Play With Me

by Piper Shelly

  My voiced boomed from the speakers overhead. Granted, it didn’t sound all that bad. Ryan’s grin spread wider as he kept singing the lines with me. And I found I could keep my voice steady and walk through the text as long as I focused on his encouraging eyes. When the song picked up pace, I even felt a grin on my lips. Weird, but with the seconds ticking by, and me not screwing up, I started to enjoy it.

  Not long, and the crowd was singing with us.

  From the cool way Ryan handled this, moving his body lightly with the rhythm, stomping his heel, I wondered how many times he’d been standing up here in the past. Damn, he looked incredibly sexy as he sang and danced to the music.

  Suddenly, he left me alone with the microphone. My newfound courage dropped to the ground in a second, together with my stomach. I followed him with my eyes as he moved behind me and I continued with the song. Taking my hands, he raised them above my head and clapped them to the beat. The crowd followed suit, singing and cheering us on. It was amazing.

  The warmth of his body pressed against my back gave me the feeling of safety again. I heard his voice in my ear as he sang with me, but the rest of the club would only hear me. I still hated him. But I had to admit it was fun all the same. And I smiled.

  Finally, the song was over. I struggled to breathe even and rubbed the sweat off my forehead. Whistles and shouts prompted us to perform another song.

  Ryan flashed a tempting grin. “What do you think?”

  “I think I’m going to kill you.” I laughed. “No way are we doing this again.” This time I gave him no choice. I grabbed his hand and pulled him off the stage with me.

  Rachel had joined her husband behind the bar, his arms wrapped around her waist as both watched us approaching. “That was awesome,” she said, beaming at me. “You’d really make a sweet couple.”

  After the horror he made me go through? “Yeah, right.” I laughed. Too loud, still surfing on an adrenaline high. I glanced at my wrist watch and decided a quarter to midnight was a good time to go home. We said goodbye to Ryan’s family and headed out to his car.

  The cool air felt wonderful on my face. I pressed my hands to my burning cheeks.

  “Want to drive again?”

  I turned to him, my knees still a little wobbly. “I think I’ll pass. The way I feel right now I might very well wrap your car around a tree.”

  Grinning, he laid his arm around my shoulders and walked me to the passenger side. He held the door open for me.

  Streetlamps illuminated the car’s inside in beacon-like intervals as he brought me home on a casual cruise. I watched the lamps travel by my window for a while, then tilted my head the other way and studied Ryan driving, which was a far more captivating sight.

  He responded with a brief glance my way. “Did you enjoy yourself tonight?”

  I definitely enjoyed him. “It was okay.” I shrugged, but then I bit my lip and decided I could give him something more of the truth. Through a snarky grin, I added, “Actually, it was quite nice. But I still hate you!”

  “I know.” His chuckle resounded in the cabin. “I’m sorry I dragged you into hell on that stage.”

  “And you should be.”

  As the headlights of another car broke through the windshield, his brows knitted slightly. He waited till the street was ours alone again then probed, “What about the lemon surprise?”

  “What about it?”

  “Should I be sorry about that, too?”

  Him being sorry that he was my first kiss? Warmth flowed through me when I remembered how soft his lips felt. A good thing he couldn’t see my body tense in reaction. I tried for a casual tone. “Nah. I should just have heeded your warning.”

  “Yeah.” An impish flash crossed his eyes. “Or maybe…just not.”

  “Or maybe not…” I agreed on a drawl, feeling the heat conquering my face.

  “You liked it?” On the straight road, he shot me a quick glance, teasing me with his beguiling half-smile. I didn’t respond, so he faced front again and chuckled softly. “Yeah, you did.”

  My lips twitched. I rolled my head back to the window side and decided to keep my thoughts to myself.

  Ryan stopped the car a few houses away from mine not to give me away to my parents. As he walked me home, I noticed the shimmer of light in Tony’s room and wondered what he’d done tonight to be still up. But then, it wasn’t my business, like I had learned this afternoon. I forced my thoughts in another direction. Ryan Hunter’s way.

  He made me smile the way he watch me as we walked. In front of our shed, he braced himself, feet planted firmly on the ground. I knew I was going to be catapulted up to the roof again, and I so didn’t like it.

  “What do you say, Matthews? Shall we do this again sometime?”

  Partying until midnight? “Maybe we should. But let’s wait until my detention is over. I really hate sneaking in and out like a criminal.”

  He laughed quietly and hoisted me onto the shed. A moan pushed out of my lungs as I landed on my stomach and dragged myself further up, swinging my legs over the edge. Yeah, agility and I had nothing in common.

  “Good night,” I whispered on the way to my room.

  “Later ‘gator.”

  I slipped inside and grabbed my boy shorts and tank-top, thinking of this day and how weird it turned out in the end. Kissed by Ryan Hunter. This was crazy. I was totally in love with Tony, and yet I ran my tongue over my lips dreaming of Ryan’s beautiful tiger eyes.

  Heck, was he thinking of me too right now?

  With a long dreamy sigh, I sprawled on my bed, reaching for the lamp on my night stand. But as soon as the light went out, a rustle in the tree and then footsteps on the roof of the shed made me switch it back on. My heart kick-started in my chest. This could only be Tony. He must have seen me come home. And I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to see him right now. Not just because I was still hurt about him dating the bimbo. But because I’d somehow much rather see someone else again—with the sexy brown eyes. Ah damn. I crawled out of bed and rubbed my temples that suddenly started to hurt.

  And then he was there, sitting on my window sill, lifting his legs through. I swallowed hard, taking a barefooted step back.

  “Hunter. What are you doing here?”

  CHAPTER

  12

  “I FORGOT SOMETHING.”

  “You can’t just come up here. I’m already in my jammies.” My protest was weak like a moth’s wing-beat. In fact, I couldn’t care less about my current clothing. All that mattered was that he was here. A burst of adrenaline swept through me.

  Ryan walked toward me with this predatory look and a sly grin. His gaze skated down my bare legs. Shivers left a trail of goose-bumps on my skin. “I’ve never seen anything sexier than those shorts on you.”

  He blasted the rest of the world right out of my mind when he hooked his finger to my waistband and pulled me closer. My hands came up to rest on his chest. Stunned, I gaped at him, my eyes wide.

  This was too close. But I couldn’t stop staring at him, at his lips... Screw Tony and my preserved love for him.

  “You forgot something?” Shit, I sounded more like a toad than myself. “What?”

  Ryan took off his ball cap and tossed it on my bed. His hand moved around my waist, pulling me even closer, his other palm shaped against my cheek and neck. He leaned in so slowly that I thought I was going to die of anticipation. His gaze moved to my lips and back to my eyes. He dipped his head.

  The first soft touch of his lips to mine rendered my eyes shut. I let him hold me, guide me, work my mouth open with his kiss. A little shy, I shifted my hands up and around his neck. He seemed to enjoy that because he pressed me harder against him. My breasts got squeezed between us. His tongue brushed against mine, very slightly at first. The intimacy of this move had me shaking to my core.

  Ryan thrust his hand into my hair. As he deepened the kiss, I finally responded with a surprising moan. I let him engage me in a dance of lips and tongues, so
metimes eager, and then softly the next moment. The wonderful musky smell of his aftershave filled my head, and I knew the scent would be edged in my mind forever with the memory of him rocking my world tonight.

  He inched away and waited for me to open my eyes. With a half-smile, he leaned his brow against mine. “By the way, I’ve known your name since the very day that you first came to watch Mitchell’s soccer training in third grade, Liza.”

  I bit down a grin about his surprising confession. “Have you, really?”

  His lips thinned to a mocking line. “Um-hm.” He nudged my nose with the tip of his then took my mouth again in a beguiling, slow kiss. His hands started to explore underneath my top, skimming the sensitive skin along my spine.

  I surrendered to him, my knees getting weaker with the heat he ignited inside me, but he supported part of my weight with a tight embrace.

  “What the fucking hell—!”

  Ryan was pulled away from me so fast I had no chance to protest other than with a grunt, struggling to keep my stance.

  “Take your bloody hands off her!”

  “No! Tony!” A strangled shriek escaped me as he punched Ryan hard in the jaw.

  Ohmygod! Ohmygod! Ohmygod!

  Ryan staggered back a step then caught himself before he crashed into my closet. I rushed to him, but he held his hand out and stopped me with a scowl that turned my blood cold. He ran his tongue over his cut lip then wiped the blood off with the back of his hand. The next instant he had Tony pinned against the wall, with his forearm pressed to Tony’s throat.

  “I’ll let you get off with this because you’re my friend, Mitchell,” he growled as dangerously as a rabid wolf. “But do this again and you won’t live through the night.”

  “You don’t scare me, Hunter.”

  I had never seen Tony so furious. He didn’t heed Ryan’s warning, but head-butted him on the nose. My mind roared in panic. I couldn’t move, caught in a stranglehold of shock. From the edge in Ryan’s eyes as he clamped down on his teeth, I could tell Tony had just signed his own death sentence.

  Full of fear for my best friend and no less sorry for Ryan’s bleeding nose, I struggled to get a grip and stepped between them, one hand braced on either of their chests. “No. No! You’re not going to do this. Not in my room,” I hissed. “And not over me.” Then I scowled at them both in turn with the insane fear my parents would wake up and kill me for having two boys in my room in the dead of the night.

  When I wouldn’t let them get at each other, both drew in a deep breath, and the rattle of my bones from holding them back eased a little. I turned to Tony, staking him with the horror I felt. “Why did you come here?” And ruined the most beautiful moment of my life. You idiot!

  “I had to make sure this asshole keeps his hands off your body.”

  Ryan glared at him over my outstretched arm. Unlike Tony, he was amazingly calm, which just crept me out all the more. “You’ve chosen one helluva moment to show up.”

  “Seems like I’m just in time. You’re not going to touch her again.”

  “I’m sure Liza can speak for herself and doesn’t need you to babysit her.” With those words, he placed his hands on my hips and moved me to the side.

  I wasn’t sure if this was a good idea, but with Tony being so furious, I somehow appreciated not to be in his way anymore. Ryan took a protective stance beside me and nailed Tony with a hard look. “This is none of your business.”

  “She’s my friend and sure as hell is my business,” Tony spat.

  “What’s your problem, man?”

  “You are. This shit ends now. I didn’t ask you to go that far with her.”

  Ryan stiffened. “Shut the hell up, Mitchell,” he warned in a voice gone lethal.

  But suddenly I didn’t want Tony to shut up. In fact I wanted to know what he meant with that.

  Taking a provocative step toward him, he continued. “I didn’t mean for you to screw her when I asked you to distract her.”

  At his words, my stomach churned.

  This was too much information for just two seconds. Finding Ryan’s shocked face, I narrowed my eyes. “Distract?” No real sound came out of my mouth. I had heard that word one time to many tonight.

  Lips tight, his jaw hardened. “It’s not like that—”

  “No?” Then what? The club, the kiss. Him letting me drive his car. It was all part of his brilliant plan to distract me. And he was sent by Tony who just wanted to feel better—do a good deed for the old friend he’d hurt. I wanted to curl up on the floor and bawl at the unfairness of my life.

  “Bullshit, of course it’s like that,” Tony answered before Ryan could say more. “He called me this afternoon, wanting to know why you’d quit training all of a sudden. I asked him to get your mind off…well—” He looked at me shamefaced, but his voice became softer. “Off us. I knew you didn’t want to see me, but I couldn’t stand the thought of you being in your room all alone, crying.” Then his tone hardened twice as much as it had before. “But now that I think of it, it was a crap idea from the beginning. You deserve better than him. All he wants is to get you in the sack. Don’t you, Hunter?”

  Wait. “I deserve better?” I couldn’t believe he’d say something as trite as this when he’d been the one who chose Barbie girl over me. “Then who, Tony? You?” Cynicism leaked from every syllable.

  “Why, I was good enough for you for the past ten years.”

  You were. Until this afternoon, when you ripped my heart right out of my chest.

  Ryan shoved Tony away and stared him down, venom seeping through his glare. “Now you start to fight for her? You goddamned idiot!”

  “I don’t have to fight for her. Not with you. She never wanted you.”

  “She might, now. And that scares the shit out of you, doesn’t it? Giving her up, but not wanting her to be with someone else. You’re pathetic.”

  If I looked at it this way, he really was. But what in the world happened that I suddenly had two furious guys fighting over me in my room. This couldn’t be true. I searched Tony’s face. “What’s going on? You told me you’re dating Cloey. So why are you in my room in the middle of the night?”

  He shot me a glance that said he’d rather not talk with Hunter in the room. A very queasy feeling rose in my gut. Instinctively, I grabbed the edge of my desk for support.

  “Not hard to guess,” Ryan answered my question, but he kept his eyes pinned on Tony. “You slept with Cloey. And she dumped you like I told you she would, didn’t she?”

  Tony was silent.

  He. And Cloey. Naked. In one bed.

  A scream started in my head that threatened to scatter my ears from the inside. My knees gave way, and I collapsed on the bed. Tony reached for me, but I spider-crawled away from him, my throat hurting as I forced air into my lungs. “Don’t you dare touch me!”

  He planted one knee on the mattress. “Please, Liz—”

  “No!” I slapped him—for the first time ever—and his head jerked sideways with the force of my palm. “Just go!”

  Tony breathed a few times, keeping me in focus, jaw hardening. I felt he wasn’t going to give up, so I narrowed my eyes, filled with all the despise and coldness I was capable of. “Now!”

  With that, he finally backed off. He puffed a frustrated grunt and climbed out through the window. We both knew, there was coming a time when we would talk again, but tonight I decided that day was a long way ahead.

  Ryan watched him silently then turned to me, blood dripping from his nose and bottom lip. He wiped it off. A scarlet line trailed across the back of his hand. “I really didn’t—”

  “Stop it! I don’t know who of you two disgusts me more tonight.” Tony, for what he did with Cloey when I still loved him. Or Hunter, who would be just the ass I always suspected him to be and drag me into something as beautiful as the kiss we shared when it was only for distraction. “Leave me alone. I’m done with you.”

  He wasn’t the fool Tony had been to come f
or me with reassurances when I was close to losing it. But he took a damn lot longer to leave my room. I almost couldn’t hold back my tears when I looked at his pleading eyes.

  “I didn’t come because Mitchell asked me to. I came because I wanted to see you again.”

  “Yeah, right. As if I would believe that. Distraction, huh? Tell me, did I look so miserable that you thought I depended on your mercy?” I paused to swallow that hurt which lodged like a hard ball in my throat. “Or did you really just want to get me in bed?”

  Ryan pinched the spot between his eyes, the muscles in his jaw ticking violently. “Cut the crap, Liza. You know that’s not the truth.”

  The truth was I didn’t know what to believe anymore. My head ached too much to make sense of tonight. Right now, I wanted no one near me, especially not this liar. “Leave. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

  Ryan didn’t move for a solid minute. Then he came toward me, very slowly. Deliberately. He bent forward, planting his hands on the mattress on either side of me. He was right in my face, licking the blood off his lip. I didn’t budge.

  “For a minute there, I thought I stood a chance. But I guess in the end, Mitchell will still be the lucky one.” He moved closer still and bridged the inch of gab between our faces. What the heck, coming for a kiss? I sucked in a breath. But he reached past me for his cap and straightened, pulling the brim deep down his brow. “See you around, Matthews.”

  Ryan didn’t look back as he crossed to the window and disappeared into the dark.

  Falling back on the mattress, I curled into a tight bundle and started sobbing into my pillow. Just where was the goddamned rewind button for today?

  CHAPTER

  13

  DAYS PASSED, AND I didn’t hear from either of them. It was a long week. Too long, with too much thinking on my part. The thinking mostly focused on two specific moments. One, Ryan’s delicious lips capturing mine. And two, Tony and Cloey, an image I just couldn’t get out of my mind. After Tuesday night, I thought I wouldn’t live through the pain that ripped open my heart with steel claws. But finally I fell into a state of numb indifference to not only Tony and Ryan, but also to the rest of the world.