“Relationships aren’t supposed to make you feel tethered,” she said softly. “They should make you feel happy. Lighter, not weighed down.”
Her words resonated in a way I wasn’t expecting. I was suddenly aware of how personal this conversation was getting.
I hesitated. Then blurted out the one question I couldn’t seem to keep myself from asking.
“So, are you speaking from experience? Are you in a happy, tether-free relationship?”
Why I was even wondering if she had a boyfriend was beyond me.
Her cheeks flushed pink. She looked down at her hands. “No. To both.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised. She was the kind of person who seemed to keep her distance, hiding away in secret rooms like this one.
Suddenly she closed her laptop and started to pack up. “I have to be up early for work tomorrow. The room’s all yours,” she said, pointedly avoiding my gaze.
Before I could say a word, she was gone, leaving me staring after her in stunned silence, not sure what had her running from the room like it was on fire.
I wasn’t sure what to think of our interaction. She was standoffish and definitely not a fan of mine. But that didn’t take away from how I had enjoyed every minute with her.
Now that she was gone, I realized that I hadn’t even asked her name. Although in the short amount of time I’d spent with her, I doubted she would have told me.
Glancing at the time on my computer, I now only had thirty minutes until the library closed. Pushing thoughts of the beautiful brunette aside, I turned my focus to the document on my laptop screen. As I began to write, I couldn’t help wishing my main female character had warm hazel eyes instead of green.
CHAPTER 2
LIVVI
Fresh air. What I needed was fresh air.
And to get as far away from Talon Everhart as I could.
I’d never been in such close proximity to him before, especially not one-on-one. Alone.
Even now, with the door shut behind me, the echo of his presence lingered—like the faint scent of chlorine and soap or the way his voice echoed in my head, low and rough enough to make my pulse misbehave. I hated that.
Talon Everhart had always been anuntouchablein my world. Too confident, too quick-witted, too everything that spelled trouble. The kind of man you kept at a safe distance if you valued your sanity.
But tonight, I’d been stuck within arm’s reach. Just the two of us. Now, my heart was still trying to pound its way out of my ribcage, and I wasn’t entirely sure if itwas from irritation, nerves … or something else entirely I couldn’t put a name to.
I headed down the front steps, inhaling the balmy March night air of Florida like it could wash him out of my system. Spoiler: it couldn’t.
I hated that he was every bit as intoxicating as the rumors promised—and worse, that I’d spent the last hour pretending he wasn’t. My composure had been an act, one I could only hope he hadn’t seen through.
Truthfully, I’d wanted him gone so I could focus. But it wasn’t just about the work—it was about him. I never quite knew how to navigate interactions with someone like Talon Everhart. Someone with presence. He was popular, magnetic, too handsome for his own good, with that unshakable self-possession that didn’t have to be performed. It just … was.
And despite my best efforts, I’d noticed things I shouldn’t have. The way his blue eyes held a glint like he was always one step ahead of the conversation. How his voice could drop to something almost conversationally intimate, like we were sharing a secret. The way his forearms flexed when he leaned across the table, giving me a peek of his tattoo. Those details lodged themselves in my mind, uninvited, refusing to be dismissed.
My life had no room for that kind of distraction. I kept it pared down to essentials—working and studying. When you were balancing a double major in Accounting and Computer Information Systems and working full time, you didn’t have time for tangents. In my six years at Kemery University, I hadn’t cultivated more thanpassing acquaintances. I liked it that way. Every hour spent socializing was an hour stolen from my goals.
I’d chosen my fields deliberately—minimal human interaction required. Numbers and code had rules. Predictable, orderly. People were … less so.
And Talon Everhart? He was the exception to every rule. At Kemery, the rest of the students were like restless cats, and he was the glint of light they couldn’t stop chasing—especially the women, who didn’t just watch him, they gravitated toward him.
Not that I could blame them. He was … breathtaking. Years of training had carved his body into something precise and powerful—broad shoulders, defined chest, abs etched like a sculpture. The black ink of an eagle’s wing swept across the back of his forearm, the lines bold against his skin, the kind of detail you didn’t forget once you’d seen it.
And I had seen it—far too often to plead ignorance.
If I hadn’t known he was a swimmer, I might have assumed he practically lived in a weight room. But Talon Everhart’s posters were still scattered across campus, the kind of promotional shots that left little to the imagination. Just him in his team jammers, that unforgiving fabric clinging to the muscle of his thighs, his lean frame honed for speed and power in the water.