“Good. This should take about five minutes. Don’t touch anything. Just let it work.”
Five minutes. I stepped back from the terminal. Turned.
Alex was facing away from me, standing by the door, watching the hallway through the small window.
I let myself look.
His shoulders were tense under his jacket. Hands shoved in his pockets. The fabric pulled tight across his back when he shifted his weight. And lower—
Fuck.
His ass looked good in those jeans. Really good. The kind of good that made heat shoot straight through me before I could stop it.
I’d thought about Alex plenty, thought about the way he kissed me, the way he held me tight that summer. But this was different, dirtier—more immediate.
I wanted to cross this room, press him against that door and feel his body against mine. Feel my dick against—
The thought hit so hard I had to look away.
What the hell was wrong with me? We were breaking into a building. Security could show up any second. And I was standing here getting turned on watching Alex look out a window.
Get it together.
But the heat was still there crawling under my skin, making everything feel too tight, but good at the same time. The server fans hummed around us. The only other sound was the quiet clicking of the script running.
We were alone.
My pulse was loud in my ears. Adrenaline making everything feel sharp and hyper-real. The pressure in my chest.
This was insane. Breaking into a Kingswell building in the middle of the night. Tampering with their servers. If we got caught—
Don’t think about that.
But I couldn’t stop.
Coach Hale’s face when they told him. The disappointment. The anger. My scholarship gone. My spot on the team gone. Everything I’d worked for, destroyed.
Mom’s voice on the phone. What were you thinking, Liam?
I wasn’t thinking. That was the problem. I was just... reacting. Trying to fix this mess before it exploded. Trying to protect Alex. Even though he’d left me. Even though he’d chosen Kingswell and his father’s expectations over whatever we’d had. Even though I should hate him for it.
I didn’t.
That was the worst part. I didn’t hate him at all. Instead, I was standing there wanting to wrap my hands around his waist and start kissing his neck.
“Liam.” Alex’s voice. Quiet. Urgent. “Someone’s coming.”
My stomach dropped.
I moved to the window. Flashlight beam moving down the hallway toward us, steady and methodical, sweeping across doors and walls with practiced precision.
“Noah, security’s here and he’s coming this way,” I said.
“Shit. How close?”
“Thirty seconds. Maybe less.”
“Abort. Abort.”
