Page 59 of Sinful Like Us
“Hell yeah.” I eye her pink lips.
Flush sneaks up her neck, and she almost touches her skirt, forgetting her hands are bloodied. I catch her wrist.
Her breastbone caves. “Oh.”
My cock almost hardens.Fuck.
“That’s all for tonight,” Charlie tells us and tosses Jane more napkins. He stands up, cane in hand.
I let go of her wrist, and she wipes at her fingers. Beckett gathers the spread cards into a single stack. “You should take the cards, Charlie.”
“No, you keep them.” Charlie slowly sinks back down and places his cane on the table.
The air strains.
Beckett makes a confused face. “Besides Jane, you’re the only other Cobalt going on the trip. I can’t make her and Thatcher play the game if I’m in New York.”
Charlie glances to Jane, and she gives him a tense nod. I understand the clandestine exchange.
I’minon this plan that we’ve all been constructing. So are Banks, Maximoff, and Farrow. I didn’t think it’d be implemented tonight, but I’m prepared for the fallout.
Shit is about to get tense.
Beckett doesn’t realize it yet, but he’s going to Scotland.
10
JANE COBALT
“You’re takinga week off ballet and coming on the trip,” I tell Beckett, my rabbit-filled stomach in a blender and my pulse racing at a million miles per hour. Yet, I can’t let up on him.
I won’t.
Charlie has an arm across the back of the booth behind Beckett, and Thatcher angles more towards me. My wingman.
My right-hand.
My partner in crime.
My protector.
My boyfriend.
It feels terribly good to have him next to me, especially in case this all backfires.
Beckett tilts his head, his befuddled expression cinching his brows. “I can’t justtake offan entire week. You know that, right?”
The booth is quiet. Really, the entire sports bar is deathly still and silent—no one from the bar makes a peep. Even the ones who don’ttrulyknow what this is about seem to imprison oxygen.
Dry Merlot and pungent meat sours my mouth. “You took off months for the FanCon tour,” I remind him.
Beckett sets down the lion-decaled cards, straightening them into an even stack again. “I was between major productions at the time. I can’t miss a performance now.” He dances six nights a week in Cinderella, and his days are crammed with six-hour rehearsals and hour-long morning classes.
I know very well how hard he works.
How much he’s sacrificed for ballet. It makes this next part that much more painful.
“You can stay here and dance, but if you continue touse, then Charlie, Moffy, and I will force you on this trip.”
