Page 25 of Sweet Torment

The heat in my car fogged the windows within minutes. She was shivering so hard her teeth chattered, her mascara smudged under her eyes.

“I’m ruining your seats.” She looked sheepish, water pooling beneath her on the leather.

“Don’t care.” And I didn’t. Not about the seats, not about anything but the way the droplets were sliding down her collarbone.

She started peeling everything off, struggling with the wet fabric. There was no hesitation in her movements.

“It’s just like wearing a swimsuit, right?” she said when she was down to her bra and underwear, both white cotton and nearly transparent from the rain.

Hell no, it wasn’t like a swimsuit. This was Bianca in my car, in her underwear, trusting me completely. She was everything I’d wanted but had been too much of a chickenshit to ask for. I remember noticing the curve of her waist, the goosebumps rising on her skin, the way her chest rose and fell with each breath.

She grabbed an extra practice jersey from the backseat and pulled it on. It swallowed her whole, and something inside me roared at seeing her in my number. MILLER stretched across her back.

She looked like mine.

Her book was destroyed, pages stuck together and ink bleeding everywhere, turning the words into watercolor smudges.

“Was it any good?”

She blushed then, a deep pink spreading across her cheeks. “Yeah. It was um… really spicy.”

The way she said spicy and the way she bit her lip right after had me leaning in without thinking. She didn’t pull back. I could smell the rain on her skin, see the droplets still clinging to her eyelashes. The air between us went electric.

Then thunder cracked right above us. We both jumped, the spell broken, and laughed at ourselves.

I should’ve just kissed her.

A strange but freeing feeling spreads through me suddenly. I can’t place it at first, but then I realize it’s Whitney. Her bond is gone. Completely.

Just like that.

“You guys feel that?” The question is a raw rasp from the doorway. Owen stands there, sweat-soaked and breathing hard. His knuckles are split open, blood smeared across his hands.

I sit up slowly, the leather couch creaking beneath me. “Whitney’s bond is gone.”

The soft click of a door opening draws my attention. Tristan emerges from his room, barefoot in sweatpants, hair mussed. “So it wasn’t just me,” his voice is gravelly with sleep. “I thought I was imagining things.”

Weller emerges from the study with a cup of coffee, looking like he hasn’t slept in days. “What’s happening?”

Right. He wouldn’t know.

Tristan moves to the bar, the clink of ice against glass sharp in the quiet room. “The bitch is gone,” he announces, pulling out a bottle. “I think this calls for celebration.”

I’m not really in the mood for drinking, but when he pours one for all of us and holds it up with a “To Bianca,” I feel I have no choice but to partake.

To Bianca is damn right.

“Didn’t Montgomery say it would fade gradually without contact?” I remind them, staring into my glass. The amber liquid catches the light from the windows. This felt pretty instantaneous.

“Maybe there was an accident,” Owen suggests, but his voice is uncertain. He flexes his damaged hands. “Car crash? Plane⁠—”

Tristan steeples his fingers, his expression turning sharp. “Or maybe someone killed her.”

My first thought would be Bianca, but she’s locked up in Montgomery’s facility. Not sure how she would manage that.

A knock cuts through our thoughts. Weller answers it, shoulders tense. The guard holds up his phone. “Mr. Miller. Your father.”

My father never calls. Especially not at three in the morning. I take the phone and hit speaker, something cold churning in my gut.