Total pages in book: 169
Estimated words: 167671 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 838(@200wpm)___ 671(@250wpm)___ 559(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 167671 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 838(@200wpm)___ 671(@250wpm)___ 559(@300wpm)
“You’re not going anywhere,” he growls. “Not until you fucking tell me exactly what you’ve been doing.”
“I did what you told me to,” I say. “You wanted me to seduce—”
“I didn’t tell you to go to her apartment and fuck her in the middle of the night without us,” he seethes. “You knew where she lived and you didn’t tell me.”
I suck in a breath, trying to focus while he’s so up close and personal. And angry.
“I was just trying to—” I frown, interrupting my own train of thought. “Wait, how did you know I was there?”
“You think you’re the only one who knows how to track people?” He smiles. “You led me right to her.”
My jaw drops. “That phone tracker.”
He taps my forehead. “Guess that fucking brain is finally working again after all that pussy.”
I can’t believe he put an actual tracker on my bike.
“I trusted you,” he says, leaning up, releasing my wrists, but his words hurt more than his hands ever could. “And look where it led me. Right into that thief’s apartment.” He averts his eyes. “I thought you were a friend, that I could fucking trust you.”
I swallow away the lump in my throat. “You can.”
His sharp gaze finds mine again. “Then tell me why she needs that money.”
I lick my lips. I don’t want to ruin what I have with Ivy. It’s too important. But I know Heath wants more information, and I don’t know what to do.
He shakes his head as he gets up off my bed. “Thought so.”
“She doesn’t have it anymore. She’s telling the truth,” I say, trying to offer at least something.
“Right …” he says. “And I’m supposed to believe that how?”
“Because I told you,” I say, sitting up straight.
“Like you haven’t lied to me before,” he says.
My brows draw together. “I haven’t.”
“Hm…”
He looks away and I breathe a sigh of relief.
“Then who is Cora?”
Fuck. He heard us talk about her?
“Her neighbor,” I lie.
I promised Ivy I wouldn’t mention Cora. I can’t break this promise too.
“She didn’t want to talk to you… about her neighbor?”
I shrug. “It’s complicated.”
His eyes narrow and the pause that follows makes it feel like my bed just got turned into an ice bath. But he swiftly averts them again, as his fingers caress his own lips, like he’s savoring the taste of something he ate.
“She said she was falling for you, didn’t she?”
A blush creeps onto my cheeks. “I don’t know if—”
His eyes suddenly find mine in a split second. “Are you in love with her?”
I gape at him, as I don’t even know how to respond to that.
“Thought so,” he says, fishing a key from his pocket.
The same key I placed on her kitchen counter before I left her apartment.
And he casually throws it up and down in the palm of his hand as he waltzes off, slamming my door shut behind him.
Well fuck.
CHAPTER 24
Ivy
I wake to a salty taste in my mouth.
Frowning, I lean up and blink a couple of times.
Why am I on my couch? Did I fall asleep here after Max left?
I yawn and still taste the salt, so I rub my face … only to find something sticky.
What the…
I bring my fingers to my nose and smell.
Wow.
That’s definitely cum. No mistaking it.
Did Max come back into my house?
I stand and look around. The key is missing from my kitchen counter, even though I’m sure he placed it there before he left. I shiver.
Maybe he came back to steal it again and then got overwhelmed with more desire?
I check out the rest of my body. There are splotches of cum left everywhere on my skin.
Damn, I didn’t know he could come three times in a row. And while I was asleep too.
I pull out my phone and message him.
Me: Did you come back into my house and come again?
It takes him a while to respond, and he keeps deleting messages over and over.
Max: No…
That sounds like a lie to cover up the fact that he was hungry for more. I grin at the thought.
Me: No need to lie. I know the key is missing.
He keeps typing and deleting his sentences, backing up on whatever he was about to say.
Then he stops replying entirely.
Guess he’s too embarrassed to admit it.
I shrug it off and swiftly jump under the shower to clean up before I wake Cora to get dressed too. I give her breakfast and prepare her bag, then drop her off at Mrs. Schwartz, and bike back to Spine Ridge University. Every day, my muscles are getting leaner and leaner just from all this damn biking I’m doing, but I’m not going to give up just because it hurts a little.
Going to this college was a dream come true. A dream they’d have to tear from my cold, dead hands if anyone ever wanted me to quit.