Page 7 of Slick & Spooky

Not because I asked for it.

God, I’d kill not to want it, but he wouldn’t believe me if I said that. So I lift my chin. Square my shoulders. Make sure every inch of me screams unbothered, even while my heart tries to break out of my ribs.

Don’t be weak. They think you’re fragile. Don’t let them break you.

“I’m a skeleton,” I say, voice flat with fake confidence. “Didn’t think we all had to be basic about it.”

“Yeah,” Tripp sneers. “Keep acting like the rules don’t apply, Finley. You think the rest of us wouldn’t get reamed for showing up half-naked?”

I’m ready with a comeback, but it dies in my throat. My skin prickles, sweat beads at the nape of my neck.

He’s here.

I don’t have to look. The room tilts toward him, gravity pulling harder on one side.

Tripp feels it too. He leans in, breath sharp. “You don’t get to ride in here on your last name and skip the hard part.”

He storms off before I can answer.

So I stand there. Pretending the words don’t sting, even as every muscle in my body strains toward the crowd, toward the eyes I can feel pinning me in place.

This must be what prey feels in the seconds before the kill. That buzzing panic when you know you’ve stepped too far into the open. That useless hope that if you stay still, you might survive.

Only I know better. I’ve already been caught.

When I finally turn, our eyes collide.

Knox stands by the keg, solo cup clenched so tight the plastic looks ready to crack. His jaw ticks, tension rolling off him in waves. He looks like he’s holding something in. Something violent or vulnerable or both.

The man is so fucking hot.

Dark hair, darker eyes, skin like bronze cast in shadow, catching every flicker of the strobe lights. A beard framing his jaw straddling that line between clean-cut and rugged. Every word he speaks must claw past that neat wall of scruff, which only makes them land harder.

He’s symmetrical in a way that feels unnatural, like he was engineered to be feared. Brows low, gaze steady, every feature in perfect place. The kind of man who doesn’t have to smirk to ruin you, but when he does, you’re finished.

Don’t even get me started on the tattoos. Sweet hell. The man is a mural.

Full sleeves crawling from wrists to shoulders, roses and skulls tangled with dates and lines I’ll never forget. I’ve traced them with my tongue. Tasted every curve and line while he hovered over me, slamming into me like he was trying to fuck me off the face of the earth.

That strong, silent thing he carries is what makes the brotherhood follow him. He doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t need to. His presence commands the room before he even steps inside.

No one else does it like him.

That’s why no one questions it. Because Knox Everett isn’t polos and boat shoes and pastel shorts.

He’s fury. He’s control. He’s pure fucking sex. And we all know it.

His costume leaves nothing to the imagination. Khakis, a belt, and nothing else but fake blood smeared down his chest like war paint. A ski mask pushed back off his head, sitting like a crown. Shirtless, dripping in theatrical gore, and somehow still cleaner than me.

The man is carved from punishment. Brutal two-a-days and a body that doesn’t bend, only breaks. Everything else thrashes and surges, but he stays still, the calm eye of the storm that could tear the house apart if it shifted.

His eyes are bottomless. I lose myself trying to chase the depth, forget my own name in the looking.

Eyes that pinned me while he leaned back against my headboard, while my knees dug into the mattress and I rode him with reckless abandon. Lifting, slamming, gasping as every thrust angled him harder against my prostate, shoving me closer to breaking while he sat there, unmovable, grinding me down into something unrecognizable

His gaze slides down my chest glowing under the paint, lingers at the waistband where my jock strap peeks above shorts, and drags slowly back up. He takes his time like he owns me. When his stare lands heavy on mine, I feel branded.

Only issue is that he looks bored. Like being half-naked at a Halloween party surrounded by horny undergrads is any another Thursday.