Chapter 9
Sam
The library is dead quiet.
I sit across from Reece Wilson, a thick textbook open between us, pretending it’s the most interesting thing I’ve ever seen. My pen taps against my notebook in a slow, uneven rhythm. I haven’t written a damn thing in the last five minutes.
Neither has he.
He hasn’t said a word since he dropped into the chair opposite me, long legs stretched out, those fuck off broad shoulders taking up more space than any one person has a right to. His mouth is curved into that usual lazy smirk.
I avoid looking at him. I refuse to give him that satisfaction. But fuck, he’s close.
Too close.
Every time Reece shifts, his arm brushes against mine. His knee bumps into mine when he stretches. Each small touch sends a spark straight through me, lighting up spots I really wish would calm the fuck down.
And his cologne.
God.
It’s wrong for a school library. Something earthy and out of place among dusty shelves and old carpet. The smell wraps around me. It sinks into my lungs and settles somewhere dangerous. Each inhale fucks with my head.
This is supposed to be project time.
Research. Notes. Boring, safe, normal shit.
I’ve highlighted the same sentence three times. I know because the page is almost glowing at this point.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Reece lean back in his chair, one arm draped over the backrest, his posture loose and frustratingly relaxed.
He looks comfortable. It’s as if this isn’t torture for him.
He seems blissfully unaware of how close his thigh is to mine or how his presence fills my space, making it impossible to breathe normally.
I risk stealing a glance.
Huge mistake.
His eyes are already on me. Dark. Focused. Amused in a way that makes my stomach flip and my pulse stutter. His smirk deepens, just a fraction, as if he caught me mid-thought and liked what he saw there.
Heat rushes low in my body. My pussy clenches traitorously, and I almost laugh at myself for it. Because my body has never listened to my brain where Reece is concerned.
I sit up straight in my chair, creating space where there isn’t any. My pen taps faster now, irritation replacing nerves.
“Didn’t peg you for the silent type,” he says finally.
I lower my eyes to my notebook. “Didn’t peg you as academically inclined.”
He laughs softly to himself. “Touché.”
I grip my pen tighter, knuckles turning white, eyes fixed on the page even though the words no longer make sense. I can feel him still watching me. It’s a physical presence, a weight pressing into my awareness until I can’t ignore it.
I dislike what it does to me.
It makes me squirm in my seat. Makes my blood run hotter than it has any right to over a stupid study table in a library.
He feeds on it.
The tension... the way my shoulders stiffen when his voice drops. The way my breath catches when his eyes flick to my mouth for a split second too long.
“Relax,” he murmurs. “I’m not going to bite.”
I snort softly. “That’s not reassuring.”
His eyes gleam. “Wasn’t meant to be.”
Before I can respond, he leans forward, elbows on the table.
Close enough to count the lashes around his eyes, see the faint scar on his cheek—pale against his skin, as if it’s something he’s earned. Close enough to notice the way his mouth tilts when he speaks, crooked and knowing, as if he’s always halfway through a secret he hasn’t yet shared.
I swallow and finally glance up, meeting his gaze head-on.
And fuck me if his eyes aren’t already burning straight through me.
“What’s the deal with you and Bryce Andrews?” The question spills out, blunt and uninvited.
“Excuse me?”
Reece shrugs, radiating lazy confidence and calculated indifference. “You two were talking yesterday. It looked cozy.”
I gaze at him. Really stare. And then it hits me.
Jealousy.
That doesn’t make any sense. Reece Wilson doesn’t get jealous. He cycles through girls like seasons, never staying long enough to care who’s standing next to whom. He moves on before feelings even have a chance to breathe.
So, this isn’t that.
This isn’t about Bryce.
It’s about control.
It’s about the stupid fucking bet he made with Jace. The big statement. The one where he decided my pussy was a prize. And now he’s pissed because I won’t give him an inch. Because I won’t stumble and fall into his lap and make this easy for him.
“We were discussing the assessment we have to work on,” I say coolly.
His eyes flick to my mouth again before he looks back up. “I don’t like it.”
I let out a short laugh. “I don’t care what you like.”
Reece’s smirk doesn’t fade. If anything, it grows deeper—the kind that shows he’s enjoying this way too much.
“Sure,” he says. “Just didn’t know you were into guys who button their collars to the top and call their parents sir and ma’am.”
“That says more about you than him,” I snap, heat flaring fast. “And for the record, I’m not into anyone.”
The lie tastes thin the moment it leaves my mouth.
“That right?” Reece says, smirk firmly in place.
I shift in my seat, my spine stiffening. My mouth goes dry, my tongue feels heavy, and every instinct urges me to create distance between us.
“You can go back to pretending I don’t exist now,” I say, aiming for dismissive, but it comes off more defensive.
“I never pretended that,” he murmurs.
The quiet presses in around us, and every sound suddenly feels too loud. There’s the scraping of a chair leg somewhere behind us. Someone coughing. None of it breaks the tension wrapped tightly around my ribs.
He’s too close.
The subtle shift of his body. His knee angles in. His presence dominates my surroundings, making my skin more sensitive, with every nerve ending fired up and screaming.
Then he leans in closer.
My breath catches.
His voice dips again, the kind that should come with a warning label. “You know you shake when I get near?”
I go still, heart slamming hard enough it feels violent. I try to breathe, but my chest locks up, lungs refusing to cooperate. Heat floods low in my body, my pussy clenching like it’s got a mind of its own.
He watches me. Devours me.
His eyes darken, hungry in a way that makes my skin prickle.
I force my chin up.
“I do not.”
“Yes you do,” he says quietly. “Your fingers tremble.”
I look down unintentionally and curse myself when I see it. My hand isn’t steady.
“Your breath hitches, too,” he continues, eyes flicking to my chest, tracking every shallow inhale. “You freeze.”
My pulse thunders in my ears.
“Then you run.”
Those three words linger between us, heavy and way too fucking accurate.
I swallow hard, because I hate that he sees me this clearly.
My hands tighten into fists as I force myself to sit back into the chair, creating space between us. My body protests as the distance grows, even though my head knows I need it.
“I only run because you piss me off,” I bite out. “And I hate it.”
The silence that comes after is harsh.
Too honest… too exposed. The truth that slips out when your guard drops for half a second too long.
Fuck.
I want to take it back. I wish I could shove the words back into my mouth and pretend I never said them.
But it’s too late.
Something shifts on his face.
The smirk disappears, wiped clean as if it never existed. His pupils darken, spreading fast, swallowing the gold in his irises until his gaze turns heavy and intent.
The tension between us grows stronger, transforming the silence into something threatening.
He reaches out.
Just one hand. His fingers brush my hair back from my face, putting it behind my ear with a care that seems lethal. The touch is soft, barely there, but it detonates anyway. His fingertips trail along my cheekbone, lingering just long enough to make my breath hitch.
I freeze.
Every instinct screams to move, to pull away, to remind him he doesn’t get this. But my body is frozen in place.
I don’t move, blink, or breathe.
The room suddenly feels smaller, with the shelves closing in and the quiet pressing tightly around us until it becomes intimate. My body locks up completely, caught between fight and flight, neither one prevailing.
He’s breathtaking in a way that can ruin you if you look too long.
Prominent cheekbones that seem sculpted rather than naturally formed. Messy hair that never stays in place, falling into his eyes as if it knows it belongs there. And that mouth. Filthy, cruel, unforgettable. A mouth that knows how to say all the wrong things just the right way.
The kind of beauty that destroys good girls.
The kind mothers warn you about and leave scars instead of memories.
And I could fall. God, I could fall so easily if I let him in.
If I allow myself to believe that the intensity in his eyes is about me, not conquest. If I let myself pretend this heat curling low in my belly means more than instinct and lust, and a body that doesn’t know how to protect itself.
I despise the part of me that still desires him even though I know better. That envisions what those hands could do if they weren’t so carefully hovering at my face. A part of me wants to surrender. It wants to end this ache.
But I won’t because I understand who he is.
Mainly because I heard what he told Jace.
That fucking bet.
The memory hits me suddenly, catching me off guard. My stomach twists tightly, so sharp I almost gasp.
Is this all part of the act? The way he crowds me in this silent library and wants to destroy me from the inside out. Is he still playing that game? Still chasing the win instead of the girl sitting right in front of him, trying not to fall apart.
Anger slices through the heat, hot and furious, giving me just enough strength to move.
I quickly stand up from the chair before I do something I can’t undo.
My chair loudly scratches the floor. Heads turn. Whispers begin. I don’t care.
I grab my bag, breath coming too fast.
I refuse to be a bet.
And I refuse to let him be the cause of my breaking.
He straightens up, blinking. “Sam—”
I shove my notebook into my bag, fingers clumsy and shaking, pages catching where they shouldn’t. The zipper fights me, and I nearly rip the damn thing off in my rush. I sling the strap over my shoulder and turn away.
I don’t look back because if I do, I’ll stay.
I walk out of the library fast.
Too fast.
My heart is lodged in my throat, pounding so hard it makes me dizzy. Blood roars in my ears, drowning out everything else. The hallway feels endless, too bright, too open. My skin still hums from where his fingers touched me.
I keep walking until I slip into the girls’ bathroom at the end of the hall and push the door open forcefully enough that it bangs against the wall.
It’s empty.
Thank fuck.
I stumble to the sink and grip the edge with both hands, knuckles whitening as I lean forward. My reflection stares back at me, eyes too bright, cheeks flushed, lips parted like I’ve just run a mile instead of barely escaping something I wasn’t ready for.
God.
He’s a fucking disaster.
Everything about him screams bad decisions. Trouble wrapped in filthy confidence. The guy you warn your friends about over coffee. The kind your mother would hate on sight and be right about.
And yet, it still works. Whatever this thing is, it works.
It shouldn’t. Not on me. Bad boys have never been on my radar. I like safe, predictable, and knowing where I stand.
Reece Wilson is none of those things. He’s chaos with a mouth that knows exactly how to undo me.
He shouldn’t have that kind of power over me. Not with a look that lasts too long or a touch that barely counts but still burns, anyway. Not with a few quiet words spoken too close in a library full of people pretending not to notice.
But he does.
And that truth sinks deep into my chest, heavy and terrifying.
This isn’t just about a stupid bet anymore.
He makes me feel reckless without even trying. And that scares the shit out of me more than anything he ever said to Jace.