His gaze drags over my still-naked body and I freeze. I try to cover myself, but he growls—low, annoyed. I let my hands fall to my sides, trembling.
He shakes his head, almost moaning. “So sexy.”
I can barely breathe while we wait for the tub to fill, his eyes never leaving me—like I’m perfection personified—as the room steams around us.
Then he’s helping me in and climbing in behind me so my back rests against his chest.
“I love you,” he murmurs, so softly I almost think I imagined it.
“What?”
“I love you, Em.”
Em. He called me Em again.
“I—”
His chest rumbles under my spine. “I know you don’t feel the same. Not yet anyway. I’m not that delusional.”Good to know.“I just need you to understand. You’re it for me, Angel. There is no one else. There never will be.”
Tears prick behind my eyes. I don’t speak—I don’t know how. I let the warm water and Eli’s skin against mine soothe me until my eyes grow heavy and drift closed.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
“Argh,” I mumble, flinging my arm out to silence the offending alarm.
Instead of hitting my phone, I smack into a solid block of muscle.
Eli’s body is wrapped around me, cocooning me like he’s shielding me from the world. His skin is hot against mine.
Skin.
We’re naked.
I jolt, ready to scream—
Then it floods back in. The naked press of his skin against mine. The sweat that dripped between us. The tenderness with which he brought me to the brink of pleasure and back down to earth again.
Eli grumbles sleepily, reaching over to shut off my alarm. “Five more minutes,” he groans, pressing a kiss to my head.
I wiggle out of his grip. “I have to get ready for work.”
Work.
God.
After last night it’s the last thing I want to do. And not because I was intimate with Eli. But because I watched a man die. Liam. My patient.
Oh fuck.
My chest seizes.
In an instant Eli is at my side, rubbing a hand over my back. “Breathe. Tell me what’s wrong.”
My vision blurs and my legs wobble.
Eli guides me back onto the bed, forcing me to sit. He crouches in front of me. Even through the blur, I can see the worry etched into his features.
“Liam’s dead,” I whimper, choking on the words.