His jaw tightens, eyes burning into mine. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” I spit. My heart is hammering, but I don’t look away. “Don’t remind you that you wanted me? Don’t remind you that you still do? God, Dean—” I almost choke on his name, the forbidden weight of it in my mouth. “You’re not fooling anyone. Least of all, me.”
His hand tightens, just enough to make me gasp, but it’s not pain—it’s warning. His nose grazes mine, his mouth so close I can taste the whiskey on his breath.
“You think this is a game?” His voice rips out, quiet but lethal. “You have no idea what I’d do to you if I stopped pretending.”
“Then stop pretending.”
The silence that follows is unbearable. My whole body vibrates with it. His stare devours me like he already has me pinned to his bed, but he doesn’t move. He doesn’t kiss me again.
Instead, he releases my jaw like I burned him and takes a sharp step back.
The space between us is sudden, cold.
“Go back inside, Brooklyn,” he orders, voice steel. “Find Kate. Drink your cocktails. Dance. Forget about me.”
My stomach knots. Anger floods my chest, hot and reckless. “You don’t get to tell me to forget you.”
“I’m your boss,” he snaps, harsher than before. “That’s all I am. Remember that.”
I laugh, but it breaks halfway through, bitter and shaky. “Right. My boss. Who can’t stop touching me.”
His eyes flash, jaw locking, and for a split second I swear he’s about to snap—about to drag me back against the wall and ruin me right here where anyone could find us.
But he doesn’t. He just turns his head, cursing under his breath like he’s seconds from losing it.
The bass from the club rattles the walls, and I realise I’m shaking—not from fear, but from want. From rage. From him.
He looks back once, eyes dark, feral, and full of the thing he refuses to admit. Then he storms off down the hallway, leaving me against the wall with my pulse screaming and my body aching, like he just set me on fire and dared me to burn.
Watcher
She thinks I walked away.
She thinks she won.
But I didn’t leave. I couldn’t. I told myself to keep walking, to get the fuck out of that hallway before I did something I couldn’t take back, but my feet betrayed me, doubling back, dragging me into the shadows where the pulsing club lights don’t reach.
And there she is.
Brooklyn.
She slips back inside, shoulders tense like she’s holding herself together with nothing but stubbornness and spit. Her lips are swollen from where I kissed her, and rage tears through me at the thought of anyone else noticing. Of anyone else wanting.
I should go. I should put distance between us before I make another mistake.
But I can’t.
She’s laughing now—too bright, too brittle—and I realise she’s found someone.
“Brook?” A girl with dark curls flings her arms around her like they’re old friends. I don’t recognise her. Doesn’t matter.She’s irrelevant. What matters is that Brooklyn’s face softens, her eyes lighting up in a way they don’t when she’s with me.
It kills me.
“I didn’t know you’d be here!” the girl beams, tugging her toward the bar.
“Neither did I,” Brooklyn says, voice carefully casual, but I hear it — the faint tremor under her words. She’s not as unaffected as she’s pretending. She’s raw. Just like me.
