Page 44 of The Perfect Wrong

“You—” A sharp gasp chokes me off as I process his words.

Holy crap.

Apparently, he’s completely shameless.

But maybe I deserved that after the 'mommy issues' comment.

His green eyes blaze with something like pride as he stares me down. I glance away before my lady bits can spontaneously combust, if my brain doesn’t first.

“...you’d be better off if you forgot about it. Everything, Chris,” I say weakly. “I can’t help you with that and you know it. Are you just staying for the night or heading home after you sober up?” I can smell the strong alcohol on his breath.

I wish I could believe he’s just drunk.

That would make the filthy words and hungry eyes easier to explain.

Only, he seems too lucid, regardless of how much he’s been drinking.

There’s a sharpness in his gaze that says this is him, as real and unfiltered as it gets.

At least the liquor smell helps bury the masculine, cologne-tinged scent I dreamed about. The smell I wanted to inhale from his bare skin so flipping bad.

“You’re shit at playing coy, Delia. You still want me,” he says, ignoring my question. His chest bows out as he slides closer, pushing his arm against my mattress until his bicep bulges. “Hell yeah, you do. I’d know that spark in your eyes anywhere. You really didn’t know last night, did you?”

What?

“Um, I don’t know what you’re talking about.Of courseI didn’t know! What, do you think I’m some kind of crazy who’d be thrilled at sleeping with her own stepbrother?”

“Are you?” His deep, growling chuckle vibrates through my bones.

His hand finds the small of my back and skims up my spine before diving down again, smoothing a few wrinkles in my dress.

I inhale harshly, thinking back to what he shouted as he stomped away from the table.

Is that what this is? Feeling me out to see if his mother put me up to messing with his head?

Jesus.

Evie is about ten fries short of a chicken basket, but she can’t be that maliciously crazy...right?

But the only crazy I’m feeling is mine when his fingers brush my hip.

I gasp.

“Goddamn, princess. You’re really clueless what you’ve got in the trunk, huh?” His eyes glow like stars.

“Excuse you?” I stammer.

“This is an ass a man could jerk off to through a whole combat tour. This assalonewould make any dude in the field fight twice as hard to come back in one piece.”

Spinning.

The whole world blurs around me as I try to wrap my head around this conversation.

Nobody ever complimented my butt, and certainly not like this.

Why, oh why, does the only man doing it have to be Mr. Tall, Rude, and Impossible?

My heart stops several times, stuck on memories of a high I wish I didn’t have.