Page 52 of Daring You

“Hand it over, asshole.”

I step back, holding the bag out of the way like she can see it. “How’d you know it was me?”

“Security called downstairs.”

“But…I didn’t say who’s apartment I was going to.”

“I’m Astor Hayes, genius. Sister to Locke Hayes, the only other NFL-related person in this building. They did the math.”

I still don’t like it. “It’s a fifty-story building. How the fuck do they know who’s who—”

“Because I give them excellent Christmas bonuses and they like me. Now give me my food and go away.”

“No. You’re not saying thank you.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re not asking why I’m here.”

She sighs again, and I still can’t see her face. I’m talking to a fucking door with an arm.

“Because Locke probably made you bring me food,” she says. “He never thinks I eat properly, since I don’t touch his weird athlete diet of kale and protein.”

“‘Cause your diet of coffee and anger is so much better.”

“Food. Now,” she grits out.

“I’m not here because Locke told me to,” I say, keeping the bag well away from her. “I’m here because…I want to make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m fine.”

My molars clang together at the way she says it. So quick, so flat, like she says it a thousand times a day and doesn’t know its meaning any more.

“Let me in, Astor.”

“No.”

“Please. I’m freezing my balls off and if I go back out there without warming up some. They’re gonna crack right off.”

“That’ll be a lament heard ‘round the world.”

“A cup of coffee. That’s all I ask.”

She wavers. I know she does, because her exposed fingers curl like she’s thinking, and I spot the dent in the finger where her ring should be.

Astor’s arm retreats. The door open wider.

Naughty, dirty thoughts crash in at the exact wrong moment. She’s in an oversized grey sweatshirt that falls off one shoulder and hits her mid-thigh, her legs exposed, tanned, and flawless. They’re long—like insanely, impossibly long—with curving lines of muscle in all the right places. They’d wrap all the way around me if I lifted her up, palmed her ass, and rammed—

“See, I’m totally fine,” she says. “You can report back to my brother that all is well.”

The impulse to do her up against the door I’ve gotten to know so well disappears as soon as my eyes connect to hers.

They’re rimmed in red, her cheeks abnormally flushed, and her lips cracked in places like she’s been picking and biting at them.

“I’m coming in now,” I say, and there’s a rough edge to my voice. I don’t like the thought of her hunched over her computer, crying and chewing at her lips as she tries to figure out a boy who should’ve died with his parents.

Surprisingly, she steps aside, but nabs the bag as soon as it’s within reach. Astor strides to the kitchen to the left of the small foyer, and I follow after kicking off my boots.

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