Heartless Hero (Crowne Point 1)

Theo made me pathetic.

I couldn’t get the thoughts of his calloused hands on my thighs out of my head. I could still feel the way they dug into my skin, so torturously close to where I really wanted them. His wet lips on my ear, biting me just right. I was agonizing over it. I wanted to hate his touch. I wanted to revile him.

He was still torturing me. Still teasing me. Still using his lips to break me.

I wouldn’t let him take my heart, no matter what my traitorous body felt. I would put an iron lock on it and throw away the key. Even if it meant I couldn’t love anyone else.

Love is ephemeral, anyway.

Across the room, I spotted my sister and her fiancé, Horace.

Time for a taste of his own medicine.

Time for him to learn a girl who lost everything is dangerous.

She has nothing left to lose.

“So you’re planning something,” Theo said.

“Am not.”

I hadn’t been thinking of my plan five minutes when Theo spoke. Was I really so obvious? The thing about Gemma’s beaus is they’ve always been so very… distractible. I planned to do what I always did when my heart hurt, when I was burned by Gemma’s spotlight—show how much damage you can do in the dark.

This time it had the added benefit of maybe hurting Theo.

I grabbed the nearest champagne off a server, looking from Horace and my sister to the beach. They were setting up the fireworks.

“You have your bad idea face,” Theo said simply.

“I don’t have a bad idea face. I don’t have bad ideas.”

Theo didn’t say a word, but his expression said everything. He rolled his lips, eyebrows raised, nodding like okay, sure. I folded my arms, glaring.

“You’re doing that thing with your lip,” he said. “You did it the day you brought me home. You did it the night we broke into the school and freed the frogs from the science lab. You did it yesterday before you lunged at me like a sex-starved lunatic.” He leaned closer, breath heating my neck. “You’re doing it now.”

I unlatched my teeth from my bottom lip, not realizing I was biting it.

“You know me so well, Theo Hound,” I said with bitter sarcasm.

“Unfortunately.”

“Oh yeah? Then what’s my favorite color?”

He scoffed. “Trick question, Abs. You love them all.”

I turned from him, the air between us suddenly stifling.

I hated these parties.

When we were kids, Theo and I used to steal a bottle of liquor off the bartender and go up to the balcony overlooking the ballroom, making up backstories that would shock all the pretentious people who showed.

She definitely wears off-the-rack.

He secretly votes Democrat.

We’d laugh, sharing one bottle, getting so drunk Theo would have to carry me to my room on his back. A sharp ache slammed into my gut at the memory, and I took another drink of champagne, trying to drown the hurt.

“Am I going to have to carry you to your room?” He eyed me, then leaned close until his lips grazed my ear again. “She looks like she secretly enjoys la délicatesse Big Mac.”