Page 174 of Power Play

I glanced toward him. “Every chica in Flint and half the women in Kimball Falls want to fuck me.”

His mouth fell open before he slapped one hand against his chest. “That is the cockiest thing you have ever said in my presence, and I have known you for years.”

Easton nodded slowly. “It was impressive.”

I shrugged. “It’s also true.”

“Humility died tonight,” Rider said.

“I don’t want to fuck Charm.”

Four faces turned toward me.

I dragged one hand over my jaw. “I mean, I obviously want to fuck her. I’ve spent six weeks stopping myself from doing exactly that, and it’s been fucking miserable. That isn’t the point.”

Briggs looked delighted. “Please continue clarifying.”

“I want to be with her.”

That shut him up.

Saying the words aloud made everything inside me feel too exposed, but I didn’t take them back.

“I want her in my apartment when I get home. I want her smell on my pillow and her shit mixed with mine. I want the calls, the books, the arguments, and every ridiculous message she sends because Tennyson personally offended her. I want to know I can take her hand somewhere without feeling her try to slip away the second somebody looks.”

Easton nodded once and looked toward the floor. Whatever moved through his expression carried the weight of something he understood too well. I knew better than to ask about Aura when every conversation involving her still turned him into a man pretending not to bleed.

Cade understood for different reasons.

“I get it,” he said.

I knew he did.

He knew what it meant to want the whole woman and refuse to settle for whatever pieces fear allowed her to offer.

“She’s been into you for years,” Cade continued. “Bliss has said that before. I don’t think Charm’s ashamed of you.”

My attention snapped toward him. “You told Bliss?”

Cade scoffed. “Fuck no. Whatever’s happening between you and Charm belongs to you two. It isn’t my place to announce it to Bliss.”

“Then how do you know?”

“She mentioned it before. Charm’s crush wasn’t exactly classified information.”

I nodded, though the answer created a different problem.

“If Charm told Bliss something now, Bliss would’ve said something to you.”

Cade’s silence confirmed it.

That bothered me more than I wanted it to.

Bliss and Aura were Charm’s people. She trusted them with things she barely admitted to herself, yet three days had passed without either one contacting me or threatening my life.

Apparently, she hadn’t told them anything.

“She didn’t say a word to either of them,” I said.