Page 30 of Bend & Break
I slide down the wall and sit cross-legged on the floor, heart pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat.
“I’ve already tried four different decryption scripts. Nothing works.”
“Yeah, well. You don’t have my magic fingers.”
I tilt my head. “You say that to every girl you try to impress with illegal software?”
He finally looks at me. And yeah, that look—lazy, cocky, like he knows exactly what he's doing to me—is exactly why I hate him.
Or one of the reasons, anyway.
“No, just you,” he says. “Is it working?”
My body answers before my mouth can. Heat flushes across my chest, crawls down my spine. It’s a mistake. He’s a mistake. But I’m tired. I’m wired. I’ve spent the past week convinced I was going to die or get expelled or both, and he’s sitting there like every bad decision I’ve ever wanted to make but didn’t.
And I don’t want to wait anymore.
He’s not doing anything. He’s just watching me—lips parted like he’s expecting an answer, like he’s daring me to move first. And maybe I should be smarter. Maybe I should remember every time he’s gotten under my skin this semester and all the others, every smug comment, every intentional disruption to my sanity.
But the way he’s looking at me right now—calm and focused and a little bit wrecked—it’s undoing all the careful distance I’ve tried to keep.
I’m already too close. Already too far gone. I’m pacing without even realizing it, back and forth like I can burn off the nerves that won’t quit. Then his hand shoots out, catching my wrist, tugging me straight into his lap. His voice is low, steady, almost warning. “You need to calm down.”
“Hey—”
His hand lifts, fingers combing gently through the ends of my hair, like he’s trying to soothe me the same way you’d calm a skittish animal.
“Hey,” he says softly. “Breathe. You’re wound so tight you’re makingmenervous.”
I don’t have a plan. My hands are shaking, my chest too tight, but I can’t do this halfway. Not with him. Not with everything boiling over all at once—stress, suspicion, visceral attraction that hasn’t let up since the second we were forced into this mess together.
His eyes flick to my mouth. He doesn’t lean back. Doesn’t move away.
“You plan on using me as a coping mechanism?” he asks. I think he already knows the answer.
“Maybe.”
I expect him to crack another joke, throw up some kind of defense. But instead, he grins—slow, open, sure. “Then I’m all yours.”
It doesn’t matter that we’re in the back room of Colin's house with bass rattling through the walls, half-drunk voices spilling down the hall, and a possibly-compromised drive glowing on the bed next to us. Whoever’s behind it all is still out there. I’ve been carrying this tension in my chest for weeks, and right now, Iwant.
I want something to make sense.
I want something I can feel.
I wanthim.
I don’t know if it’s the adrenaline still draining from my system or the fact that Mads is annoyingly extra hot when he’s being useful, but the second I’m on his lap, it’s over.
His thighs are solid beneath me, the fabric of his joggers soft but stretched tight across thick muscle. My knees settle on eitherside of his hips, and I can feel the heat of his body through both layers of clothing.
His hands are on my waist—fingers splayed, grip unrelenting, like he’s been holding back and now he doesn’t have to. He pulls me down against him, the motion quick and decisive, his palms dragging up under the hem of my shirt just enough to press against bare skin.
I kiss him—hard, hungry, a little reckless. All the tension I’ve been choking on finally has somewhere to go.
My hands drag up his chest, feeling the heat of him under my palms, the solid press of muscle giving way to the thud of his heartbeat.
For a second, it’s mine, all mine.
