Page 34 of Ghosted

Her eyes narrow. “Then what is it?”

My smile goes slow.

“Territorial.”

The word lands quiet and mean between us.

Alice’s throat moves and my eyes track it.

Her voice comes out steady, but her body already gave her away. “That implies ownership.”

“It does.”

“You don’t own me.”

“Not yet.”

Her breath catches. If I wasn’t watching so closely, I would’ve missed it, but I am.

I’m watching everything.

“That’s a dangerous thing to say to a girl who barely knows you,” she says.

“No.” My voice drops. “Dangerous is letting me notice you liked hearing it.”

Her chin lifts a little higher, stubborn as fuck, but she still doesn’t step back.

She should. She knows she should. I can see the thought move across her face, quick and quiet, buried under all that attitude she wears like armor.

Still, she stays.

Rain ticks against the roof above us. Her coffee steams between her hands. The campus moves around us in blurred shapes and wet footsteps, but none of it gets close enough to matter.

“He’s a friend,” she says finally.

I smile before I can stop it.

Alice’s eyes narrow. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Jagger.”Fuck.

My name in her mouth is a problem. A real one. Especially when she says it like that, half warning, half challenge, like she already knows I’m about to say something that should make her leave.

I tilt my head, letting my eyes move over her slow enough that she knows I’m not trying to hide it. “Just wondering if he knows that.”

Her brows pull together. “Knows what?”

“That he’s a friend.”

“Milo?”

My jaw tightens.

“Don’t.”

Her mouth curves. “Don’t what?”