My throat tightens.
Fuck.
She’s not even trying right now. No taunting smirks. No deliberate leans. She’s just being unapologetically her, and it hurts to look at her, but it hurts more to look away.
She doesn’t shrink. Doesn’t apologize for the space she takes. She’s all sharp edges and unfiltered joy, and I’m standinghere wondering how the hell I got so lucky—or cursed—to be anywhere near her orbit.
I’d heard the stories about her over the years—plenty of them. Ethan and Aria both warned me she was a walking whirlwind. Late-night adventures included Sienna dragging them into last-minute road trips with no destination, turning quiet dinners into karaoke disasters, or somehow convincing an entire bar to take shots off her stomach on a random Tuesday.
Chaos in human form, they’d called her. Beautiful, brilliant, and completely unpredictable. Normally, that would’ve been enough to keep me at a distance. We’re night and day—her vibrant, impulsive energy versus my need for order and quiet structure.
I would’ve written her off as too much, too risky, someone who’d upend my carefully built life without a second thought.
But now that I’ve met her… I can’t look away. She’s captivating in a way the stories never prepared me for. Every wild, chaotic piece of her pulls me closer rather than pushing me back. Every burst of that bright light feels like color flooding a grayscale world I didn’t realize I’d been living in.
Ethan leans in, his voice low. “Seriously, Reyes. You okay?”
I swallow. “Yeah.”
“You look like you’re about to combust.”
“Maybe I am.”
He studies me for a beat. “She’s different, huh?”
Different is too… tame.
She’s a wildfire in a world full of controlled burns.
Before I can answer, she glances up from the page, and our eyes lock across the deck. Everything else fades—the music, the guys’ voices, the splashing from the pool. It’s just her and those honey-brown eyes holding mine as if she’s peeling back every layer I’ve spent years reinforcing.
My chest squeezes so hard I forget how to breathe.
She holds the look for a long moment, then her lips curve. Not the taunting grin from the pool but smaller, softer… almost shy.
My heart slams against my ribs.
She drops her gaze back to the book but doesn’t look away. Instead, she tucks her legs under her and angles her body slightly toward me, as if she knows exactly what she’s doing and wants me to keep looking.
Joke’s on her because I wasn’t planning to look away anytime soon anyway.
Ethan clears his throat. “You’re toast, Reyes. She’s already got you wrapped around her little finger.”
I don’t answer. I just watch her settle back into the page, the late sun catching the tips of her lashes, turning them gold. I watch the slow rise and fall of her chest as she breathes, and I watch her smile at whatever she just read.
The guys keep teasing each other—more college stories, more bullshit, more laughter. My beer has gone warm by this point, so I set it on the ledge without looking.
Sienna turns another page. Pauses. Then looks up again. This time, she doesn’t hold the stare. She arches one dark brow and lets her eyes trail down my body and back up. Lingering. Appreciating. Then she bites her lip and returns to her book as if nothing happened.
But something did.
Something electric just snapped between us, and we both felt it.
I push off the post before I can talk myself out of it, and the guys notice immediately.
“Oh shit!” Ethan gasps. “He’s moving.”
“Abort mission!” Jax bellows. “He’s going in!”
