Cruel Kiss

“We weren’t flirting. We had a bet.”

“Yeah, yeah. A bet. As if that isn’t flirting with you two.”

“What bet?” Katherine asked when she returned a minute later.

“Oh, you’ll love this,” Lark said. “It’s like our old antics.”

“Gavin and I had a bet to see who could get the most phone numbers last night. It wasn’t anything.”

Katherine arched an eyebrow at Lark. “That is much too nice for our old antics.”

“True,” Lark said with a devious grin. “Our bets were a lot higher stakes.”

“Tell me you won,” Katherine said. “If you lose bets, you end up married.”

Her eyes trailed after her husband. That was a story I’d love to hear.

“I won,” I told her confidently.

“What did you win?” she asked.

“More importantly, who did you go home with?” English asked. She shot me a look that said she had guessed right all along about me and Gavin.

But I’d promised Gavin that I wouldn’t say anything. He didn’t want this to get back to Robert. So, I couldn’t even tell my friends.

“Uh, I didn’t,” I lied. “I was too drunk.”

“All those phone numbers and no action?” Lark said. “Doesn’t sound like you.”

“Well, we have tonight too. Bet some of those people will be back at the club.”

Katherine’s eyes narrowed marginally. She had a knack for seeing to the heart of people. As if she could just look straight through you, past all the masks you hid behind, and get to the true center.

“Tonight then,” she concluded.

“What’s happening tonight?” Court asked.

He picked English up like a rag doll and plopped her into his lap on her chair. She swatted at him but clearly liked the attention.

“We’re going to go dancing,” Katherine declared.

“Dancing?” Sam shot Lark a questioning look. “Do I have to dance?”

She patted his cheek. “You can sway back and forth. You’ll be fine.”

Gavin dropped into a seat next to mine. He had on green shorts, the color of his eyes, and when he slouched backward in the seat, holding his beer in front of him, they rode up high on his thighs. My eyes drifted to the exposed tan skin and the hard muscles. He’d used those to thrust inside of me last night. Those long fingers and wide, callous palms to grasp my hips hard enough that I was lucky I didn’t have bruises. And hidden by those green shorts was the huge length of him that had practically knocked me out.

My eyes swept upward. He was looking straight at me. He smirked in the flirtiest, Gavin-iest way ever. It said he knew exactly what I’d been looking at and precisely what I’d been thinking. My cheeks heated, and I turned back to my drink.

“What about you, Gav?” Court asked. “I know you’ll be on the dance floor.”

“Definitely,” Gavin said. He held his beer bottle up. “Going to get some ass tonight.”

“Oh, Gavin,” Katherine said. “So discriminating in your attentions. Anything with two legs will do?”

He met Queen Katherine head-on. “And you, Ren? Who do you favor tonight? Both of them are here, are they not?”

She tipped her head at his audacity. It was a long-known fact that she’d been in love with Court’s brother, but now, they were both married—not to each other, obviously—and living their own lives. It was ballsy of Gavin to even mention it.

“Careful, King,” she said.

Court smacked him, nearly knocking the drink out of his hand. “Don’t be an ass.”

“He can’t help it,” English said with an eye roll.

His gaze swept back to me as he shrugged. “What can I say? I’m an ass man.”

The rest of the group snorted. Typical Gavin antics.

But I felt like we were in a completely different universe. I’d said that I’d be his friend. That no one had to know what had happened. But when he looked at me like that, I was sure everyone could tell exactly what we’d done last night.

I got to my feet, flushed and horny, and headed to the bar for another drink. Gavin followed in my wake. He put in for another beer and leaned against the bar.

“You shouldn’t antagonize Katherine,” I told him.

He laughed. “She likes when people stand up to her. Why do you think she likes you?” His eyes were on my lips again when I turned to face him. “You seem flustered, Whit.”

I swallowed and stepped back. “Me?” I asked, reaching for my bravado again. I grabbed my piña colada and took a good long drink. “Please. What do I have to be flustered about?”

He watched my DSLs suck on that straw with intense interest. “Oh, I can think of a few things.”

Just friends. We were just friends.

I said it over and over again as I laughed off his comment and headed back to my friends. Holy fuck. How was I going to survive the rest of the week?

10

GAVIN

When I showed up at the club later that night, the girls were already in attendance. English and Lark were drinking in the booth from the night before. They perked up when they saw their boyfriends enter.