“He’s got a handicap tonight,” Ford says, half-laughing, his gaze sliding toward Ava like it’s all part of the performance.
She meets his look with a smirk of her own, arms crossed, chin tilted. Like this is entertainment. LikeI’mentertainment. Rage burns hot inside me, unfurling like a rising tempest. I’m unraveling, and she’s watching it happen with that little smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, so damn smug about being the catalyst to my downfall.
Ford grins, all teeth and zero warmth. “Maybe you should give him a kiss for good luck, Ava baby,” he suggests, wagging his brows.
She rolls her eyes, shoving at his shoulder. “Yeah, right,” she scoffs.
My jaw clenches, and something in me snaps. I can’t take the sound of her voice, the heat of her standing there with my friends like this is all just some sick joke I’m not in on.
I’m on my feet before I even know what I’m doing, leaning through the ropes. My hand wraps around her throat, pulling her face to mine. Her eyes widen, her breath catches, and just as those puffy lips part, I slam mine against them.
The kiss is rough and raw, desperate and searching. It’s a warning, a promise, a scream with no sound. Her lips part in shock, and for just one beat of suspended breath, she melts into it. Intome. The noise, the crowd, everything around us fucking disappears. It’s just her and me, the heat between us, the line I can never uncross.
I pull back with a grunt, my breath ragged, her lipstick smeared and eyes blown wide, tinged with a heady mixture of fear and desire.
I don’t say a word. I just turn and walk back toward the center of the ring, the bell seconds from sounding.
Everything narrows. The lights. The noise. The ring. And for the first time all night,I’m clear.
Chaz charges, and I see it coming before he even cocks a fist. I duck low, twist in, and drive my own straight into his jaw. There’s a satisfying crack, and he drops, lights out.
The crowd explodes around me, but I don’t hear it. All I hear is the rush in my ears, the echo of Ava’s breathless surprise as she gapes up at me.
The fight’s over in one punch, but the real war has just begun.
CHAPTER 46
AVA
The wallsof the apartment rattle with the relentless thud of Raf pounding away at his drum set, each beat a pulse that runs under my skin like static. I’m caught somewhere between tipsy and totally untethered; that dizzy, golden blur where the world feels too slow and too fast all at once, like I’m dreaming with my eyes open.
Ford, Wes, and I are lounging in the living room, tangled in the wreckage of the night. Empty bottles glint like broken promises on every surface. The air is thick with leftover adrenaline and sweat, the victory from earlier still clinging to our skin like smoke. I can’t stop replaying it– Raf’s fist cracking against that guy’s jaw, the flash of satisfaction on his face just before the knockout.The way he kissed me. It was brutal. Beautiful. It loops in my head, over and over, now underscored by the chaotic percussion bleeding through the walls.
I’m sprawled across the couch like a ragdoll, legs tucked up, head swimming. Ford’s perched on the armrest beside me, one hand loose around a half-drunk glass of whiskey, the other draped across his knee. His smirk hasn’t budged since we got back, lazy, dangerous, and far too self-satisfied.
“We should play a game,” he says suddenly, voice cutting through the haze of my mind like a match struck in the dark.
Wes glances up from where he’s sitting on the floor in front of me, back against the coffee table, a bottle resting against his thigh. His gray eyes are glassy, but there’s still that ever-present sharpness, lurking just under the buzz. “A drinking game?”
Ford’s grin widens, all teeth and trouble. “Truth or dare,” he says. “Except forget the truth. And add more booze instead.”
My stomach flips, part nerves, part anticipation.
Ford’s games aren’t about passing time, they’re about pushing buttons. Testing boundaries. Finding the cracks. And for some reason, I already know I’m going to play.
“Sounds like my kinda game,” Wes chuckles, his gaze flicking to me with a glint that’s hard to read. He’s drunker than I’ve ever seen him, lounging against the coffee table like it’s his throne, bottle cradled lazily in his hand. I probably look just as wasted, all flushed cheeks and glossy eyes, heart thudding too fast for this room.
Ford turns to me, arching a dark brow. “Unless Ava wants to bail.” The corners of his mouth curl into a smirk that’s half-taunt, half-invitation.His first dare.
I sit up straighter, blinking against the pull of the room as it sways. “I’m in,” I say, even though my voice is a touch too breathy to sell the confidence I’m aiming for. I can already feel it– that subtle shift in the air, the sense that we’re already on a slope and picking up speed. I don’t know if it’s me or the alcohol steering, but I don’t want to stop it. Not yet.
Ford downs the rest of the whiskey in his glass, leaning in with a predatory smile. The heat of him reaches me before his touch, the scent of liquor and cigarettes winding through the space between us. His eyes burn with challenge as his lips descend on mine without warning.
His kiss is both everything and nothing like I imagined it’d be. It’s all teeth and chaos, a collision of mouths and breath and heat. The way he kisses perfectly reflects the man himself, unapologetic and all-consuming. His tongue is demanding, claiming every inch of my mouth like it’s his right. Every thought in my head is gone, swallowed by the crash of him against me, by the spark that ignites low in my belly and explodes outward.
For a breathless, suspended moment in time, there’s nothing else but the spin of the room, the taste of whiskey, the feral claim of his mouth on mine.
Then he pulls away, the world jerking back into motion with a sickening lurch. My lungs claw for air, lips tingling and raw, pulse thrumming between my thighs. Across the room, Wes is watching us, eyes half-lidded and amused.
