Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 80643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
“Yeah,” I call over to Bree’s friends. “I’ll come over later.”
Bree leans over to ruffle my hair and kiss my cheek like she did the other day in class. I don’t look over at Torin, but I know he saw it.
And a few moments later, Bree confirms that for me.
“He keeps looking at you,” she whispers in my ear. “Are you guys, like, fighting or something?”
He’s not just looking at me, though.
He’s looking at me and Bree as she leans over near my ear.
And there’s an intensity behind his eyes that I can’t quite read.
As if on cue, Torin pushes up with his arms and shoots out of the pool onto the deck. He stretches his arms high above his head and then strides over, dripping water as he walks.
Rayne nods at Torin, waving him over.
“Yo. Want me to deal you in, Torin? Not that you have that many clothes to strip off.”
Hunter snorts, and everyone’s suddenly looking at Torin’s body, out on display.
Torin doesn’t even seem to notice the attention.
Because his gaze is unflinchingly on me.
My chest is molten as he watches me, coming closer to the table until he’s standing behind me.
I can smell the chlorine on him, mixed with his own inescapable scent.
Nope.
You don’t get to affect me.
I’m staying right where I am, and I’m going to have a fun night with Bree, and pretend you don’t fucking exist.
“Nah, don’t deal me in,” Torin says to Rayne. “I think I’m just going to watch.”
He pulls up a chair behind me and reaches for his phone, which he left on a table before jumping in the pool.
I feel my phone buzz in my pocket a moment later and my veins zing with electricity.
I pull it out as everybody else starts to get distracted by the game again, and I glance down at the screen.
Don’t go home with her.
You don’t get a say in what I do.
I want you upstairs after this.
You’re gone all week then you suddenly want to talk with me on your terms? Fuck off.
Never said anything about talking.
“Quit staring at your phone and pick up those cards,” Ollie yells at me from across the table, grinning from ear to ear before he takes another drink of his cocktail. “Let’s get this poker game fired up again, Noah. Bree didn’t come over to see you with your clothes on.”
Bree giggles and reaches over to give Oliver a high-five.
And I wish I could sink deeper into my chair, to melt away into the fucking ground somewhere that I’d stop blushing, stop heating like this, and get Torin’s distracting scent away from me.
What the fuck does he want upstairs? Nothing is ever happening between us again.
And you should fucking know that, Torin.
12
Torin
Noah picks up his hand of cards and I lean over him, draping my chest over the top of his shoulder.
I nod at them. “Kind of an unlucky hand, Daisy,” I murmur in his ear as the other guys are lost in banter across the table. “Think you might have to strip off your pants.”
Bree’s on the other side of him, laughing at something another guy said while she leans up against Noah’s arm.
Her tits look good, spilling out of the top of her bra.
And she seems very happy tonight.
What exactly did you get up to while I was gone, Noah? Just how happy have you been making Bree?
“Didn’t ask for poker advice, but thanks,” Noah mutters to me.
I give his bare shoulder a squeeze.
My hand’s still a little wet from the pool, and I watch a droplet of water drip down along his shoulder blade from the back.
Roman’s glancing over at us now.
So many fucking eyes on Noah, and it’s making me feel like some sort of territorial animal.
It’s a side of myself I don’t even know.
I haven’t felt like myself since the moment I walked back into Onyx House tonight. The security patrol who I had following Noah did a debriefing with me right after he finished earlier.
And it wasn’t good.
He let me know that just a few hours ago, another black car was following Noah.
A different one.
He almost had to draw his gun and blow his cover, apparently, when the black car pulled up along the road where Noah was jogging alone.
But then, he told me that luckily, Noah turned a corner and met up with a girl with long brown braids.
Bree Harris.
The black car only tailed the two of them for another minute before it left. He got the plates, and didn’t find any worthwhile info from them—the car was stolen, apparently, just a few days ago.
I was going to come home and tell Noah, but instead I found him with that same beautiful girl out here on the patio, as she touches Noah like he’s her plaything.
Bree’s stealing glances at me from the other side of him now.