My Fake Boyfriend Is the School Bad Boy novel Chapter 31

Chapter 31 A Gentle Touch That Didn’t Feel Fake

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I didn’t want to pull away. That was the most terrifying part of all.

I forced myself to look up, meeting his stare. His hazel eyes were dark, intense, and completely focused on me. I searched for the boy who had typed that deleted text message last night. I looked for the absolute, unhinged devotion, but he had buried it deep. He was wearing the mask of the indifferent mercenary perfectly.

“You didn’t have to scare Chloe,” I murmured, my hands curling into fists at my sides to keep from reaching out and grabbing the lapels

of his leather jacket.

“I didn’t touch her, he pointed out, the corner of his split lip curving up into a slow, devastating slant. “I just told her to move. If she’s afraid of her own shadow, that’s not my problem.”

“She was asking about yesterday afternoon,” I admitted, my voice dropping even lower. The memory of Mr. Harrison pushing me against the brick wall flashed through my mind, sending a cold shiver down my spine. “She was fishing for cracks in the story.”

Ryder’s smirk vanished entirely.

The muscles in his forearm, the one currently bracing his weight against the locker above my head, pulled tight and rigid. The leather of his jacket creaked loudly. The dark, lethal energy from the parking lot returned in an instant, rolling off him in heavy, suffocating waves.

“What exactly did she say?” he demanded, the gravel in his voice grating against my completely frayed nerves.

“Nothing,” I said quickly, instantly regretting bringing it up. “Just high school gossip. It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters,” he pushed, leaning a fraction closer. The tip of his nose brushed against my temple. “If she breathed a single word about

Harrison-

“She didn’t,” I interrupted, my breath hitching at the sheer heat of his skin against mine. “She was just asking about the motorcycle. About you giving me a ride home.”

Ryder stopped. He held perfectly still for a long, heavy second. The lethal tension slowly bled out of his shoulders, but the physical proximity remained exactly the same.

We were standing so close I could count the individual, dark eyelashes framing his eyes. I could see the tiny, faint white scar cutting through his left eyebrow. I could smell the faint trace of laundry detergent on his dark shirt, completely buried beneath the scent of exhaust fumes and mint.

He didn’t step back. The audience in the hallway was still watching, and he was fully committed to the performance.

“You didn’t answer my texts last night, I whispered, the words escaping my lips before my logical brain could shut them down.

I needed to know. I needed to poke at the mask and see if it cracked.

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Chapter 31 A Gentle Touch That Didn’t Feel Fake

Ryder’s eyes darkened, the golden flecks in his irises burning with a sudden, sharp heat. “I told you to go to sleep.”

“You sent another message, I pushed, my heart hammering a brutal rhythm against my ribs. “And then you deleted it.”

The air between us completely stopped moving.

He stared at me, his gaze dropping to my mouth for a split second before returning to my eyes. He knew I had seen it. The silent

confirmation hung heavy and undeniable in the tiny space separating us.

He didn’t offer an excuse. He didn’t try to play it off as a joke.

Instead,ck of my dark hair, loosened by the damp morning air, slipped over my shoulder and fell across my cheek.

amt look at the hallway. He didn’t check to see if Chloe or Jenna or Harper were paying attention to the details. He raised his hand, the one that wasn’t planted against the locker, and reached toward my face.

My breath completely stalled in my lungs.

I watched his hand approach. His knuckles were bruised, the skin broken and healing from the fight in the cafeteria last week. His fingers were long, rough, and deeply calloused.

But as his hand closed the distance between us, my eyes locked onto his fingers.

He was shaking.

It wasn’t a massive, obvioemor. It was a subtle, incredibly tight vibration. The kind of physical reaction you get when your body is entirely overlon

enaline, or when you are doing something that completely terrifies you.

te boy who put people in the hospital without blinking, the boy who rode a motorcycle at sixty miles an hour without tremor in his hand just from reaching for my face.

e realization hit me with the force of a physical blow, knocking the remaining air straight out of my chest.

He wasn’t acting. His rough, bruised fingers finally made contact with my skin.

A massive jolt of electricity shot straight down my neck, crashing directly into my core.

He caught the stray strand of hair. The pad of his index finger grazed the soft curve of my cheekbone, his skin searing hot against the cold dampness of my face. The touch was incredibly light, almost reverent. He tucked the dark lock of hair behind my ear, his thumb brushing a slow, deliberate line along the edge of my jaw.

I couldn’t swallow. I couldn’t blink. I was completely paralyzed by the heavy, chaotic heat radiating from his hand.

The tremor in his fingers transferred directly to my skin, a frantic, vibrating current that matched the erratic thumping of my own heart.

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Chapter 31 A Gentle Touch That Didn’t Feel Fake

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He left his hand there for two seconds too long. His fingers curled slightly, resting against the pulse point just beneath my jaw. He felt how fast my heart was racing. He felt the absolute, undeniable proof that I was just as affected by him as he was by me.

Ryder slowly pulled his hand back, letting his fingers trail against the collar of my blouse before dropping his arm to his side.

He didn’t say a word about the deleted text. He didn’t have to. The slight shake in his hand had confessed everything the text had tried to

hide.

The harsh, metallic shriek of the five-minute warning bell suddenly tore through the hallway, completely shattering the quiet bubble he

had built around us.

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