Chapter 37
BELLAMY
“I’m sorry,” he says from underneath the spray.
I stop with my hand on the door handle, my heart in my throat. I exhale and look over my shoulder, keeping my gaze on his, no matter how much I want to let it linger elsewhere.
“For my brother.” He jerks his head toward his bedroom. “But if I don’t go, he’ll only make it worse.”
“I understand.” I don’t. Not really.
“I’ll make it up to you.” He grins, raking his hands through his hair as he tips his head back under the water, looking at me the whole time.
“Okay.”
“I promise,” he vows, his usual grin melting into something more serious.
“Okay.”
“And Bell?” He leans forward, out of the open shower door. He flashes me a dirty sort of grin. “In case you were wondering: That was one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen in my whole goddamn life.”
I huff a laugh, and some of the tension melts out of my shoulders. “It was, wasn’t it?” I murmur, feeling my face flush.
“Let’s do it again, yeah?” He settles back in the shower, his hands a flurry of movement with body wash and a yellow loofah.
I bite the inside of my cheek. “Too bad you now have plans.”
He swipes away suds from his tattooed chest and stares at me for a beat. “Hold that thought. I’m going to kill my brother.”
I laugh and shake my head. “Not on my account. I have to meet Lola soon, anyway.”
“Alright, alright. I won’t kill him today. But I’ll be right out, yeah?”
I nod a couple of times and leave his bathroom.
The spare bedroom door clicks shut behind me, my skin still damp beneath the towel wrapped tight around my chest. A red sundress lies crumpled on the corner of the bed where I tossed it earlier—another item from the perpetual overnight bag in my trunk.
My fingertips trace idle patterns against my collarbone, lingering where droplets still cling.
The room seems to pulse with each heartbeat, time stretching like taffy between seconds.
I exhale, and my shoulders drop an inch lower than they've been in weeks.
My reflection catches in the dresser mirror—flushed cheeks, eyes wider than usual, lips slightly parted.
I press my palm flat against my sternum, feeling the steady thrum beneath.
A smile tugs at the corner of my mouth before I even realize it's happening, small and private and mine.
The towel slips from my fingers, landing with a damp thud against the hardwood.
Goosebumps rise across my bare shoulders as I reach for the red fabric pooled on the bed.
The dress clings to my still-damp skin as I work it down past my hips.
Behind me, the unmistakable sound of air catching in someone's throat breaks the silence.
My movements halt mid-motion, the fine hairs on my neck standing at attention. I turn, slow and deliberate, to find Bishop Calloway's broad silhouette filling the doorframe, his features cast in shadow while hallway light blazes around him like a warning.
His knuckles whiten against the doorframe, one shoulder angled higher than the other in a stance that leaves no path around him. His eyes drop from my face to the curve where the red fabric clings to my hip, then snap back up, pupils dilating before his throat works in a hard swallow.
The ceiling fan ticks three times in the silence between us.
Then the muscle in his jaw jumps once, twice beneath his skin. His eyes harden to flint.
“Stay away from my brothers.” Each word lands like a stone dropped into still water.
I run my palms down the sides of my dress, pressing wrinkles from the damp fabric. My spine lengthens inch by deliberate inch while across the room, Bishop's knuckles drain white against the doorframe, his chest rising with a breath he seems determined not to release.
I meet his gaze and let the corner of my mouth lift. “You don't get to give me orders.”
His lips part, then press into a hard line. He leans forward, both hands still pressing onto the doorframe like it’s the only thing keeping him upright.
“I don't give a fuck what you think you're doing back in Hollow Beach.” Each word comes out measured, like he's tasting them before letting them go.
His voice drops lower, the kind of quiet that makes you lean in despite yourself.
“I don't care how charming you think you are. Whatever game you're playing—”
“Liar.”
His pupils dilate. A muscle jumps in his throat as he swallows, and for just a heartbeat, something raw flashes across his face before disappearing behind the wall of his anger.
He steps into the bedroom, the door swinging shut behind him with a whisper. His shoulders hit the wood with a dull thud, his spine flattening as if magnetized to the surface. The tendons in his neck stand out like guitar strings pulled too tight.
I cross the distance between us—one heartbeat, two—until the scent of his cologne mingles with Gage’s body wash lingering on my skin.
The air between us thins. His pupils dilate, black eclipsing blue, and a vein pulses at his temple beneath dark hair that escaped his small manbun at the nape of his neck.
His head tips back against the door with a dull thud, eyes never leaving mine. “I don’t give a fuck about you, Bellamy Hale.”
His words hang in the air between us. I inhale, letting them brush past me like smoke that can't settle. My shoulders ease back, spine straightening without effort. The corner of my mouth twitches upward—not a smile, just the involuntary response of a body that knows its own truth.
My gaze drifts across him, cataloging details with clinical precision: the sharp line of his jaw clenched tight, the muscle jumping in his throat like something trapped beneath his skin, the way his chest barely moves as if he's holding his breath, waiting for me to crumble under the weight of his judgment.
“You’re a lot of things, Bishop Calloway,” I say softly. “But I never pegged you for a coward.”
His expression doesn’t change, but something behind it fractures.
He’s in my space in two strides, close enough that the heat from his body raises goosebumps along my arms. The scent of cedar and something darker fills my lungs.
My next breath makes the fabric of my dress whisper against his shirt.
Static electricity crackles between us like distant lightning, making the fine hairs at my nape rise in warning.
His eyes darken to midnight, voice dropping to gravel. “You don't know what you're provoking.”
I lift my chin a fraction higher, holding his gaze until a muscle twitches in his jaw. “If you're trying to intimidate me,” I murmur, lips barely moving, “add it to the list of things you’ve failed at today.”
A low sound slips from his throat—not quite a growl, but close enough that something deep and dormant inside me stirs, alert and not unwelcome.
His fingers thread through my damp hair, wrapping once, twice around his fist until the roots pull against my scalp. My chin lifts involuntarily, exposing the vulnerable hollow beneath my jaw.
I should knee him, slap him, knock his hands off me—instead, I stand frozen between fervent and fascination.
Still, I don’t retreat, though every rational part of me demands it.
He leans in, his mouth hovering just off mine, his words brushing my lips like a threat meant only for me.
“Careful, sweetheart,” he murmurs. “You keep pushing, and one day you’re going to find out exactly how much restraint I’m exercising.”
My pulse thrums against the thin skin of my throat where his grip exposes it. Heat blooms across my chest, up my neck, settling in my cheeks. I curve my lips—just the corners, just enough—and lean forward until his exhale warms my mouth.
“Be careful, Bishop,” I whisper, my lips nearly brushing his with each syllable. “One of these days, I might start actually doing the things you keep accusing me of.”
I step back and his fingers tug through my hair with reluctance. Then I step around him and into the hallway, leaving him standing there with nothing but his suspicion and his silence.
I can hear the shower still running. Part of me wants to stay like Gage asked—but the bigger part of me doesn’t want to go another round with Bishop. My limbs tremble slightly as I walk toward the kitchen, and I don’t know which brother it’s from: the orgasm or the confrontation?
I find a piece of paper on the island and hover over it, pen gripped too tight between my fingers.
rain check on breakfast?
—b
One clear thought settles in my mind as I set down the pen and slip out of Gage’s house: Bishop Calloway might be a problem.
For me.
The way my body responded to him terrifies me almost as much as it thrills me.
I've never met a problem I couldn't handle, but I've never wanted to surrender to one before, either.