Page 57 of Tears of Glass

“Who are you right now?”

His eyes level onto my face, burning and bright. “Eli, I’m only ever Eli.”

“That’s not true.” My fingers grip around my glass while he knocks his own back. “You weren’t Eli the night of the ball.”

He steps closer. “Why did you decide to come home with me?”

Gah. “I wish I hadn’t.” The glass tightens further in my hand and I can all too easily imagine throwing it at his face.

“You still want me.” My legs wobble as he comes so close. The heat of his skin reaches mine without even touching. The tang of whisky on his breath floats across my face.

“You hurt me, Elijah.” Heat blooms across my skin. “And I’ve been hurt enough. Too much.”

He reaches his fingers for my face, tilting my chin until I meet his eyes. “I know.” His response is a low whisper like the scratch of sand across the palm of my hand.

“I don’t know if I can forgive that. When Al died I-, I-.” My breath hitches painfully in my throat.

“Shh.” His lips slip across my cheek and the scent of him, the scratch of his stubble, his closeness as he hovers just far enough from my skin that a slither of air dances between us, threatens to make my head explode.

“No, Elijah. It hurt.” I try to push him away but it’s like pushing against a brick wall.

“Tell me.” His hands land on the bare skin of my shoulders, so hot I expect to see brand marks. My body flames, yearning to lose myself under the intensity of his touch. It’s not like I’ve forgotten how he feels, or what he can do to me.

“It hurt. It’s just.” I grab the material of my dress, scrunching it around my middle, the way the knife of despair had inched into me on that train journey to Brighton the night of the ball. The tears that had stormed, hailed from within me as I’d sat on that seat grasping onto myself as though I could hold myself together with the sole strength of my arm wrapped around my middle.

His lips press against my forehead and I breathe him in. I’m so close to crumbling, so close to washing out into the ebb of desire flowing through me.

I can’t. I cling on, desperate to fight the tide of change.

I search for him, looking for the man who broke my rules, made me love and give. “What was worse—” I hesitate unsure if I can even say the words, because they’ve been eating me on the inside for weeks, taunting me with their unrelenting truth. “What was worse, was losing you hurt more.”

He stares at me, his eyes hard and unflinching, intense, as they read every molecule of who I am.

“I’m sorry.”

I nod as tears roll along my cheek. One after the other they chase each other to oblivion and his thumbs sweep them away.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, his voice is hoarse and tight and when I look up, his face is pierced with agony. “I love you, Faith. It’s so simple the way I feel about you.” His shoulders slump. “But nothing about me is simple, though. I can understand if you don’t let me back in.”

I could walk away, is that what he’s saying? He’s made his apology. He’s done these wonderful things for me to show how he didn’t mean to hurt me, but he’d still let me walk away if it was the one thing I wanted.

I can barely swallow, it hurts and stings. I sob once, twice, and shake my head.

“Who are you?” I squeeze the words out while his eyes search mine.

“I’m Eli.”

His hands grasp my face pulling it towards him. His lips land on mine, fervent and demanding, seeking me out, asking me to love him.

And I do.

It’s the scariest thing I can contemplate, loving someone, but I do. It’s there. It was even there when I was heartbroken and desperate.

Eli Fairclough changed me and even without him in my life I know the woman I used to be is long gone. There is too much now, too much of all the things I’ve never let in.

And him.

I slide my fingers in his hair, relishing the much-missed feel of the short strands tickling my palm. His fingers caress my jawline, his thumbs cradling my jaw as he tilts my mouth into his kiss. Our tongues tangle and dance, electric and intense as they swipe and probe, and the air around us heats until even the delicate fabric of my dress feels like a burning blanket of fire against my skin.