Page 91 of Cruel Lies

I remembered that day. The morning started out hot as fuck,but by nightfall, when we’d all gathered around the campfire for roasted marshmallows, I was freezing. Nash wrapped me in a blanket and ran his hands over my arms for an hour, and I hadn’t read anything into it. Now, I wondered what else I’d missed in the past we shared.

A past I wasn’t likely to make the mistake of revisiting.

"I wish I’d heard what Mom had to say to you about that," I supplied helpfully, turning to Rowan. "Do you have any more booze? I’m dry over here."

To punctuate the point, I waggled my shot glass in his direction and winked.

And of course in less than a minute, I was holding a full lowball glass of a new kind of liquid.

Water. Fuckingwater.

"This isn’t what I asked for," I whined, pouting like a fucking brat.

A fact that didn’t escape Nash’s eagle-eyed stare.

"Give the brat what she wants," he snapped, his blush creeping back up his throat. "Spoil her one more night. You know you want to. Oh, and it’s your turn, Ro."

Rowan rolled his eyes and passed me a bottle of what looked suspiciously like absinthe. "Go easy on that, now. It’s not your garden variety alcohol."

My eyes rolled at his concern. "Thanks for the warning, grandpa, but if you remember correctly, I downed a whole bottle of Everclear the night your team beat our homecoming rivals."

Ruining your liver and kidneys was like, the rite of passage that year after homecoming. I’d been sneaking sips from my stepfather’s collection of expensive booze for years at that point, and I’d gained quite a tolerance for the strong stuff. When Rowan’s side piece, my ex-best friend, dared me to prove I wasn’t a pussy, I drank her and all her little buddies under the table.

Even back then, I’d wanted the guys to know I was better than any of those little sluts that hung off their perfectly tonedarms after practice. I just couldn’t admit it to myself or them that there was an attraction, an infatuation, building there. Simmering just below the surface.

An infatuation that would never see satisfaction. I couldn’t give in to their snark and charm and caring now. The chances of us having anything close to a relationship or a happy ending died with me that night on the bridge.

Rowan smiled and turned to me, the involuntary shiver that ran down my spine finding a home in the pit of my stomach as it coiled and turned to arousal. "Harper. Truth or dare?"

Fuck.

Double fucks.

Rowan was smooth. Too smooth. Either way I chose, I’d be fucked.

"Dare."

His eyes shimmered with laughter. "You’re getting brave, I see." He took a swig of his own drink and set the glass down on the end table, eyeing me with an intense fire banked in the depths of that expressive gaze. "I dare you toooo . . . I dare you to pull Nash’s hair."

Pull Nash’s hair?It wouldn’t be the first time. Hell, I spent years in high school tugging his hair whenever he pissed me off. "Lame dare, but okay."

Nash, however, looked like he might faint on the spot. "What is this, let’s fuck with Nash night?" He squirmed around and refused to let me near his head from behind, so with a sigh of resignation, I changed up my tactics.

He went still the second I straddled his lap and used my body to weigh him down. My hand snaked into the back of his hair, right at the base, and wound around those soft strands and waves. With a smile that smacked of payback, I tugged down, dragging his head back with me, exposing his throat as an aroused groan slipped from deep inside him and sprang from his lips.

I felt my panties growing damp at the noise.

"Fuck, Harpie girl,"he growled, and just like that, I shot off his lap like a bat out of hell, scrambling for the safety of the armrest on the other side of the couch.

Rowan and Angel laughed like fools at mine and Nash’s embarrassment, but my eyes were glued to the sizeable bulge in his pants now, making it known he wanted me, bad.

Suddenly, this game didn’t feel so playful anymore. This wasn’t the same game we’d played in the past.

This one was careening toward a precipice that would throw us soundly into an erotic, sexually charged, very fucking horny valley of no return.

I’m leaving soon. Why can’t I enjoy a little fun with them before I return to my celibate, sad life?

I wasn’t some blushing fucking schoolgirl. Maybe it was the fact that I was in dire need of some actual dicking down. Maybe it was the booze. Maybe I’d finally realized I’d never have love in my life and would endlessly have to settle for no-strings-attached sub-par sex in the future. There was no hope of a relationship ever coming close to the way I felt about these men, because I would never let myself fall that hard or that far ever again.