26. Freya #2
Eli’s palm settles on my thigh, stopping me from getting too lost in the panic.
I take a breath. “Ever since I met her there’s been nothing. No questions, no curiosity. I don’t even know whether I want to see her again. She’s not my mother, she’s a stranger. Isn’t that just fucked up?”
Eli rubs his thumb back and forth over my jeans.
“I don’t know, it makes sense to me. Allie doesn’t have any healthy attachments, I can see why she’d want to cling on to even the slightest possibility of one.
She needs your mother in a way you maybe don’t.
You have Carmen, Luke.” Eli nudges my leg. “And you have us.”
“Do I though?” The question comes out on a broken whisper.
Something Alistair said to me comes back and I’m not sure Eli’s right about me having healthy attachments.
I worked so hard to build an identity for myself and I think part of me is scared that if I let the guys in, I’ll lose who I am.
My relationship with them doesn’t feel stable anymore.
They may have found me, but I still feel so far away and I think maybe, I’m to blame for part of that.
Eli wraps my braid around his fist, his voice turning stern. “Yes. You do. You always have us. River messed up, Freya. We all did. But we’re stubborn fuckers and we’re not going to stop until we’ve earned your forgiveness.”
An ache squirms in my stomach. “River’s barely said three words to me since the other night.”
“Would you have been ready to hear him out if he had?”
My breath heaves out of me, and I stand up. “Probably not.” I stare out into the forest. The snow dusted trees are beautiful, but underneath the fine layer of white, everything is dead.
“What if this doesn’t work, Eli? What if all of us, everything that’s happened, is too complicated? We’re supposed to be finding Harley but at the moment we can barely even function as a team, let alone catch Zach.”
Ground crunches under Eli’s boots as he climbs off the bike.
His hands come to my hips, and he spins me round to face him.
“Kitten, I hate to break it to you, but you don’t have a choice.
We’re too far gone to let you go now. You belong with us, and we’ll spend the rest of our lives proving it to you. Whether you want us to or not.”
I rest my head against his chest. His words should scare me or make me feel trapped, but they don’t.
Instead, I find refuge in his surety, in his belief that this is right, that I’m it for him.
Because despite my fears, I know that River, Eli, Jude, and Oz are it for me.
When I’d been staying with Carmen, I’d known I wouldn’t ever find anybody else.
That’s why I was breaking. If I didn’t have the guys, then I didn’t want anyone.
I close my eyes. Maybe Alistair’s right. Maybe I need to stop running away from the things I want the most.
“So, what now?”
Eli’s lips press against the top of my head. “Now, we make a bet.”
The seductive edge to his voice has me looking up at him, my gaze tapering in suspicion. “Why does that sound like a dangerous idea?”
Eli smirks. His fingers tip toe up my leg. “I bet I can make you come with just my fingers in under a minute. If you win, you can drive for the rest of the day. If I win, I drive.”
“Under a minute?” My eyebrows lift high.
Eli nods. “From the second my fingers touch your cunt.”
I laugh. He’s good but I’m pretty confident I can hold off for a single minute. I smirk up at him. “You’re on.”
Instead of touching me, Eli grabs his helmet and climbs onto the front of the bike.
“A bit confident, no? You haven’t won yet.”
Eli waves a hand at a couple of cyclists speeding past. “I’m all for staying here if you want an audience but I figured you might like to go somewhere a little quieter.”
I hesitate for a moment before giving in and straddling the bike behind him. He’s not going to get to drive for much longer so I may as well give him this.
I realize my mistake the second Eli revs the engine and the vibrations hit my core. Oh.
Eli hooks his hands around my thighs and tugs me forward, till my chest is flush against his back and my core is nestled against the leather seat. His hand goes to the accelerator and twists.
I gasp as vibrations roll through the bike between my legs. My thighs squeeze together and I grit my teeth.
Eli grins at me over his shoulder before flipping down his visor and skidding onto the track.
The trail in the forest is uneven, roots and dirt holes littering the surface.
Normally I’d find the smoothest path, but Eli does the opposite.
He jolts over every raised root, aiming for the most ragged areas of the track and each juddering turn shoots straight to my core.
Add that to the heat of his back against my chest, my nipples tingling with every shift, and the feel of his stomach flexing under my hands and I’m quickly becoming a mess.
I try to focus on my breathing, on the wind whipping past us, but all I can feel are the vibrations grinding against my core and the arousal soaking my panties.
When Eli turns off the beaten track and cuts off the engine I practically moan at the loss of friction.
He takes off his helmet and I grab onto the handle on the seat behind me as he straddles the bike backwards and removes my helmet too.
“You alright there, kitten? You’re looking a little flushed.” The cocky bastard smiles.
“It’s been longer than a minute,” I bite out as I catch my breath.
“Time starts when my fingers touch your cunt, remember?”
I half laugh, half groan, trying not to squirm against the hard seat. My core is still buzzing, and I ache deep inside. I need him to touch me.
Eli doesn’t make me ask for it. He unbuttons my jeans and slides his hand under my panties.
My hips jerk into his palm, my breath catching.
“Start counting, kitten.” He delves into me, one finger curling inside until he hits that sweet spot while his thumb massages my clit.
I grip the handle tight, my hips lifting into his touch.
I don’t even make it to thirty.
“Such a dirty girl, coming on the back of my bike. Are you going to drench me, baby?”
“Fuck. Yes,” I pant. A rush of arousal floods out of me as my core clenches around Eli and soaks his hand. He plays with me slowly until my ass lowers back to the seat then he eases out and licks his fingers clean.
Smug and satisfied like the cat who just got the cream, Eli straps my helmet back in place. “Looks like I’m driving. Hold on tight, kitten.”
I should be pissed that Eli found a loophole, but it doesn’t take me long to realize that while having Eli behind me on my bike feels good, riding on the back while he drives is even better.
When we get out onto the open roads it’s like flying.
Having someone else take the turns makes them that much more exhilarating and my adrenaline skyrockets in the best way.
The part that I really love, though, is how my body curves around his.
My front presses against his back as I cling to him like a spider monkey and every now and then he reaches back and runs his hand down my leg.
I decide very quickly I could spend hours on the back of Eli’s bike.
Not that I’d ever tell him that, of course. Joey is mine. But sitting like this, my body fitted perfectly to Eli’s, I can almost let myself believe that he’s right, that here with Eli, River, Jude, and Oz, is exactly where I belong.