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.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
LUNA
Thegirlswerestillwatching me, waiting for me to say something back to Riley’s text. Something sharp, something unforgiving, something that proved he hadn’t gotten under my skin.
But I couldn’t move.
Not because I was frozen.
Because something in the air shifted behind me.
A prickling along the back of my neck.
The kind of awareness that didn’t come from sight or sound.
The kind that came fromhim.
Malia’s eyes flicked over my shoulder. “He’s coming.”
My stomach dropped straight through the sand.
I turned.
Riley wasn’t with the group anymore. The bonfire still cast his silhouette in warm amber, but he’d stepped away from the circle, away from the noise, the cheers, the crowd still buzzing about the kiss.
And he was walking toward me.
Not fast.
But with the same deliberate, unhurried confidence he used for everything that made my heartbeat trip over itself.
The girls instinctively drifted closer around me, a tiny shield of soft sweatshirts and bare feet in the sand.
Malia murmured, “Say the word and we’ll run.”
Tessa whispered, “Or fight.”
Jo added, “Or throw his phone into the ocean.”
Harper calmly said, “I can trip him.”
I would’ve laughed if I could breathe.
Riley stopped a few feet in front of us, hands in his pockets, the fire catching the edges of his hair and jaw. His expression wasn’t angry. It wasn’t triumphant. It wasn’t mocking.
It was unreadable.
“Luna,” he said, voice low, steady, too steady, like he was speaking only to me, even though four girls were practically braced for combat beside me.
