Page 102 of Broken Pieces
His eyes are still on me—I can feel them, tracing, testing, daring.
And fuck, I hate how much I want him to keep looking.
The noodles go cold in their containers, but neither of us cares.
I push mine around absently, swirling the soy-stained strands into a lazy spiral.
I glance up and catch him staring at me. Not in a weird way. Just… observing.
“What?” I mutter.
He shrugs again, the corner of his mouth lifting. “Nothing. You’ve got sauce on your chin.”
I swipe at it and glare at him when he grins.
“I want to show you something I found when I moved in,” he says, pushing his barely eaten noodles away, then he stands.
“Let me guess. This is the part where you tell me it isn’t sketchy, and I wind up in a true crime documentary?”
“It’s on the roof.”
I blink. “Yeah, no thanks. Last time we were on a roof together, I sucked your dick. I’m not doing that again.”
He freezes for a beat, head half turned as if he didn’t expect me to say that out loud.
“Noted,” he says, turning his gaze back to me. “Fucking disappointed… but no. That’s not what I want to show you.”
I stare at him.
He holds my gaze without flinching.
Goddamn.
Those fucking eyes.
The ones that see through every defense I pretend to have.
He waits. Calm and steady. Already so sure I’ll say yes.
I let out a sharp breath, shove my chair back, and snatch my jacket off the end of the bed.
“Fine. But if I fall and die, I’m haunting you.”
His mouth lifts at one corner, smug as sin. “Fair enough.”
His eyes drop to my chest, then trail down over my short skirt. Heat coils in the pit of my stomach. He knows exactly what he’s doing.
“Wouldn’t be the worst thing,” he says. “I could use a ghost with legs like yours.”
“Jesus, you’re a pervert.”
He shrugs, no shame. “Never said I wasn’t.”
I shoot him a glare as I pass him and head for the door.
I don’t even know if we’re meant to take the stairs or go out the window or through some fucked-up secret passage he found, Narnia-style, behind a wall panel. None of that matters. I can’t stay in that room with him staring at me the way he is. The kind of stare that peels me open and destroys every wall I spent years learning how to build.
Because no matter how many times I swear I won’t fold, no matter how fucking hard I fight to keep my guard up, Zane always finds a way through.
