Read Tame the Beast (Ever After #1) for Free Online

looked like she held a grand prize. Clara’s eyes snapped back towards the game before her face could betray her. What a fool she had been.
    “Yo, Adam, about time you made it,” Luke yelled from the other side of Rose.
    “Wouldn’t miss it,” Adam replied.
    The sound of his deep voice put Clara on edge. She didn’t understand why she was so upset by the redhead. Clara had no claim on him. They had only met last night, and all they did was talk while playing a drinking game. There was no reasonable cause to be upset at seeing him with another woman.
    “Hey, Clara. Didn’t peg you as the sporty type,” Adam said in a teasing tone.
    “There’s a lot you don’t know about me.” Her words came off a lot harsher than she intended. She tried to calm her nerves and forced a cheery tone as she looked toward the field. “I love football. Go Broncos!”
    “Mustangs,” Rose quietly corrected, not taking her attention off the game.
    Clara’s voice fell to a low mutter. “Mustangs … whatever.”
    She could hear Adam’s hushed chuckle from her side. Her cheeks flushed as she turned back to the game. Clara tried to understand why she was so annoyed with him. It was the way he looked at me , her thoughts rationalized.
    At the party, he looked at her and only her. Every time she would try and steal a glance, he was already looking back. She may be inexperienced, but she was smart enough to know when a man desired a woman, and the looks Adam Beaumont was giving her that night were enough to make any woman weak-kneed.
    The roar of the crowd drowned out Clara’s thoughts as the team scored another touchdown. She tried to ignore the nonsense sputtering between the couple beside her.
    “I don’t get why we even had to come,” the redhead whined.
    “Olivia, I told you before that you didn’t have to come,” replied Adam.
    “But I wanted us to spend more time together like we did in the summer.”
    Maybe it was Clara’s imagination, but the redhead’s—or rather Olivia's—voice grew louder as she mentioned the summer. A spark of pain flickered through Clara.
    Adam seemed equally eager to ignore Olivia as he turned and asked, “So Clara, what are you taking this semester?”
    Clara’s face twisted with confusion as she picked apart his actions and held them up to his words. She was positive Adam had flirted with her the night before. But then he had the audacity to come to the football game with another woman? A woman he spent the summer with? She knew she shouldn’t be so irritated about it, but she was!
    Clara looked up at him with narrowed eyes as she replied, “Classes,” before turning back to the field.
    She could have accepted the flirting and Olivia if that were all. She knew he was a bit of a player, but how dare he rake his eyes over her again and ignore the woman glued to his side? Adam seemed to lump Clara in with every other girl he used, and it didn’t sit well with her. He could play all the games he wanted, but Clarabelle Wright would never fall for his tricks. She was far too smart to allow her heart to be fooled by a pair of stormy eyes.
     

Chapter Five
     
    Adam lounged on the sofa in his room as he flipped through the channels on the television for the third time. The ice in his whiskey melted long ago. A knock on the door pulled him from his futile search for entertainment.
    “Dude, haven’t heard from you all day,” Luke said as he entered the room and took his spot in the armchair. “Had to make sure you were alive.”
    “Just living the life.” Sarcasm dripped from his words.
    “Uh-huh.” Spotting the drink in Adam’s hand, he asked, “Sneaking bottles out of the liquor cabinet again?”
    “Don’t have to sneak when Mother’s not even home.” Then again, when was she home?
    “Come on, Adam, tell me what’s up. You’ve been seriously out of it since the game, and we won.”
    They might have been best friends, but there was no way Adam was going to admit his foul mood was