I clenched my jaw, staring at the ceiling, willing my pulse to calm the hell down. It didn’t. Because Beverly shifted. She stretched, her body pressing into mine as she let out another soft, devastating sigh, her bare leg sliding against my sweatpants like she was trying to kill me.

I kept my gaze locked on the ceiling, willing her to go back to sleep. She didn’t. Of course she didn’t.

Because Beverly Price existed to test me.

And then, to make sure I never knew peace again, she looked up at me. Sleepy. Soft. A little too smug. “Mm.” She hummed, rubbing her cheek against my chest like a cat stretching in the sun. Then, quietly, sleepily, wrecking me beyond repair: “Morning, Blake.”

I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry. “Morning, B.”

She blinked up at me with that same lazy gaze, brows furrowed, her voice thick with sleep. “You’re still here.”

It wasn’t a question.

It was an observation.

Like she had expected me to run.

Like she thought I was still the same guy I was before last night.

I wasn’t.

Brushing my thumb against her cheek, I watched the way her eyes softened. “Yeah. I’m still here.”

She smiled. A slow, devastating thing. It knocked the air clean out of me. I felt my entire soul leave my body. She smiled wider—knowing, victorious. Like she had just won something.

Like she knew I was done.

And I was. Done pretending.

I wanted her. And I wasn’t hiding it anymore.

I let my head drop back against the pillow, pulling her closer. She made a small noise of surprise, her breath hitching as I rolled us over, pinning her beneath me.

Her eyes flickered with something wicked. “Oh,” she breathed, her voice pure trouble. She looked up at me through her lashes. “You’re in a mood.”

I dragged my gaze over her face and watched as a flush crept up her cheeks, the way she tried to act unaffected even as her body gave her away. “We have to go to school,” I said finally.

“Do we?” she pouted, her eyes full of something that wasn’t helping my self-control. “Call in sick.”

I huffed a quiet laugh, brushing my lips against her forehead. “B, I’ve never been sick a day in my life.”

She shrugged. “There’s a first time for everything,” she said, grinning like she already knew I’d give her anything she asked for.

God help me.

If she kept looking at me like that, we weren’t going anywhere.

I sighed, trying to find the last shred of willpower I still had “Beverly.”

“Blake.”

I swallowed, pulling away just enough to look at her. And when I looked at her, really looked at her, all the teasing, all the smugness, all the fire in her eyes dimmed.

And suddenly, my heart was a mess in my chest.