“Make me.”
“I really would if it was my turn.”
“Would you?” She lifted her eyebrows and gazed down at my hard-on. I grinned. I wasn’t sure who started it but we were both thinking the same dirty thought and it was pumping the blood in my head straight down to my cock. She was on one of her million breaks with Theo at this point and I prayed to God that she’d tell me to do something downright filthy to her. They’d broken up because he wouldn’t stop pressuring her for sex. While she wasn’t ready for that, I knew she was curious about everything else. Just too scared to explore it with him because he had no control, wouldn’t know when to stop. I knew the ways Lake wanted me to touch her. But while she teased me all the time and put my hands on her body, she never outright dared me to pleasure her. I never did either. It felt like cheating. I always figured I’d eventually have her, in every way I ever dreamed of, but outside of our little game. It would happen because we both wanted it to. Because I loved her. Not because it was a dare. I had a hunch she felt the same.
But that day, I was painfully hard and wishing that she’d be the first to break that unwritten rule.
“What do you want me to dare you right now?” she read my mind and tried to make me the one to say it. “I dare you to tell me.”
“First rule.” That one was written. No daring out truths. It was a slippery slope and it would ruin the game. Lake pushed my hands off her breasts and down her stomach, stopping them at the top of her shorts. I waited for her to dare me to take them off and taste how sweet I knew she was. But she didn’t.
“I’m gonna save my turn,” she said suddenly. Then she got up off of me and went into her room. I didn’t need to see to know that we both spent the next few minutes masturbating behind closed doors.
That last part of the story I left out. Obviously. Oz was already wearing that dirty grin of his anyway, just from the bit I told about Lake flashing Mr. Price. “Alright. I’m very ready to meet this girl.”
“If you try anything on her, I’ll bury you.”
“Still love her?”
I gave him a tired look.
“Ahh, you still love her.” He laughed and jumped to his feet with a thunderous clap. “Alright then. Let’s get her.”
Chapter Five
Lake
It was past midnight and neither of them had come yet. The birthday boy’s flight in had been delayed several hours, which gave me hope that I might not actually have to see him and that Callum might whisk me away before I even had to decide if I ever wanted to forgive Theo Spencer. But three hours in, there was no sign of Callum and I was starting to realize that there might not be for the rest of the night. Maybe not ever again.
My shoulders slumped and I went from sixty straight to zero. My hope didn’t even have the decency to fade slowly. It disappeared all in one shot and made the full bottle of Grey Goose on the table look suddenly like a single serving. I wanted to pour it down my throat but I stopped myself. If I was going to drown my sorrows, I’d wait to do it in the safety of Isabel’s apartment, where I’d been staying. Theo was going to show up any second and I needed all the balance in my heeled feet to run if he decided to get handsy. He had little control to begin with but after a few drinks, it was gone. The behavior I had let him get away with when I was a teenager still made my stomach turn.
“Sometimes I wonder how the brain in my head right now is the same one I had when I was sixteen,” I said to Isabel. Nick had been harassing me to do a third round of shots when she came over, brought me wordlessly to her table and then hooked an arm into mine as if locking me down. From that point on, we sat there nursing club sodas, our heels off and heads resting on each other.
“I feel you, girl. I used to wear nude leggings.”
“I kept dating a total asshole because I didn’t want to lose my friends.”
“Call it even.”
I bumped her fist. “Sure.”
“I’m sorry I went and married into your asshole’s family,” Isabel gave me a little cringe. “My Spencer boy’s a doll though. I swear Alec took all the good and left none for Nick and Theo.”
“That has to be it.” Alec was the first-born Spencer and had long graduated by the time I was in high school with his brothers. I knew he had a good heart if Isabel chose him for a husband, and I could see it in the fact that he was the only brother who agreed to look after their father when Mrs. Spencer unexpectedly passed. Mr. Spencer’s memory had deteriorated since then and sadly, the fact that he didn’t recognize me was the only reason I could stay at Isabel’s. He didn’t like me at all back in the day. The parents never had. The entire Spencer family eventually had some sort of problem with me, save for Alec, who was never around. Unfortunately, he still never was, apparently away on business all the time. Having him at the party tonight would’ve been a nice form of security since Isabel claimed that he had the most luck keeping his asshole brothers in line. “Well. Props on scoring the good apple, Iz.”
“Thanks. Speaking of the bad ones though.” Isabel held my hand tight when we both spotted Nick coming toward us holding as many shots in each hand as he could fit. The shiny pink tie that had been so perfectly knotted an hour ago was already undone and his swagger had quickly become more of a stumble. I could tell he was on his way to being wasted.
“No thank you, Nick,” I said before he could even offer.
His face fell. “Seriously, Lake? I let you say no to the last round. You can’t say no to this one.”
I couldn’t tell if he was faking his anger or not so I tried to joke lightly. “I don’t think that’s how drinking works.”
“No, that’s exactly how it works, sweetheart. I dropped ten grand on reserving this table and bringing in the catering, which I did see you shoving into that mouth of yours before – ”
Isabel rose in shock from her seat. “Nick!”
“– but you can’t take the stick out of your ass and have a few fucking shots before my brother gets here? On his birthday?”