Page 35 of No Save Point

I turn my head, finally meeting her eyes, watching the way her lips part just slightly, watching the way her fingers twitch like she wasn’t expecting me to say it out loud. “I want you, Haven.”

Her lashes flutter, her throat bobs, but she doesn’t speak. She’s waiting. Letting me get it all out. I shake my head, exhaling hard, dragging a hand through my hair like it’s going to help slow my pulse.

“I’ve wanted you for almost a year,” I murmur, voice low, rough, so fucking honest it almost hurts. “Every time we talked, every time we played together, every time you messaged me first and I knew, for at least a little while, I got to have your attention, I wanted you. And now—”

I swallow hard, forcing the words out even though they feel like they’re cutting me open. “Now you’re here. And this is who you met up with.”

My stomach twists, my body locked up with tension, because I don’t know what she’s going to say, don’t know what she’s thinking, don’t know if she’s about to tell me this was all a mistake.

But she doesn’t look like she thinks this is a mistake. She looks like I just gave her something she wasn’t expecting, something she might actually want. Her fingers twitch, like she’s debating reaching for me again, like she’s seconds away from doing something that’s going to completely undo me.

And then… Of course. Of fucking course. A soft clap sounds from the doorway. I freeze. Haven stiffens beside me. And there, leaning against the frame like he didn’t just waltz in at the worst possible moment, like he doesn’t even slightly care about the fact that he just interrupted something he absolutely should not have been a part of, stands Tate.

His arms are crossed lazily over his chest, his weight shifted onto one leg, his expression neutral except for the unmistakable glint of amusement in his dark eyes. “Don’t stop on my account,” he says.

Haven lets out an exhale that’s half a groan, dragging a hand over her face. “Seriously?”

Tate shrugs, pushing off the doorframe with a lazy roll of his shoulders. “Not that Carter would know much about pleasure, right?”

My stomach fucking drops. Heat punches through my chest, up my neck, and into my ears so fast I can feel my entire body locking up, because I knew he wasn’t going to let me have this.

I clench my jaw so tight my teeth might break, my fists curling against my knees, my entire body screaming at me to not let him get under my skin.

Haven reacts first. She tilts her head, slow and deliberate, her lips twitching in a way that makes my stomach twist because I can already tell she’s about to say something reckless. She leans forward slightly, resting her elbow on her knee, voice dripping with the kind of challenge that makes Tate’s smirk widen immediately. “Well,” lifting a brow, studying him like she’s sizing him up. “That sounds like a whole lot of confidence from someone who wasn’t invited into this conversation.”

Tate’s grin sharpens, his eyes flashing with something dangerous, something entertained, something I don’t trust. “Not invited?” he repeats, tilting his head like he’s genuinely confused, like the very concept of boundaries is foreign to him. “Pretty girl, if I waited for an invitation, I’d miss all the fun.”

I groan internally, pressing my fingers into my temple, because I already know where this is going.

“Besides,” he adds, his voice dripping with amusement as he shifts his weight, arms still crossed over his chest, looking so fucking at ease while I am barely holding onto my sanity. “From what I heard, Carter could probably use a few pointers. Maybe a little…” His grin widens. “Guidance.”

Oh. My. Fucking. God. My stomach plummets so hard I swear I feel it hit the floor, heat climbing up my neck, through my ears, straight into my brain until I feel like I’m actively overheating. I don’t dare look at Haven.

I know she’s either laughing, or looking at me with those sharp brown eyes like she’s waiting to see what I’ll do, and I cannot deal with any of that right now. I shift, dragging a hand down my face, my entire body a stiff, uncomfortable mess of nerves and awkwardness, because I don’t know how the fuck I got here, but I need to get out of it. Haven is quiet for a second too long, which means she’s thinking, which means she’s about to say something that’s going to make this worse. I am about to combust.

17

Haven

My brain is short-circuiting, completely spiraling into a place I don’t want it to go, a place it absolutely should not be going.

Because what the actual fuck did Tate just say? More importantly, why did my stomach just flip at the sound of it?

I press my knees together, my entire body warming in a way that has nothing to do with embarrassment and everything to do with something I refuse to acknowledge, something I need to get the fuck out of my head right now. This is wrong. It has to be. There’s no way in hell I should be thinking about this, about them, like that.

But now that Tate’s put the thought in my head, it’s stuck there, lingering, twisting, making my skin feel too hot, making my breath feel too shallow, making me press my knees together like that’s going to help.

Carter. Completely, utterly lost. He’s still sitting beside me, looking like he’s desperately trying to find an escape hatch, looking like he wants the ground to open up and swallow him whole.

Fuck. I blink hard, forcing myself to snap out of it, forcing myself to turn the heat crawling up my spine into something sharp, something irritated, something I can throw at Tate to get him to shut the hell up before this gets worse.

I push up from the couch, tilting my chin, making sure Tate knows I am absolutely not letting him get the last word on this.

“You know like I said,” I say, voice steady, masking the fact that I am so very much not steady inside. “You do a lot of talking for someone who wasn’t invited into this conversation.”

Tate just grins, lazy and cocky, his eyes flicking over me like he’s already gotten exactly what he wanted. “Yeah?” he says, stepping toward the kitchen, already reaching for a glass from the cabinet. He fills it with water, taking his time, drawing the moment out, making sure I know he’s in control of this conversation, that I can snap at him all I want but he’s still the one pulling the strings. Then, just as I start to turn away, just as I think maybe he’s done, he opens his mouth one last time. “You can fight it all you want, Pretty girl.”

The glass lifts to his lips, and he takes a slow, deliberate sip before lowering it again, smirking over the rim. “But you’re thinking about it now, aren’t you?”

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