My Fake Boyfriend Is the School Bad Boy novel Chapter 58

Chapter 58 Quiet Care Inside an Empty Office

I grabbed the roll of white gauze. I placed the end of the fabric against the back of his hand, wrapping it carefully around his palm, threading it between his fingers to secure the dressing over the cuts.

He stayed perfectly still, letting me bind his hand, but his eyes never left my face.

The sheer intensity of his focus was suffocating. Every time I leaned forward to pass the roll of gauze under his palm, the distance between our faces shrank to mere inches. The heat radiating off his chest washed over my face. I could see the tiny, faint pulse beating at

the base of his strong throat.

“Why did you do it?” I whispered, tearing a piece of medical tape with my teeth to secure the end of the bandage.

I smoothed the white tape down, my thumbs lingering against the warm skin of his palm.

“I told you,” he replied, his voice dropping even lower. “I wanted him to shut up.”

“No,” I pushed, finally lifting my eyes to meet his dark, burning stare. “You punched a metal door because he said you were using me. If this arrangement was just a transaction, you wouldn’t have cared what he said. You would have let them think I was doing your homework, because it keeps the alumni board happy.”

The clinic was dead quiet. The hum of the mini-fridge seemed to fade entirely away.

Ryder didn’t try to formulate a sarcastic deflection. He didn’t pull the bad boy mask back into place.

He shifted his weight, leaning slightly forward. The paper on the exam bed crinkled loudly. He closed the remaining distance, stopping only when the tips of our noses were almost brushing.

“I didn’t care about the board,” he rasped, his breath hot and heavy against my skin.

He lifted his uninjured left hand. He didn’t grab my arm. He gently brushed his knuckles against the side of my neck, right over my wildly

racing pulse.

“I cared that he made you look like a tool,” Ryder continued, his hazel eyes completely stripping away all my carefully constructed armor. “I cared that for two seconds, you actually looked at me like you believed him.”

My chest cracked open.

“I didn’t want to believe him,” I breathed, the absolute, terrifying truth slipping past my lips before I could stop it.

Ryder’s gaze dropped instantly back down to my mouth.

The heavy, chaotic static electricity in the room spiked into a blinding, white-hot current. His hand slid from my neck, his long fingers

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Chapter 58 Quiet Care Inside an Empty Office

cupping the side of my jaw. His thumb rested lightly just beneath the corner of my mouth.

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He was going to kiss me.

There was no green bottle. There was no Chase Montgomery. There was no audience demanding a performance to secure a rumor. We

were entirely alone in a locked room, and he was looking at me like he was starving.

I didn’t pull away. I leaned forward, completely surrendering to the overwhelming gravity of his touch.

The heavy brass handle of the clinic door suddenly rattled.

A loud, sharp knock echoed against the frosted glass.

“Hello? Is someone in there? The door is jammed.”

Nurse Davis’s muffled voice came from the hallway, accompanied by the jingle of her massive key ring.

I gasped, ripping myself backward so fast I nearly tripped over the metal rolling tray. The tray clattered violently, the silver rings vibrating against the stainless steel.

The suffocating, heavy bubble completely popped.

Ryder dropped his hand. His jaw locked, the harsh, indifferent lines of his face snapping instantly back into place. The raw, vulnerable boy vanished, replaced completely by the guarded, dangerous outcast.

I grabbed my backpack from the plastic chair, my heart slamming against my ribs with brutal, punishing force.

The lock on the door clicked.

Nurse Davis pushed the door open, stepping into the clinic with her heavy tote bag. She stopped, her eyes widening as she took in the scene. She saw me, breathless and flushed, standing near the sink. And then she saw Ryder Steinmann, sitting on her examination bed with a freshly bandaged hand and drops of blood on his boots.

“What on earth is going on in here?” she demanded, dropping her bag onto the front desk.

“He fell, I lied, my voice tight and mechanical. In the parking lot. I was just helping him clean it up.”

Nurse Davis frowned, clearly not believing a single word, her eyes darting between my panicked face and Ryder’s blank expression.

But I didn’t wait for the interrogation.

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