Page 64 of Cruel Games

“So did I,” she said finally, leaning back on the stool she perched on. “You three have a contract to fulfill. You won’t be able to keep me out while you’re gone.”

My eyebrows traveled so far north they almost disappeared into my hairline. “You’re not coming along?”

The way she dismissively turned away bothered me. “Why should I? Can’t you handle it on your own?”

“Oh, sure, and we’ll just transfer the funds from the pay straight to the bank account you didn’t tell us about on our way back, shall we?”

Dingo sighed like a parent watching two children fight, walking away with a roll of his eyes. “You two are ridiculous, like fucking toddlers fighting over whose air you’re both breathing.”

“She’s the ridiculous one,” I insisted, jerking a thumb in her direction as I turned to the fridge to pull out another beer. “Only one of us here is being unreasonable, and it’s not me.”

“It’s a bathroom, Jackal,” he pointed out, clearly downplaying the situation. “Just let her fucking use the space. It won’t kill you.”

It just fucking might.“Why not just give her yours? You don’t use it that often.”

Okay, so that was a lie, but I was grasping at straws here. Sure, I had the space, but damn, if a man’s fucking bathroom wasn’t safe anymore, where would the line eventually end up? Mars?

She’d only been here a week, and already she’d taken over the fucking place. I knew this agreement with her was a bad idea. I was quickly coming to wish she’d just killed me instead. At least then we wouldn’t be wasting a perfectly good drinking morning with an argument over my space.

Which I wasn’t sharing.

No fucking way.

“You aren’t planning to finish the one you started?” she asked, gesturing to the half-empty bottle on the island in front of her. “What a waste.”

I watched her grab the abandoned beer and lift it to her lips, downing it in a single gulp. The way her throat worked as she swallowed my abandoned beer made my pants uncomfortably tight, and I bit back a groan at the erotic display, hating the way I reacted to her.

Sure, she was hot. And okay, so I wanted to fucking rail her any time she walked in front of me. I was only human, and I was a man. With eyeballs that worked.

A girl like Ivy was made to turn heads.

But that didn’t mean I was gonna give her the upper hand in knowing how she affected me.

“I don’t remember telling you I was done with that beer,” I pointed out, popping the cap on the new one in my hand.

She leaned back and crossed her arms, a smug look of satisfaction on her face. “I don’t remember asking.”

“Would you two just fuck and get it over with already?” Dingo spat, making a fake gagging motion with his finger. “Y’all are insufferable.”

“Get bent,” Ivy and I said in unison, lending some credibility to the idea we’d been spending too much time together lately. Welocked eyes, and I brought the beer to my lips as she watched me, glaring daggers in my direction as the cool liquid slid down my throat, doing absolutely nothing to quench my thirst.

I was growing to hate this little arrangement. I wanted to strangle her, drown her in the bathtub, maybe just run her over with my bike. If she fell off because she wasn’t holding on tight, then that was on her.

Right?

Right.

“I’m not giving up my shower,” I said with finality, tossing the now-empty bottle in the sink. “Keep dreaming.” My eyes turned to Dingo and Coyote next, who stood together with shit-eating grins on their faces, watching the chaos unfold from a safe distance. “You two ready to go? We have work to do.”

“I’ll see you boys when you come back,” Ivy called after us as we picked up our helmets and bats, the weight of my trusty wooden beat stick like the familiar warmth of a friend’s embrace or a lover’s kiss.

“Ifwe come back,” I muttered, slamming the door behind us.

Mere hours later,we stood around in the entryway of the Guild, watching as the life drained out of the girl we’d just rescued. Well, thatI’djust rescued. She nearly fell in the pathway of my bike, for fuck’s sake. I could have run her over.

The Skeleton Crew owed me for this one.

I didn’t like them or their fucking habits, but their girl—she was alright. Feisty, not in the psychotic way that Ivy was, but she looked like she could handle the three of them on her own just fine.

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