Page 73 of Try Line Hearts
That wasn’t desire.
That was habit.
And he’d just aimed it at the one man he didn’t want to reduce himself to that with.
Eli’s phone buzzed on the couch.
He barely registered it at first.
His knuckles throbbed in time with his pulse, skin split, metal refrigerator door dented inward where his fist had connected. He’d felt none of it when it happened. Even now, the pain was distant, muted by the heavy, hollow pressure sitting behind his ribs.
He picked up the phone without looking.
Then he did.
The image filled the screen.
Eli sucked in a sharp breath through his nose.
Fuck.
Even soft, even unready, Lucas was… a lot. Broad. Heavy. Familiar in a way Eli’s body reacted to before his brain caught up. His mouth went dry, traitorous heat flickering low in his gut despite everything.
And then the second wave hit.
Not want.
Hurt.
Because Eli knew exactly what this was.
He’d been on the receiving end of it before—this kind of offering, this shortcut. Flesh in place of vulnerability. A body sayinghere, take thisbecause the person attached to it didn’t know how to ask for comfort any other way.
It made his chest ache.
He stared at the photo, jaw tight, emotions colliding ugly and sharp—desire tangling with resentment, longing with the sour taste of being handled wrong.
Not like this, Luke.
Not after everything.
His thumb hovered over the screen.
Delete, the sensible part of him said.Don’t reward this. Don’t let him turn you into a pressure valve.
Instead, his phone vibrated softly as the image saved to his camera roll.
Eli closed his eyes.
Fuck.
He hated that part of himself—the one that wanted it anyway, that catalogued the familiar lines of Lucas’s body even while his heart was bruised and raw. The one that could feel used and still crave.
He set the phone face-down on the coffee table like it might burn him.
Then he sat back on the couch, elbows on his knees, head dropping into his hands. His injured knuckles throbbed, blood tacky where it had smeared earlier.
He breathed in through his nose.
