Page 45 of Make Me Mean It

I hold my ground, even when he stops close enough that I have to tip my chin back to keep looking at him. The hallway shifts faintly beneath my feet, my balance not quite as reliable as I’d like, but there’s nothing unsteady about Theo.

“Your virtue,” he says, quieter now, “is quite safe with me.”

Theo comes to a stop in front of me, close enough that I have to tip my chin slightly to keep looking at him. His gaze drops, taking its time on the way down before slowly coming back to my face, and whatever comeback I had waiting disappears somewhere along the way.

Mr Morality.

I’d meant to piss him off. I’m just starting to think I picked the wrong thing to do it with.

The memory of his face in my bedroom comes back with uncomfortable clarity, all that easy warmth shutting down after I threw those words at him. I hadn’t meant them the way he heard them then, and I don’t mean this the way it sounded now.

Apparently I’m just very good at putting my foot in my mouth around him.

“Fucking Marcus,” I mutter, blowing out a breath before pushing past Theo and into his room.

I make it two steps into the room before the bed stops me.

The dark sheets are still twisted from where he slept in them, loose across the mattress with one pillow crushed near the middle.

My feet stay exactly where they are.

It’s a bed.

That’s it.

Except Theo was in it probably ten minutes ago, all sleep-heavy eyes and bare skin, and now that thought is sitting in my head where absolutely nobody invited it.

Except this one is Theo’s, and standing in his room this late at night with enough alcohol in my system to make my thoughts significantly less cooperative makes that feel far more personal than it did the last time I was in here.

Theo sleeps there.

The thought arrives without invitation, followed far too quickly by an image of him stretched across those dark sheets, looking the way he did when he opened the door.

The thought sends a hot little pull through my stomach that sobers me.

I turn away from the bed, jaw locking.

“Most people would kill to get in my bed,” Theo drawls behind me, the door clicking shut.

Heat presses along my spine, his chest brushing faintly against me when he breathes. It’s barely contact, but my body picks up every bit of it, my own breathing slipping out of rhythm.

“I’d kill to get out of it,” I shoot back.

I turn, putting some space between us, fixing him with a scowl that would probably work better if I wasn’t drunk and standing in his bedroom.

Theo watches me, stepping straight into the space I just made.

His head tilts slightly, green eyes moving between mine with that searching look I hate, the one that always leaves me wondering what the hell he thinks he’s seeing.

“Yeah?” he hums. “Feel free to wait for Marcus.”

My eyes flick towards the door, my brain helpfully supplying exactly what that would mean.

Standing in the hallway listening to whatever the fuck Marcus is doing until he finishes, then walking into that room afterwards and getting into his bed.

My stomach lurches, bile sour in the back of my throat.

“Yeah,” he hums, a low chuckle slipping through. “That’s what I thought.”