Page 36 of Hymns of the Broken

“Trouble.”

No answer.

“Little Sin.”

Still nothing, but I catch the faint twitch in her hand, the slight hitch in her breath.

I drop into the seat across from her, all confidence and deliberate calm. I’m still shirtless, skin damp from the heat of the day.

“You jealous?”

Her gaze stays fixed on the screen. “I’m busy,” she says, flat and clipped.

“That wasn’t a no.”

I lean forward, forearms braced on my knees, eyes locked on her like I’m peeling away every defense she’s trying to throw up. Her lips part like she’s about to snap something sharp at me, but I cut in first.

“You really think I give a damn what girls like that want?”

She finally looks at me—blue eyes sharp and cold enough to bite.

“No,” she says. “I think you like that they want it.”

That one hits. She’s not wrong. I do like the power. The control. But it’s not the same. Not with her.

“They’re noise,” I tell her, voice dropping to a slow burn. “You’re a song.”

Her brow arches, the brief glint of her piercing catching the light. “Wow, is that line number five, or are you out of rehearsed ones?”

I can’t help the smirk that cuts across my face.

“I don’t rehearse with you,” I say, rising to my feet. “I react.”

I step around her chair, slow enough for my shadow to fall over her. My hand brushes the top of the chair as I lean in from behind, close enough for her hair to touch against my bare chest.

“But go ahead,” I murmur. “Be mad. But the next time you walk away like that…” I dip my head closer, my breath skimming the curve of her ear. “…I’ll bend you over my knee and spank that pretty ass raw.”

She immediately freezes. “Like hell you—”

I lean in faster than she can finish telling me off.

“The only girl I give a fuck about screaming my name—” I pause, savoring the way her breath hitches. “—is you.”

She doesn’t move. Doesn’t even breathe. But I see the way her spine straightens and her thighs press together as if she’s trying to trap the heat I’ve just lit under her skin.

Goodfucking luck with that.

A slow, crooked smirk pulls at my mouth as I straighten, rising to my full height, watching the way her knuckles grip the edge of the table like it might save her.

“Yeah,” I murmur, stepping back one deliberate pace, letting the air cool between us but never releasing the tension. “That’s what I thought.”

I turn casual, like I’m done with her. One step. Two.

Then I hear it—

Her exhale. A sound that tells me she’s losing the war she’s pretending to fight.

My blood thrums.