Page 101 of Break Away
“I look at everyone like that.”
“No, you look at most people like you’re deciding where to bury them. This is different.”
Her mouth curved, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “You spend a lot of time studying my face, Wade.”
“I study everything that gets into my bed.”
“Cute. Make me sound like a biohazard.”
“You broke into my room and stole my clothes. That’s evidence.”
“The door was unlocked.”
“That’s not a defense.”
“It is if I’m hot enough.”
I walked toward the dresser and tugged my damp practice shirt over my head because I was tired, sore, and not about to stand there fully dressed while she sat half-bare in my sweatshirt pretending she had the upper hand.
Her gaze dropped instantly, without anything subtle or accidental about it. She looked at my chest, my stomach, and the line of muscle disappearing beneath the waistband of my sweats, and for half a second, her whole mouth forgot how to be mean.
Then she blinked and found herself again.
“Do you need applause, or was the dramatic undressing its own reward?”
I tossed the shirt into the hamper. “You’re staring.”
“I’m making sure you don’t have a concussion. Bliss has made head trauma very trendy this week.”
The Bliss joke killed the humor too quickly.
Her face changed the second she realized it. The attitude didn’t disappear, exactly, but it shifted and thinned as her gaze moved past me toward the floor, toward nothing, toward whatever image she couldn’t stop replaying.
I pulled on a clean shirt but didn’t move closer. “Bliss asleep?”
Aura nodded once. “Finally.”
“Cade?”
“In the chair beside her like a deranged gargoyle with a pulse.”
“Sounds right.”
“Charm is downstairs folding laundry that was already folded. Briggs keeps trying to feed everyone like carbs can undo attempted murder. Rider has been silently washing the same pan for twelve minutes. Ryan is outside on the phone, and I’m ninety percent sure he’s pretending not to cry because men in this house would rather take a skate blade to the throat than admit they have feelings.”
I leaned back against the dresser and folded my arms. “And you came up here to insult everyone privately?”
“I came up here because your room is quiet.”
There it was.
Not the full truth, but enough of one that the air changed.
Aura looked down at her laptop like she wanted to shove the words back inside and slam the screen closed. Her fingers flexed against the keyboard’s edge, and my sweatshirt had slipped farther down her shoulder, exposing smooth brown skin.
The sight hit me harder than it should have. Aura always looked good. She knew it, weaponized it, and punished men with it for sport, but this was different. She was in my room after midnight because downstairs was too loud with fear, wearing my sweatshirt because she wanted comfort but would rather die than call it that, keeping my lamp on and my door closed while pretending neither choice meant anything.
I pushed away from the dresser. “Shut the laptop.”
