Page 65 of Rising Heat

“I’m serious. You moved to a new city, rented an apartment over two guys you didn’t know, and built yourself a life from scratch in a month.”

“I—”

“Nope. Let me finish.”

I laugh despite myself.

“Should I be worried?”

The grin flashes briefly before fading.

“Most people spend years talking about starting over.” He shrugs. “You actually did it.”

I don’t have anything to say to that. Nobody’s said anything like that to me in a long time without wanting something in return or folding it into evidence of everything I was doing wrong.

A warm feeling spreads through my chest and it has nothing to do with the wine.

Tyler shifts even closer toward me, closing the distance by a few inches, making me more aware of the heat of him, the weight of his attention landing on me like a question I don’t have a safe answer to.

His hands graze the edge of the throw bunched in my lap, then my knee. Tyler’s gaze drops briefly to my mouth before returning to my eyes, and I know exactly what happens next if neither of us moves away. It should probably make me nervous, but I lean toward him anyway.

I want to know what his mouth feels like.

I want it the way I want things I’ve been quietly starving for, which is completely and without apology.

My pulse skitters as his thumb moves once against my knee, still asking.

His hand slides a little higher along my leg, unhurried and careful, leaving plenty of room for me to stop him if I want to. His mouth is an inch from mine and I can feel his breath ghost over my lips⁠—

The front door downstairs slams shut. The heavy thunk carries through the old house, followed by the muffled sound of boots against the entry mat.

Mack’s voice follows a moment later, low and brief, lighting off fireworks low in my belly.

I go still.

Two of them.

I can feel that now in a way I couldn’t twenty minutes ago, which is a problem bearing implications I’m not touching with a ten-foot pole.

I look up at Tyler, who’s already watching my face, and wait for it—the shift, the question, the sudden awareness that this is complicated.

Instead, the corner of his mouth lifts. It’s a small, knowing smile, like he’s keeping a secret for me rather than about me, and I genuinely don’t know what to do with that.

Tyler’s hand drops from my thigh as he leans back and exhales through his smile.

“That’s my cue before my brother accuses me of corrupting the upstairs tenant.”

I find my voice somewhere beneath the wine and the adrenaline.

“You were doing a pretty solid job.”

“That a complaint?”

“Undecided.”

My teeth catching my lower lip as I say it. For a second his gaze lingers. Then, apparently deciding self-preservation is the better part of valor, he stands and gathers both bowls before I can protest.

“You can decide after dessert.”