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“Anyway, email me if you need notes or anything,” I reply, slinging my bag over my shoulder.

“Shae—”

“See you later,” I rush out, practically running from the living room. Storm’s low curse has me moving faster, making a beeline for his front door.

His heat hits me before I register his broad palm on my upper arm. In a second, he has me pressed against the wall beside the exit, his scent and the blaze of emotion in his eyes setting me on fire.

I pant when he presses so close to me that my tortured nipples rasp against my shirt.

“Why are you running, Shae?” His lips are a hairsbreadth from mine, and I stare at his luscious mouth as he murmurs the words.

“I-I’m not running from anything, Storm,” I say, calling on all my strength to defy him. Because I’ll be damned if I let this man make a fool of me.

“Yes, you are, Sweetness,” he replies, and I shiver, my pussy clenching, when he runs his hand up my arm and tangles his fingers in my curls. “You’re running from me and I just…I need you to stop running.”

My hands go to his chest, wanting to push him away, but my brain and fingers are disconnected because all I do is pull his shirt into my fists.

I get angry—livid at him. At myself.

“Storm Sandoval, you play way too many damn games. You think you’re slick but I’m not fucking dumb.” My bottom lip trembles, and I go from livid to infuriated, nearly incandescent with rage.

I finally get my hands online and push him away, but I might as well be pushing against a wall.

“Let me go, asshole,” I snap, and his face goes even more grim.

“No,” he says, his body and tone calm.

“Storm, I?—”

“If you really want me to let you go,” he says, his nose running up the side of my neck, his cologne fuzzing my brain even more. “Then I’ll let you go. But I really wish you wouldn’t. And we’re going to talk about why your immediate instinct is to run from me.”

I almost laugh out loud. “It’s because this isstupid.You’re not trustworthy, and it makes no sense for me to entangle myself with you when there are a million other things I should be doing instead.”

Those words. They hit like a shockwave, and his face morphs into a hard, serious expression.

And even though he looks terrifying, I’m not scared of him.

But there’s a twisted part of me that feels transcendent when I push his buttons. It’s immature as hell, but I come alive when Storm Sandoval has all his attention fixed on me.

Girl, please get some damn therapy.

Storm growls—oh, fuck!—and then we move. He shifts to slide between my thighs and wraps my legs around his waist, completely pinning me to the wall.

“Storm,” I start, but his lips are on mine. All my thoughts scramble like Gordon Ramsey preparing an omelet.

After several dizzying seconds, he pulls away and says, “New rule between us. Let’s never lie to each other. No matter how bad it sounds or how much we think it might hurt the other person. Let’s never lie to each other. Okay?”

The look on his face seems so serious, so…pleading, I find it impossible to draw my gaze away from his.

Still, I focus on his words.

“You first, Sandoval,” I whisper. He presses his forehead to mine, and I can almost feel the wheels turning in his brain.

“In complete honesty,” he says, his lips grazing my ear, “Bambi is just a friend. But I won’t lie to you. We have had sex before. It was years ago when we were seniors in high school, but I amtelling you the truthwhen I say it was only that one time, and we agreed never to cross that boundary again. We’re like siblings, and there’s nothing romantic going on there.”

With each word, anger circles my body.

“Maybe there’s nothing romantic happeningfor you,but she hasn’t gotten that memo. She doesn’t see you as a sibling, Storm.”