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“It’s fine. Do what you want. Just tell him to stay the hell away from me.”
Kim hesitates in the doorway, but I refuse to let her guilt me into feeling badly. I’ve gotten to where I am almost entirely on my own. I’ve survived trial after trial, heartbreak after heartbreak to make it this far. I’ve suffered too much to have sympathy for someone who only has himself to blame for his hardships. Kim may be my sister in all ways except blood, but that doesn’t mean I have to accept her brother.
“Just… give him a chance. Please?”
I glance up at her plea. “I don’t really have a choice, do I?”
“You don’t know him, Iz. He’s not what everyone thinks.”
Yeah, I used to think that too. Look where that got me.
She pushes off the doorframe and leaves me alone to stare at the empty space with a clenched fist.
No. I don’t know him. And I don’t want to.
Voices echo outside the main door the following morning, drawing me from my studies. One I recognize as Kim. The other…
I try to keep my irritation in check as I shift on the couch that’s about to be someone’s bed. How do I even greet him? Do I wave? Go in for a hug? Offer an awkward smile? Or completely ignore him and pretend this isn’t happening (favorite option).
I settle on something between the smile and wave when the door crashes open. Their conversation stops abruptly, and Kim looks nervous. Tristan looks…
Wow.
Full lips twist up in a cocky smile I haven’t seen in almost five years. Thick lashes blink over dangerous dark brown eyes I’d forgotten about. Those eyes kill—moods, anger, resentment—pretty much anything they want and can own with a single glance. Right now, they’re trained on me, and I try not to notice that everything else about him has been magnified a hundred times in my awareness. Geez, is hetryingto be a male anatomy diagram? Four years of working out does a lot to a teenager’s body, apparently.
Four years of working outin prison, Iz. Imagine what that’s done to everythinginsidethat disgustingly attractive shell.
“Hey. Good to see you, Isabel. You’re not a nerdy little girl anymore,” he says, moving toward me.
God, even his voice sounds… different. I refuse to use the word “sexy” to describe the deep, gravelly undertone.
“Funny, because you look exactly the same,” I say dryly.
His smile spreads into an open grin that fires straight through my belly. Old sparks flicker to life, remnants of a seventeen-year-old’s crush on her best friend’s brother. I thought I snuffed out those dangerous embers a long time ago.
You know, when he rejected you?
Humiliated you?
Betrayed and deserted you?
He hasn’t even been here a minute, and I’m already wishing he would leave. Instead, he opens his arms, and I give Kim a hard look as I rise and let him pull me in for a hug.
Big mistake.
My blood pumps hard at the feel of solid, defined muscle through his thin t-shirt. I hate that my fingers instinctively dig into his shoulders, and my hips graze… shit, this is bad. He evensmellslike seduction. Clean and masculine, like leather that’s been laundered and rubbed down with subtle spices and fresh mountain air.
I hate you, Tristan Haverford.
“Good to have you back,” I lie, extracting myself from the tempting warmth of his body.
His pretty eyes search my face in amusement as I retreat even further and cross my arms. My skin still tingles from his touch, his scent lingering in my awareness.
“Thanks for letting me crash here for a while. Kim said you weren’t exactly a fan of the idea.”
My gaze snaps to Kim who lifts her hands and mouths an apology. Tristan’s grin is deadly as he shrugs and runs a hand over buzzed dark hair that’s the same length as the scruff on his face. The slight dimples are still visible, making his smile a dangerous mix of adorable and devious. I don’t remember his tattoos well enough to know if any are new. He already had several when he was arrested, but prison tattooing is a thing, right?
Even if it’s not, his ink might as well be new for how it molds to the hard planes of his sculpted body. My gaze lands on the hint of flames peeking through the V-neck of his shirt, just enough to make you desperate to rip it off and see the rest. Every. Damn. Inch. Yep, if I were casting a prison movie and needed an actor to play a gorgeous ex-con, I would be calling Tristan’s agent and begging him to take the role.
