Seven Groomsmen from Hell (Love by Numbers 6)

“A hundred dollars?” David suggested for a bet.

“That’s chump change for us,” Brett replied.

“A thousand?” Mason said.

I shook my head. “It’s not money. That’s not what we need to bet. It needs to be something else.”

“Well what? Booze? A car?” Bram said. “I can’t think of anything besides money.”

We stood there in silence for a minute all trying to put our minds on what we could bet to make the game more interesting. We were a very tight knit group and shared a lot of things, so most of our material property was always at one another’s disposal. I knew that we had to bet something high profile to make the game worth playing, but I couldn’t wrap my mind around what that item would be. I started to look around the beach, hoping that maybe something one of the guests had on them that would help me figure it out, when my eyes found the perfect thing.

Not too far from where we were playing, sunbathing on a towel, with her milky skin shimmering in the sun, was Khloe. I zeroed in like a crosshairs through a scope. Damn she was lovely. She was perfect as far as I was concerned. As a doctor, I was well aware of what a good, healthy woman looked like, and Khloe was it with a cherry on top, or should I say it with two big, voluptuous breasts on top and a pert, apple ass on the bottom. Most women weren’t good-looking enough to make me blink when they passed by, but Khloe was enough to make me stop and look twice.

I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see Luke’s jaw clench and eyes pierce, almost as if he was angry, but I knew he was trying to keep his arousal in check; weren’t we all? It didn’t help that we’d indulged ourselves in a conversation about actually getting Khloe; it had probably made things much worse for everyone. Still, something interesting caught my eye as I turned my head to take another drink of Khloe’s form. Despite her best attempts to seem like she wasn’t, every few seconds her eyes would drift up and land on Luke. It did make me briefly jealous that he was the one drawing her attention, but I couldn’t necessarily blame her. I didn’t need to be a woman to see that Luke was a Greek god. He had chiseled, toned abs, and well-defined biceps. He’d been considered for a popular magazine’s yearly ‘Most Attractive Man of the Year’ award, just barely losing out to a world-renowned actor. Bram and Brett were near the top of the pack too, but even I could see they had nothing on Luke. He was gorgeous, and if Khloe was going to give in to any one of us, it was likely to be him.

That’s when it hit me. Khloe was the bet.

I was fully aware of the fact that we were crossing over from demeaning with the scorecard to straight up pigs offering her as a bet, but if we were going to do it, why not go all in? I pulled Luke a few feet away from the guys, mostly Kent, and lowered my voice.

“I know what we’re gonna bet,” I said. “Gotta keep it from Kent though.”

Luke didn’t look crazy about the idea. He was Kent’s best friend and the best man at his wedding, so it probably made him a little uncomfortable to keep something from him. After contemplating it for a few seconds, however, he peeked over his shoulder at Kent and then nodded an affirmation at me.

“The winner gets to make the first move on Khloe,” I said.

Luke let out a dramatic gasp. “You wanna bet ‘The First?’ We can’t do that.”

“Scared you’re gonna lose?” I teased. “This is your job, right? Surely you’ll have no problem beating me.”

Luke’s face got a little red. Whether or not he was planning on maintaining his promise to Kent to not touch Khloe until after the wedding, he’d probably already decided that he’d be the first one. In truth, I wasn’t actually planning on beating Luke and winning the right to go for her first, but I wasn’t going to just roll over and let him take it; if we wanted something interesting to bet, this was certainly it.

“What about the rest of the guys? We can’t all bet it if we’re playing in teams,” Luke said.

“We’ll play three games. First four versus four. The winning team splits into two teams, each team gets two of the losers, and we play again. The two guys on the winning team from the second round, who also won the first round, become captains, the captains pick teams for the final round, and we duke out. The winning captain gets to ask out Khloe,” I explained. “Easy.”