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A throat cleared. “Sara.”
The poor girl nearly face-planted into the fire. Jason reached out to steady her, and she stilled in his arms, her eyes climbing up to his face.
And… oh, the drama. The only thing missing was the popcorn. My eyes bounced from one tortured face to the other, and I wondered—not for the first time—why the hell people did this to themselves.
“Shall I take the top off? Or can you still picture it?” Great. My lids sank, along with my stomach, as a deep, throaty voice rumbled from behind me.
I turned to face the asshole who’d infiltrated my subconscious and featured in more than one of my dreams this week. I should feel violated. So, why the hell did my pulse quicken at the sound of Leon’s voice?
See, before the pool incident, that shit never happened. Touching his dick and staring at his stacked body had messed with my head. Now, I was having to stop myself from picturing him topless every time I looked at him. The spark in those midnight blue eyes said he fucking knew it, too.
“Are you stalking me?” I asked, affecting a bored tone.
Leon held up his palms, an easy grin on his face. “I was here first.”
“No, you were over there.” I crossed my arms and nodded over to the spot he’d occupied before venturing over here, most likely for the sole purpose of irritating the life out of me. “Please make your way back.”
His grin broadened, crinkling his eyes. The moonlight glinted off his steely irises, turning them almost iridescent, and so damn pretty.
What a jerk.
“Best seats in the house right here, Lissa. An unobstructed view of all this.” His hand swept the length of his body as he flexed his chest, and every poorly concealed muscle under his fitted blue shirt rippled before my eyes.
I caught the tip of my tongue between my teeth—that bastard was en route to lick my parched lips. Apparently, once noticed, Leon’s physique was one of those things you couldn’t un-notice. And that just fucking sucked.
“You know what?” I conceded, my eyes sweeping the length of his body with abandon before tracking back up to his face. “You’re not bad to look at, Bradshaw. I’ll give you that. It’s just everything else about you I have a problem with.”
His head tipped to the side, his smile almost playful. “Nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
I shook my head. “Wasn’t my intention.”
“No?” He reached out before I could stop him and traced the back of his fingers over my forearm.
My skin fluttered under his touch, and I withdrew my arm with a jerk. “Don’t do that.”
“There’s no shame in admitting—”
“Argh, do you ever just shut that gorgeous goddamn face?” I snapped, my cool withering like a spent flower under the beaming spotlight of his undivided attention. I’d never experienced the full effect of it before, and my reaction was seriously disturbing.
Leon’s eyes rounded slightly when my words registered, those pouty lips parting in a surprised grin, and I spun on my heel and stormed away with a muttered, “I need to talk to Ren.”
What I needed was to get my ass out of dodge, because this was some kind of bullshit. How was it possible that someone could make you burn with rage and lust simultaneously? I preferred it when I just wanted to punch him in the face. Now I still wanted to punch him, but I wanted to lick him first. I was far from fucking thrilled about it.
Trying to talk to Reno about Riley was no less frustrating. Dragging words out of that guy’s mouth was akin to pulling teeth by hand. A wasted half hour later, I went in search of Sara, wandering around like a nomad for what felt like hours before eventually pulling my phone out and shooting her a text to make sure she hadn’t been kidnapped and sold into slavery. Then I declared the night a bust and headed toward the tree line.
As I trudged over the gravelly pathway, two bodies came into view through the thick foliage and my lips tilted up.
“Well, well, well,” I murmured, stopping a few feet away and fitting my arms over my chest. “What do we have here?”
Sara and Jase jerked apart, their wild eyes darting toward my voice.
“Family meeting, is it?” I quirked a brow.
Jase hung his head before twisting to look at Sara. Their gazes flitted together for a second as they communicated silently between themselves, and then Sara faced me. “It’s not what it looks like.”
I clucked my tongue and winked as I moved past them. “It never is, Sar.” Spinning back, I motioned with my hands for them to resume their position. “As you were. Don’t mind me.”
“Fuck’s sake,” Jase muttered, dropping his hands on his hips. “Keep this to yourself, Liss. Yeah?”
