Page 71

It’s mostly because of me.
Because of the effect we always have on each other.
There’s fire in this woman, and I’m the person that draws it out of her.
“Why are you here, Ezra? You made it clear at the party that you and I are done.”
If she thinks I could stay away now that I’ve been near her again, then she must not remember who I am.
“This isn’t about us,” I say with a crooked grin. “It’s about trying to find out why Damon was arrested again.”
Her expression falls at what I said, and all I see is guilt.
“Damn it,” she mutters.
Emily
Not again, I think as I step back to let Ezra into my room, this entire situation feeling like a broken record, a repeat of yesterday, except it’s the cold twin this time instead of the hot one.
“Is he okay?”
Ezra doesn’t answer immediately. Instead he closes the door with far too much care, his movements controlled to such an extent that I know he’s holding himself back from something.
Once again, my room feels tiny with him in it. But I notice a new difference about the twins I’d never picked up on before.
Their energy isn’t just in temperature or color or attitude. It’s also in the way they invade your space.
While Damon is chaos, wild and free, Ezra is strict control, a vacuum that freezes you in place and steals your ability to breathe.
Ezra absorbs the space around him, drawing everything into him like a black hole absorbs light, while Damon has a radiant energy that expands with a frenetic pulse, constantly spinning, spinning and spinning until you can’t help but feel dizzy from it.
He finally turns to look at me, casually leaning against the door before crossing his arms over his chest.
I can’t help but admire how wide his shoulders have become. How well he’s filled out in his chest and arms. How his body tapers down into a thin waist before widening again with muscular thighs.
Dressed in jeans and a plain black t-shirt, he somehow still looks perfectly put together, even with the light dust that covers his arms and the beaten, scuffed toes of his black boots.
New scars nick his tan skin. Small and white, they don’t detract from his beauty. Instead, they only add to it.
Ezra isn’t beautiful in a conventional sense, but more in that of a warrior. There’s nothing soft or tame about him, his power worn as a shroud, his scars and lethal, focused gaze a warning.
His grin is mocking when he catches me studying him, but I just roll my eyes.
Of course I’m looking.
There isn’t a woman out there who wouldn’t.
Still, he can’t hide the male satisfaction, the knowledge that just his presence calls to me, a carnal lure pulling me in.
I’m suddenly feeling hella self-conscious in a cami and pajama shorts. Although, maybe I shouldn’t, not with the way his amber gaze runs a slow path of appreciation down my body and up again.
“I wasn’t expecting company,” I admit quickly, not even bothering to attempt covering myself.
It only stretches that grin of his wider.
“I’m not complaining.”
Okay. This conversation needs to veer far away from the way we’re practically eye fucking each other to something reasonably safe.