Playing for Keeps (The Game #2)(28)
Author: Emma Hart

“Touché,” Maddie mutters.

“Oh, I do, sometimes. But that’s usually all I get.” I shrug and lean against the counter. “Better to be nameless and get f**ked than forced onto dates with a bunch of pretty boys.”

“Oh, because you’re not counted in the pretty boy category? How long did it take you to do your hair this morning?” She raises an eyebrow. “Probably longer than it took half my dorm combined, Mr. Maybelline.”

“I could probably make you come quicker than I could do my hair,” I respond, watching her cheeks flush slightly. “But that doesn’t mean I’m a f**king pretty boy.”

“Let me guess – it makes you a sexy boy?”

I grin. “I’m glad you think so.”

“I never said I thought so, ass**le. It was a question, not a statement. Still learning the difference?”

I move to the table, leaning across it toward her. “No, but with your sass, it looks like you could do with a lesson learning the difference between a slapped ass and a spanked ass. Want a teacher, Megs?”

Her mouth drops open, and I fight the urge to lean even closer to her and make her close it. I see Maddie smirk, amused, out the corner of my eye, and let my own lips curve into a smirk.

“If I ever feel the need to be taught a slightly kinky side of sex,” Megan says in a lower voice and leans forward slightly, pushing her boobs together. She’s pushing this right to the f**king limit. “Then I’d find a teacher who could play my body like a guitar, strumming all the right strings at the right times, not a horny college boy just looking to get off.”

“How do you know I’m not the guitar player?”

“How do you know you are?” she challenges, sitting back and letting her mouth curve upwards.

“It takes me ten minutes to do my hair. I could make you come in half that,” I threaten and promise her, my eyes still fixed on hers. “If you can find a damn guitar player that can do that, then I’ll salute you, Miss Harper. Until then, you can imagine my fingers plucking your body like the strings of a guitar.”

I scoop an apple up from the bowl in between us and take a bite, winking at her as I leave the kitchen.

“Pig!” she yells after me. I hear Maddie’s quiet laughter, and grin to myself. Sometimes, being known as an ass**le who likes to get into girls’ pants is a good thing – and in a situation like that when she’s turning me the f**k on, it’s definitely a good thing.

I rest against the wall outside the frat house, finish the apple, and throw the core in the bin. I spy Braden stretching round the side of the house and jog over to him.

“Ready to run?”

He looks up, grabbing two water bottles. “I thought your lazy ass was still in bed.”

“Yeah it was, but pissing Megan off was so much more fun.” I shrug, grin, and take off with him behind me.

“I dunno why you do it, man. One of these days she will hand your balls to you.” He shakes his head.

“She’s too irrational for that. She gets pissed off way too easily to even consider ripping my balls off.”

“Yeah – but you’ve heard Kay’s revenge methods, right? I heard her last week seething to Maddie that she wanted to ‘take a butter knife to the underside of that f**king asshat’s balls and put them on the school menu as a special with a side of fish to represent the whore he thought he could f**k right before her.’” He takes a deep breath, and I flinch a little.

“Ouch. Who pissed her off?”

“Dude, I don’t know, and I don’t think I f**king want to.”

“Wait,” I muse. “I thought she was a lesbian?”

“Bisexual,” he corrects me. “She likes both.”

“Oh, man. So none of us are safe from her loud-mouth ass?” I shake my head. “Damn.”

“Right?” he agrees. “So, me and the guys were thinking of heading into San Francisco tomorrow night for the weekend. Maddie and Lila are coming – not sure about Megan, though.”

My muscles instantly tighten, my stomach clenching at the mention of my home city. It’s so close to Berkeley, yet so far away. The six year old Aston that left San Francisco is a completely different person to the nineteen year old Aston living in Berkeley, but that doesn’t mean it’s a place I can even consider going.

“Don’t think so,” I reply, trying to keep my shaking voice even. “I gotta see my Gramps on Sunday. Old coot nearly whacked me with his f**king stick for not showing up that weekend we went to Vegas.”

Braden laughs, taking me at my – very true – word. “Alright, alright. You stay back here like a good little dickhead and f**k some other poor girl.”

“That’s the plan.”

Or it’s not. But he doesn’t need to know the real one.

We stop for a second to drink and catch our breath, and I take my cell from my pocket.

Are you going to SF? I send to Megan.

She replies instantly. I don’t know. Are you?

No. Don’t go.

Okay. I won’t.

I slip it back into my pocket, looking up into Braden’s curious face. “What?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you text anyone. Girl finally get your number out of you?”

I snort. “Don’t be so f**king stupid. If I did that I’d never get any damn peace between them and you and Ryan.”

“True that.” Braden nods, and we start running back in the direction of the frat house to get ready for class.

We change quickly, meeting back outside to head into the main building for English. Maddie and Megan are waiting for us when we get downstairs, and Megan’s tapping her foot impatiently.

“Are you girls ready? Some of us actually want to pass this year,” she says sarcastically.

“Oh, Meggy,” Braden mutters, taking Maddie’s hand. “You could pass this class in a f**king coma. You’ve probably read everything on the semester plan already.”

She slaps the back of his head, and he curses.

“The f**k was that for?”

Maddie slaps his chest with her books. “Language!”

“You sound like my mom,” he mutters.

Megan grins at Maddie, her eyes flicking to Braden. “Just because you’re right about the reading thing doesn’t mean I have to like it. Maybe if you paid a bit more attention to the class you’d pass without looking over my shoulder when we have work due in.”