Page 23 of Faking it with the Bad Boy Bikers

“You don’t play your cards right and I might.” Henry’s voice startled me. He grinned as he moved around to my side and tugged one of my curls. “You look like a present with that bow at the back of your neck.”

Meredith’s mouth had fallen open and it wasn’t shutting. She looked between the two of us and then just stared at Henry. “You smile.”

Henry groaned. “Of course, I smile. I have all the same muscles as anyone else.”

“You don’t smile.” She pulled out her phone and snapped a photo of him. “Nellie must have magic between her thighs. Holy shit. I’ve got to send this to everyone.”

Henry watched me as Meredith walked away with her phone gripped tight as she tapped away at it. “She didn’t even give me a beer.”

I pushed him mine. “I’ve only had one drink but I must be drunk because Meredith just said I have magic between my thighs.”

He took a long pull from the bottle and then ran the cold mouth of it down my arm. “There is nothing I can say here that won’t get me slapped.”

I shivered as he moved the bottle over my shoulder and down my chest. He was being more forward than he’d ever been and I was quickly realizing the little harmless flirting I’d been doing was elementary school shit. Henry was so out of my league.

His eyes danced with humor as he watched me. “We’ve got a table in a dimly lit corner. Want to take a chance?”

Meredith reappeared with four beers. “Take the fucking chance, Nellie. Run. Be free. Sleep with the men!”

I gasped. “Jesus Christ, this entire town is insane.”

Sugar laughed as she walked by. “Takes one to know one, baby.”

I sent a pleading look to Henry. “I think the corner might be safer for my sanity.”

Once I was standing, he tugged me into his chest and stared down at me with a wicked curve to his mouth. “Out of the fire and into the devil’s den, Nellie.”

I snorted. “That was terrible. I mean it. Probably the worst thing I’ve ever heard.”

He winked. “Keep the bar low and wow them later, that’s how I like to play it.”

I let him pull me after him. “Are you already drunk? Or high? You’re not normally so…”

“Ready to steal your virtue?”

“Flirty.” I swallowed wrong way and started to choke. “Shit. I was going to say you’re not normally so flirty. What the hell, Henry?”

His hands were full of cold beer as he pulled me into him again. In the middle of the dance floor, the bottles pressing into my back, Henry lowered his mouth to the side of my head and nipped my ear. “You’ve been playing with fire all week. Now we’re calling your bluff.”

I locked my arms around his neck and stood up on my tiptoes to return the favor. I raked my teeth over his earlobe and felt his body shudder against mine. “Who said I was bluffing?”

Oh, god, of course I was bluffing!I screamed in my head but I wasn’t going to look weak in front of them. It didn’t matter I didn’t have a clue what the rules were to the new game we were playing. I was playing. Nellie Hellstone didn’t back down and cower to any man.

Or three men who looked like dark gods in all their black.

CHAPTER 19

Nellie

Seth and Woodrow were waiting at a tall table with smirks on their faces. Those smirks just grew when Henry put the beer down and then gripped me around the waist to lift me onto one of the tall stools. I gripped his arms and gasped, not accustomed to men just picking me up like I weighed next to nothing.

“You’ll be glad to know that Nellie says she’s not bluffing.” He braced one hand on the back of my stool and one on the table. “Ain’t that right, babe?”

I rolled my eyes at him but refused to back down as I grabbed my beer and took a slow pull from it. “That’s right,babe.”

Woodrow grunted. “I could’ve told you that. You can’t fake the kind of reactions Nellie has to us.”

I nearly choked on the beer. My face heated and I held the cool bottle against my cheek. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

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