Page 48 of The Order of Disorder
“And they talked business in front of you?” Wyatt asks.
“Yes,” I confirm. They spoke as if I wasn’t there or wouldn’t understand. The way you would speak in front of a dog.
Wyatt is still, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “So you’re a witness.”
It’s a simple statement of fact, but I never thought of it that way.
I take a deep breath.
I know names, dates, amounts. Places and code names. I saw papers I wasn’t supposed to see: land sales, bank numbers, fake companies. They didn’t hide anything from me.
“Yeah,” I say slowly. “I guess I am.”
Some parts of club life can be so mundane. Time becomes more of a feeling than a fact, especially in the hangar, where there are no exterior windows. Eventually, Wyatt yawns and says he’s going to “hit the sack.”
We brush our teeth in the second-floor washroom, where we run into Carla, Pluto’s old lady. She’s already there, leaning over the sink with a toothbrush in her mouth. On nights like this, when there isn’t a party, it feels weirdly like a college dorm—a grimy, chaotic dorm with its own bar and no adults.
“You look happy,” Carla says with a wink. I give her a half-hearted smile, and then Wyatt puts his hand on the small of my back and steers me down the hall. I can’t imagine what Carla thinks my life is like.Happy?
In the room, I change into sleep shorts and a tank top. Wyatt strips to his underwear. We politely turn our backs as we undress—like that matters anymore—and then climb into bed, each on our own side, like a couple who've done this a hundred times.
But the show of affection Wyatt puts on for the club dies the minute the bedroom door shuts. After that, it’s distance. Respectful. Careful. And unwelcome.
My feelings for him have always been complicated. Wyatt is handsome, strong, undeniably sexy. But he’s so much older than I am. The boundary created by our age difference has always been there between us. But everything’s different now. Ryder is dead. Jake and Damian are gone. And we’re alone in this place with only each other. What I used to feel for Wyatt is blooming into something else, something deeper, anchored in need. Something he refuses to return. And it hurts.
He lies on his back. I curl toward him like I always do, craving his heat, his solidity. He stiffens, like he always does. That’s our line. I slide under his arm and rest my head on his shoulder. That’s as far as it goes.
But it’s not enough.
My eyes move over the dips and planes of his chest, the sharp edge of his collarbone, the black-and-gray stubble along his jaw, the hard rise of his Adam’s apple. He smells like heat and salt and the faint trace of his soap. And I want more than just the comfort of him. I want to know what he tastes like. I want to know what he looks like when he gives in. If desire makes him helpless. If he’s ever been helpless.
The thought makes my breath catch.
Tonight, he sighs. His body softens beneath me. He turns his head and kisses my hair, and the gentleness of it sends a buzz through every nerve ending in my skin.
Before I even know what I’m doing, my hand drifts over his stomach. The muscle beneath it goes still and tight.
But he doesn’t stop me.
I slide my hand higher. Across his ribs, over the flat plane of his chest, trailing my fingertips through the sparse hair there, trying to keep my breathing even.
“Max,” he says, his voice deep. Stern. But he doesn’t move.
I tilt my face up and press my lips to the curve of his neck, right where his pulse hammers against my mouth, and he sucks in a breath.
The heat in the room shifts. Gathers. Expands.
I swing one leg over his, straddling his thigh, and press my body flush against him. He freezes, muscles locked up as I kiss his neck, then his jaw, then the soft skin just beneath his ear. It’s suddenly so quiet in the room you could hear a pin drop. The sound of his breathing, controlled and shaky, is deafening.
I move, my knee sliding higher. My inner thigh brushes over his crotch—
And I feel it.
The thick, unmistakable hardness of him, straining beneath the fabric.
For a second, I freeze.
Shocked. Thrilled.
