Never even blinking.
And I wasn’t breathing.
My gaze, unbidden, dropped to Beck’s mouth. His lips were pressed together, the top fuller than the bottom, both holding a softness his eyes did not.Morally corrupt is my favorite version of you.
Regret and something else, something more desperate, gripped me like a lifeline. Even as one corner of those plush lips tilted up, reveling in the way he unraveled me, I didn’t look away. Warmth poured into my veins, drowning me and setting me ablaze, all at the same time.
There was one word in my head. A recurring one, a taunting one that spelled itself out before I could.
I-N-E-V-I-T-A-B-L-E.
“Nellie?”
My knee banged up into the underside of the chess table, upsetting the pieces. The row of mine that Beck had captured all fell to the floor, scattering with a tinkling sound. I jerked around, finding Jamie a few steps into the study. He had his book from his meeting in one hand, a notebook tucked underneath it, and his car keys in the other. I couldn’t read the expression on his face.
Jamie picked up my fallen queen where it’d rolled across the floor. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“No interruption at all, James,” Beck told him, slipping out of his chair to retrieve the other fallen pieces. His voice was a lazy, unbothered drawl, no hint of anything that we’d just been talking about. “The game had just gotten intense, that’s all.”
My cheeks flamed.
Jamie was a master at reading the room, especially when it involved me. His eyes traced my face. “Do you want me to wait for you while you finish?” he asked, nudging up his glasses. “I can sit in one of the chairs. Or I can go sit in the car.”
“Nah, she beat me.” Beck reached across the chessboard and began putting the pieces back on their assigned squares. His nimble fingers moved easily, no trace of a tremor in sight. “She was one move away from cornering my king.”
I had not been one move away from winning. He’d already had me in checkmate—he’d already won. I sat still with my hands in my lap as Beck reset the board, something in my chest buzzing, willing me to speak words I didn’t know to say. The ankle Beck’s leg had traced tingled, almost as if it’d fallen asleep.
After setting the board, Beck stretched his arms above his head like a cat. The hem of his hoodie rode up as he did so, exposing a slice of his stomach above the band of his jeans.
And I realized, in a dazed sort of way, that somewhere amidst it all, I’d forgotten Carter did not come back.
“I’d say let’s do this again,” Beck told me, reaching for the cup of iced coffee he’d gotten for me. “But I’m no good at chess. Maybe there’s a different game we can play.” His eyes danced as he took his straw between his lips, tucking it into the corner of his mouth, taking a long pull.
Not poisoned. His lips were on the same exact spot mine had been earlier. “Pass.”
Beck smirked, because he saw, too—that I’d accidentallyused a word from his vocabulary. He turned and clasped my brother on the shoulder. “Jamie. Good to see ya.” Without another word—and without another glance toward me—Beck and my coffee waltzed their way back to the study’s entrance.
Where a rushing Carter Pembleton slammed into him.
Carter was taller, but thinner, and ricocheted off Beck like a bug flicking off a boulder. Beck barely even flinched, the straw of the iced drink not even coming out of his mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry,” Carter blurted on instinct, and I could see the moment he realized who exactly he’d run into. His expression hardened, but he still repeated, “Sorry.”
Beck didn’t say anything. Without a second glance, he strode from the study.
“I’m so sorry,” Carter said to me, his cheeks pink. He came up to the table. “I—I didn’t expect it to take that long?—”
“It’s all right.” Except it didn’t feel like it. The knowledge that he’d been out in the hall for the last ten minutes talking toLydia—when he should’ve been in here withme—soured my stomach. The fact that he’d left me alone in here for Beck to creep in like a predator circling its prey grated me further. My leg still tingled. “Jamie’s book club is over, though, so we’ll head out. You’re okay to pack up everything on your own?” I’d lilted it like a question, but I was already stepping away.
Carter’s shoulders fell. “Of course.” And then, before I could move too far—“Don’t forget your flowers.”
Swallowing a sharp reply, I took themfrom his outstretched hand. Even now, when the letters were swirling in my mind, and my leg still tingled, I knew it wasn’t him I was mad at. I knew that, but I couldn’t let it go.
Jamie followed me out into the hallway, an awkward shadow over my shoulder for a few moments. “You meant Beck, then?” he asked quietly, concern scrawled across his features. “With the wholedefend your honorspeech?”
“No,” I lied. There was no ignoring the elephant in my life now, though, not when Jamie was too good at spotting it. “I can handle Beckham Jennings.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Not in the slightest.I planted my feet firmer into the ground as I walked, trying to shake off the pins-and-needles feeling—to shake off the ghost memory of Beck’s touch against mine. “Have a little faith.”
