Page 43 of Break Away
That made him smile, quick and devastating. “You want me quiet?”
“I want a lot of things.”
His voice lowered. “Name one.”
The words moved through me like a hand beneath my skin.
I could have walked away. I want that noted for the record too. I could have gone back to Bliss and Charm, found some safer guy with easier eyes and fewer instincts, or made Easton into one sharp little memory and saved myself a whole lot of future emotional bullshit.
Instead, I stepped closer until my toes touched his in the sand and his body went still.
I loved that. Maybe too much.
“I don’t do soft,” I said.
His gaze stayed on mine. “Okay.”
“I don’t do morning-after breakfast.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t do cuddling.”
“Okay.”
“And I don’t do men who ask me what this means tomorrow.”
His jaw flexed once. “Okay.”
“You agree too easily.”
“I’m listening.”
“That’s dangerous.”
“It’s basic.”
“No, Easton.” I shook my head and hated how my voice had gone quieter around his name. “Most men hear rules and start looking for the loophole.”
“I’m not most men.”
I rolled my eyes. “That is exactly what most men say.”
“I’m still listening.”
The fire snapped hard behind us, sending sparks into the dark. Somewhere up the beach, Briggs yelled something about someone disrespecting marshmallow integrity, and Ryan’s answering insult carried faintly over the sand. They were normal party sounds from a normal summer night filled with normal people making normal choices.
Nothing about me felt normal when Easton looked at me like that.
I took another breath. “If this happens, it happens my way.”
His eyes did not leave mine as he leaned closer. “Tell me.”
The words should have felt like victory.
They didn’t. They felt like a door I had thirty deadbolts on and, for whatever reason, I was unlocking them one by one for him.
I looked past him toward the tree line, where the shadows were thick enough that no one from the party would see much unless they came looking. Blankets were scattered near the second fire, but farther down the shoreline, the sand curved behind a bank of reeds and a half-rotted dock that blocked the view from the house.
