Page 66 of What We Bury

“Touch me.”

A long, terrible pause.

Then he takes one hand out of his pocket and sets it on the bed, millimeters from her outstretched hand. He won’t let himself touch, but he’s close enough that she strains toward him and lets out a frustrated whimper.

“Please.”

I press deeper. I curl my fingers. My thumb works her clit in tight slow circles and she’s already so close it takes almost nothing—she’s been there since the moment he walked into the room. Her whole body is straining toward the foot of the bed, toward him, her free hand grasping at empty air, her face turned away from me and towardhim,eyes locked on his.

“Eli.”

“I’m here,” he says again.

She comes.

Her body locks, then shudders, then breaks open, and the sound she makes is wild and broken and shaped like both of our names. One hand wraps around my wrist as she bucks against me, and the other makes a final bid toward Eli.

Her fingertips brush his.

Just barely. The lightest possible touch. The smallest skin-to-skin contact that can still count as contact.

Eli flinches like she’s branded him.

The recoil is whole-body. He jerks back from the bed as if her hand has burned him, and his face—for one unguarded second—does something I have never seen Eli’s face do. It collapses. The architecture goes out of it. Whatever he has been holding in place for the last five minutes, the last two years, his entirelife, gives way.

He stumbles back two steps. Then another.

Sage is still coming. Her body is still convulsing under my hand. Her fingers are still reaching toward where his wrist used to be, eyes hunting, mouth open around the shape of his name.

“Eli—”

He’s already at the door.

“Fuck.” I’m already moving, untangling myself from Sage, throwing the covers over and going after him. “Eli! Wait!”

“Stop him,” Sage calls after me. Her voice small, wrecked.

I freeze and look back at her—flushed, disheveled, looking like she’s about to shatter for an entirely different reason—and something in my chest cracks.

“I’ll fix it,” I say before I bolt for the door, nearly tripping over my own feet.

“Eli!” I catch up before he hits the stairs and grab his shoulder. He jerks away. “Eli, fuck, just wait?—”

He doesn’t look at me. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what? Don’t explain? Don’t apologize?” I move around him, block his path before he reaches the end of the landing. He could shove past me if he wanted—he’s bigger, stronger, and right now he looks like he wants to put his fist through the drywall. But he stops. Jaw tight. Eyes fixed somewhere over my shoulder.

“There’s nothing to explain,” he says. “You’re adults. You can do whatever you want with your time.”

“You meanourtime. You were a part of that too.”

His gaze snaps to mine. Cold. Controlled. The Eli who runs operations, who makes hard calls, who keeps the rest of us from flying apart. I hate that version of him. I hate it because it’s a mask, and right now I can see the cracks in it.

“It’s none of my business,” he says, each word precise. “What you do with her—what she does with you—that’s between the two of you. I came to check on surveillance before work, not to—” He stops. Breathes. “The door was open. I heard sounds. I thought something was wrong.”

“Bullshit. You joined in.” I step closer. He doesn’t back up, but I see the tension coil tighter in his shoulders. “You’re pissed, and you’re pretending you’re not, and I need to know why.”

“I’m not pissed.”