Ropes and Lace | MM Romance PREVIEW

Chapter 13 - Tempt Me

I turn off the shower and stand up stiffly, having to lean against the slippery wall to keep from falling when my legs fail to cooperate.

My bones grind like rusty gears, my fingertips are wrinkled and my nails are purple from being under the icy, punishing water for so long. I sigh, feeling like an asshole for running away like that, but staying meant escalating a situation I wasn't ready to face. Not like that. Not with Elliot. As I undress, I begin to devise a convincing excuse that will get me out of this predicament I've gotten myself into, but try as I might, I can't come up with anything. Besides, lying would be foolish and fruitless.

Elliot is incredibly intelligent, with a supernatural ability to detect tricks and deception. I suppose, always being the producer of such methods to get his way, he has developed a sixth sense that he exploits to his benefit. It's an advantage, I won't deny it, one that I could've used in countless mishaps and opportunities. It's another thing I envy about him, even though living like that, always on guard and wary of any interaction you might have with anyone, must be a bit... depressing.

Not for the first time I wonder what happened to him.

What someone did to him.

But he's the only one who can clear up those doubts and I'm absolutely certain that it's something he doesn't intend to offer.

I dry off with one of the fluffy towels Elliot arranged for me and tie it around my hips when I'm done, storing my wet clothes in a plastic bag to wash them once I'm home. I contemplate my reflection in the mirror, surprised to discover neither the exasperation nor the anguish that have been squirming in my stomach like a colony of bullet ants. Instead, I look exhausted. My thirty-nine years are already taking their toll; it's evident in the depth of the wrinkles on my forehead, in the white strands mixed with the blondes in my hair, in the loneliness that refuses to disappear from my nostalgic gaze.

I shake my head, storing such superfluous musings in the back of my mind where they belong and which I should never summon, though sometimes it's unavoidable. I brush my teeth, empty the urgency in my bladder and count to ten back and forth to flood myself with the calm and positivity that these past few days have been avoiding me as if I had a contagious disease. When I step outside... I immediately wished I hadn't.

Because Elliot's here.

In my room.

Sitting on my bed.

He stands up when he hears me and I instinctively take a step back, wary and honestly fearful, because Elliot looks angry. No, scratch that. Elliot looks furious. His nostrils flap rapidly from his violent breathing, his paleness is disrupted by the rabid shade of crimson painting his cheeks and I'm thankful he doesn't have the superpower of Cyclops from the X-Men, otherwise he would have pulverized me by now. He's covered only by a very tight, very tiny brief, which I struggle to ignore with every ounce of will and self-control existing in my system.

"What the hell was that, Ashton?" He aggressively demands and, if I'm not mistaken or misreading the almost imperceptible tremor in his voice, with a hint of embarrassment as well. "Why did you run?"

"Elliot, I..." but he doesn't allow me to go on, because he instantly intercepts me to release a statement that astonishes and hurts me in similar portions.

"I'm aware that I pushed you and I'm sorry for that. I shouldn't have crossed your boundaries, I shouldn't have let myself get carried away and..." he holds back for a minute, inhaling so deeply that his chest expands like a hot air balloon, sharply expelling the air afterward to continue. "I shouldn't have treated you like that, I shouldn't have behaved like that, but goddamn it, Ashton, I want you," he barks out the admission between his teeth and I have trouble differentiating whether it's because he's still angry or because it's something he'd rather not reveal, but the effects his words induce in me are all too unmistakable.