House of Korba: The Ghost Bird Series: #7 (The Academy) Read Online Free Page A

once more at the wall, bringing down the last of the wall, it crashing at his feet. He dropped the sledgehammer onto the tile, wiping at his brow with the back of his hand. He turned, his fierce brown eyes catching me staring. “What?” he asked, his voice deep and gruff.
    Still, I couldn’t help looking at the dark mark. Now that he’d turned, it was black, but there was a thin line... of pink? And it was almost shaped like a heart. But it was messed up, too. The outline was irregular, and the center was only partially filled in with the black fading toward the center. “Did you drop the hammer on yourself or...” I started to ask, unable to finish because I couldn’t come up with another theory.
    His eyebrows lifted in confusion. I drifted a hand out toward him, my fingertips brushing at the spot close to the mark.
    He looked down, but quickly patted my hand away. “Stop.”
    “I thought it was a bruise.”
    “It’s not a bruise.”
    “What is it?”
    He grunted, and looked back at Nathan, who had stopped and was leaning with his back against the wall, watching us curiously. North turned back, lifted his sledgehammer over his shoulder and headed for the hallway. “I’ll tell you later,” he said as he passed and cut through the kitchen, heading to the door out to the garage.
    I watched as he left, confused.
    Nathan cocked his head. “What was that about?”
    I shrugged. “It’s a secret, I guess.”
    He smirked, and shoved his fingers through his hair, his deep blue eyes lighting up. He leaned over the open door, looking around. “He’s out in the garage?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Good.” He grabbed my hand, dragging me into the bathroom and shoved the door closed. The room was missing the counter, the toilet, and now the closet. The tub was gone. It was simply a blank space with exposed two by four beams, and ready for sheetrock.
    Nathan pushed me until my back was against the door. He planted a palm on either side of my neck. He leaned in, his lips finding mine and he kissed me. It was a shallow kiss, simply pressing his lips to mine, but lingered long, like he didn’t want to stop. A spark lit up from it, sinking down into my heart, and dipping further, giving my stomach butterflies. His bare chest grazed against my breasts as he leaned in, sending another wave of warmth through me. The scent of cypress and leather mixed with some sweat and sheetrock dust filled my nose.
    I tried to respond, though I felt my kiss was sloppy. I was still kind of new to this kissing thing.
    He backed up, smiling so wide that I couldn’t help my own lips from grinning, he was that infectious. “Hi Peanut.”
    “Hi Honey. What are you doing to your bathroom?”
    “I didn’t like it anymore, and after my dad broke the toilet and some other stuff, I’d been thinking of doing something new to it. That and North wanted a new project to work on.”
    “So you’re redoing the whole thing?”
    “Yup,” he said. He turned around, pointing. “I was going to put the sink there, this time, and there was a walk in shower I saw at the hardware store. I think I want to get Silas to put in one of those shower fixtures that goes into the ceiling. You know, like the one at Victor’s house.”
    Alarm seized through me. “No tub?” I asked, trying to sound excited because he sounded like he was.
    “Naw,” he said. “I never use the damn thing. And this will be great. It’ll make the rest of the bathroom smaller, but I think all of the other guys will like it, too. Especially Silas. He’s always griping about the shower fixtures being too short here and at Kota’s.”
    I wanted to keep listening to him, but my head was swimming with the thought of just a shower at Nathan’s. Since Nathan’s dad was now working a half a world away, and there wasn’t the risk of him coming by, at least surprising us like last time, I had hoped to spend more time here, but now I worried about being discovered for something I wasn’t sure I was