Chapter Nineteen
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CONCRETE HEART
ELOISE
I had sex with Ezra against a tree. It was fucking incredible.
And when we were done, I didn’t run away.
I walked inside, used his restroom, stood awkwardly as he handed me a bottle of water, and then made my excuse to leave. So, not quite running, but maybe a slight jog.
Vulnerability is not my strong suit. Neither is afterglow.
I’ve had sex. It isn’t something foreign to me, although the lack of sex I had before Ezra made it seem more like a distant memory of another life.
But sex with Ezra is…different.
It’s lust-driven and mind-numbing. It’s fluid and compulsory. It’s like dying to take your next breath while riding a wave that threatens to steal it from you.
I turn over in my bed, adjusting my pillow and staring out at the moon through my gauzy white curtains. The hum of my fan and the sounds of the crickets outside are all I have to keep me company.
I wonder if Ezra is asleep. And if he is, how big is his bed? What color are his sheets? Does he sleep naked?
The thought makes me groan.
I hadn’t really seen his dick before but now that I have…the memory of its impressive length and thick girth makes me ache to press my thighs together. The thought of finally touching his naked chest, having pulled his shirt from his body in our hedonistic frenzy. Finally feeling his bare skin brush against my nipples.
I’d had the most intense orgasm, and, in this moment, I could go for another.
I’m tempted to pleasure myself, but the idea of experiencing something far tamer than the passionate and cathartic episode earlier keeps me from even trying.
I can’t turn my brain off; I can’t keep the memories from caressing my most sensitive places and making me crazy with the desire to reach out to him.
This is lust.
This is what fills the pages in my bookstore.
This is what I’ve lacked and the thought of finally experiencing it terrifies me. I don’t want to open myself to a life where my happiness hangs on the existence of another person.
Because I’ve seen what happens when people you rely on don’t exist anymore.
Lives change. Plans change. Your life becomes something you never thought it could be.
Mundane. Melancholy. Lonely.
And then it hardens your heart until it’s damn near concrete.
My concrete heart doesn’t want to fall in love with Ezra the way my body has fallen in lust with him. But it feels like I’m running in place, trying to keep myself from doing so. That fucking asshole is weaseling his way inside of me in more ways than one. And in an effort to protect myself, I have to stop it. I have to find my sanity again.
When my phone buzzes with a text message, I know it’s him. No one else would think to bother me right now.
I grab my phone from the nightstand and peer at it, reading his message with a smile. One I’d fight before I let him see.
Are you awake?
I itch to respond. To tell him that I am and that I’m on my way over.
But fear wins and I turn my phone off and spend the rest of the night tossing and turning.