CHAPTER ELEVEN #2
“Riley…” My voice cracked on his name. I hated that too.
For a moment, just a moment, something unreadable flickered in his eyes. Something that didn’t feel like mockery at all. But it vanished as quickly as it came.
The mattress dipped further, and his face came into focus, shadows carving along his jaw, eyes catching slivers of moonlight. He looked unfairly calm, considering my heart was trying to beat its way out of my ribs.
His hand braced beside my hip, not touching, but the heat of him seeped through the blanket like a threat. Or a promise. I couldn’t decide which terrified me more.
“Careful,” he murmured, leaning in just enough that his hair brushed my forehead. “If you keep looking at me like that, I’m going to think you want something.”
“I don’t,” I breathed, though the words tangled together.
“Mm.” His gaze dropped to my lips for a fraction of a second, just long enough to make my lungs seize. “Liar.”
I flushed hot. “You’re in my room, Riley. Uninvited.”
“I had a keycard,” he said with a smirk, as if that excused anything. As if breaking into my space was some clever trick he expected me to applaud.
“That’s not—“ My voice faltered when he dipped closer, forearm brushing the blanket near my thigh. Every nerve in me lit up, panicked and alert.
“You really should see your face right now,” he murmured, amused. “All wide-eyed and trapped. It’s kind of adorable.”
“Get off my bed.”
He hummed thoughtfully, like he was genuinely considering it… then shook his head the slightest bit. “Not yet.”
The proximity was maddening. His breath was warm against my cheek, his presence swallowing the air around me. I wanted to shove him away. I wanted to not be this aware of him. I wanted him gone.
But he wasn’t. And he knew exactly what that did to me.
Riley lowered his voice, the sound sinking straight under my skin. “I didn’t come in here to scare you.”
A lie. Or maybe not. With him, it was impossible to tell.
His hand lifted, fingers brushing the air near my cheek, stopping just shy of contact. “You were pretty dramatic earlier,” he said. “Running off. Acting like I’d asked for your soul when I only wanted a kiss.”
My pulse stuttered. “You tried to bribe me with my own bikini top.”
He shrugged one shoulder, unbothered. “A fair trade, if you ask me.”
“It wasn’t.”
He hummed, his eyes dragging over my face like he was reading every flicker of defiance. “That’s why I’m here.”
My stomach twisted. “What?”
Riley leaned in the smallest bit closer, enough to make heat crawl up my neck. “To see if you’d changed your mind.”
“I haven’t.”
He studied me. Really studied me. The intensity sharpened, not teasing this time but assessing, as if deciding something.
Then, with infuriating calm, he nodded once. “Alright.”
Relief fluttered through me, too temporary.
“But don’t worry,” he added, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous promise, “you will soon.”
My breath caught. “I won’t.”
His smirk was slow and devastating. “We’ll see.”
And then, finally, he shifted back. The mattress rose as he withdrew his knee, the sudden loss of his presence leaving my skin buzzing, as if the air had been electrified and he’d taken the current with him.
He stood, rolling his shoulders, then dragged his fingers across the edge of my dresser as he passed, claiming the room with the smallest, cockiest touch imaginable.
At the door, he glanced back over his shoulder, eyes gleaming with that infuriating self-assurance that made me want to throw something at his head.
“Night, princess.”
The door clicked shut behind him.
And I exhaled only when I realized I’d been holding my breath the entire time.
The silence after he left felt louder than his voice ever had.
I stared at the door for a long, trembling second, waiting for my lungs to remember how breathing worked. They didn’t. Not right away. My whole body felt wired, like every nerve had been tuned too tight.
“Stupid,” I whispered to myself. “Stupid, stupid.”
But it didn’t stop my hands from shaking.
Riley wasn’t dangerous in any real sense, not the kind that lurked in dark alleys or crept up behind you at night. He wasn’t going to hurt me.
That wasn’t the problem.
The danger was worse. Sneakier. A threat I hadn’t prepared for.
He made my pulse sprint. He made my thoughts trip over themselves. He made me forget to be angry even while I was furious. He made me… feel something I did not want to name.
And that was unacceptable.
If I wasn’t careful, he’d get into my head the same way he’d gotten into my room. Quietly, confidently, like it was already his.
No. I wasn’t going to let that happen.
I needed to fight back.
But how do you fight someone who gets under your skin just by breathing in your direction?
I pressed my palms to my forehead. “Find his weakness,” I muttered. “There has to be something.”
But I had nothing. No leverage. No insight. No map of the battlefield to strategize on. It was like trying to fight smoke.
I inhaled slowly, forcing my brain to turn over possibilities. Who would know something? Who could tell me what I was really up against?
Then it hit me.
There was someone.
Someone who definitely knew more than they were saying.
My phone was on the nightstand. I snatched it up before I could talk myself out of it, the screen glowing softly in the dark.
The unwelcome number sat at the top of my messages, taunting me.
My thumbs hovered.
Then I typed the only question that mattered.
How much trouble am I in?
I stared at the text, heart still pounding erratically from Riley’s proximity, his voice echoing in every corner of my mind.
Before I lost my nerve, I hit send.
The message whooshed away, leaving a blue bubble and a pit in my stomach. I set the phone down but kept my fingers curled around it, gripping it like a lifeline.
Riley’s scent was still in the air. His heat still lingered in the mattress.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
I wasn’t falling for him. I wasn’t.
But as sleep finally dragged me under, phone clutched against my chest, I knew one thing with absolute certainty.
I needed answers.
And I needed them before it was too late.