Jack lets it drop for now, though I can feel his eyes on me, tracking the smallest shifts in my face, every twitch of my posture.
He’s not done by a long shot; he’s simply a patient man just biding his time.
On the other hand, Reece isn’t much better.
He’s got that mild look on.
So far he hasn’t been bothered enough to step into the middle of whatever this is between me and Jack, but I’ve known him long enough to recognize the flicker of doubt in his eyes.
He’s still turning over my excuse in his head, trying to decide if he believes it or not.
Thankfully, Reece has never been as sharp at reading me as Jack, because if he were I’d be even more screwed than I already am.
The three of us lapse into a quiet that doesn’t feel comfortable, humming with things unsaid.
We all stare into the fire for a long time, watching the flames twist as the logs pop and settle.
The heat washes over me, too warm compared to the bite of the air around me, but it doesn’t touch the cold knot still sitting heavy in my gut.
I tell myself the same thing I’ve told myself a dozen times now: that tomorrow she’ll wake up with nothing more than a headache and a hazy, half-formed memory of what happened.
I won’t help her fill in the blanks.
I won’t give her any reason to connect the dots.
It’ll fade the way all the almost-crossed lines do, locked away in some unspoken vault.
But even as I take another long sip of beer, the truth gnaws at me.
If she remembers even half of what happened in that room tonight…if a single flicker of it comes back to her…
I’m completely and utterly fucking screwed.
14
HOLLY
Heat.
That’s the first thing I feel in the dream.
It’s a thick and molten heat that presses between my thighs, curling low in my stomach like a promise of something dark and forbidden.
My head tips back and I’m laughing again, that breathless, tipsy sound I barely recognize as mine while the firelight paints everything in reds, golds, and shadows. Liam’s there, so close to me that I can smell the bourbon on his breath, his hand heavy and warm wrapped around my waist.
He leans in, lips brushing the shell of my ear, and my laugh catches halfway on a moan.
“Keep moving like that,” he murmurs, voice rough as he growls it out, “and you’re gonna start something you can’t stop.”
But Idomove, just to test him.
A tiny roll of my hips that makes his arm flex tighter around me, pulling me back against the hard line of him.
My skin prickles, my chest rising faster as my body arches to move against him again and again.
Somewhere in the haze of my dream-logic, we’re not outside anymore.
We’re now in my room with the door locked shut behind us.
