Page 46 of Merciless Heir

“Maybe I do.” He starts undoing the laces of my boots, and there’s something intimate about it. I should stop him. I don’t.

“Would you prefer I grovel, Kingston?”

“Hell no.” He eases off one boot. “I like how you are.”

He tosses the boot over his shoulder and it lands with a thud. Then he does the same with the other.

I’m not exactly sure what’s happening, but…I think I might like how he is, too. He’s a pain, he’s hot, he’s smart, he’s intriguing and different from anyone I’ve met before, and he makes every single part of me buzz.

“You have lovely feet.” He traces a finger down over the top of my foot in the black sock. “But you didn’t come here to discuss your feet. Since you are here…” Kingston tosses down his drink and I grab mine and do the same. “I wanted to say sorry.”

“For what?”

He gets up and comes back with the decanter. “Coming at you about your father. We can’t choose our parents.”

“You don’t like yours?”

Kingston pours us both another drink. “No, I do. I love them. My mother’s interfering and loving and devious and the old man was a workaholic. I just mean we’re ourselves and they’re them and you don’t go around conning people.”

“But I do. That’s what my job is with the evaluations.”

He raises his glass and a brow. “No, I’d say you give them what they want. And you know what I meant.”

“I don’t want to talk about him.”

For a moment I think Kingston’s going to argue with me, but instead he nods. “Okay, how about a game?”

“What do you mean?”

“You give nothing away for free and I respect that. I do.” He stretches his long legs out as he sits opposite me, then raises his glass. “So, a game. We each ask the other a question.”

“Is this a drinking game?” My insides tighten at the way he looks at me.

He smiles. “Yes. We take turns in asking questions and answering. Say I ask you a question and you answer, I get to guess if it’s truth or lie, and—”

“Truth or dare?”

“Truth or lie, Sadie. I guess right, you drink; I guess wrong, I drink.”

“You think I’m going to say no, don’t you? But what if I back up the lie with a lie?”

“Will you?” he asks.

“I might.”

“You won’t.” He takes a sip of his drink. “And if you do? I’ll know you’re lying.”

I narrow my eyes at him and lean in. “And if you back up a lie with a lie? Or a truth with a lie?”

“I won’t.”

I grab his chin with one hand, his stubble the right amount of rough against my fingertips and it does things to me. That combination of hard, soft, heat, and scratch. I want to feel it against my bare flesh. I want his face—mouth—between my thighs.

The thought should shock and make me run.

I stay exactly where I am.

“I’ll know if you lie, Kingston.”

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