Crack In The Ice - Chapter 3: Chapter 3

It takes me about five seconds to feel it.
The soft press of naked skin against my arm. The warmth of another body nearby.
I still myself. Memories of last night come flooding in instantly.
Eli followed me to my room upstairs. As soon as the door clicked shut, we were transported to an alternate dimension. One where Eli is care-free and sure, and the two of us just fit together in a way too natural to put into words. A dimension that begins where our bodies touch and ends with everything else. Where there's nothing but the two of us.
A dimension that usually spits us right back out onto the real world when morning comes.
But this morning is different. Because today I can feel an arm pressed up against mine, and I'm scared to turn my head and look. The heat from his body touching mine tells me he's there, but my brain knows this can't be true.
Slowly, I turn my head to the right and there he is. Flat on his stomach, an arm bent to rest beneath the pillow and his face turned toward me. His other arm is bent at a wider angle, pressed softly from pinky to elbow against mine. Honey-brown hair rests loosely over his face, but I can still see the contour of pink lips and the curve of his cheek.
Eli stirs next to me and I breathe in. Then hold it there.
His eyes flutter open and the arm that was touching me moves to rub his face, ending the contact. I turn on my side, watching him roll onto his back and look around. I can see the moment he realizes where he is play out on his face just before he looks at me.
"Hey," I say.
"Hey," he rasps.
Fuck, this man.
I smile. "This is new."
"What is?" He asks, soft and slow and sleepy. It's a side of him I have never seen. I want to burn that tone into my brain, make sure to keep that memory forever.
"Waking up and you're still here," I say.
Eli props himself up on his elbows suddenly, and a hand rubs the sleep from his eyes as a frown sets in. I feel like I made a mistake. It's an uncomfortably, ugly pang of a feeling that pierces through the blissful morning mist.
"Want me to leave?" He asks.
"No." I shake my head still laid on the pillow. "Please don't."
To my surprise, that's enough to make Eli relax back onto the bed. His eyes slip closed again, but I think mine will never shut again.
When he sat up, the sheets sloped down to his hip, leaving everything north of that in full display and very little else to the imagination underneath the thin fabric.
Eli looked impressive back in high school, with a hockey build he undoubtedly worked for. But this post-puberty, pro-athlete Eli is something else.
We've seen each other's bodies naked plenty of times over the past four years, but I don't think I ever really let myself ogle. Definitely not in plain morning light.
Beneath the white sheet I can make out the outlines of muscular thighs and sharp hip bones. I don't dwell much on what's south of that border for fear of giving my body too many wrong signals too early in the day.
His torso is all solid muscle laid out in the hard planes of his chest and the sharp ridges and crevices of his abdomen, dusted with a trail of light-brown hair that disappears into the sheets. My eyes linger on the bulges of his biceps, the strong lines of his arms, that vein that stretches along the length of it all, and the manly cut of his hands, now pressing into his face.
He lets his arms fall back onto the pillow, bent over his head. I want to pin them there to take a full, long look at the lines that make up his square jaw, his cupid's bow lips, the smooth dark eyebrows, his eyes, his nose, his cheekbones, his forehead.
I'm a lunatic. A creepy lunatic with a staring problem.
Hazel-gray eyes find mine. I've been caught.
Eli doesn't seem weirded out by my staring, though. He smiles. "What."
I know then that if I move too suddenly, I'll wake up and Eli will be gone. I'll try to close my eyes and fall back asleep to see the end of this dream, but it will be too late. Morning reverie Eli will be gone forever.
"You have something on your face," I say.
"Yeah?"
"Mhm."
"Where?"
"Here." I push up onto my elbow to kiss his jaw.
Eli snorts. "Did you get it?"
"Nope."
"Why not?"
"It moved."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." I bend down again to kiss his neck. "There."
"I think you missed it again."
"Think you're right," I muse, brushing my lips up his neck to bite his ear lobe.
Eli sighs. I don't really know what to make of that, so I suck a hickey just bellow his ear, on that spot that meets his jaw. When I pull back to look at his face, Eli's eyes mixed hazel and gray to somehow make near-black.
I watch him bite his lip. "Here, I'll help you."
He pushes up on one arm, his other hand pressing down on my chest to flatten me against the mattress. His lips trap mine in a kiss and my hands fly over his broad shoulders to the back of his neck.
He gets a moan out of me when he sucks my bottom lip between his teeth and I feel him smile into the kiss. His thigh slides between my legs, which part for him of their own accord, and his lips latch onto my neck.
I want this moment to last forever, but I also want to see where it will end. It's the best kind of internal conflict.
Eli's lips trail down to my chest while his hands get a feel of the terrain ahead. When his hand wraps firmly around me underneath the sheets, I know I'm already halfway gone.
He takes his time between open-mouthed kisses and gentle nibbles down my body. His mouth is hot and wet, and I think I hear myself cry out when he takes me into it.
Eli knows me. He could finish me in seconds if he wanted to, but he indulges. Whether me or him, I can't really tell. Which sends a thrill of excitement of its own down my spine.
His movements are slow and deliberate, hot and wanton. There's a morning languidness there, a lack of rush. But it's purposeful. It's still leading to something.
I try to use my hand on the back of his head to show him where I need him, but he's having none of it. He knows what I want, but he's going to do this his way. Accepting that I can't take the reigns on this moment, I gather a fistful of his hair in one hand instead, my bundled up sheets in the other, and hold on for dear life.
When I finally let go, he holds me through it, then kisses the inside of my thigh before climbing back up on the bed.
I need a couple of minutes to regain the power of speech.
"I think I owe you breakfast after that," is what eventually comes out of my mouth.
Eli snorts. "Don't think you have a kitchen in this suite."
"No. But that's what room service is for."
"Oh, I see. Is that what you do, living here in a suite at your father's resort? Get room service every morning, like a little lord?"
"Not really. I like to go downstairs and get the morning gossip about the tourists from Hannah."
Eli rolls his eyes. "Of course you do."
I reach over to the little bedside table for the phone and dial for room service.
"Are you serious? Liam, we–"
I stretch out a hand to hush Eli with a finger on his lips.
"Astor Ski Resort, room service. Good morning. How can I help you?"
"Hi. Good morning. Can I get your Honeymoon Special, please?"
"Of course, Mr Astor. I'll send it up to your room."
"Thanks." I set the phone back down.
Eli's staring at me with parted lips. "The Honeymoon Special? Are you serious?" He whisper-yells.
I laugh. "Relax, okay? I lied. I do get room service. I order the Honeymoon Special every morning on my cheat day."
His eyes narrow suspiciously. "It's a breakfast for two."
"I treat myself on my cheat day."
"You're joking."
"I am not."
A smile fights its way slowly back onto Eli's lips against his will. "You lied about getting room service?"
I bite my lip with a shrug. "I didn't want you to think I'm a spoiled brat."
"I already think that. Always have."
"How can I possibly change your mind?" I ask, rolling over to lie practically on top of him, chest to chest.
Eli licks his lips. "I don't know about changing it. But you could distract me enough to forget what a brat you are."
I shuffle with the sheets to find a convenient position between his legs, then get annoyed when they wrap around my shin and pull them off of us completely.
"That's cold," he complains.
"The heating's on."
"I'm still cold."
I scoff. "You live in Canada. The Great White North."
"Yeah. And we use blankets."
I roll my eyes. "Fine."
Eli scoots back on the bed to sit with his back against the headboard, while I get up to pick the sheets up from the floor. Before I can cozy back up to the very attractive, very naked hockey player splayed out willingly on my bed, there's a knock on the door.
"Room service," they announce.
I groan. Eli snickers as I roll the bundled up sheets around me to go for the door. The girl in the room staff uniform blushes as I take the tray with one hand while the other holds the sheets tightly around my waist.
"Could you close the door for me, please? Would hate for you to have to report me for indecency."
She obliges without a word.
When I come back in with a tray full with two doses of strawberry and cream pancakes, eggs, bacon, toast, and two steaming mugs of coffee, milk and sugar on the side – with impressive dexterity, might I add – Eli laughs in my face.
"Shut up," I grumble.
"I can't believe you nearly flashed one of your dad's employees."
I set the tray on the mattress and sit up in bed, pulling the sheets tighter around me. "I'm gonna hold onto these for that."
"Fine. I'll just put my clothes back on."
I stumble clumsily but ridiculously fast. Tripping on the sheets and nearly spilling the coffee from the tray on the bed, I straddle his legs, trapping him before he can get to his clothes.
"I can't let you do that."
Eli bites his lip, looking down at the way our bodies are touching past the tangled sheets curling around my hips and leg. I can feel his skin burn into mine in the spots where we make contact.
"I thought we were supposed to eat breakfast now," he murmurs.
Honestly, that low tone shouldn't be enough to send a shiver down my spine, right?
Especially considering, in this position,  Eli can definitely feel it.
I shrug. "I can eat from here."
Eli smiles and my head goes a little hazy, so I'm not sure which one of us starts the kiss. But soon we're horizontal again. We do eat, but we never quite let go of each other in the meantime.
I have no idea when it was decided that we are now allowed to stay in that alternate dimension we go to in our nights together after morning comes, but I love it.
When we're done eating, I even get to repay Eli for the morning favor in full.
Unfortunately, I can't keep him from putting his clothes back on forever.
"I could drive you home," I offer as he grabs his beanie – the maroon one – from my floor.
"I think I want to walk."
"I could walk with you."
Eli snorts. "I'm good."
I hesitate for a moment. "It's good to have you back home."
Eli smiles at me. Fuck, I want to print that image and carry it in my pocket everywhere.
"Feels good to be back."