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“You know the answer to that. If you so much as bent over?—”

“Like this?” I asked and bent over to pick my bag up from the floor. I couldn’t help myself. He was so powerless to enforce his BS rules from far away, toying with him was fun.

He cursed in a low tone. I took my time straightening up.

“What? Let me guess, that’s against the rules as well?” I murmured. My heart beat hard. I was excited. There was no denying it.

“Don’t even think of pulling that move for anyone else,” his growl continued. Authoritative, entitled, and really fucking sexy.

“Anyone else?” I repeated, the heat flowing through me only doubling at what his words revealed. “Just you, then?” I prompted.

A thick, tense silence came over the phone. Was he hard from this conversation? That huge dick of his always seemed to get stiff when we argued. Was this doing it for him? Just the thought of him sitting in some bedroom in London, holding his phone, watching me on the camera, his dick rigid and straining up his belly, was doing something to me. Was he touching it?

“Selena,” he said firmly.

And I’d be damned if that controlling tone didn’t turn me on even more.

“Brody,” I replied.

“Time to go to bed, heathen. You’ve broken enough rules for today,” he said, the words coming out tight.

My heart fell. He was ending our little game. I nearly pouted about it. I’d been having fun, I realized. It was fun to tease him, to rile up the guy with the impeccable self-control and rules for days.

I shrugged. “Okay, I’ll get ready for bed,” I said, one last wicked thought passing through my mind. I put my bag on the dining room table for tomorrow, grabbed the bottom of my blouse and the underlayer, and yanked them over my head.

It wasn’t the most elegant of moves, but I didn’t care. Somehow, around Brody, I didn’t care how I looked or came across. I just was.

Cool air hit my skin, and it prickled.

Brody swore again in my ear; this time it was too low and thick to understand. Standing in just a bra and panties, I blew a kiss toward the camera.

“Night-night, big brother.”

And then I hung up the phone and hurried out of the room, my cheeks hot, before reality could catch up to me.

What am I doing? Who even am I?

Selena

The next day,I left my marketing class and headed for a shift at the library. Surprisingly, I was still ahead in class. Brody’s rules that saw me home most nights, and up early to exercise in the mornings, were giving me more time to study. I enjoyed the feeling of being ahead for the first time in my academic life. It was nice. More than nice. I even wondered what it would be like to work after I graduated. There was nearly a sense of excitement there, which wasn’t something I’d felt in a long while.

During my library shift, I popped my earphones in, put my audiobook on, and went through the almost calming motions of returning books to their rightful places.

One of the books to go back wasMuch Ado About Nothing. I lingered over it, turning the pages and finding one of the scenes that I’d read in the audition. I pulled my earphones out to concentrate on the words.

The feeling of reading and disappearing returned to me. God, it had felt good. It had felt different than anything else.

“Wow, you’re really into Shakespeare,” someone said beside me.

I spun around to see who had walked right up next to me without me noticing.Great situational awareness, Selena. Well done.

Nick leaned against the stack to my right.

His left eye was bruised, and his nose still looked tender. I clapped a hand over my mouth, shocked at the sight.

“Oh my God, did Brody do that?”

Nick shrugged. “It’s nothing that doesn’t happen at least once a season on the ice, don’t worry about it.”