Pretending I wasn’t replaying the way he’d pinned me down in the dim firelight, the way his breath hit my throat right before everything blurred into heat and wrongness I still couldn’t scrub out of my skin.
And every time Lex walked into a room, every time he pushed his fingers through his hair, every time he laughed like the world would always bend for him…
I wondered.
I shouldn’t have wondered. I shouldn’t havewanted.
But the thought had been rotting in my skull since that night—the masked man didn’t recoil when things slipped past fear. He didn’t hesitate to touch me, to drag me closer as if he owned me.
He wanted me. As much as I wanted him.
So what if that want belonged to the one person it should never belong to?
Lex Rothwell.
My stepbrother.
The campus golden boy.
The straightest straight who ever straighted, according to literally everyone with a pulse.
Except… the masked man didn’t feel straight. Didn’t feel unsure. Didn’t feel anything but sure, deliberate hunger.
Lex had that same hunger sometimes—when he looked at me too long, too hard, before shoving it down behind a grin.
There was only one way to know.
And if he freaked out—if he denied everything, if he shut me out—I’d bury it. Protect him. Protect us.
I’d never tell a soul.
My hand trembled when I knocked on his door. Once. Twice. Nothing.
“Lex?” I called softly.
“Hey, uh… can I talk to you for a second?”
Silence.
I bit the inside of my cheek, listening for the shower, for the TV, for anything. But the room behind the door was still. Too still.
Maybe he was at practice.
I should’ve left. I should’ve turned around and pretended I never came looking for him.
Instead, I pushed the door open.
The room was empty. Sheets half-tucked. A hoodie on the chair. A faint scent of his cologne—warm, masculine, familiar enough to make my pulse trip.
“Lex?” I tried again, even knowing I’d get no answer.
I was halfway out the door when something caught my eye.
A black duffle bag sticking out from under his bed.
My heart slid lower in my chest.
Don’t, Jamie. Don’t you dare.
