Chapter 191: Don’t You Dare

PRIYA’S POV

The phone vibrated in my hand like a live grenade.

Across the glowing screen, Nora’s name kept pulsing in bold white letters, the FaceTime chime ringing for the second time.

"Who is it?" Adrian asked from behind me.

I turned my head toward him, my chest seizing in pure horror. "It’s Nora," I choked out. "My roommate. Knox Sheridan’s girlfriend."

Adrian propped himself up on one elbow, his eyebrows lifting. "The one in Oakhaven?"

"Yes! The one who thinks I’m rotting in our dorm room eating popcorn!"

Panic surged through my veins like cold electricity.

If I declined the call, Nora would immediately know something was wrong. Nora didn’t double-call unless she was worried.

If I ignored her, she would tell Knox, Knox would call Bear or Jake, and before midnight, someone from the hockey team would be pounding on Room 304’s door looking for a missing person.

"I have to answer," I said, scrambling off the edge of the mattress.

"Priya, you’re wearing lace underwear in a five-star hotel," Adrian pointed out, a dangerous smirk tugging at his mouth. "How are you going to explain that?"

"I’m not showing her the room!"

I grabbed Adrian’s discarded white dress shirt off the armchair, shoved my arms into the sleeves, and quickly buttoned three buttons in the middle. The cotton hung loose around my thighs, covering me down to mid-hip.

I spun around, scanning the suite with wide eyes.

The plush king-sized bed, the dark wood headboard, the soaring ceilings, the gas fireplace... any single pixel of this room on camera would blow my cover in half a second.

"The hallway," I muttered to myself.

I sprinted on bare feet toward the short entrance corridor near the bathroom.

I backed myself flat against the blank off-white wall between the closet and the door. Nothing behind me except flat, neutral paint.

I reached out with one shaking hand and tapped the dimmer switch on the wall, turning the lights down until the corridor was cast in a soft, dim shadow.

I sucked in two ragged breaths, cleared the frantic rasp from my throat, and forced my face into an expression of deadpan exhaustion.

I swiped the green button.

The screen connected.

Nora’s face popped onto my screen, looking bright and cozy in an oversized maroon sweater. She was sitting in a warm kitchen with floral wallpaper, holding a steaming mug of tea between both hands.

"Took you long enough," Nora teased, propping her mug on the table. "I was starting to think you fell into a food coma and lost your phone in the futon cushions."

"I was literally unconscious until you blew my phone up twice, Bennett," I grumbled, locking my voice into a flat, sleepy drone while my heart hammered against my ribs. "I had to dig through three blankets in the dark just to find the damn thing."

Nora leaned in a little closer, squinting at the screen.

"Wait... why is the room pitch black? Did you keep all the blinds shut?" Her eyes narrowed slightly. "And why are your cheeks so flushed? Are you breathing hard?"

"I have a massive migraine, Bennett," I lied smoothly, rubbing my forehead with one hand to make the headache look real. "I’ve been staring at Netflix on my laptop for six straight hours with the lights off. My phone is down to three percent battery, so the screen automatically dimmed itself. My brain feels like scrambled eggs."

Nora’s expression softened instantly into guilt. "Oh, no. Pri, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to wake you."

"It’s fine," I grumbled. "Did you need something?"

"No, I just wanted to check in," Nora said, smiling warmly. "Mom made an unbelievable dinner, and Knox actually wore a daisy apron to peel sweet potatoes. He looked like he was handling active explosives."

A small, genuine smile touched my lips. "Did he survive?"

"Barely. Mom adopted him on the spot."

Just as I felt the knot in my stomach start to loosen, a faint floorboard creak echoed behind me.

My eyes darted down.

Adrian had left the bed.

He was moving silently across the hardwood floor on bare feet, naked to the waist, his dark trousers slung low on his hips. He moved with the quiet, effortless grace of a predator, completely unbothered by the catastrophe currently taking place on my phone.

He didn’t stay back.

He dropped onto his knees right in front of me, settling directly below the bottom edge of my phone’s camera.

My breath hitched violently.

I tried to step back, but my shoulders hit the flat wall.

Adrian looked up at me from the floor, his wire-rimmed glasses left on the nightstand, leaving his sharp eyes completely unshielded and gleaming with wicked amusement.

’Don’t you dare,’ I mouthed down at him.

But Adrian didn’t even blink.

Slowly, deliberately, his warm hands reached out and slid under the hem of his oversized white shirt.

His palms wrapped around the bare skin of my waist, his thumbs pressing into the small hollows above my hips.

The heat of his touch was like live wire against my skin.

A sharp, electric shudder tore down my spine, and my lungs seized.

"Pri? You still there?" Nora asked through the phone speaker.

I forced a dry cough, using it to mask the sharp gasp that had nearly ripped from my throat.

"Yeah," I croaked out, clearing my throat again. "Sorry. Just... stretching. My back is completely wrecked from this godforsaken futon."

"You should really buy a mattress topper," Nora said sympathetically. "Anyway, you won’t believe what happened at the SinBin. Knox and I FaceTimed Jake before calling you, and the boys almost burned down the garage trying to deep-fry a turkey with motor-oil tools!"

Down on the floor, Adrian leaned in closer.

He pressed his open mouth against the soft skin of my lower hip, kissing a burning trail along the lace waistband of my panties.

Then his long fingers slid around to the front of my thigh, his knuckles lightly grazing the sensitive skin of my inner leg.

My knees nearly buckled on the spot.

I bit down on the inside of my lip until I tasted iron, digging my fingernails hard into Adrian’s shoulder off-camera, trying to shove him away.

Adrian didn’t budge.

He gripped my hip tighter, his teeth lightly scraping against my skin, sending a wave of liquid heat straight between my thighs that made my head spin.

’Stop it,’ I screamed silently at him, glaring daggers into the top of his head.

But Adrian just looked up, met my murderous glare with a slow, arrogant wink, while his fingers traced higher along the edge of my lace panties.

"Jake had yellow fire extinguisher powder all over his forehead," Nora was saying, laughing into her mug. "Knox was laughing so hard he almost dropped his phone in Mom’s gravy."

"Sounds... wild," I squeezed out through clenched teeth.

My knuckles were turning white around the edges of my phone.

"Are you sure you’re okay?" Nora asked, her smile fading into mild concern. "Your voice sounds really strained."

Adrian’s thumb brushed the already damp center of my underwear.

A ragged, desperate moan rushed up my throat, and I barely swallowed it back down in time.

I was about five seconds away from losing every shred of my sanity on live video.

"I’m fine, Bennett," I said, speaking quickly before my voice cracked. "My head is just pounding, and the screen light is making it worse. I really need to close my eyes before I pass out."

"Okay, okay, go back to sleep! I’ll text you tomorrow to check in on you, okay? Love you, Pri."

"Love you too. Bye."

I slammed the red end-call button.

The screen went black.

The silence of the suite crashed back in like a tidal wave.

My phone slipped from my sweaty palm and landed on the plush runner with a soft thud. My chest was heaving, my lungs burning as if I had just sprinted a marathon in sub-zero weather.

Down on his knees, Adrian let out a low, rumbling chuckle, resting his forehead against my bare stomach.

The sheer shock broke, and pure, unfiltered rage took its place.

I grabbed him by the shoulders and shoved him hard against the wall.

"Are you out of your mind?!" I hissed, my face burning with furious heat. "Do you want us to be discovered?!"

Adrian didn’t look even remotely apologetic.

He reached up, grabbed both of my wrists in one large hand, and easily pulled me down until I was trapped against his chest on the floor.

His eyes were burning with raw, untamed hunger, his mouth inches from mine.

"Not at all, Miss Patel," he murmured, his voice dropping into that dark, velvety register that made my knees turn to water. "But watching you lie under oath while my hands were between your legs might be the most intoxicating thing I’ve ever seen."

"You are a menace," I breathed, trying to glare at him even as my pulse raced out of control.

"And you survived cross-examination without breaking character," he whispered, his other hand sliding beneath the open shirt to cup the back of my neck.

He leaned in, his lips brushing against mine in a hot and demanding way. "Now... where were we?"