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.
“Why was Damon arrested?”
His brow arches, the look so arrogant, I can’t help the flutter in my heart.
This man draws something out of me that isn’t safe. That I can’t control. He teases it out with a crooked finger so easily that I want to hate him for affecting me this way.
“Why do you think?”
“Fighting,” I correctly guess because there is no other answer when it comes to the twins.
“Did he say why? Is he hurt?”
Memories roll through his eyes, most likely of all the times I demanded to inspect their injuries when they came back to school cut and bruised.
“I’m sure the other seven guys look worse,” he grumbles as he runs a hand through his hair.
Seven? I’ve always known Damon was nuts, but… “All on his own?”
Another grumble, his nostrils flaring with a deep exhale.
“Shane was with him.”
Ah, well.
Sadly, that explains a lot.
“And all he told me is he kissed you after coming over here to find out why you left us.”
Running his thumb over his bottom lip, Ezra tips those amber eyes down to me.
“I found that to be insanely interesting. Especially after what happened a long time ago. Maybe Mason is right that you’re up to your old tricks.”
Oh, hell no.
He can fuck right off with that shit.
I wasn’t the one who started this.
My temper flares suddenly, and I can’t help that I’m yelling.
“You can get the hell out of my house if you’re only here to throw that crap in my face. We had a deal a long time ago, if you recall. And what happened just recently was also started by you. Not me. I remember saying it was a really stupid idea.”
I step forward, but really I have no idea why. He’s twice my size, so I’m woefully lacking any hope of intimidating him.
He must realize I’m stuck in place without any way to show him just how pissed off I am because his grin stretches wide again, a dimple indenting his cheek.
“Easy there, killer. I didn’t come here to fight.” He glances down at my hands and chuckles. “You can put your little fists away.”
I look down at my hands and relax my fingers. They’d been balled so hard that my nails had carved half-moon dents into my skin.
It’s not my fault, though.
He does this to me.
People think his violence is only the fights he gets in, the physical savagery that leaves everybody bruised and bleeding. But what most don’t understand is the violence - the sheer destruction - he can pull out of everybody around him. The internal battles he causes that shred