Lost to You (Take This Regret 0.5)(20)
Author: A.L. Jackson

I bit back the urge to yell at her and forced down the anger when I saw the affliction twisting up the corner of her mouth.

I blinked, trying to make sense of what had happened in the span of ten minutes.

“Elizabeth.” It was a plea. What did I do? Because I knew she wouldn’t have left without saying goodbye simply because she was tired.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, averting her timid gaze to the ground.

“What do you mean, what am I doing here? I was worried about you.”

I nudged the door open. Elizabeth staggered back a couple of feet, everything about her beaten down. Blonde waves fell around her face. My fingers twitched, wishing to push it back, to force her to look at me.

“What happened?”

“I just…” She shook her head as she slowly lifted her eyes to find mine. Sadness pooled in the depths. “I don’t know anymore, Christian.”

That feeling washed over me again, something that resembled pain, something foreign that made it hard to breathe. I stepped forward, dipping my head to capture her attention. I couldn’t stand for her to look away from me. “Did I do something wrong?”

Cold, quiet laughter rumbled from her throat. “No, Christian.” She raised both shoulders before she dropped them in defeat. “I felt out of place there, okay? I’m sorry I just took off, but I don’t fit into that world, and I guess I didn’t really feel comfortable seeing you in it, either.”

I pushed a strained breath from my lungs. The sound hung in the air between us. “I’m sorry, Elizabeth. I shouldn’t have taken you there.” Her discomfort had been obvious, the way she continually fidgeted, her shy eyes downcast as she stood beside me. Maybe it’d been selfish of me because I’d only been concerned about how good it felt having her standing by my side, that having her there had given me a valid excuse to relish in her soft skin against mine. Maybe I liked the way all the girls looked on her with envy. Maybe for a few minutes, I liked pretending we were more than what we really were. Pretending was safe. “I just wanted to hang out with you.”

Elizabeth shrugged like it didn’t matter and turned back to whatever she was cooking on the stove. She’d taken off her boots and jeans and had changed into these tight little gray leggings that showed off every perfect curve of her body. Barefoot, she stirred the pot, stirring something inside of me. I probably should have tried to stop them, but my thoughts went straight back to earlier, to how good her simple touch had felt. The burn. I suppressed a groan. God, why did she have this effect on me? She was my best friend, and all I wanted to do right then was bury myself inside her. For hours. Again and again.

I pushed down the unwelcomed lust. Now was not the time for it. Instead, I waited for the response I could feel Elizabeth working up to.

Slowly, she rocked while I watched her from behind. One hand gripped the pot handle while she gentled the spoon through the soup with the other, her head tilted to one side. My gaze traveled the flawless span of her body. Swallowing, she straightened, her hair swishing across her back. She released an audible sound of distress, and she seemed to have to force her voice through it. “Didn’t you want to stay there?”

Honesty flowed from my mouth in a soft whisper. “No…not if you’re not there.” It was true. There wasn’t anyone I’d rather be with.

“But…” Elizabeth trailed off, a heavy implication seeded in the word.

My steps were slow as I crept up behind her. I stopped an inch of my chest brushing her back. Everything closed in around us, as if the small space separating us no longer existed. “But what?”

If I wasn’t paying such close attention, I would have missed the way her muscles tensed, the subtle flinch as she dropped her head.

“I saw you with that girl.” Her admission flooded from her mouth as a trembled whisper, and swells of resentment emanated from her body, rushed in waves across mine, her shallow breaths distinct in the otherwise silent room.

Elizabeth was jealous.

A selfish satisfaction permeated my being, and something overpowering rose up in the pit of my stomach. It was wrong, but unstoppable. Over the last few months, she’d done her best to hide her attraction. But I’d seen it, found it in the way she looked at me when she thought I wasn’t paying attention, how her eyes would roam and skim, spurring a tension between us that slowed our movements, as if the air in the room had been compressed. In those moments, I glimpsed in her what I’d been trying to hold back in myself since the second I’d seen her. But this… I wondered if she felt anything close to what I felt when she’d admitted to me a month ago that she’d slept with some guy. That someone had touched her. Possessive envy had roiled through my veins, and I couldn’t tell what I wanted more—to kill this guy for what he’d done to her, or show her how good I could make her feel.

“Elizabeth…” I leaned in close to one side of her shoulder, my mouth near her ear. “Did you really think I would ditch you for Rachel?” How could she possibly think that? “She’s all over me every weekend, and I’ve never even touched her. You can’t just take off because you assume something is going on when you have no idea what’s really happening. Do you think I’m such a jerk that I’d take you to that party and then leave with Rachel?” My voice softened. “You scared me.” The last came with the residual of my fear. Yeah. I wanted her. But she had to know it went so much deeper than that, that I cared about her and wouldn’t know what I’d do if anything ever happened to her.

I saw the remorse in the sag of her shoulders.

“Elizabeth—”

“No. I don’t think that. I just…,” she mumbled, “I’m sorry.” Blonde waves fell to one side, a gentle sway of her body that I matched. Her wide-collared shirt had slipped off the cap of her delicate shoulder, teasing me with the honey-kissed skin. Her movements were all innocent and sad, and I had the sudden overwhelming need to mark her. Claim her.

I descended on her before I could stop myself, my mouth gentle as I kissed her below the slope where her neck and shoulder met, my hands firm on her hips. She tasted like heaven.

My entire body hardened as I pressed myself along the length of her back.

For a moment, Elizabeth melted, a supple yielding as her head lolled to the side in a second’s submission, before she froze and spun to untangle herself from my hold.

Lines forged a path of betrayal across her face, and tears gathered in her eyes. “What are you doing?”