Page 227 of Playing Dirty

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That was the thing that ruined me.

Because it felt unconscious.

Real.

Not controlled.

Then Mason stepped back abruptly.

Like he’d remembered himself all at once.

And the air between us snapped painfully cold.

Thirty Six

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

MASON

I let go of her too fast.

I knew it the second I stepped back.

Rowan looked at me for half a second longer than normal, like she noticed it too.

Fuck.

Someone yelled near the bar. Music kept going. The rooftop was still packed.

But now everything felt weird.

“You good?” I asked.

Terrible question.

She blinked once. “You ask that a lot for someone emotionally constipated.”

I stared at her.

Then, somehow, I laughed.

Actually laughed.

Small. Quick. Still real.

Her eyebrows lifted immediately like she wasn’t expecting it either.

“Wow,” she said. “You can do it.”

“Shut up.”

“There he is.”

And there it was again.

That easier feeling from earlier.

Dangerous as hell.

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