جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 397

The music begins, loud and heavy, filling every corner of the room, and the girls start dancing. I do too. I may not be a professional, but Lorraine taught me this at a sleepover once. She’s also a freelance choreographer—if I forgot to mention that before.The beat drops, low and heavy, vibrating through the floor and up my legs, and for a second, I let it take over.No thinking. No second-guessing.Just movement.I roll my shoulders, let my hips follow, my body slipping into the rhythm like it’s second nature. The girls behind me fall into sync, their movements sharp and confident, their laughter soft and practiced.And me?I’m smiling.Not because I’m enjoying this. Not really.But because every pair of eyes in this room is exactly where I want them to be.On me.Especially Luca’s.He would have never guessed that I could move like this—that I could do anything e

He absolutely did.And the absolute best part? He said it with the calm, serene confidence of a preschool teacher explaining to a toddler why we don’t eat the crayons.Luca looks seconds away from exploding. His chest rises and falls with sharp breaths, and his gaze darts around the room as he realizes his own friends are enjoying every second of this humiliation. His wrist is still trapped in Sweet Poison’s grip, and judging by the strain on Luca’s face, the hold is a lot stronger than Sweet Poison’s relaxed posture suggests.“I am not saying please to you,” Luca spits out, though it loses a bit of its bite when his voice cracks on the last word.“Suit yourself,” Sweet Poison says smoothly. He gives a casual, effortless shrug, which unfortunately forces his bicep to flex right against my arm. Focus, Arianna. Petty drama first, drooling over the stranger later. “We can stand here all night. I don’t mind. I have excellent stamina.”My traitorous brain immediately latches onto that comm

The ride to my apartment is a complete blur of screeching tires, flashing red lights, and me praying to every deity I can think of that my mother doesn’t have a stopwatch.“We’re here,” Sweet Poison murmurs, smoothly pulling the beautiful beast of a car right up to the curb of my building. He doesn’t even look out of breath. Meanwhile, I look and feel like I just survived a hurricane.“You are a lifesaver,” I say, meaning it like hell, frantically unbuckling the seatbelt. I throw open the door, but before I can slip out, I stop and glance back at him.Under the dim streetlights, his dark eyes are watching me with that same quiet, utterly devastating charm. “I owe you. Big time. Like, name-my-firstborn-child-after-you kind of owe you.”He lets out a soft, low chuckle. “I’ll hold you to that, sweetheart. Now go. Run.”I don’t need to be told twice. I sprint out of the car, burst through the lobby doors, and practically throw myself into the elevator. Come on, come on, come on! The numbe