Touch Me - A Forbidden Romance

God, just thinking about Meghan had his blood boiling even all these years later.

“Do you still talk to her?” Freya asked. She had her back still to him, but she was farther in the house now. She took the three steps it required to get to the living room and the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the city. Currently, it was dark, and the lights from the buildings made a million twinkling glows in front of them.

“Her?” Elijah had an idea of who she meant, even if no name had been said. Freya was either a mind reader, or this was just as awkward for her as it was for him because of their past, and the one person who had connected them for those years.

Freya stopped at the couch, ran her fingers over the back of it, and looked over her shoulder. He could tell she was nervous, but she was hiding it well. What she couldn’t hide was the fact her fingers lightly shook.

“Meghan?” Her voice kind of cracked at the end, but she turned away quickly, obviously realizing she’d just voiced her uncomfortable feeling.

Elijah hated this, hated the tension, so he walked toward her, stopped behind her. As much as he was trying to look at the view and not her reflection, he couldn’t help it. She stared back at him, the glass creating this false confrontation between them. He was a few feet from her, not touching her, but he could feel her body heat and smell the sweet scent of her.

“She moved away with her new husband. I haven’t talked to her in years, but the last time we spoke, which happened to be by chance since we ran into each other, she made sure to tell me about how wonderful her life was.” He lowered his gaze to Freya’s cleavage, what he could see in the reflection that was.

“Is this as strange for you as it is for me?” she asked in a very soft voice.

He didn’t respond, just nodded. He took hold of her shoulders, turned her around, and as much as he wanted to kiss, her these feelings were coming out of left field.

“Listen, it’s just you and I here, just friends,” he said, wanting her to be comfortable. Her eyes widened for a second, and then she lowered her head. The dark fall of her hair covered her face so much that he couldn’t get a good look at her.

“Friends, you’re absolutely right.” She lifted her head and looked at him again. “I think it’s just weird seeing as we haven’t seen each other in so long.”

His heart was beating fast, and the urge to say fuck that invisible line he shouldn’t cross waged war inside him. But he took a step back, gestured to the table, and put on the fakest fucking smile he could muster.

“How about we eat before it gets cold?”

She seemed to relax slightly, nodded, and they made their way to the table.

For the next hour they ate and talked, and he asked her every conceivable question he could think of. He wanted to know everything about her, and the longer they spoke, the more he realized she’d grown so much. He wasn’t speaking in the physical sense, although she had done that as well. Elijah was speaking about the fact she was so damn smart, witty, and intuitive.

He could listen to her for hours, and he did that instead of eating, finding the taste of his food bland compared to the melody of her voice.

Fuck, he sounded like a schoolboy now, for sure, but he couldn’t help it. Compared to the women he’d associated with before and after Meghan, Freya was a breath of fresh air. She wasn’t conceited, didn’t think about herself before others, and had made it her career aspiration to help the less fortunate and those who were sick. Just watching her face light up as she told him about her time in college, about how she’d been afraid to come back home in case everything resurfaced, brought out this very protective side of him.

“Dinner was wonderful. Thank you for inviting me.” She smiled, and he was glad to see she’d seemed to relax in his company.

But still, he had this urge to hold her, to kiss her … to make her his. She was so different from what he was used to, and damn was that a good thing, a refreshing thing. Being with her made him feel as though he wasn’t alone, and his life didn’t have to be lived in solitary. All these feelings came out of the blue, but the fact remained they were real. Despite always being surrounded by people because of his profession, spending these past few hours with Freya made him feel … alive.

He didn’t know why he felt like this, but he knew he wasn’t going to walk away from what he felt for her. He couldn’t.