Whispered Temptations

Chapter Nine

「 ✦ Halsey's POV ✦ 」

Not yet.

The words lodged beneath my ribs and stayed there.

Because they should have sounded slick.

They should have sounded like the kind of line men used when they were too handsome to need substance.

Instead, from Hero, they sounded inevitable.

I hated that.

Possibly I loved it a little.

That was more alarming.

Halo lifted one brow. "Not yet."

Hero's gaze never left mine. "No."

Hazel clasped her hands beneath her chin like a woman watching her favorite show reach peak dramatic tension.

Niko looked delighted in the deeply private way of a man who would never admit to enjoying a scene this much.

I took a very necessary sip of water.

It did absolutely nothing.

Hero stood there in all that dark, impossible beauty, looking at me like he had not crossed a room but a border, and everything in me felt too close to the surface.

I needed the ground back under my feet.

So I did the only thing I could think of.

I asked a normal question.

Or tried to.

"Do you..." My voice betrayed me and came out thinner than I'd intended. I cleared my throat. "Do you want a drink?"

Hazel choked.

Halo closed her eyes briefly as if consulting a higher power.

Hero's mouth changed.

Not quite a smile. Something warmer. Almost startled.

"As an attempt to be polite," he said, "or as an attempt to get rid of me?"

I met his gaze head-on, because if I looked away now I'd never recover.

"I haven't decided."

That did it.

He smiled.

Fully this time.

It hit me with physical force.

God.

No one should be allowed to look like that and know it.

Or maybe he didn't know it. Maybe that was what made it so much worse.

"I'll take my chances," he said.

Hazel made another muffled noise into her water bottle.

Halo pointed at her without looking away from either of us. "If you combust, do it somewhere easy to clean."

Hazel grinned.

Niko stood from the couch then, stretching to his full ridiculous height and setting his cup aside.

"I'll get more drinks before this becomes an endurance sport."

"I'll help," Halo said immediately.

She absolutely did not need help.

She did, however, want to leave me alone with Hero just enough to observe the fallout from a distance while pretending otherwise.

I loved her.

I hated her.

Before I could protest, she'd already hooked her arm through Niko's and started backing toward the kitchen.

Hazel did not move.

Of course she didn't.

She looked from me to Hero, then lifted her brows expectantly.

I stared at her.

She stared back.

"Go away," I mouthed.

She widened her eyes in mock innocence.

"I wasn't planning to stay," she said, which was a lie so obvious even Hero looked amused.

Then she leaned close enough for only me to hear and whispered, "If you need rescue, scratch your ear twice."

I almost laughed.

Instead I muttered, "You're deranged."

"Completely."

She pressed a quick kiss to my cheek and sashayed off toward a group of girls near the fireplace, somehow managing to glance over one shoulder at least twice before committing to leaving.

And just like that, I was alone with him.

Not fully alone. The room was still full of bodies and noise and music and movement. People pushed past on their way to the kitchen. Someone shouted triumphantly at the beer pong table. A girl laughed too loudly three feet away.

But the space around us felt separate.

Held.

A pocket carved out of the rest of the night.

Hero waited until Hazel was safely out of earshot before he said, "Scratch your ear twice?"

I closed my eyes.

"Please pretend you didn't hear that."

"No."

My eyes opened.

He was smiling again - softer now, less devastating and somehow more so because it looked real.

"I like your sister," he said.

"That makes one of you."

His brows rose.

I sighed. "No, I love her. She's just impossible."

"Mm." He glanced toward Hazel, who was now holding court near the mantle with alarming ease. "She'd kill someone for you."

There was no humor in the observation.

Just fact.

My throat tightened.

"Yes," I said quietly. "She would."

His attention returned to me. Something in his expression shifted then - deepened.

"Would you let her?"

The question caught me off guard.

"I..."

I looked down at the bottle in my hands, tracing the condensation with my thumb.

"I don't know," I admitted. "Usually I'm the one trying to stop people from making scenes."

Hero's gaze sharpened with interest.

"Even when they deserve it?"

"Especially then."

He leaned one shoulder against the nearest wall, giving me more space and somehow also becoming harder to ignore.

"Why?"

I let out a soft, disbelieving laugh.

"You ask why a lot."

"I like your answers."

That shouldn't have made my stomach turn over the way it did.

I focused stubbornly on the safer part of the conversation.

"People don't forget scenes," I said. "Even when you're justified."

Something flickered through his face. He hid it well, but not well enough.

Recognition.

A thread pulled taut between us.

No, I thought suddenly. Not pulled. Noticed.

He heard the shape of what I wasn't saying.

He chose not to force it open.

That made me trust him a little more than I should have.

So I gave him a little more too.

"Sometimes it's easier," I said slowly, "to leave before people get what they came for."

Hero was silent a moment.

Around us, the music shifted again. People cheered as the next song came on. Somewhere in the kitchen, a bottle cap popped and hit tile.

He looked at me with infuriating steadiness.

"And what did they come for?" he asked.

I could have pretended not to understand.

Instead I met his gaze and said, "A reaction."

His jaw tightened.

Just once.

It was the smallest visible sign, but I noticed.

His voice dropped lower when he spoke again.

"Who taught you that?"

The question struck too close.

I looked away at once, staring at nothing over his shoulder.

"I don't really want to talk about this."

"Okay."

No pressure. No argument.

Just okay.

The simple acceptance of that boundary hit me so unexpectedly I had to look back at him.

He wasn't offended.

He wasn't trying to charm his way around it.

He was just... there.

Waiting.

Available if I wanted.

Steady if I didn't.

A very strange ache opened in the center of me.

Because I hadn't known how hungry I was for that until it was standing three feet away in a black shirt and looking at me like I was the only clear thing in the room.

Hero pushed off the wall.

"You offered me a drink."

I blinked at the abrupt pivot. "I did."

"Were you serious?"

"I haven't decided."

"Lie."

I huffed out a laugh. "Maybe a little."

He stepped closer - just enough that the air changed but not enough to corner me.

"Then decide."

My pulse kicked.

It was absurd how much danger he could fit into two simple words.

"Fine," I said, because retreat felt impossible and because some reckless part of me wanted to see what happened if I stopped flinching from him every time the current between us sparked. "Come with me."

His gaze dropped briefly to my mouth, then back up.

"Lead the way."

The walk to the kitchen should not have felt as charged as it did.

And yet every inch of me remained aware of him behind me.

Not touching. Not crowding. Just there - tall and silent and intense enough to distort gravity.

People looked when we passed.

I felt it, though I pretended not to.

A couple of girls near the hallway visibly tracked Hero with open hunger until they noticed who he was following. Their expressions shifted into something I didn't want to examine too closely.

I kept walking.

The kitchen was louder now, brighter too, all hard overhead light and bodies leaning against counters with drinks in hand. Halo stood near the island with Niko, both of them deep in conversation with Carter and Dawson. Ashton was at the sink charming a brunette in a sequined top who clearly knew better and didn't care.

Halo looked up the instant I entered.

Her gaze slid from me to Hero and back.

One dark brow arched.

I gave her a look that plainly said don't.

Her mouth twitched.

Traitor.

Niko saw us next. His attention sharpened, then eased slightly when he took in the measured distance Hero kept between us.

That too, absurdly, I appreciated.

Hero moved around me toward the counter where bottles and mixers had accumulated in glorious, unsupervised abundance.

"What do you drink?" he asked.

The truth was embarrassing.

"Water."

He glanced over his shoulder.

My cheeks heated. "I don't really... do this."

"This" hung between us, vague and obvious at once.

Drink. Party. Let beautiful strangers stand close enough to undo your thoughts.

Hero turned fully toward me. "You don't drink?"

"Not usually."

"Have you tonight?"

I lifted my water bottle a little.

He nodded once, eyes thoughtful now.

"Good."

Something about that one word - the immediate absence of pressure in it - loosened another knot inside me.

He reached past a row of liquor bottles and grabbed two clean plastic cups, then turned to the fridge and pulled out sparkling water and juice instead.

Hazel appeared at my elbow as if summoned by chaos.

"Oh my God," she whispered loudly. "He's making you a mocktail. I could die."

I elbowed her without looking.

She hissed and grinned.

Hero, to his credit, didn't miss a beat. He splashed cranberry juice, sparkling water, and a squeeze of lime into one cup, then added ice and turned to me.

"Taste."

His fingers brushed mine as he handed it over.

Just a touch.

Accidental, probably.

It still sent a hot electric line all the way up my arm.

I took a sip.

It was cold and tart and unexpectedly good.

"That is actually amazing."

Hazel looked scandalized. "He can make drinks too? That's deeply unfair to the male population."

Hero handed her a second plastic cup filled with plain water.

"For the chaperone."

Hazel gasped. "Rude."

He looked at her. "Necessary."

I laughed into my drink.

Hazel narrowed her eyes at both of us and stalked off in theatrical offense, though not before whispering, "I'm obsessed with this," directly into my ear.

When I looked up again, Hero was watching me over the rim of his own cup.

Not drinking.

Watching.

"What?" I asked softly.

His gaze held mine.

"You laugh more than you think you do."

The observation landed with surprising tenderness.

"I'm sorry?"

His expression didn't shift. "You laugh like you're surprised every time it happens."

My breath caught.

No one had ever said anything like that to me.

Not because it was poetic. It wasn't.

Because it was observant.

Because it meant he had been paying enough attention to notice.

And because, horrifyingly, he was right.

I looked down into my drink, suddenly unable to bear the full weight of his eyes.

"You're very... intense."

A soft clink sounded as he set his cup down on the counter.

"I know."

The honesty of it nearly made me smile.

I looked back up.

"Does that ever bother you?"

"What?"

"Being looked at the way people look at you."

Hero's face went unreadable in that smooth, elegant way some people have when entire worlds disappear behind their eyes.

"Usually no."

"And tonight?"

The question slipped out before I could stop it.

His gaze dropped to my mouth again. Slower this time.

"Tonight," he said quietly, "I wasn't paying attention to anyone else."

Heat flooded me so fast my grip tightened on the cup.

I should have looked away.

I didn't.

Neither did he.

Across the kitchen, Halo was absolutely pretending not to watch.

Niko was failing more honestly.

Carter caught me noticing him and raised his brows as if to say well?

I ignored all of them.

The world had narrowed again.

Not as violently as the first time.

Worse, perhaps, because now I knew the shape of it. Knew how it felt when Hero's focus settled and held.

This was no longer just attraction.

Attraction was simple.

This felt like the beginning of a problem.

A devastating, consuming, probably life-ruining problem.

And somewhere deep down, beneath the caution and the scars and the still-tender places Tyler Henderson and Carly Johannson had left behind, something in me leaned toward it anyway.

Hero glanced toward the hallway, then back to me.

"Come outside again."

Not a question.

Not a command either.

An invitation spoken low enough that it felt like it belonged only to us.

My heart thudded.

I should say no, I thought.

I should stay with my sisters. I should keep this where it belongs - a strange, lovely tension in a house full of witnesses. I should not follow a man like Hero James into the dark twice in one night and expect to come back unchanged.

But I looked at him - at the hard line of his mouth, the patience threaded through his intensity, the care with which he had chosen juice over liquor without making me feel childish for it - and the no dissolved before it ever reached my tongue.

So instead, barely above a whisper, I said, "Okay."

Hero's eyes darkened.

Not with triumph.

With something more dangerous.

Relief.

And as he took the cup gently from my hand and set it beside his own, I had the sudden, terrifying understanding that whatever happened next was not going to be a flirtation I'd laugh about later.

It was going to matter.