Page 56 of Covenant

Well, fuck him for thinking I’m weak. I’ll show him.

I stand taller, squaring my shoulders and stepping into him, our chests brushing as I push closer. Our lips hover an inch away. I can feel each exhale of breath hit my mouth. My lips twist into a cruel smirk as Matthias’s breath catches.

I don’t kiss him. I stay there, close enough to taunt. “I willneverbreak.”

And with that, I grab his hand, linking my fingers through his, and pull him back inside. I just want to get this fucking night over with.

Then I’ll show him who’ll break.

15

WYATT

We make it home after midnight, my skin feeling too tight for my body.

He didn’t take his hands off me the entire night. And in retaliation, I didn’t take mine off him.

We were always touching, stroking, staring into each other’s eyes.

Right before we left, I realized how easy it was to do all of this with him. How natural it felt.

It made me sit opposite him in the limo on the way home, pouting. When we get home, I say nothing as I move to the bedroom, ripping my tie off and throwing it on the ground.

“You’re angry,” Matthias says, following me into the bedroom.

“I’m not,” I lie as I pull my shirt off and toss it aside. Who cares where it lands? I just want to get in the shower and wash the scent of him from me. To erase the feel of him under my hands.

How right that felt.

“You are,” he says slowly, his dark brows furrowed. “What did I do wrong?”

What did he do wrong? He fucking agreed to marry me.

But honestly, I’m angry at myself. At tonight. How easy it felt to slip back into old habits. Not that we ever touched like that before, but still…

The friendship was easy.

And he betrayed me. I need to remember that.

The fact that he’s a man isn’t what I’m struggling with.

It’s that the man is Matthias.

I ignore him as I enter the bathroom. I twist my wrist and the water falls from the showerhead, pelting the ground. I yank at my pants and realize that Matthias is leaning against the doorjamb, watching me.

I grit my teeth. “Can I have some privacy?”

“No,” he says. “Not until you tell me what I did wrong.”

Letting him watch me is preferable to having this conversation. The one where I admit how much his betrayal still stings. No, not even his betrayal. His abandonment of me. For years, he’d been my only friend, my anchor in the storm.

And he cut me off. Set me adrift in the sea without ever checking to see if I swam or drowned.

I narrow my eyes at him, dropping my pants and realizing it leaves me in only my boxer briefs.

His eyes track down my chest, and I see him wet his lips.

Those same lips I kissed earlier. Just that once, but still.

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