Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 121233 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121233 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Clay cleared his throat, right up next to my ear so I could actually hear it, and I bit my lip against a flush when I turned to find him watching me watching Shawn.
“Ready for the game plan?” he asked with a grin.
And just like a football player tugging on their helmet before hitting the field, I nodded, expression serious. “Ready.”
Clay pulled me under his arm, so close I felt every inch of his body pressed against mine as he spoke low into my ear. “I’m going to ignore you,” he said. “Hang out with my friends, maybe flirt with some other girls. Use that to your advantage. Talk a little shit about me.”
I frowned. “What? To Shawn?”
Clay nodded. “Drop hints that you’re unhappy, that you’re used to being ignored in situations like this.”
“That makes you seem terrible.”
He shrugged. “So? That’s the point. It’ll take Shawn’s piqued interest and turn it into a burning desire to save you and show you what you deserve.”
“That’s cliché,” I said on a snort. “And ridiculous.”
“Have I not proven to you yet that I know what I’m doing?” Clay pulled back enough to hike a brow incredulously. “Just trust me. Oh, and invite him to hang out with you somewhere a little less chaotic. Maybe say you need some air. You can ask about his music, stroke his ego a bit.”
I shook my head. “You’re a little too good at this.”
Clay just smiled, glanced back in the direction of Shawn, and then slipped into a more severe persona. It was the wildest thing, to watch how he schooled his features, looking bored and almost a little pissed off as he lifted the red plastic cup in his hand up to his lips. With a long pull of his beer and his eyes nowhere near looking at me, he said, “Good luck,” and disappeared through the crowd.
I watched him go, watched as he high-fived a few players he walked by before joining Leo Hernandez in the kitchen. It just so happened to be when Leo was lining up shot glasses, and he poured an extra one for Clay once he joined.
Except, they didn’t take the shots out of the glasses.
Instead, Leo cleared the kitchen counter with a sweep of his forearm, littering the sink and floor with plastic cups, discarded lime wedges, and who knew what else. He turned to the girl beside him then — Olivia, I recognized, from the dance floor — and wrapped his hands around her hips before lifting her onto the counter. She laid back, flushed and giggling as he lined her stomach with salt and pooled a healthy amount of tequila in the valley of her abs and belly button.
I watched him do a body shot off her as she squirmed beneath him, and then as soon as she hopped down, another girl crawled up to take her place.
Clay didn’t even hesitate.
Leo poured the body shot in just the same fashion, and Clay bit his bottom lip, eyes hooded where they appreciated the girl’s ample cleavage heave as the cold liquid met her skin. His massive hands came down to frame either side of her, and he placed a lime wedge in her mouth with a wicked grin as she watched wide-eyed.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away as he ran the flat length of his tongue along the salt on her stomach, as his fingertips dug into her skin while he sucked and licked that tequila off her. Then, he was hovering over her face, and he bent slowly and seductively to bite the lime wedge in her mouth.
For only a brief second — then, the lime was gone, and his mouth was on hers.
Pain spiked through my chest like an ice pick, intensified when the girl threaded her manicured nails through his hair. She opened her mouth to let his in, and though the swipe of his tongue against hers was only a split second, it made my neck heat, made my stomach turn, made me…
What, exactly?
I stared and stared at them, trying to dissect what I was feeling, but didn’t solve the puzzle before a husky voice was at my ear.
“She doesn’t hold a candle to you.”
I shivered, the rough lilt of syllables tumbling down the back of my neck and leaving chills in their wake. I angled my head, finding Shawn staring down at me with a playful grin.
I laughed. “Yeah,” I said, but without even trying, without having to fake it… my eyes trailed back to Clay. “Sure.”
I watched as he helped the girl off the counter, his hands staying at her waist once she was safely on the floor. I knew I’d stared for too long because when I glanced back up at Shawn, he was watching me with his brows folded together, with pity and something like longing in his golden eyes before he leaned close to whisper in my ear.