“What the hell were you doing playing strip poker at sixteen?”
I smiled. “Care to find out?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
MILO
A sudden chill enveloped me as I tried to hold my head high—they say that even whores still have their dignity when they first start their profession. Great, so now I was comparing strip poker to selling my body.
The world around me was fading in and out. Every time I blinked at Colton, my body swayed slightly to the right. Fine, so it had been a really long time since I’d actually drank. Wasn’t that a good thing? I mean, I’d only been twenty-one for a year!
“You fold?” Colton leaned forward, his naked chest touching the table like an erotic kiss. I licked my lips to keep from drooling and focused on his abs as they rippled with each breath he took.
It would probably be inappropriate to reach across and touch them—you know, like a comforting touch. I bet he’d be warm and hard, so damn hard. My fingers tingled as I reached into the air. Good thing the room was swaying because the next thing I knew, my hand was on his warm skin.
A few male chuckles erupted around me.
In the distance I heard Jason’s voice. “She’s done, man, let’s go.”
“No!” I shouted, standing. Another gust of cold air slammed against me. I’d lost both shoes and my dress. So I was basically standing in front of them naked.
Then again, they were all in their boxers—I was a pretty good poker player, no matter what Colton said.
“We’re finishing this round!” I swayed a bit, then flipped my cards over. “Hah!”
I had a flush, high card was king of clubs, which basically meant I was going to wipe the floor with his ass!
“So classy,” Colton muttered.
Apparently I’d said that last part out loud.
“You’re right.” He fidgeted with his cards, then threw them in the pile. “You win. Good job, Milo.”
He was too calm. My eyes narrowed as I leaned my hands against the table and stared him down. “Let’s see the cards.”
“No.” He crossed his arms. “You win. Game over.”
“The hell it is!” I reached for his cards, but was intercepted by his hand before my fingertips could graze the edges.
“Can’t you just win like a normal person?” he yelled.
“Colt.” Jason yawned. “The guys are gonna drive me and Max home, you got Milo?”
“Yeah, I’ll take her drunk ass home. I’ve had one beer—I think I can manage.” I waved them off as they all staggered out of the room, leaving me and Colt completely alone.
I scowled. “I’m not drunk and you’re a cheater.”
“Good God, woman!” Colton shouted. “You won the freaking game. Why can’t you just do one of your triumphant winner’s dances and be done with it?”
“Because you’re a liar from the pit of hell!” I swung my hand into the air and nearly toppled over. He grasped me again, but this time I collapsed purposefully against his chest, then slyly snaked my hands down to the table.
“Remind me to hide all tequila next time we hang out.” His breath was hot on my body.
“Next time we hang out, you’re going to be the one naked, mister!” Wait, how was that a threat?
He smirked, his eyes taking me in from head to toe. “You promise?”
I shivered—but it wasn’t because I was in nothing but my bra and panties, nope, it was because he was looking at me—like really staring at me, not through me, but at me, like he was about to devour me.
I almost forgot about the cards in my hands.
Quickly I glanced down, and swore a blue streak as I turned over the cards, revealing a royal flush.
“You lying”—I pushed against his chest—“lying, lying, lying, lying pants-on-fire bastard of a whore!”
“Huh?”
“A royal flush!” I squeaked.
Colton groaned. “Calm down, Milo.”
FYI, telling me to calm down after I’ve had a few shots, been cheated out of a good card game, and had enough sexual frustration to make a priest weep . . . not the best idea the man ever had.
Without thinking I simply launched myself into the air. In my mind I was graceful, like a gazelle frolicking across the Sahara.
What I probably looked like? A half-naked prostitute with mascara smudges under her eyes strangling a nice young man with good intentions and a kind smile.
“Milo!” Colton grabbed my arms but it was useless, my hands had already grabbed his neck and started to squeeze as I wrapped my legs around his body and fought against him.
I don’t know at what point it happened—but within a few seconds, my body realized that there wasn’t much clothing separating us from each other.
The air shifted as Colton’s face changed from irritated to starved. His hands tightened around my waist as our eyes met for a heartbeat.
“Colt—”
I wasn’t allowed to finish.
Partially due to the fact that the end of his name was drowned out by his mouth. Growling, he threw me onto the poker table and hovered over my body.
Chips went flying to the floor.
Cards fluttered in the air.
And I kissed him back—I kissed him back so hard that my mouth ached. My body ached—every damn thing ached.
Stop! I yelled at my body. Stop, damn it! I was ruining everything! How was I making her suffer if I was kissing her?
Hell, she had a way of discovering every single nerve and exploiting like it was her job to drive me insane.
Her body arched under my hands as I slid them down to her hips. Everything I’d wanted from her was being presented to me—on a literal table. All I needed was the silver platter.
But she was drunk.
Which made it unfair.
It also made it not count.
With a feminine sigh, she wrapped those tight little arms around my neck and pressed herself against me.
Yeah, it was going to take the power of a god to push her away.
She tasted like tequila—and I was pretty sure I was going to kill Max, because all I kept thinking was that she tasted like happiness, which made me think of sex.
And tasting her.
Over and over and over again.
My fingers dug into her flesh as my mouth left hers and started blazing a trail down her neck toward her bra strap.
“Don’t stop,” she mumbled.
Let this be a lesson to every lady out there. The minute you open your damn mouth. Poof. Magic moment? Gone.
It was enough time for me to pull back and realize.
I didn’t want her on the table, not like this.
And if Max was an honest drunk—which I’m assuming he was, considering he’d admitted to eating her pet goldfish—she was a virgin.
To hell with that.
Taking her virginity on a poker table after she’d drunk enough tequila to breathe fire? No. Not her. Not the girl I’d loved for my entire life. Not the girl I dreamed about when I closed my eyes. Not the girl I lived for when I woke up.
“Milo.” I kissed her one last time across the mouth, my lips brushing hers, memorizing her taste just in case it was longer than a day before I would be able to partake again. “You’re drunk.”
“I’m not that drunk,” she pouted.
“What’s six times seven?”
“Unfair!” She laughed. “You know sevens were the hardest for me to learn.”
“Milo . . .”
“Forty-something.”
“Close enough,” I grumbled, then slowly removed my body from hers, which felt like leaving a part of my soul and walking in the other direction knowing that I would never be fully complete without what I left behind.
But I wasn’t leaving her.
I just didn’t want her that way.
Actually I wanted her in every way—repeatedly. Except this one.
Milo’s eyes snapped open and with a curse she scurried off the table and reached for her
dress. “S-sorry.”
“Ah.” I put my hand through my hair. “No worries, I’m used to hot girls mauling me for allowing them to keep their clothes on.”
“What?”
“That’s why I lost.” I shrugged, reaching for my discarded shirt on the floor. “You would have had to take off either your bra or your—” I pointed, yeah, lame, but I couldn’t actually say the word lest I spontaneously combust and lose my shit.
“Oh.” She stepped into her dress. I watched every move. Slowly she turned and I reached for the zipper, cautiously zipping all the way up when my body demanded I tug down. All. The. Way. Down. “So I guess that means, you have to lose an article of clothing.”
“What?”
She stepped away and turned, crossing her arms over her chest. “Well?”
“Uh.”
“The shirt was already off, so take it off again.” I did as she said, mainly because she was so damn hot when she was telling me what to do that if she said that her favorite song was “Kumbaya,” I’d not only sing it but make up my own hand motions. “So.” She licked her lips suggestively and started circling me. Oh, divine. Lovely. Torture.
Her hands reached around to my front and paused on the button of my jeans. “I think these have to go.”
Holy hell.
Was it wrong to thank God in a situation like this? Was it? Really, though? I mean I didn’t want to be blasphemous, but . . . yeah, I was feeling a lot of gratitude at the moment.
“Okay.” I reached for my button and froze.
Happy moment gone.
I wasn’t wearing boxers.
I wasn’t wearing a damn stitch underneath the jeans. I was free-balling.
“How about another drink?” I offered in a hopeful voice.
“Pants,” she said in a low voice. “Now.”
“You’re sure?” I cursed a blue streak in my head. I was about to show her my ass. Our first naked moment was about to happen at Goldy’s Bar and Grill, which was like the equivalent of an Applebee’s.
Rock on.
“Do it.” She smacked me in the shoulder, then walked back around to face me. Bad idea. Really, really bad idea. In the history of bad ideas—this one fell at least at a one or two.
“Fine.” I told my body to stay relaxed, but the minute it heard relax it thought of the opposite. Rigid.
Great, so I was going to salute her.
Naked.
A naked salute.
Would crying make me seem less masculine?
“We don’t have all night.” She rolled her eyes, still a bit unsteady on her feet. Maybe she would be too drunk to remember? One could only hope.
With a jerk I pulled my jeans down to my feet and waited.
Milo gasped and covered her mouth. But her eyes didn’t leave me. She drank me in like I was a freaking Greek god—and my body responded like Marvel had just written my name in one of its comic books, I could have sworn I felt my shoulders broaden, my chest grow to epic proportions.
“What the hell!” a male voice shouted.
I looked up.
A horrified Jason stood at the door, his eyes taking in the scene around him. “What the . . .” With an abrupt turn he tried to leave the room and slammed into the door, then stumbled backward, just as Max appeared.
“Hey, you find my wallet?” He swayed. “Holy shit! Do you take pills or something?”
Needless to say I pulled my pants up at the precise moment that Milo held her stomach and then ran over to the trashcan and started puking.
I flinched, hoping it wasn’t my nakedness that had caused the nausea.
“Badass.” Max laughed. “You have that effect on all women or just mine?”
I glared.
Jason rubbed his jaw. “Worst. Wedding. Ever.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
MILO
“I’m dying!” I shouted for the third time as the cold air hit me in the face. “Seriously, my stomach is churning.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have drank that much,” Colton said in a fatherly voice that made me want to jump out of the moving vehicle and flag down a semi.
“You taunted me.”
“Ah, so it’s my fault.”
“Keep your pants on!” I snapped, and then giggled. “Oh, wait . . .”
“Hilarious, Milo.”
“Tell me.” Yeah, the alcohol was totally talking at the moment. “Do you always wear pants without boxers or is that new?”
“We should have this conversation when you’re not sticking your head out of the car window like my golden retriever.”
“Colton.” I reached for his arm and squeezed. “Damn. Do you live at the gym or something? And how is that even fair to people like me?”
“People like you—”
“Women everywhere!” I threw my hands into the air. “How do we compete? How do we settle when the bar’s so damn high we have to get a freaking ladder to even touch it?”
Colton cleared his throat. “I don’t necessarily think that—”
“And then when you dropped your pants!”
The car swerved to the right.
“I mean holy shit, Colt! It’s like you want other men to hate you!”
The car hit one of the rumble strips on the right, then swerved to the left.
“Ah, cat, I saw a cat.”
“And really.” I let out a heavy sigh, finally feeling better about getting everything off my chest. “What do you expect, huh? What do you expect from us girls? Of course I’m going to be obsessed with you! You’re just . . .” I shook the fuzz from my head as my vision doubled, then tripled. “You’re just . . .”
“What?” he whispered.
I couldn’t have kept my eyes open even if I’d tried. Instead I slumped into the seat and closed them, but not before whispering, “Mine, Colt. You’ve always been mine.”
We rounded the corner of her parents’ house. Milo was completely out—as in I’m pretty sure she was dreaming of a giant tequila monster and wishing she hadn’t had that last shot.
Sighing, I turned off the car, got out, and went over to her side. Crazy how peaceful she looked when she slept. Of course that was a total false representation of how Milo actually lived day-to-day life. She was like a freaking bomb that went off for twelve hours straight only to reset itself every night so it could repeat the process the next morning.
“Come on, sweetheart.” I pulled her from the seat and carried her inside the house. The lights were turned down low—so nobody had stayed up to make sure she was all right, or that I was all right, for that matter.
Jason and Max had quickly left the bar, both of their faces red as they mumbled something about seeing me back at the house.
Wasn’t that the story of my life, though? In the end, it was always me and Milo. Jason had always trusted me with her. And in return? She’d always trusted me with herself. Never once having to worry about being safe or protected.
I took the stairs one at a time, a heaviness settling on my shoulders as I fought with two desires: to just tell her I knew everything and kiss the hell out of her, and to make her suffer.
Kicking the bedroom door open, I nearly dropped her when I realized Max was lying across the bed reading.
“Aren’t you drunk?”
“I recover very quickly,” Max said with a snort, his eyes not leaving the page of the book. “Besides, a guy happens to sober up pretty fast when he sees his best friend drunk and staring at a guy’s naked body like she was a doctor studying the human form.”
“Look, about that.” I set Milo on the bed.
“No.” Max set the book down and folded his arms across his chest. “She may have played you but she did it because she can’t handle all the feelings in her, okay? She’s Milo, for shit’s sake. Normal isn’t really in her vocabulary. I don’t even think she knows what that word means.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, well, it wasn’t what it looked like. I mean we didn’t . . . do anything.”
“It
doesn’t matter.” Max shrugged. “If you don’t have the balls to take what’s been yours for this long . . .” He picked up the book again. “Then maybe you don’t deserve her.”
“I don’t deserve her.” I cleared my throat. “But I want her anyways.”
Max threw the book onto the bed and jumped to his feet. He swayed a bit, but his eyes were clear as a freaking sunny day. “I was hoping you’d say that, so this is how it’s going to work.”
“Huh?”
“What?” He punched me in the arm. “You want Milo, I’m going to help you get her. Because I’m a stand-up dude and I’m sick and tired of her pining after you, and besides, if I help you win her over then I can move on with my own dating life. The waters are rough when she’s always there killing my game.”
“Uh . . .” I raised my hand. “I have her.”
“Aww.” Max patted the same shoulder he’d just gotten done punching and sighed. “You cute, misinformed, innocent little lamb.”
“Pardon?”
“She’s going to eat you alive.”
“What?”
“Milo.” Max pointed. “Doesn’t do declarations of love. She’s not like most girls. You can’t just break down and cry and say you want to have a bazillion babies with her.”
“One, maybe two,” I said hoarsely. “A bazillion? Who says that?”
“Stupid men. Ones that are in love and dig their own graves for sport. If you want to catch one in the wild all you need to do is turn a bit . . .” He smiled. “And there you go! Look!” He pointed at the mirror. “Shh, don’t make any sudden movements.”
“You calling me stupid?”
“Yes.” Max nodded. “But chin up, we’ll fix you.”
“No fixing.”
“Then no girl.”
“How do you even know this?”
“I’m not really gay.” Max rolled his eyes as if that were the reason I was hesitant about taking his advice. Right.
“Dude.” I tried explaining. “I have her—I just need to tell her how I feel.”
“She’ll run.” Max popped his knuckles. “She’s afraid of her own feelings. She’s been after you her whole life. The minute she has you in a corner, she’ll panic. Girls are weird like that. They overthink everything. Holy crap, what if he isn’t the same man I thought he was? What if I don’t love him as much as I think I do? What if he sucks at kissing? What if his—”