Page 19 of Before You Fell

I open my mouth to answer Marcus, but his gaze shifts over my shoulder. His expression changes before I can get a word out.

It is not much. Just a flicker. A small tightening around his eyes. The expression a man gets when trouble steps into the room and everyone pretends not to notice because trouble is famous, gorgeous, and used to getting away with shit.

Then Phoenix is beside me. He slides one arm around my shoulders as if I am something he left unattended for too long and has now decided to collect. His body presses in close enough for the heat of him to soak through the air between us.

The smell of him hits me hard. Whiskey. Weed. Someone else’s perfume clinging to his skin like a cheap souvenir.

My pulse does something embarrassing, because apparently my body has no pride and even less common sense.

For one stupid second, I feel him everywhere. The weight of his arm. The warmth of his side and that familiar, awful pull of him.

I glance at Marcus and see the careful way his face has gone neutral, the way his gaze drops to Phoenix’s arm on my shoulder, before lifting back to mine.

Something in me hardens.

I reach up, take Phoenix’s wrist, and lift his arm off my shoulders.

“Don’t,” I say.

Phoenix’s jaw tightens and his eyes turn dark in a way that has nothing to do with hurt and everything to do with being challenged in front of another man.

He doesn’t direct his sight towards me. Instead he looks at Marcus.

“She’s busy.”

That is all he says. Two words dropped between them as if they were enough to make it true. Possessive as hell.

As if busy means his.

As if one arm around my shoulders can wipe away the lipstick on his neck and the stranger’s perfume still clinging to his shirt.

The hypocrisy is so sharp I could cut myself.

Phoenix can sit across this room with a woman in his lap and let her hand stroke his cock while everyone pretends not to watch. He can let her kiss his throat, touch his body, laugh into his skin as if she has been invited somewhere sacred.

But the second another man gives me attention, Phoenix turns up as if a line has been crossed. As if I were his to lose.

The absolute, stunning, world-class nerve of this man.

I observe him.

He looks at me.

“She’s really not busy,” I say, before turning back to Marcus.

Chapter Four

Phoenix

Marcus is not getting Willow alone.

That’s it. I’m not dressing it up as concern because I’m a lot of things, but not stupid enough to lie to myself.

I know men.

I am one, which means I know exactly what Marcus and his soft little “you okay?” actually wants.

I am familiar with the play.