certain of is that I can’t imagine not having Eli in my life. Near me.
Even if he’s off-limits, too.
Pancakes. That’s what I woke up with a taste for at almost midday. Now, I’m standing in the hallway between mine and Eli’s apartments debating what I’m doing with myself.
Last night was different. Eli was different.
He touched me. He took me back to his place and watched as his girl took care of me. And it’s all I’ve been able to think about. It made it really fucking hard to fall asleep.
Even now, my body is reacting to the memory of Elijah tearing my top open, the ghost of his touch is still hot and trembling on my skin, and fuuuuck…
My brain can’t decide what was better, his rough hands or Finley’s dainty caress? His dark stare or her bright gaze?
Fuck.
I can’t knock on his door with my head this messed up that I can’t control my dick.
What is happening right now?
Sure, I like girls and guys. But I’ve never been attracted to both at the same time. Not like this.
Rushing back to my place, I close the door behind me a lot harder than I intended as I fall back into it. The maddening burn in my veins courses down to my aching cock. My erection throbs so damn hard that my whole body is going haywire with sensation.
The cool from the door at my back clashes with the heat radiating from deep inside me—muscles, organs, bones. I’m hot everywhere as my trembling hand cups my steel length through my sweatpants.
“Fuck.” The graveled groan escapes when I grip myself harder, trying to make this need hurt so bad that it goes away.
Except, I’m becoming some kind of fucking sadomasochist, and the more it hurts, the better it feels, the harder I become. The hotter the inferno scorches.
There’s no way I can control myself—this yearning—with the relentless pounding of my heart pulsing deep in my core. I’m fucking taunting myself blind with every merciless stroke of my cock over my pants.
Each shift of my body rips a moan all the way from my curling toes. “Fucking Christ.” The friction of my shirt rubbing over my stiff nipples sends a frisson of sensation through every dip and groove, coiling every muscle tight while my head falls back into the door.
Bracing myself with one hand at my side, I push my hand inside the waistband of my pants and squeeze my hand around my shaft, thrusting into my fist. Hard and fast, swiping my thumb over my leaking slit. The rake of my thumbnail around the sensitive ridge pulls all the breath from my aching lungs.
Every brush of my shirt over my chest reminds me of Eli’s touch. Brief, too fucking good. My balls pull tight with my desperate strokes. And I swear, I can feel Finley’s sweet breath tickle down my spine.
Goddamn, I want her. I want him. I want to fuck every breath out of her lungs and taste every drop of sweat that’s ever caressed his skin.
Tracing my other hand up my abdomen to my neck, I grip my nape, clawing my nails into my skin while I fuck my fist with a desperation I’ve never felt before. It’s manic and untamable.
“Eli,” I choke on the two syllables, jamming them together with a garbled plea for some kind of mercy. There’s no reprieve. Nothing, as I chase it with another two syllables. “Finley…”
My fist tightens with every jagged stroke.
My nails claw deeper, sending a shot of blissful pain straight to my balls that sparks a wildfire through my entire being.
From the marrow of my bones to my extremities.
A white-hot burst of pleasure with spurt after spurt after spurt of cum soaking into my hand, through my sweatpants, over my stomach.
“Holy shit…”
I sink down to the floor, breathless, boneless. A mess of chilling perspiration and sticky cum.
Fucked.
I’m so fucked that I don’t know how the hell I’m meant to face Eli and Finley again. And yet, there’s no way I’m going to be able to stay away. Because even with the shockwaves of my orgasm still wracking through me, my body is already aching for more. For the real thing.
For her. For him. For them.