_OceanofPDF

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E L L A
No.
Just no.
I didn’t expect it or know how to respond. I was frozen in place when he
came to me, put his hand at the base of my throat and—with a steady,
gentle, and unrelenting pressure—pushed me until my back was against the
wall.
“No,” he repeated in my ear. “I will not stop caring about you. I will not
limit what I want to the terms of the deal. I will not help you be good.” His
lips drew a line across my cheek, stopping when his nose was astride mine.
“I’ll agree to one thing only.”
With his hand on my throat, I swallowed so hard I heard it. “What?”
“I won’t touch you.”
His palm bent, and his thumb stroked the length of my collarbone. It
was suddenly the most erotic place on my body, pulling the breath out of
me, eyes fluttering.
“Say that’s what you want,” he said. “Say my feelings are mine, but not
your body. Tell me never to put my skin on yours. Say I should never lay
my hands on you again.”
He took his hand off my neck but kept his body an inch away, and his
lips close enough to brush mine. I wanted those lips and the tongue behind
them. I wanted the teeth and the breath, the jaw and the hunger.
“Say it, Ella.”
If there was a future past this moment and a place past his body, it had
nothing to do with me.
“Yes,” I said.