Page 4 of Play the Game

“You’re saying I need to get laid?”

She had no idea, not only how long it had been—since before I’d joined Alpha Team last winter—or how often I fantasized about doing it. With the wrong man. Which was supposed to have been resolved by my vacation.

“Couldn’t hurt.” Li stood. “But in the meantime, let’s start with that drink.” She furrowed her brow. “You know, Chase has a lot of hot friends. Athletic types.”

“Oh, we could do a background check, then set you up with one of them,” Kessler added. “And let’s hope athletic translates to good in bed.”

It wasn’t the worst idea I’d heard. But it also wasn’t a likely solution. I’d met a few potential bed partners in the past several months. The problem wasn’t finding men. It was wanting them.

Something had clicked in my brain after the night Alder and I had stayed up drinking and laughing with Jason, cheering him up after he’d signed the divorce papers. Within a few days, he’d become himself again, only more. More peaceful, focused, and cheerful. Also more intense, sexy, and appealing. Against my will, he’d gone from hot best friend to hot,availablebest friend almost overnight. And my heart, along with some other very opinionated parts of me, hadn’t been attracted to anyone else since then.

* * *

An hour later,I’d taken Kessler’s advice—about the dress and lipstick, not about getting laid. But I felt better already, with my natural hair let loose from my thick black headband and tamed with some product, and my cute, pale green minidress showing off my own glowing complexion. Who was to say, maybe I’d follow the rest of Kessler’s advice, too, before the night was over, heart and other body parts be damned.

I stopped outside the medical bay and knocked on the door.

Bond slipped into the hallway and closed the door behind her. She crossed her arms over her chest. “No.”

“But I just want to—”

“Check on him, see if he needs anything, find out what he knows about his replacement,” Bond finished for me.

I scowled. “You’ve been spending too much time with Kessler.”

Bond sighed and gave me a small smile. “Sorry, Sparks, but Penn is on pain meds and will be resting comfortably and unconsciously in about five minutes, at which point I will get to put on a dress”—she glanced down at my outfit and smiled wider—“and have my own date night. As far as Penn’s replacement, TJ already has someone in mind. She’ll be here in two days.”

“Oh.”

It was a familiar story. Leadership had made decisions without informing me. Being at HEAT for three years without a promotion was one thing, one I could accept because joining Penn on the Alpha Team had been a vote of confidence from TJ and X. But constantly being the last one to find out about issues that directly affected my work was getting old. I bit my tongue, literally and figuratively, because I didn’t want to be labeled a troublemaker. Not everyone could afford to be a squeaky wheel like some of my more talented teammates, Jason first and foremost among them.

“TJ still has to work out the details,” Bond said, “but he’ll officially announce it tomorrow.” She looked past my shoulder with wide eyes. “Damn, Jensen, you clean up well. Have fun on your friends’ night out.” She looked at me. “I’d tell you to keep him out of trouble, but I know it’s a lost cause.” She waved goodbye and disappeared back into the medical bay.

I turned slowly to find Jason sweeping his gaze over me from head to toe and back again.

He let out a low whistle. “You have something special planned after drinks with your bestie, or is this gorgeous vision just for me?”

I blushed. Christ on a bike. I never blushed, and here I was, doing it in front of my best friend who could not know, who could never find out I was crushing on him. And worse, I nearly swallowed my tongue. Jason had gelled back his hair, trimmed his beard so it was just slightly past the point of stubble, and put on a fitted gray suit that turned his pale blue eyes the color of light slate, with a white dress shirt with the top buttons undone under it. All of these were among my favorite things, and putting them all together in one package wasn’t playing fair. Or it wouldn’t be, if we were playing at something. Which, of course, we were not.

“Bond wasn’t wrong. You clean up nicely.” I glanced away from him and headed toward the stairs, hoping he hadn’t noticed how he’d affected me.

He followed me and laid his warm palm against the small of my back. Hot lava shot through my veins. He’d never touched me that way. We’d hugged hundreds of times over our years of friendship. Kissed each other’s cheeks. Even held each other’s hands a time or two. But he’d never touched me in that subtle, sexually possessive way. God, I didn’t want him to stop. If I didn’t get my shit together fast, I would have to figure out the wingman situation and go home tonight with someone, anyone, who could take my mind off Jason.

He stopped touching me as we descended the steps and crossed the empty gym to the HEAT building’s front exit. The distance was painful but necessary. By the time we’d walked a block to where Jason had ordered a car to meet us, my breathing had nearly returned to normal. We would have some drinks, some laughs, maybe one of our deep conversations, and then we’d go home to bed. Alone.

* * *

Jason

I practiced deep,slow breaths as I slid into the back seat of the rented car beside Tam. I’d nearly started panting when I’d seen her in the hallway talking to Bond, her shoulders and half her back exposed in her sexy, date-night-worthy dress. My gaze had drifted lower, to the way the silky material showcased the firm curve of her ass, and every inch of me had stood at attention. Then, she’d turned toward me, her tight curls falling around her perfect face, those luscious lips painted pink, the low-cut dress leaving little but just enough to be maddening to the imagination... For the thousandth time in the past several months, I was now attempting, and badly failing, to will my body to forget I was madly in lust with my best friend.

Worse, when I’d met Tam’s gaze in that hallway, I’d seen the same feral look flare in her eyes. Fuck me sideways. We were playing with fire.

“Where are we headed?” Tam asked, her voice calm and her gaze neutral. No, not neutral. Friendly. Which felt neutral after the wild passion that had shown itself earlier.

“An upscale wine bar.” I grinned when she raised her eyebrows at me. “Don’t worry, it’s only our first stop. We’ll get to the dive bar soon enough.” In fact, the dive bar, stop number three, was our real destination, but I couldn’t share that information just yet.

Remembering that I was engaging in subterfuge to fool Tam took my focus off kissing her. I would have told her the truth and invited her to willingly join my game if I’d held out any hope she would agree. But my bestie was a rules girl. Doing things by the book was coded into her DNA, or more likely wired into her neural pathways since her single mom had entrusted her to look out for her younger siblings when they were growing up.

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