Page 75 of The Wrong Play

My lips parted, but nothing came out.

His gaze flicked over my face, taking me in, committing me to memory like I might disappear if he blinked. Then he leaned in, pressing a kiss to my temple, lingering there, like he wasn’t just kissing me—he wasclaimingme. A shiver rolled through me, my heart slamming against my ribs, the weight of his words sinking in, curling into the deepest parts of me.

And I knew, with a certainty that terrified me—Jace Thatcher was never letting me go.

CHAPTER 11

RILEY

The coffee shop smelled like burnt beans and desperation, a bitter haze clinging to my apron as I wiped down the counter for the fifth time in an hour. The hum of the espresso machine buzzed in my skull, syncing with the dull ache in my legs, my body wrung out from the week’s grind—and fromhim.

Jace.

I hated that I couldn’t stop thinking about him, that even as exhaustion weighed heavy in my limbs, my skin still hummed from his touch. Every time I closed my eyes, I felt his hands on me, his mouth, the way helookedat me, like I was something to be claimed, cherished. It was maddening. Infuriating. And worst of all, it made me ache for more.

But last night, when Ihadfinally closed my eyes, it hadn’t been Jace’s hands I felt.

It had beenhis.

The nightmare had dragged me under fast—Callum’s voice was like a snare, his touch a brand I couldn’t escape. I woke up gasping, drenched in sweat, my pulse thrashing against my ribs like I was still trapped in his grasp. And for a long, awful moment, I wasn’t sure where I was. If I had really escaped him.

If I was making the same mistakes all over again.

I should’ve been in my dorm, curled up in my bed—without Emma staring, obviously—cocooned in the kind of silence that let me forget. Instead, I was stuck here, trapped behind the chipped counter atBrewed Awakening, desperately trying to focus on anythingotherthan the way Jace had wrecked me yesterday, the way my past was trying to claw its way back into my present.

But my body still remembered. His marks were still on my neck. His fingerprints were still visible on my hips.

And all my thoughts still kept circling back to him.

No amount of coffee or counter-wiping seemed to be enough to make it stop.

It should’ve been different.

Jace should have been different.

A guy like him wasn’t supposed to happen to me—not after everything. Not after Callum. And yet, here he was, relentless and unapologetic in the way he wanted me, in the way he looked at me like I was something worth chasing.

I should have let myself enjoy it. I should have let myself sink into the way he made me feel, the way his touch ignited something in me that had been numb for so long. But instead? I was fighting it. Pushing him away.

Because of Callum.

Because of the way he had twisted the meaning of touch, of love, of trust, until I didn’t know how to separate the poison from the pleasure.

Bitterness clawed up my throat, thick and relentless.

Jace was good. Jace was right. He was every fantasy I’d never let myself have—one I should have been drowning in, losing myself in. But I couldn’t. Not when the past still had its fingers wrapped around my throat, squeezing every time I started to breathe.

And that washisfault.

Callum had taken everything. He had filled my head with ideas about what I was worth, what I was meant for, and even now—even now—I could feel the shadow of his control stretching over me, keeping me from feeling this.

From feeling Jace.

I gritted my teeth, gripping the counter hard enough for my knuckles to ache.

I hated him for that.

For making me doubt every good thing in my life. For making me second-guess the one person who had never given me a reason to.

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