Total pages in book: 32
Estimated words: 33333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 167(@200wpm)___ 133(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 33333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 167(@200wpm)___ 133(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
I move before I think. My boots hit the floor; the crowd parts. I go straight to where he is, to where Aspen is. I put myself between them like a place no one is allowed to cross.
“You alright?” I ask the man, voice low enough that it’s a threat wrapped in a question.
He blinks like he’s been glare-struck. “Uh—yeah. She’s—look, man, I was just—”
“You were just hitting on my girl,” I say. I don’t mean the word. It fits me like a shard of glass. It’s inaccurate in one tense but right in the other. He swallows.
Aspen’s eyes flick to me, amused and dangerous. There’s that smile—full of trouble. “Thorne,” she says. “You came.”
“You’re avoiding me,” I tell him, and it’s not a question.
He laughs too quickly. “No way. I’m just—never mind.” He lets out a breath he didn’t need to take, moves back, and finds a new target—someone less dangerous and more grateful for attention. I watch him fail to hold eye contact, the way men do when they’ve been shown a lion that can’t be tamed.
Aspen steps closer, hand finding mine, and the current that runs through me when we touch is the kind that demands an answer.
“You showed up,” she says, like I had a choice. Her voice drops to something softer, meant for me and me only. “I knew you would.”
“Thought you’d be easy to babysit,” I mutter.
“You’re the worst babysitter in the world. Also the worst at costumes.” She tilts her head, taking in my usual worn denim and flannel outfit. “But you’re also the best at making sure I don’t get kissed by idiots.”
Her laughter nudges the corner of my mouth and I almost grin, but the grin turns hard when I see the way another man watches her. The look is hungry in the kind of way that thinks every woman is a meal. I move again, smoother this time, taking her with me. “Let’s go.”
I move in the direction of the door but on the way Winter finds us, all flounces and white hair and that grin like she’s already wrecked several innocent things tonight. She squeezes Aspen’s shoulder like she owns a piece of this decision to show up in the first place.
“You two are breaking my heart,” she teases. “Dance with me, Aspen.”
Aspen shrugs, letting go of my hand long enough to hook an arm through Winter’s. “One dance. Just one.”
I watch them go and the tightness in my ribs goes primeval. People we know line the edges of the floor—Perry and Ruby flirting with a T-rex couple; Fox and Cal in an argument over whether zombie or vampire is more accurate for 80s nostalgia.
I try not to care about the way Aspen moves. Not really. Her skirt sways and sparks small fires under my skin. She catches my eye mid-spin and mouths something like stay, and I swear I almost left then and there. But I stay.
The song slows and the DJ chants for “slow dances.” Aspen’s partner slips away, and in the crowd someone hands her a drink—some idiot with a bad smile. I don’t think. My hand clamps around his wrist like a vice; he flinches.
“Not tonight,” I say.
He tries some joke about small-town charm and I answer with the kind of silence that eats men’s guts. He stumbles away as Aspen’s mouth quirks; she looks at me like I’m the problem and the solution at once. The heat between us isn’t just what our bodies do to each other; it’s what we do to everyone else. It’s a liability and a promise and this bar is full of people who don’t understand boundaries until I make them.
“Thorne,” Aspen murmurs, voice low and amused. “You’re ferocious.”
“Only when I need to be,” I say.
We leave the floor, drift into the part of the Brew that’s quieter—a corner near the fireplace where the shadows stretch long. I pull her close enough that the heat from my chest ghosts along her back. She presses into me voluntarily, and the world narrows to the scrape of our bodies and the hum in my ear.
“You look ridiculous,” she says against my throat. Her breath is sweet with cider.
“Ridiculous is the new black,” I answer, but my fingers are already at the tiny buckle of her corset, thumbs drawing the leather over the lace like a ritual. I don’t undress her; I don’t need to. This is not the slow undressing of lovers. This is the quick reveal of a hunter who knows his terrain.
“Don’t start,” she warns, but her voice is thin and fragile the way it is when she’s dangerous and tired. I love that version of her. It’s honest.
“Start what?” I ask, and I don’t even try to make my voice lighter.
She looks at me, eyes fusing shadow and fire. “Thorne—don’t be an idiot.”