Page 83 of Heroes & Hitmen
Even in a sea of people, Miley stands out. She moves different– back straight, steps deliberate, head on a swivel like she’s casing the place for threats.Always on guard.She’s outfitted in a pair of skinny jeans and fitted blouse, a silk ribbon tying back her hair like always.
She doesn’t see me right away. She’s focused on her phone, scrolling or texting– or maybe just pretending to– but then she hesitates. Slows. Her head turns incrementally, and I see her nostrils flare.
It’s stupid, but it still makes me smile. Even now, after weeks of this, her wolf can sense me before her eyes catch up.
Miley stops dead in the middle of the walkway, doing a slow pan of the block. I swear she looks right at my truck for a second, then past it, as if my shiny Chevy is just part of the cityscape. Then she shakes her head and heads off down the sidewalk again, seemingly deciding that she isn’t being watched.
Wrong again, sweetheart.
A smile tugs at my lips as my eyes follow her path to the bench under the big maple tree; the same one she always gravitates toward. The same one where we shared cupcakes and kisses. She slips her messenger bag off her shoulder and sets it down, still looking a little on edge as she sinks down beside it.
I finally kill the truck engine and step out, the air sweltering hot with summer humidity. Swinging my keys in a lazy loop around my finger, I stroll around to the other side of my truck, placing myself right in her line of sight as I lean back against it.
Her head snaps up. Violet-grey eyes lock on me. My wolf shoves forward with a possessive snarl.
Mine.
CHAPTER 26
Miley
Sugar dancesover my tongue as I swirl a cherry lollipop around in my mouth, staring at the whiteboard and willing myself to focus. The guest lecturer is droning on about yellow journalism and the evolution of tabloid tactics– which should be fascinating since my life has become a scandal in the making– but all I can do is stare at the word ‘sensationalism’ scrawled across the board in blue marker and think about Ares Raines.
Specifically, about how he’s a master of it.
Not that I’d ever admit it out loud, but the guy has managed to weasel his way into every crevice of my brain in the span of a month. Every memory, every random thought, every time I see a stacked guy with big dick energy, my mind jumps straight to him. It’s like he’s infected me with a damn virus that’s rerouted all neural activity directly to his face. Or, more likely, his abs.
But that’s beside the point.
I crunch down on my lollipop, feeling a sharp jolt of satisfaction as the hard candy cracks between my teeth. I’ve trained myself to ignore distractions; I’m the queen of compartmentalizing. I once endured three straight hours of an all-pack meeting without contemplating violence or spontaneous combustion. Butthis? This is next level.
It doesn’t help that I’m running on maybe five hours of sleep, most of which was spent tossing and turning because my traitorous wolf can’t control herself while Ares is in the bed. She was whininglike a brat all night long, willing me to snuggle in closer to him, feel his skin against mine, and breathe in his scent.
The professor steps up to take the place of our guest lecturer at the podium, the entire class groaning when he announces a ten-question pop quiz. I glance over at the digital clock on the wall, knee bouncing anxiously when I see we’ve only got ten minutes left to take said quiz.
Crap.
Hopefully I can muddle my way through it.
Our professor starts dropping stacks of quizzes at the end of each row to be passed down, and it takes everything in me not to check my phone under the desk while I wait for mine. I refuse to be that girl– the one glued to her screen, desperate for a message from the boy she’s pretending not to like. Ares hasn’t texted me all day, and I’m far too tempted to start the conversation for once.
I resist, because if he wants to play at being ‘mates’, then he can do the heavy lifting. I’m not about to turn into a stage five clinger just because he’s rocking my world with orgasms every night.
God.I hate admitting that, even to myself.
It shouldn’t matter, anyways. He’s temporary. This whole situation istemporary. In ten days, I’ll be gone, free, starting fresh, and Ares Raines will be a nice memory. A reckless, impulsive, probably ill-advised memory, but a memory all the same.
Why does that thought make my stomach sink?
A sheet of paper lands in front of me and I do my best to answer each of the multiple-choice questions on the quiz, hoping that logical reasoning and the process of elimination will pull me through. It’d be a tragedy to wreck my grade point average on a stupid pop quiz because I was too distracted by daydreams of my new fuck buddy to pay attention to the lecture. Then again, seeing as I’ll be gone soon, I suppose my grades don’t matter much anymore, either.
“Time’s up!” the professor calls out just as I’m marking my answer choice for the last question.
I slide my quiz to the edge of the desk with a sigh, watching with faint disgust as the class collectively shuffles forward to drop them in the bin. It’s a mess of shoves and fake apologies, the usual dance of undergrads with more ambition than spatial awareness.
I linger in my seat, letting the crowd thin out before I drop off my own quiz and make my exit. There’s no point in gettingtrampled by a bunch of co-eds eager to get to their next class when I’m done for the day. I pop the lollipop stick from my mouth and toss it in the trash on my way out the door, adjusting the strap of my messenger bag on my shoulder and pulling out my phone.
It buzzes in my hand as I step out into the corridor, the notification banner lighting up with an email from one of my professors about a schedule change. No texts. Not from Ares, not from anyone. My thumb hovers, tempted to message him first just to prove I’m not playing chicken, but I decide against it.
