Page 82 of Tears of Glass

Elijah flicks her with a tea towel.

“Don’t bring your bondage games into my kitchen, I won’t know what to do with myself.” She fans herself down and chuckles.

“Bernie, Bernie, you know you’re the woman for me.” He winks at me.

“Now, now, Elijah, you know you could never handle someone like me. I’m all woman.”

“So true,” he answers, but his eyes are settled on me. They burn right through my skin, desire swirling in their depths. He knows exactly what to do with me. A kindle of heat settles in my stomach. He can turn me on in a soup kitchen with just his eyes—I’m officially doomed.

“Coming to the pub, Elijah, Faith?” Bernie asks. Everyone is putting on their coats and hanging around with an expectant atmosphere.

His eyes are on me. Heavy and direct. “Not today.” He pulls his gaze away. “Bernie, we need to talk about Stephen. I don’t like the idea of him not coming in to the shelter.”

Bernie shrugs. “I’m here, the shelter is here, but he’s the only one who can bring himself in.”

“He says he doesn’t want to see Victor.”

Bernie nods slowly. “I’ll find him this week and try to smooth things over.”

Eli steps up and kisses her on the cheek. “Thanks. I don’t want to come back in a few weeks and find him worse.”

Bernie nods understandably. “I’ll see if I can work my charm.” She laughs a deep and throaty chuckle. “You know no one can resist it.”

He smiles and gives the rest of the crew a wave before linking his hand with mine. “Ready?”

“Yes.” But am I? My legs are shaking, my heart thrumming in my chest. This man, he continues to surprise me. “Are you going to fill me in on Victor and Stephen’s story?”

I expect him to smile but he doesn’t. Outside the air is cool. There’s a chilled pinch in the air that isn’t easy to ignore. I know he’s thinking of Stephen and his dog wrapped in blankets further up the river.

“Do you want to walk back and check on him again?”

His eyes light on my face. The setting sun makes his skin glow, the hues of orange and gold pick out highlights in his dark hair.

“Come on, Robin Hood.”

He laughs so loudly it bounces off the walls of the old bridge.

Tucking me into his side, he wraps his arm tight around my waist. His breath whispers in my ear, sending shivers of delight through my body. “Then I’m taking you home to fuck you senseless, Maid Marion.”

I squeal as his fingers drift under the hem of my jumper. People walking past stare, but I don’t have it in me to care. To care what people think when they see me, when they see the expression of my past inked onto skin.

I just care about him.

Him and I.

Chapter Twenty-Two

He slides the key to the Mews into the door and I hold my breath, dragging it deep within me. We’ve been tied in silent thoughts the whole way home, two people knotted into silence, kept together by the weave of their tightly clasped fingers.

“Faith?” He turns, his eyebrow raising with questions, but I shake my head. Deep within me is a battle of warring emotions. The need to run from my submerged and endless feelings for him. The need to stay by the man who gives everything of himself with no expectation in return. The man I love.

Somehow, I manage to stumble across the boundary to the home I’ve been sleeping in all week. “Eli.”

I turn and put my hand on his chest, holding it above the place caging his heart.

“What’s going on in that head of yours, Sunshine?” He dips his gaze to meet mine, questioning, demanding, while his tone is as soft as dandelion seeds travelling in the summer breeze.

Wordlessly, my hand falls to the hem of his soft jumper, tugging it up and over his chest. He stands still as I pull it over his head, making his short hair stand with static friction. Those blues deepen, swirling with dark depths, begging me to dive in. I grab at his white T-shirt, peeling it away from his skin, revealing the skin and bone of the man he is beneath his clothes. Smooth, golden, and firm, his skin puckers under my touch, the cool air of the hallway brushing a dance across the sensitive surface. When he’s naked from the waist up I turn him, coaxing him around with my hands. There on his shoulder is what I want to see. The swirling ying and yang, created with blues and purples and the curves of waves, stares at me. Taunting me. You thought you knew him.