CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
RILEY
The second her mouth had left mine, I already knew two things.
One, she’d been seconds from losing control.
Two, I’d been half a second from losing mine.
No one else would’ve noticed. Not in the dark, not with the fire and the crowd and the idiot cheering like he’d just discovered oxygen.
But I’d noticed.
Because I’d been waiting for that moment.
I’d watched her stand, slow, deliberate, chin high, and walk back to the girls with that stubborn spine of hers like she hadn’t just melted against me for a heartbeat too long.
Everyone else was looking at her like she’d surprised them.
Me?
I wasn’t surprised.
I was fascinated.
She didn’t fold.
Didn’t freeze.
Didn’t give me the fear I thought she would.
She’d kissed me like she wanted to win.
And for a second, just a split-second, it almost worked.
I’d kept my face neutral, casual, bored. The usual.
But inside, something sharp twisted low in my chest.
Not irritation.
Not anger.
Interest.
Dangerous interest.
She’d walked away, surrounded by those girls like they were her personal entourage, and she glanced back once. Just for a split second.
Not to check if I was watching.
But because she knew I was.
And when I’d texted her, I typed the truth.
And because I’d suddenly, aggressively wanted her to try.
Now people were talking to me. Someone handed me a drink. Someone else slapped my back, laughing about the kiss like it had been nothing.
It wasn’t nothing.
Not to me.
Her mouth had been soft, hesitant, brave, furious. All at once. And the moment she leaned in, I’d felt something spark between us that I hadn’t expected.
Something I wasn’t planning on.
Something I sure as hell wasn’t going to let her walk away from.
Not yet.
She thought she could fight me without falling.
Cute.
She had no idea how dangerous that was.
For both of us.
The crowd eventually moved on, the bottle spinning, people screaming, music rising again like nothing had shifted.
But something had shifted.
In me.
In her.
Did they notice?
No.
They were too busy watching Derek try to wring seawater out of his hair while someone dared a girl to eat a spoonful of sand.
Idiots.
My attention wasn’t on any of them.
It was on Luna.
She stood with those girls, Malia’s group, half in the firelight, half in the dark. Laughing a little. Trying to look like she belonged here. Trying to hide the way her mind was racing.
I recognized that expression.
I’d seen it on people I cornered in debates, in fights, in moments where someone realized the game wasn’t the one they thought they were playing.
But she didn’t crumble.
Hell no.
She was already recalibrating.
Trying to piece together what she needed to do next to match me.
Good.
Let her try.
Her new friends whispered around her, glancing my way like they were checking if she’d survive round two. They didn’t matter. Not really. They were background noise. Side characters. The kind of people who faded out of my head the moment I wasn’t looking at them.
But Luna?
Luna burned.
I couldn’t look away from her if I tried.
She had no clue how obvious she was.
The way her fingers curled against her thigh.
The way she kept biting the inside of her cheek when she thought no one could see.
The way she kept replaying that kiss in her head, over and over, wondering what it meant.
Wondering why I kissed her like that.
Why I kissed her differently than I kissed anyone else.
She wasn’t ready for the truth.
Hell, I wasn’t ready for the truth.
So I pushed it down and reached for my drink instead.
Someone sat down beside me. A girl who’d been trying all night to get my attention. She laughed too loudly, asked if I wanted another dare, leaned in a little too close.
I let her talk.
But I didn’t look at her.
Not once.
My eyes stayed on Luna.
Watching the way her smile slowly faded into thought.
Watching the way she kept glancing toward the water.
Watching her tuck her hair behind her ear like she didn’t know she’d caught half the bonfire’s attention without even trying.
She didn’t know she was dangerous.
Not yet.
The girl beside me kept talking. Touching my arm. Laughing like she was auditioning for the role of my next mistake.
I finally shifted my gaze to her.
“One of us is bored,” I said quietly. “And it’s not you.”
She blinked in confusion, then caught on and laughed like I’d complimented her.
Annoying.
I stood, shrugging her hand off, and made my way toward the cooler for another drink. People talked to me, briefly, then moved on when they realized I wasn’t in the mood for entertaining them.
My mind was somewhere else entirely.
On the girl with the stubborn eyes and the too-fast heartbeat and the fire in her throat.
On the kiss that hadn’t gone anything like I expected.
I reached the cooler, grabbed a water bottle, and cracked it open.
Behind me, the wind carried the girls’ voices.
“…he deserves it.”
“…make him work.”
“…you didn’t lose.”
Luna didn’t answer.
Not out loud.
But when she glanced toward me again, just a flick, barely a second, I saw it.
Resolve.
The kind that could burn.
The kind that could hurt.
The kind that made me grin before I could stop myself.
She wanted round two.
Good.
Because, whether she realized it or not…
Round two had already started.
And I had no intention of letting her walk away from this night thinking she was done with me.