Although he wanted to keep seeing Jess after that night, he wasn’t an idiot. He knew if he continued to see her past that night then she’d inevitably find out about the bet. Probably from him, as he was notorious for eventually telling the truth about anything bad he’d ever done.
He’d kicked one of his family’s dogs once when he was a kid. The dog was chasing him as he rode his bike down the long road that led to their ranch house. The dog kept nipping at his ankles, and he kicked it to get it away from him.
The poor dog yelped like he’d really hurt it and limped away, looking sadly back at him. It was then that Griffin realized the dog had thought they were playing together.
No one had seen what he’d done. He didn’t have to admit anything to anyone. But the guilt was piling up on him. Griffin went back to the house and found a steak in the freezer, nuked it in the microwave, and went out to apologize to the dog and offer him a treat.
Like most dogs, he accepted the steak and seemed to forgive Griffin for his transgression. But that wasn’t enough for Griff. No, he went to his father and told him what he’d done. His father chastised him, and that should’ve been enough reprimanding.
Griffin still felt guilt, so he told his mother what he’d done to the dog, and she further guilted him by giving him a good talking to about hurting animals and people.
Griffin knew he’d eventually tell Jess about the bet if they kept on seeing each other. So he knew he couldn’t see her past that night. But Griff wanted the night to be special for her anyway. At least she might look back and see that he did care about her.
“Were you that overprotective big brother?” Jess asked when he eased his kiss.
“Overprotective?” he asked not only her but himself as well. “Nah, I’m not that guy. You’d have to be a hard ass to be like that. A man who doesn’t mind fighting another man over things. I’ve never been in a fistfight. I don’t much care for getting into other people’s business.”
“So if some dude hurt one of your sisters when they were younger, you didn’t give a flying fuck about that?” Jess asked, suddenly pissed off.
Griff could tell he’d sparked something in her he hadn’t intended to and hurried to correct his errant tongue. “I mean, if someone had ever done something wrong to them, then I’d have gotten involved, sure. That never did happen, though. So there was never a need to get all big brother on anyone in their defense.”
“Oh,” she said, looking a little ashamed of jumping to conclusions. “So are you what you’d consider an honorable man, Griff?”
Not really, was what came to his mind but he said something different. “I do consider myself honorable. I do what I say I’ll do. I think that’s more than most men do. Don’t you agree?”
“My father does what he says he’ll do too. I admire that in a person. But what I really am asking you is, do you think you do right by people most of the time?” She watched him for some sign he might have an issue with taking her to his bed just to win a bet.
“Most of the time, yes,” he answered her with a genuine smile on his handsome face.
The dancing blond curls that framed his chiseled features, the straight nearly Roman nose, the perfect teeth, the caramel lips with the lower one slightly plumper than the top one, all came together to give the man a charming look that no female would suspect could be anything but wholesome.
But Jess was lucky because she knew more than he thought she knew. She knew what he was really doing with her. It made her stomach hurt to know he’d keep on going. So she pressed it a bit further as she asked him, “Do you think using another person for sex is a nice thing to do?”
“Um, uh, why’d you ask me that?” he stammered as her question had him wondering if she’d read his mind or something.
Had he inadvertently let her in on the real reason he was wooing her?
“I just want to know what you think about such a thing,” she said with a little pout on her red, kiss-swollen lips.
His light beard had rouged her cheeks, making them glow pink. She was young, so full of that youthful glow he so admired in women. What you got with younger women was a thing you didn’t get with older ones who’d been around the block a time or two. You got trust.
Griffin knew he didn’t deserve trust from Jess. She was right to be asking him the things she did. She was right to trust her intuition about him and what he was after. If he’d been a man who was not in the middle of a bet that he couldn’t get out of, then he’d have stopped it all right then and there.
It was true; he hadn’t picked Jess out on his own. But she was perfect for him. Why in the world did she have to be so great and so intuitive? That would make things so much harder!
Her question had hung in the air longer than it should’ve as he thought about what he should say. It made Jessica worried she’d set him off and she’d lost the chance to get to him and make him sorry he’d ever thought about using her.
She changed her demeanor as she ran her arms around his neck and kissed him instead of waiting for his answer. It didn’t really matter anyway. She was sure he was still set on the course of getting her into bed before the others got her sisters into their beds. She didn’t need to try to get to him. If he’d had an ounce of respect for her, for real, he’d have told her about the dumb bet and told his friends he was out of it.
The fact he hadn’t done that spoke louder than any word that had come out of his mouth. No matter how nice he seemed, Griffin was set on winning the bet at the cost of her pride.
It was odd how her heart felt so heavy over a man she didn’t even know. Jess wondered why in the hell that was. She’d never been seriously in love with anyone before. She had no idea what a broken heart felt like.
So why was what she knew Griffin Houser was up to with her making her feel like her heart was breaking? Why would anything a stranger do make her feel so full of emotion?
Jess had no clue as to why she felt that way. All she knew for sure was that she hoped like hell his heart ached like hers was when he found she’d gone without a word to him.
And she hoped her face would stick in his head for a very long time. She knew she’d be seeing his face in her dreams. He was the best-looking man she’d ever had interested in her. Then she reminded herself that he wasn’t really interested in her at all.
Jess was just a piece of ass to the man, nothing more or less than that. She could’ve been any woman that night. It didn’t matter who; it just mattered how quickly he could get what he was after.
Any female subject would do!
Chapter 11
Kel gave their cousin Marty the thumbs up as she had Ethan in a frenzy of desire and right where she wanted him to be when she ran out on him. The lights went lower, nearly all the way out.
“Time to close the pub, I think, Ethan. Is this where we end the night? Or do you want to get to know each other even better?” she asked him.
“I want you to come with me, Kel. Stay the night with me. I’ll take you somewhere nice,” he said as he kissed her neck. His dick was as hard as a diamond, and Kel was having a hard time not giving into the man. But she had to.
“Call a cab, and I’ll meet you outside,” she said. “I need to make a quick bathroom stop before we go. Girl stuff, you know.”
He grabbed her face and left a hard kiss on her lips, making them pulse even more. “I cannot wait to get you in that backseat. I hope I have the patience to get you to a hotel room before I devour you, my love.”
“Me too,” she said with a giggle. Then she left Ethan and headed to the ladies’ room.
The lights triggered Cait and Jess to make their getaways too. Cait had Phoenix go outside to hail a cab, and Jess sent Griff to get one too. The sisters made their way to the ladies’ room too and peeked around the corner, seeing the men exchange high fives, further pissing them off.
“Assholes,” Cait whispered. “They deserve those blue balls they’ll have to find ice packs for.”
Jess nodded in
agreement. She couldn’t talk, as a lump had formed in her throat. She’d held out hope until that very moment that Griffin would do the right thing and let his friends know he was out of the bet they’d made.
Instead of the bathroom, the women went out a back door and got into Kel’s car that was parked in the employee parking lot behind the pub. They went out a back way and down the road to their family’s home. Not one of them felt like talking. The silence hung heavy in the air.
When they got home, Kel realized she’d left her purse at the pub. Her cell was inside of it. “Did either of you give your phone numbers to your guys?” she asked her sisters as they made their way into the large two-story brick home they’d grown up in.
“No,” Cait said. “Why, did you?”
Kel nodded, and Jess shook her head as she said, “That was foolish, Kel. They were only using us all. I think you’re still gullible.”
“Most likely,” Kel said. “I’m glad I left my purse at the pub. I’d probably answer Ethan’s call and sneak out to meet him. I’m such a dumbass.”
Cait wrapped her arm around her older sister. “You’re not a dumbass. You’re just sexually frustrated. You need to get some action, and soon.”
They went into the bedroom they’d shared forever and went to their closets to get out of their clothes and change into their pajamas. Each of them had a small twin-sized bed they crawled under the blankets of and all let out sighs as they lay back in their beds.
“Why do men have to be so shallow?” Jess asked her sisters as if they could possibly answer her question. They both seemed just as heartbroken as she was.
“God made some of them that way, Jess,” Kel answered. “They’re not all that way. Only the ones we know.”
“I think meeting a man at a bar and thinking he can be a good guy is the wrong thing to do,” Cait said. “It’s like going to a snake farm to pick the best pet for you. It’s foolish. They’re all snakes. There’s not a good one in the whole bunch.”
“You’re right,” Jess said. “You know, we’re fools to have even given those dudes a chance in hell. We should make a pact never to date or even consider messing with any man we ever meet in a bar anywhere in the world.”
Cait wiggled down in her bed to get comfortable, a thing she hadn’t been since she left Phoenix’s strong arms. “I think you’re right, Jess. We’ll have to help each other when we see one of us falling for a jackass’ lines.”
“I’ve got your backs,” Jess said.
“Me too,” Kel added.
“And I have yours too,” Cait said. “Let’s try to get some sleep now and put this terrible night behind us all.”
“Do you think there’s a chance they’ll go back to the pub tomorrow night?” Kel asked. “We all have to work tomorrow night and the next. What should we do if they come in looking for us?”
“Let them know that we know about their bet and fucked them over before they could fuck us over,” Cait said with a laugh.
“I don’t think we should be that damn honest with them,” Jess said. “I’d like Griff to hurt a bit. Just like I am. It’s amazing how quickly he got under my skin and made my heart ache. No one has ever made my heart hurt like this.”
“So we keep the fact we know their game to ourselves, then? If they come in, I mean, which I doubt they will,” Cait asked her sisters.
Kel agreed, “I think Jess is right. Let them think we ditched them for no other reason than we were playing them. Let that sink into their frozen hearts. Maybe it’ll thaw them out for the next females who come along in their lives.”
“Maybe you two are right,” Cait said. “But if I may be truthful, I’d like to say that if you two weren’t involved, I’d have helped Phoenix win his bet.”
“Thanks for the support, Cait,” Kel said. “And I knew that already.”
“Yeah, me too,” Jess agreed. “But thanks for staying with us. It’s not cool to play that way with all women. Some are fragile.”
“And some are young and inexperienced,” Kel said. “Men should know more about the women they play games with before going forward with them. I let Ethan know how I’d been hurt and he went ahead with his plan to try to win the bet.”
“I let Griffin know about me too,” Jess said. “And he too went on with the bet. I gave him up until the very end to change his mind. He didn’t do it. So I hope he has terrible dreams and finds himself missing me like crazy.”
The others laughed and agreed in unison, “Me too!”
As hard as it was, the young women closed their eyes and tried not to think of the handsome men who must be waiting outside the pub, wondering what was taking their women so damn long to join them in their sexual endeavors.
Chapter 12
In three different cabs sat the men who were sure they were all going to get lucky; it was just a matter of who got to who first. Each one had a strong opinion that it would be he who struck gold before the others.
They texted one another with taunts and jibes meant to demoralize their opponents. And it was Ethan who first asked the others if they thought thirty minutes was a bit too long for the women to be freshening up.
Getting out of the cabs, the men met at the entrance to the pub to find it was locked. They walked around the building to find the back parking lot was empty and the rear entrance was also locked.
“They ditched us!” Phoenix said as his face fell. “Why would they all three run off?”
“I have no idea,” Ethan said as he pulled out his cell. “I have Kel’s number, and I’m damn well going to ask her where the hell she is and go find her ass. She told me point blank that she’d go with me to a hotel.”
“Jess told me that too,” Griffin said with kind of a weepy tone to his deep voice. “I can’t understand this at all.”
“Cait was all over me. There was never any doubt that she was as into it as I was,” Phoenix moaned as they went back to where the cabs were waiting on them.
Ethan swiped the screen of his cell as he frowned. “It went to voicemail. Kel’s not going to answer me tonight. I just can’t understand it at all. I told her we’d still see each other. I knew she’d been hurt before and that she was still healing. I didn’t mean to stop seeing her after our bet was done. Why the hell would she just leave me like this?”
The men let the other two cabs go and got into one that took them back to the bed and breakfast. No one wanted to talk as they rode back. All were completely perplexed by what the women they thought they were getting to know pretty well had done to them.
As they walked up the stairs, Ethan took out the card with the keypad code on it. “This just means we have to work that much harder to get them into our beds, guys. We knew this might not happen on the first night. Tomorrow is a new day, and this place is small enough that someone will know each of them. We’ll find our girls and let them know we’re not about to give up.”
Griffin gave him a nod, then took the card out of his hand and punched in the number. “Let’s be quiet. I don’t want to wake the old couple up.”
When they got inside, they saw gray light coming from what must have been a television in the living room. A man came out of it, wearing an old brown terry cloth robe. “Hello, gents. My wife told me you all were going to be coming in late. I’m Mr. O’Toole.”
Ethan shook the man’s hand. “Ethan Southern, sir. Happy to meet you.”
Griffin was next to shake the owner of the bed and breakfast’s hand. “Griffin Houser. A pleasure, sir.”
“And I’m Phoenix Nelson,” Phoenix said as he took the older man’s hand in a firm shake. “Thank you for being such a good host.”
“Not a problem,” Mr. O’Toole said. “I can’t imagine why you three look so grim. Didn’t you have a nice time while you were out?”
“A very nice time,” Ethan said. “But our girls left us hanging.”
“You had dates?” he asked them.
“Kind of,” Phoenix said. “We met three of the most amazing women any
of us have ever met. And we all thought they liked us, but they must’ve been playing us all.”
“Where’d you go, might I ask?”
“Flannigan’s,” Griffin answered.
“My nephews own that place. A couple of brothers; my sister’s kids. I know most who go in there. What were the names of the women? I’ll probably be able to tell you if you dodged a bullet with them and got lucky they left you out in the cold.”
“Mine was named Kel,” Ethen said as he frowned. “She was a gorgeous little thing. I thought she was the beauty to my beast.”
“That’s not like her,” the man said. “Not one bit. And the girl you fancied, Griffin?”
“Her name’s Jess. She’s tall and blonde.”
“Yep, and she’s my great niece too. So’s Kel,” Mr. O’Toole said. “How about your girl, Phoenix?”
“Cait,” he said and was a bit surprised when he found the man nodding.
“That’s the other two’s sister. She’s the middle girl. They have a younger brother named Scott. He’s still in high school. Those girls are all pretty good girls. All hard workers, all go to college. I can’t see them ditching you three. They must’ve had their reasons.”
“Sisters, huh?” Ethan said. “They never mentioned that fact to us. That’s odd, don’t you think?”
“A bit,” Mr. O’Toole agreed. “They work the weekends at the pub. You could go back tomorrow night to see if you could find out what happened. Maybe there’s a logical explanation, after all.”
“Maybe,” Griffin said. “Goodnight, sir. We’ll see you at breakfast at ten.”
“Night boys. See you then.”
The men headed up the stairs, each wondering why the girls hadn’t bothered to let them in on the fact that they were sisters and that they all worked at the pub. The numbers weren’t adding up in any of their heads. And that was a thing they all decided had to be dealt with.
It was one thing to leave them without a word. It was a whole new ball game to cover up the facts they had. That night the men all had trouble sleeping as they couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened to them.
Hacked For Love & The Dom's Songbird Page 91
