Foolish Games: A BWWM Romance (Game of Chance Book 1) (4 page)

Zenobia dropped her underwear and tugged off her dress, stumbling and knocking into things as she walked to the bathroom to pick up a washcloth.

“Here,” she murmured, handing Grant one, suddenly feeling a bit uncomfortable.

Zenobia didn’t do one-night stands. She was never the type. And Grant was, without a doubt, one of the best, if not the very best, lay of her life. He was standing there with a soft grin on his lips that she didn’t quite know what to do with.

What was common etiquette for this kind of situation? Should she invite him to spend the night? Should they exchange numbers? She had no fucking clue, and for a moment, she wished Tasha was around—she had a lifelong experience of flings and one-night stands. Surely she had written some handbook of rules, or something similar.

“Do you—uh… I mean, um.” She glanced around. “Do you want to—”

“I’d like to stay,” Grant said with a smile, stripping out of his clothes. “If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind,” Zenobia answered as she smiled.

That smile went down sightly as soon as she glanced at her queen-sized bed. She had gotten so used to sleeping by herself that it suddenly felt weird sharing her bed with a complete stranger.

“Um, do you think—”

“We can squeeze in,” Grant whispered, wrapping his arms around Zenobia.

Zenobia tried to smile, and tried even harder to erase the memory of someone else sleeping in that bed, and nodded.

Chapter 3

“I want to know everything,” Tasha announced as she bustled in with the groceries. Zenobia sighed and filled her second cup of coffee for the day, the headache still pounding at the back of her skull with the same intensity it had upon waking up.

Grant had showered and left some time earlier, with his number written on a piece of paper and a fleeting kiss to the side of Zenobia’s head.

Zenobia had pretended to be asleep, and hadn’t tried to stop Grant from leaving. To be perfectly honest, she was quite happy with Grant leaving. They surely had a great time, and Zenobia could still feel him this morning as she moved about the kitchen, but it had left her feeling slightly hollowed out.

Zenobia didn’t do one-night stands for very good reasons. The most important was that she was still a hopeless romantic—no matter how long she’d spent on this Earth, she still believed you have to meet that special someone to make it matter. Grant was fun, but… that was pretty much all it had been, and now Zenobia felt awful, because she knew already that she was not going to call him.

“Come on, You look like sex. Spill it.”

“Eww,” Zenobia scrunched up her nose. “Please never say anything like that, ever again. I’m your sister.”

“Prude. I just want the juicy details. How big was he?”

Zenobia stuffed her fingers in her ears. “I’m not listening.”

Tasha kicked her under the table as she sat before her with a cup of coffee, “Come on. Wes said he was hot.”

Zenobia choked on her mouthful of coffee and nearly died right then and there.

“What?”

“Jesus, what are you yelling for?”

“You said Wes said he was hot, then what are you yelling about? You heard me!” Zenobia blinked several times.

“I just… I want to know what he said.” Tasha gave her a long look.

Zenobia shuffled awkwardly in her seat, her hands drumming on the sides of her coffee cup.

“You’re still carrying that torch, aren’t you?”

“I am not,” Zenobia said defensively. She didn’t need to ask who she was referring to.

“I’m just curious, OK?”

“Umm-huh.”

Tasha shook her head. “Zenobia, I’ve known you your whole life. You always were a sucky liar.”

“I was with Sebastian,” Zenobia reminded her. “For quite awhile, I might add…”

“Sebastian was always a pompous asshole. You only settled with him because he paid attention to you.”

“At least he wanted me,” Zenobia said morosely. “You don’t need to rub it in, you know?”

Tasha sighed and put her coffee down. “That’s not what I’m doing. I just want you to shake yourself out of this pity party and face up to what you want for once in your life.”

“Wes and I are friends.”

“Doesn’t look like that from where I’m standing,” Tasha said with a grin.

“And why, pray tell?”

“Because Wes couldn’t keep his eyes off you and that other guy all last night.”

“In your dreams,” Zenobia muttered, even though she really meant ‘in mine.’

“Would I lie about sex? No, I wouldn’t,” she went on, without letting Zenobia answer. “I’m dead serious, kid.”

“He could’ve done something, or said something,” Zenobia muttered, “I was sitting on my own for a while before Grant showed up.”

“Wes was working, darling.” She said sweetly, caressing her knuckles with her hand. “He can’t very well drop the bar to come and play.”

Zenobia shook her head and rubbed her knuckles against her forehead. “He’s known me for years. You’d think he’d have found a moment to say something about it if you were right.”

“Why don’t you go and ask him, then?” Tasha pushed away from the table and finished putting the groceries away, “He won’t be working now. You have no excuses.”

“Wouldn’t that be a little awkward?” Zenobia said, glancing up at her from over the rim of her coffee cup. “I just slept with someone else…”

Tasha sighed. “Better than waiting months before showing up at Casa Blanca’s again and letting him believe you really don’t give a damn.”

Zenobia truly hated her sister when she was right.

****

The club wasn’t as bright and colorful during the day. There wasn’t the customary queue at the front door, and the flashy signs were turned off. Zenobia poked her head in, noting the chairs upturned above the tables, bright neon lights shedding light over the dark polished floor. The red and green lamps were turned off, and so were the glittering crystals above the dance floor.

Wes was piling up cases of bottles behind the bar, wearing day clothes and still looking like he just stepped out one of those men’s magazines that Tasha was so fond of, maybe GQ or something similar.

“Hey,” he smiled, waving at her. “Nice to see you back so soon.”

“Yeah, I was…” She couldn’t come up with a suitable lie as to what she was doing, so he just smiled and shook her head, sitting on the same stool she’d sat on last night. “Sorry,” she said after a beat.

Wes gave Zenobia a weird look. “Sorry for what?”

“Just…” she gestured to the pub. “I know you have to work and shit.”

“It’s all right,” Wes smiled, putting down a case filled with bottles of booze. “I can take a break. What’s going on?”

Zenobia picked up a napkin and started tearing it up. She didn’t look up when she spoke next. “That guy I went home with…”

Wes frowned. “What about him?” When Zenobia didn’t lift her eyes, Wes leaned across the counter, nudging the napkin out of her hands and forcing her to look up. “Bad news?”

Zenobia shook her head. “No, no, he’s all right. I mean, he was great… Uh, not like… Christ, I didn’t mean it like that,” she added, this close to banging her head against the bar counter as Wes’s expression went from worried to puzzled, then to gleeful.

“No—he was a good guy. That’s what I meant.”

“Right,” Wes smirked, stepping back and going on counting the bottles. “I’m happy for you, man. You deserve a good guy around.”

Zenobia’s heart sunk. “Yeah,” she muttered, attacking another napkin. “But he’s just… I don’t know.” She took a deep breath. Wes was still giving Zenobia his back, which was probably the only reason why Zenobia blurted right out and said it—she wouldn’t have been able to face-to-face. “I just want someone else.”

“Oh yeah, who?”

Zenobia mumbled something unintelligible under her breath. Wes stopped his restocking and gave Zenobia an over-the-shoulder look.

“Didn’t quite catch that.”

Zenobia swallowed. She opened her mouth to say it again, but no sound came out. Why was this suddenly so hard? Why couldn’t she just tell him straight-up that he was the one she truly wanted?

Either Wes knew how to lip read, or his senses were enough for him to catch what Zenobia was thinking. Before she could give up completely, a bottle of Scotch dropped to the floor with a crash. Wes grabbed hold of her shirt and pulled her right across the bar, booze and salt and lime spilling freely as Zenobia scrambled on the white marble, palms spread wide on the wet surface. She gasped, and Wes mashed their mouths together.

She didn’t know who knocked into what. She did hear the tinkling of coins spilling on the floor, and a pained gasp she thought belonged to Wes as they tousled above the bar.

“Fucking took you long enough,” Wes gasped. “I’d given up years ago…”

“Tell me about it,” Zenobia groaned, her knees jamming hard into the sink as she fell atop Wes in the confined space behind the bar.

Wes’s lips found Zenobia’s again, his hands grabbing hold of Zenobia’s shoulders as he turned them around, pushing Zenobia against the cabinet. The rattle of bottles and glasses echoed through the empty club, and Wes grunted, his teeth sinking in Zenobia’s lower lip.

“I saw you looking,” Zenobia moaned

Her head knocked backwards against the glass panel, and her legs spread wide to accommodate Wes. She could feel his dick hardening against her, heat pooling down his belly from every pore of his body.

“I was,” Wes said roughly, his fingernails leaving half-moon marks in Zenobia’s shoulders and arms as he clutched at her, pulling her down and rocking up at the same time. “Fuckin’ felt like shit when he sat down. I kept trying to intercept people but I knew it was only a matter of time before someone got to you. You’re just too gorgeous to be left alone.”

Zenobia’s head was spinning. Wes was trying to stop people from getting to her?

“But how did…?”

“Free drinks,” Wes whispered, leaning down to mouth at Zenobia’s neck. He grinned up at him. “Fucking hated him for taking my offer and walking up to you anyway…”

Zenobia moaned and rocked up against Wes, feeling the hard ridge of Wes’s erect cock pressing in the groove of his hips. “You could’ve—ah—you could’ve just come over yourself… Felt like shit…”

Wes silenced her with a forceful kiss, his hands sliding behind Zenobia’s thighs and yanking her closer. “I’ll make it up to you.”

Zenobia’s hands grabbed hold of Wes’s dark blue shirt and tugged it violently upwards.

“Naked,” Zenobia groaned, head falling forwards as she struggled with Wes’s shirt. “Now.”

“You want to see me? Want to see me naked while I hold you down and fuck you, hmm?”

Wes’s mouth searched Zenobia’s throat and peppered it with short, biting kisses.

“Yes,” Zenobia grunted, fighting with buttons.

Her head was spinning, and her breath coming short and fast. She clenched her pussy in anticipation, still feeling slightly sore from the previous night and suddenly itching to erase that feeling and replace it with Wes’.

“Fuck, Wes, please.”

“Want me to ram you against the cabinet and hold you there while I fuck your little pretty pussy sore with my cock?” His tongue twirled around the pointy tip of her ear. “I’ll fuck him right out of your system, sweetheart.”

Zenobia nodded rapidly, finally managing to get Wes out of his shirt and feel the heat of his skin under her hands. They stumbled sideways, past the mess of glass and spilled booze and right over the carpet between the sink and the bar. With a roll of muscle, Wes flipped them over and pinned Zenobia down on the floor. The breath left Zenobia’s chest with a whoosh, Wes’s weight keeping her caged down, helpless to do anything but squirm beneath him. Wes’s grin was bright and white.

“Please,” she gasped as he reached out, both hands grasping at Wes’s arms, yanking him down. “Wes, please, I need you.”

Zenobia whimpered and tried to buck Wes off her, get him closer, anything. Wes bowed his head to hover above Zenobia’s panting, parted mouth.