I’m surprised Brandon is here before midnight. He usually tries to push his curfew past one.
“It was okay,” he replies but doesn’t elaborate. “How was your date?”
“It was okay,” I parrot.
His eyes narrow at me. “Then why are you upset?”
Sometimes I forget how perceptive he is.
“I’m not.” I shovel a heaping mound of cereal into my mouth and avert my eyes, feigning interest in reading the nutritional label on the side of the rainbow-colored box.
Brandon places his empty bowl down on the counter with a loudclank. “I like Coach Michael, and I know I’m the one who pushed you into going out with him, but if he did anything inappropriate or made you uncomfortable, I’ll kick his ass.”
I smile at Brandon’s brotherly protective instincts. “Perfect gentleman throughout the whole date,” I promise him.
A perfect gentleman that I had absolutely no chemistry with. No spark or zing. Not like with—no. Not going there.
My casual reply only makes Brandon’s brown eyes narrow even more before he says, “Uh-huh. I’m heading to bed.”
I breathe an internal sigh of relief. Spanish Inquisition averted. For now. I know he’ll bring it back up again. I need to learn how to school my facial features better. Mason used to say that I wore my feelings, and it made me too easy to read.
Stop thinking about Mason!
“Love you, little B.”
“Love you too, big A.”
I turn out the lights and head to my bedroom. When I go to close the curtains, I stop. Across the way is the window to the bedroom next door… and a shirtless Mason framed perfectly within its windowpane.
I shouldn’t look. It’s not right. I need to pull the drapes. Right now.
Unfortunately, my dormant libido woke up as soon as his lips touched mine and is now revving at the sight of his muscled, tanned back. He’s broader than I remember. Bigger, more muscular. I stand frozen when he slowly turns around, like he can feel me watching, and my heart starts fluttering in my chest like a trapped bird frantically trying to escape its cage.
Mason reaches a hand out and presses it flat on the window glass, fingers outstretched as if he’s trying to reach through it and touch me. His blue gaze bores into my soul, making me want things I know better than to want, because what I want is him. I shouldn’t. God help me, I shouldn’t.
I draw the curtains closed.
Chapter 5
ARIA
I pull my comforter up over my face with a surly whine when an evil spear of sunlight penetrates the crack between my curtains and hits me directly on my closed eyelids. When my phone chirps incessantly with incoming text messages, more than likely from Kama wanting deets about my date, I burrow my head under my pillow, hoping it will block out the noise. But it’s the knocking on the front door that has me groaning out a curse. I slept like crap, if you call one hour of restless slumber after tossing and turning the entire night sleep.
When the knocking starts up again, I pull the covers back and shout, “Brandon! Get the door!”
It’s probably one of his friends anyway. I haven’t made any friends since moving here, so I know the early caller isn’t for me. Is it early? I refuse to check the time on my bedside clock and roll over, hoping to escape the sunlight and fall back to sleep.
My bedroom door quietly cracks open, but inside my pounding head, it sounds like a firecracker going off between my ears.
“Hey, sis, there’s a guy here.”
“I don’t know any guy. Go away,” I grump.
“Is she seriously still in bed at ten in the morning?” a familiar voice says right before a heavy, solid body hops on top of me and yanks my covers away.
My gritty, burning eyeballs reluctantly open to see the happy, smiling, clean-shaven face of Mason peering down at me.
With sleepless exhaustion fogging my brain, causing me to think I’m still dreaming—because lord knows, thoughts of him are what kept me up all freaking night—all I can do is blink up at the man.
