Heat pools low in my belly. My pulse kicks up, thrumming in my throat, my wrists, between my thighs.
This is bad. This is so bad.
I should go. I should definitely go.
Instead, I watch him slice one hand sharply through the air, clearly arguing with whoever's on the phone. Then he runs his other hand through his dark hair.
I recognize that gesture now. He did it when he claimed there wasn't room in his house. Did it on the train when I asked his name.Evander. When he lied.
Yet my fingers curl with the phantom memory of threading through those strands, tugging just hard enough to make him groan against my mouth.
Stop. Jesus, stop.
He turns slightly, and for one heart-stopping moment, I think he’s going to see me standing here. See me watching him like some kind of stalker.
But his gaze stays on whatever’s in front of him, papers, probably. Reports about the environmental disaster his father created.
Then he stills, and as if sensing me, turns in my direction.
His eyes lock onto mine through the open layout, and everything stops. The phone is still pressed to his ear, but his hand has frozen mid-gesture. Those arctic blue eyes that had looked at me on the train like I was the only woman in the world, go wide.
Move, dammit. Or at least say something. But my tongue is glued to the top of my mouth.
His lips part slightly, and I see him inhale. See the way his grip tightens on the phone. See the exact moment shock shifts into something else. Something heated and hungry that makes my skin flush.
I hold his stare long enough to make the refusal to look away mean something. Then his expression shutters and he turns his back to me.
I walk down the stairs.
Slowly.
Because I'm not running from Thorne Blackstone.
Three months in this house.
Three months of running into him in hallways, at dinner, by the pool. Three months of remembering the weight of his body against mine, the taste of bourbon on his tongue.
Evander was supposed to disappear when I stepped off the train, becoming a scorching memory I could recall when needed.
But Thorne Blackstone isn't going anywhere. And neither is this ache in my body every time I think about him.
Chapter Seven
Thorne
I check my watch for the third time in as many minutes.
“It’s only 7:05. I told them dinner’s at seven,” Lillianna says from across the table, amusement coloring her voice. “Are you nervous?”
I scoff. “No. I’m impatient. Annoyed. I have better stuff to do than sit around waiting on them.”
Earlier, when she'd come to my office, I'd managed to turn away. Put the wall back up. But it's a hell of a lot harder to dismiss someone when they're about to sit at your dinner table.
“We still have to eat,” she replies.
“I can eat in my office. I have one reason and one reason only for this ‘family dinner’: to set the rules in this house.”
My sister smirks. “Are you sure their lateness isn’t the only thing that has your undies in a bunch?”
