Page 45 of They Break Beauty

Those three words kept playing over and over, my breathy, turned on voice blaring out into the lab for all the students to hear.

I felt my cheeks heating—more like on fire—as I scrambled in a major panic to locate the source to shut it down.

Professor Ruiz ran over and pulled out the HDMI cable, but the recording could still be heard.

“I’m so sorry, I don’t know how—I’m being set up and—”

“I’m getting that,” she said, kindly.

I muted the volume, then slammed my laptop lid shut.

An awful silence filled the room and I looked out into wide-eyed expressions, some students laughing into their hands to hide their amusement, and others giving me the eye and clearly having enjoyed the sexual content of that way too much.

I cursed under my breath and then it was all a blur as I snatched up my laptop and rushed back to my chair, grabbed my bag, then ran out of the room like my ass was on fire.

12

~Mason~

I stepped out of the shadows as the girl ran away down the hallway like a bat out of hell.

Her hot-pink heels clacked loudly as she went, the strappy things matching her wrap dress that had a striking studded gold belt that gave it a rocker-type edge, something I remembered seeing in the IG pictures Colt had recently blasted all over the place—an accessory design courtesy of Chloe Anders.

The girl was really going out of her way to get her friend attention, even now taking to wearing her designs around campus too.

That whole situation had appeared more than just a little strange to me when Colt had filled me in on why Brianna had agreed to come to our home and record with him.

The timing was particularly suspicious.

I was certain it hadn’t come about on its own, that Chloe wasn’t being urged to leave Stonewell University just by sheer coincidence.

No, it reeked of interference.

Interference from a certain someone.

And that same certain someone had been far too giddy this morning for me not to take notice.

He only got like that when a plan of his was about to come to fruition.

So, I’d first suspected him attempting to do something with Hex in a bid to take the wheel without my knowledge—and thereby fuck up things before it had even begun since we’d revived it.

When I’d managed to rule that out, it had led me to the girl he’d been suspiciously fixated on.

Fortunately, during some fooling around wherein I’d had Colt’s lovely cock stuffed down my throat, he’d been very chatty as usual, and he’d ended up telling me all about the plan Lev had pulled him in on to bring Brianna to the house, which had ended with her running off after dousing Lev with a bottle of water.

I’d attempted to access the surveillance from the recording studio because Colt hadn’t been privy to the interaction between them, but it had been corrupted. By Lev and his talents in that arena, no doubt.

He hadn’t wanted either of us to know what had been said—or what he’d done to her.

That escalating suspicion and rapidly rising concern had led me here today, to her class.

I’d been watching the entire thing and I’d witnessed her ruined presentation.

It was more than a mild and intriguing attraction on his end now toward her.

The fact that he’d orchestrated that pointed to full-on obsession.

And when Levi Knight became obsessed with something, it invited a whole lot of chaos.

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