Page 70 of Beautiful When He Breaks

We stand there in the den with cues in hand and the low lamp over the table making everything look more intimate than it has any right to, and neither of us seems to know what the next line is supposed to be.

21

Julian

I set my cue on the pool table before I trust myself to say anything, which turns out to be a mistake because the second my hands are empty, all I can feel is the space between us.

The room has gone too quiet for something as stupid as a game of pool.

Eli is standing on the opposite side of the table with his cue still in one hand, shoulders loose in theory but nothing about him is loose in practice. His eyes flick to mine and away again, then come back slower this time. My pulse is beating hard enough that I can feel it in my throat.

He tilts his head slightly, and when he speaks, his voice is quieter than it was a second ago, stripped of most of the teasing but not all of it.

“Winner gets whatever he wants for the night,” he says, dragging the cue tip once over the floor as if he needs something to do with his hands too. “So, what do you want, Julian?”

The question should be playful. It should land like a joke or maybe a challenge, something we can both still pretend is harmless if one of us loses our nerve. Instead, it settles low and heavy between us because the way he says it makes it absolutely fucking clear that he knows what he’s doing.

He starts walking around the corner of the table toward me, each step measured enough that I can track the way his gaze stays on mine now. When he reaches my side of the table, I still haven’t moved. I’m not sure I could, even if the room were on fire.

He stops in front of me, close enough that I can feel the heat coming off him. Then, with a motion that is too deliberate to be accidental, he sets one hand behind me on the edge of the pool table and leans in just enough to crowd the space between us.

Jesus Christ.

My brain offers the phrase with all the useless clarity in the world while the rest of me just stands there and takes the hit. Up close, he smells like soap and the faint laundry detergent from his shirt. His hair is falling a little over his forehead from where he kept dragging his hands through it during the game.

“You’re being very fucking strange,” I say, and my voice comes out rough.

A tiny smile ghosts at one corner of his mouth, and he lets out one breath that sounds dangerously close to a laugh. “So, what do you want, Julian?” he says again, but his voice has dropped to a low timbre I’m not used to hearing aimed at me.

The question should not be put back on me; that feels unfair. It feels cruel in the most beautiful way possible, because he’s looking at me like he already knows the answer and is trying to see if I’m stupid enough to say it out loud. I look at his mouth before I can stop myself, and the second I do, Eli notices. His eyes darken so subtly I might have missed it if I wasn’t already drowning.

You.

The word flashes through me whole and bright and impossible, but I don’t say it. “You should really stop asking questions you’re starting to know the answer to,” I say instead.

Eli audibly sucks in a breath, and his eyes flick to my lips before they slowly drag up and meet my gaze. The air itself feels tense enough to hum.

“Why don’t you show me the answer?” he asks.

My hand twitches at my side. If I touch him now, everything changes. There is no version of this that becomes harmless again once it crosses that line. I know that with bone-deep certainty. I also know I want it badly enough that my whole body is ringing with the effort of not reaching for him.

Of course, that’s when Eli glances down at my mouth again, and I swear I stop breathing. When his eyes come back up to mine, there’s no innocence left in his face at all. Just heat, nerves, and the kind of wanting that makes a man stupid.

His voice drops even lower. “Julian...”

My hand comes up before I fully decide to move, fingers brushing lightly against his hip where his shirt has ridden up a little. The skin there is warm. Alive. Eli sucks in a breath through his teeth and goes very still, but he doesn’t move away. He doesn’t even pretend to.

“You need to tell me to stop,” I say, because I’m shaking now and the only thing more dangerous than wanting him is wanting him while he’s still halfway frightened by the wanting itself.

His eyes stay on mine. “Do you want to stop?”

No.

The word pounds through me so hard it almost hurts.

But what I actually say is, “That’s not an answer.”

His mouth twitches faintly. Under any other circumstance he’d call me a hypocrite and mean it affectionately. “I don’t want you to stop,” he says after a beat, and his voice is barely above a whisper now.