Playing for Keeps (The Game #2)(4)
Author: Emma Hart

“I know.”

“Are you coming over?”

Her eyes scoot from the page to meet mine. “Why?”

“Because I was wondering if I could get that striptease,” I reply sarcastically. “Fucking hell, Megan. I was just asking.”

She rolls her eyes – something I’m sure she has reserved for when she talks to me. “Alright! Yes, I am. I’m coming over with Lila and Kay.”

“Your little sidekicks.” I smirk.

“Says you,” she mutters.

I’ll ignore that. “So you’ll be at a party without Braden. How will you cope?”

“Fuck you, Aston.”

“Sore spot, huh?”

She spins in her chair and fully levels her gaze on me. Sparks fire in the blue, and I know I’ve really pissed her off this time.

Just as well I like it when she’s mad at me.

“I’m not a china doll, much to everyone’s disappointment,” she snaps. “I don’t need Braden to hold my hand when I’m at a party, thank you very much. I’m more than capable of keeping away horny ass**les. I’m not sure where you’ve gotten your perceptions of me from, but they’re so wrong it’s unreal.”

She slams her books shut as everyone gets up. She storms past me, then pauses a second and looks back at me over her shoulder. Her lips part, but she shakes her head, turning around and walking away instead.

My perceptions of you are just fine, I want to say as I watch her leave. I just don’t say what I really think, because that would be counter-productive to keeping away from the one girl I really want.

~

Same shit, different night.

The house is full of people, some from Berkeley and some not. I’m getting to the point where I don’t even f**king know. The only reason I’m in this damn frat house is because Gramps was and it was what he wanted. Hell, the man has done enough for me. The least I could do was apply and get in here for him.

Girls flutter their eyelashes, flick their hair, and skim their eyes through the people to find a guy to take home. The guys do their version of it; standing against the bar, walls, in doorways, drinking beer and picking out a girl to take wherever the f**k they want to. And I’m doing it too.

Same as always. Friday and Saturday nights equal meaningless sex. Focusing on that, the meaningless f**k, means I can’t focus on the shit that means something. And it’s so easy.

Pick a girl. Hand her a drink. Tell her she’s pretty. Take her upstairs. Fuck her. Make sure she’s gone by morning.

I’m not the only one that keeps to that. Braden used to, and half the guys in this house do as well. The girls know exactly what they’re getting themselves into, at least with me – they know I want nothing more than a couple hours.

I don’t even want to know their damn name.

I bring my beer bottle to my lips and glance at a tall, dark haired girl walking past. Her eyes skirt down to me and her lips curl. She’s not perfect, but she’d do … If I wasn’t so aware of a pair of eyes on me.

I fight the impulse to meet the gaze across the room but lose. I let my eyes jump from the girl to Megan’s. She’s sitting at the bar, her body facing it, the angle almost begging me to take note of the way her dress hugs her body. I trace my eyes over it, and I love the fact she’s got more curves than most of the girls here. She’s not the skinniest girl but she’s confident in her body and it shows.

Confidence is pretty hot on any girl, but on Megan it’s just downright sexy.

I smirk at her, my lips moving slowly, and raise an eyebrow. Her foot taps as she holds my gaze, neither of us willing to look away, and something shifts between us. She swallows and runs her fingers through her hair, her eyelids drooping. The movement is so slight I only notice because I’m looking for it. Because I’m looking for any little thing that will show me the shift is attraction.

And it is.

She purses her lips around the straw in her glass and questions me with her eyes. This is different – it isn’t us trying to piss each other off. It isn’t us throwing sarcastic comments at each other. It’s something new.

Something raw.

Something dangerous.

Something that could f**k me up.

The smirk drops from my face, and she looks away. She swirls the ice cubes round the bottom of her empty glass and her shoulders relax slightly. I spin the beer bottle between my fingers.

I know the risks. I know if I go over there the sex tonight won’t be meaningless. It won’t be a casual f**k where it doesn’t matter in the morning. It’ll be giving in to the one weakness I have.

But f**k. I want to.

Chapter Three – Megan

I want to be the girl going upstairs with him instead of the one watching him go.

He drives me crazy in the worst kind of way. Every comment, every smirk, every cocky raise of his eyebrows. Each thing affects me, especially the way he clearly doesn’t know me even though he thinks he does. He’s so wrong about me in every way, and it pisses me off so badly, yet I don’t think I could say no if he walked up to me right now and invited me to his room.

The one not fit for a little rich girl like me.

The one I’d probably feel totally at home with.

But I don’t know if one night would be enough. When you want someone so badly you have to work to hide it, just one night of letting go of that restraint wouldn’t be enough. If he came up to me now and I let go, I don’t think I’d be able to hold on again. I don’t think I’d be able to leave it at one night of casual sex.

Hell. I don’t know if sex with him would be casual.

I know one night can’t hurt, but I also know it can’t do any good.

“Sex doesn’t make love, Megan. If you want to give physically, that’s up to you, but don’t give it all up emotionally just because a guy has a few smooth lines or is good looking. Real sex is the whole package.”

And Mom’s words remind me I want the whole package now.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you alone,” Aston’s voice crawls over me smoothly, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and he sits on the stool next to me.

“It doesn’t happen often.” I turn my face slowly, finding his gray eyes for the umpteenth time today. “I could say the same to you.”

“It doesn’t happen often,” he parrots, a half-smile teasing his lips.

“So why are you here with me and not in a dark corner with your usual company?”

“Ouch, Megan. Is that bitterness in your voice?” His knees brush mine. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous.”