Heartbreak Lover (Broken Hearts Academy #2) - C.R. Jane Page 0,8

the rest.

Until it wasn’t.

I was in the hallway in front of English literature. Landry had just leaned down to kiss me…when I felt it. An energy so blatant and intense…it was paralyzing.

I froze under Landry’s touch, and he pulled back, looking at me questioningly to see what had happened.

But I couldn’t drag my attention away from who’d just walked into the building.

It was Jackson.

His eyes were penetrating, narrowed slightly and slowly raking over me, pausing here and there in their perusal…especially where Landry was still touching me.

It had just been a few months, but I’d already been forgetting how beautiful he was. His hair was longer than it had been that night. But it looked even better this length. That gold hair of his fell into his Caribbean blue eyes. My gaze danced from his sculpted cheekbones, to his heart-shaped pout, to the light stubble which accentuated his chiseled face. He was the epitome of primal, raw masculinity.

His expression was fierce…his energy impossible to ignore. Magnetic. Pulling me in.

Landry let out a soft huff of exasperation when he saw Jackson, pulling me closer to him in an act of possession that I wish he’d known was hopeless.

Jackson’s body combined with his sculpted face was overkill as it was. But add that to the fact that I knew how that body felt moving inside of me, the fact that just hearing his voice set me on fire, the fact that his soul, although as black as night, called to me the way no one else’s ever had?

Landry never had a chance, because my heart couldn’t seem to forget that someone else owned it.

Finally, Jackson pulled his gaze from me, leaving me empty inside. I would swear there was a halo of light behind him, accentuating every delectable feature as he walked down the hall. He…laughed at something his football teammate said.

And then he walked right by me, pausing in his stride only once to level me with his focus once more.

His gaze was predatory, and something low inside of me tightened in response. Goosebumps ran along my flesh as he made sure to make contact with me as he passed by. The heat from his body caressed mine.

My heart was beating so wildly, I was afraid that I was going to faint right there. I tried to control my breathing, especially because Landry was still holding me, aware that my heaving chest might be a little too obvious.

I felt exposed, vulnerable…out of control.

What the fuck was wrong with me?

The whole scene only lasted a couple of seconds.

But it was enough to ruin me.

Just like all the other times before.

I wanted to rip my heart out and get a transplant.

Jackson disappeared around the corner, but not before turning his head and giving me a wink that rattled me to my core.

The trouble with time was that it had the unfortunate effect of dulling the edges of the truth you once thought you knew.

I was finally able to turn my attention back to Landry, but the damage had been done. Landry looked furious, his fingers were digging into my waist…and for a second, I was frightened.

A flip seemed to switch in him, the anger fading away until all that was visible was the friendly, devoted, congenial Landry that I’d grown to know so well these past few months.

The rapid change made me churn with unease. “Everything okay, sweetheart?” he asked, and there was no trace in his tone of the venom I’d seen in his face.

“Fine,” I responded halfheartedly before trying to step back. His hands tightened even more, and then he released me.

“See you after class, Ev.” He strode away without a backwards glance, leaving me even more off kilter with his seemingly blasé reaction to what had happened.

Was my desire for Jackson not written across my face in the way that I thought it was?

I didn’t understand.

I couldn’t concentrate in class. Jackson’s reappearance had shaken me, scared the crap out of me in fact. Was I destined to repeat my same mistakes over and over again, until I was finally burned enough that I was nothing but a pile of ashes?

It seemed that way.

And then there was Landry…that look in his eyes. I’d always had trouble recognizing when the darkness in someone was such that my only choice should be to run.

But that look. It was yelling at me to do just that.

I finally asked to use the restroom and practically ran out of the room, barreling straight into a hard