Page 80 of How to Lose at Love

“Torture me? I highly doubt that.”

Except I can’t take my eyes off that blue patch between her legs, knowing there’s something written there in black marker that she won’t let me see. Not because I want to make this sexual, but because, well—what’s the point of writing it if she’s not going to show me?

Rude.

“Read that card out loud again,” I tell her.

Ryann plucks it up between two fingers and reads out loud. “Write something embarrassing that only your partner knows about in a spot on your body that can be hidden with clothing.”

“It’s me. I’m the partner.”

“They mean my actual partner…”

“For the sake of this game, I’m your partner, and we both know it. That’s how we’ve been playin’ it this entire time. No changing the rules now to suit yourself.”

Ryann worries her bottom lip.

I roll my eyes, feigning a yawn. “Suit yourself.”

I reach for another card and pretend I don’t want to see the message she’s written down south. Her voice stops me just as I’m about to palm one.

“You’re so aggravating.”

Never said I wasn’t.

I’m also competitive as fuck. She should know this by now.

I watch with bated breath as Ryann’s finger trails along the waistband of her low-cut cotton panties, back and forth, back and forth…

Is she teasing or is this simply a stall tactic?

Whoa, buddy, slow your roll—of course she’s teasing. Ryann isn’t into you. She’s made that clear a dozen times.

Vehemently.

The fact that she’s lying there in nothing but my tight tee from middle school and those freaking blue panties does nothing but force my eyes to the ceiling so they’re not focused on her tits, which are squeezed inside that shirt.

The bare midriff.

The outline of her areolas.

The long, smooth legs.

If Diego Lorenz isn’t actually gay, he’s the dumbest motherfucker this side of the goddamn equator.Seriously the dumbest asshole I’ve ever met in my entire goddamn life.

Ryann Winters is a wet dream, the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen, and she’s teasing me as if she weren’t waving a steak in front of a starving lion—one that hasn’t had a meal in weeks.

And weeks and weeks and weeks…

She crosses her ankles.

My mouth is practically salivating.

I can’t for the life of me imagine what she’s written, but the curiosity may very well kill me.

“That only your partner knows about.” I find my voice to remind her again.

“Oh, very well.” She’s being demure about it, but I can see the sparkle in her eye. Tension crackles in the air as my eyes move down her torso, over the boobs that don’t fit in my tee, over the belly, the belly button, the…

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