5
BRISTOL
I’VE READ THE same line several times. My laptop could be upside down and I probably wouldn’t notice. I’m sitting here on the couch with my computer propped on my knees, not making any headway on the essay for my internship application. I could blame fatigue considering I haven’t really stopped since I left New York this morn- ing. And my body clock may still be on East Coast. And I am getting hungry again. I could use those excuses for my lack of focus, but there’s only one real reason if I’m honest.
Grip.
He’s an unexpected fascination, a tantalizing riddle I keep turning over in my head. I keep hoping he’ll make sense eventually, but then I’m somehow glad he doesn’t add up or behave the way I think he should.
If he were in the same room, I’d still be surreptitiously gawking, stealing glances at one of the most beautiful men I’ve ever seen, but he’s in Grady’s music room working on his own stuff. He went there almost immediately after we arrived, and I haven’t heard a peep from him since. I guess he is as obsessed with music as my brother. Yet another reason not to venture too deeply into the attraction I feel for him.
“Not that he’s here,” I mumble. “He isn’t much company.”
I’m the one who said he doesn’t have to keep me company, and now I’m complaining because he isn’t. Maybe I imagined the charged moment at his apartment in the doorway. He touched my cheek. It was barely a brush of his fingers over my face, but it ignited . . .something. Emotion? Desire? I’m not sure, but I haven’t felt it before. Based on what I’ve seen of the player and his “chocolate charm,” I shouldn’t be feeling anything at all if I know what’s good for me.
I learned early on that people aren’t careful with your emotions. They’re too self-involved to consider how their actions affect others. I saw it when my parents forced Rhyson to tour, even though it was ripping our family apart. I’ve seen it in Rhyson’s own disregard for our relationship and how easy it was for him to walk away, forgetting he had a twin sister on the other side of the country. I’ve seen it in my parents’ sham of a marriage. They’re partners, but I’m not sure they genuinely care for one another at all. Certainly there isn’t any love. I protect my heart because no one else will.
Sometimes I wish I didn’t have a heart at all because, despite knowing what I know, I keep putting it out there to my family. Here I am, visiting Rhyson and willing to move after graduation if he’ll have me. I used to be afraid I’d be like my parents, careless. Now, I fear that I care too much about people who don’t give a damn.
“Machiavelli?” Grip’s voice, as deep and rich as espresso, caresses the nape of my neck from behind, making me jump. “Interesting choice.”
I look from the sharply hewn lines of his face to the flashing cursor behind Machiavelli’s name on my screen.
“Sorry.” He walks around to sit beside me on the couch. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
I set my laptop on the coffee table and scoot a few inches away, tucking myself into the corner of the couch. I wasn’t doing a good job focusing when he was in the other room. With the breadth of his shoulders, the stretch of his muscular legs, and the towering energy he brought with him, I give up. I’ll work on it tomorrow. A thrill passes through me at the prospect of another conversation with him. I’m not one of those giddy girls who gets all breathless when a guy comes around. And yet, with those caramel-colored eyes resting on my face, I’m short of breath.
“Isn’t this spring break?” Grip crooks a grin at me and leans into the opposite corner of the couch. “Seems like even Ivy League should get some time off.”
“Oh, I’m taking some time off for sure.” I tuck my legs under me.
Since I exchanged my jeans for some old cut-offs, I have to pretend not to notice him looking a little too long at my bare legs. The last thing I need is to get the idea that he likes me.
“So, you write essays about Machiavelli to relax?”
“Not exactly.” I laugh and scoop my hair up into a topknot. “I’m applying for an internship. The application is due next week, and I need to finish the essay.”
“What’s the essay on?”
“I have to write about an icon of power from history.”
“And you chose Machiavelli?” He chuckles, considering me from beneath the long curl of his lashes. “Remind me not to get on your bad side.”
“You know much about him?”
He pulls his T-shirt up from the hem, and my heart pops an artery or something because it shouldn’t be working this hard while at rest. I swallow hard at the layer of muscle wrapped around his ribs. One pectoral muscle peeks from under the shirt, tipped with the dark disc of his nipple. My mouth literally waters, and I can’t think beyond pulling it between my lips and suckling him. Hard.
“Do you see it?” he asks.
“Huh?” I reluctantly drag my eyes from the ladder of velvet- covered muscle and sinew to the expectant look on his face. “See what?”
“The tattoo.” He runs a finger over the ink scrawled across his ribs.
Makavelli.
“I hate to break it to you,” I say with a smirk. “But someone stuck you with a permanent typo.”
He laughs, dropping the shirt, which is really a shame because I was just learning to breathe with all that masculine beauty on display.