A Game Of Temptation

LAURA

The look on the bartender’s face was priceless.

His eyes were amused as they darted between me and Alex, his amusement growing even more when he took in the tense lines of my shoulder and the tight scowl on Alex’s face.

He wasn’t even bothered that this man was about to kill him. Probably because he already knew that he wasn’t the one going to get killed. Alex was.

I didn’t know what the expression on my face was since I couldn’t see myself, but I was very sure that I was wearing a look equally as murderous as the one the man beside me wore.

And it wasn’t because I wanted to kill the bartender, no, how could it be?

It was because I wanted to kill the man who had decided to casually throw his hand over my shoulder as though we were long time friends. Or more.

“What the hell are you doing?” I hissed under my breath quietly, but loud enough for him to hear him.

Alex turned to me, levelling me with a confused look. The death glare on his face lessened into something far more bearable, which was why I was able to hold his gaze without flinching.

“Get your hand off me.” I whispered when he just kept looking at me, confused. “People are watching!”

“That’s the problem?” He asked incredulously, throwing a pointed look at the bartender-who had probably decided he had way better things to do than idly watch two people attempt to kill each other with their eyes and walked away-then another to me.Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

“Yes!” I snapped, drawing a couple of eyes our way.

Great, now people were watching us.

Cursing under my breath, I took Alex’s arm and dragged him with me, muttering, “Not here,” under my breath.

My intentions were to get us somewhere private, away from the curious eyes of our friends and talk some sense into him. I was hoping that they hadn’t already seen us at this point and if they hadn’t, then it was nothing short of a miracle, because all they had to do was turn their heads and they’d have seen us.

An open door stood at the rear end on the other side of the bar and I walked through it, Alex following closely behind me.

There were a lot of people hanging outside, a few making out. I walked over to a spot that wasn’t as crowded and let his arm go, folding my arms across my chest as I faced him with a glare.

“What was that in there?”

He angled his head. “What was what?”

“Don’t even try to act like you don’t know what I’m talking about,” I snapped. “You coming over to the bar and putting your arm around me. What did you do that for?”

He mirrored my stance, folding his arms. “That bartender was hitting on you-at least he was going to-and I decided to step in before it could go any further.” He shrugged as if I was supposed to understand why he did what he did.

I blinked at him. Then blinked again just to make sure that he was actually standing right there and he’d just uttered those words to me, because what the actual fuck?

“You decided to step in because you thought he was hitting on me?”

He levelled me with a glare. “He was hitting on you.”

“And you decided to step in?” I flung my hands in the air, “Why would you even do that? What right do you have?”

His brows furrowed and he looked so confused, I wanted to bite him. “Is there something I’m missing?”

I started pacing in front of him, the thought that the guys could have seen us and now assumed that there was something between us, making me anxious. “You shouldn’t have done that, Alex, you shouldn’t. You had no right.” And he didn’t. “If any man decides to hit on me-if I decide to flirt with any man-you have no right to do anything about it. I’m not a child-”

He stepped forward and tried to catch my eyes, but I was still pacing with my head down and he had to physically stop me by gripping my arms and holding me still. “It’s not about you being a child, Laura. Believe me, I’ve noticed,” he gave me a slow once-over that had my nipples standing at attention and waving at him enthusiastically. I tamped them down. “It’s about us being exclusive with each other until…” He trailed off when he saw the look on my face. “We have something going on, don’t we?”

My heart dropped to my stomach as all the blood drained from my face.

Blood frozen in horror, I whispered, “We have something going on?”

Oh God.

Oh my God.

This was exactly what I’d been trying to avoid, but it’d happened anyway.

I’d thought about this the moment I saw him on the jet, thought about how he might start to want more from me, and that was exactly why I’d made it very clear to him that there couldn’t and would not be a repeat.

It’d happened just once.

Sure, we’d kissed and done… almost every other thing other than sex, and I blamed it all on the close proximity. We were forced to live in the same house and see each other every day. We were bound to remember that night and the increased sexual tension would make us wish for a repeat.

It didn’t mean that we were actually going to give in. And I’d thought that we both knew that.

Apparently, I was wrong.

Alex’s face darkened and he repeated the words slowly, “We have something going on, don’t we?”

Blinking quickly, I stepped out of his hold, putting space between us. “No. Why would you think that?”

“Laura, love,” he took one step and closed the distance I’d put between us, his voice dropping low. “I’ve eaten you out more times than I can count and I’m sure you don’t just blow any guy you see, else Drew and Jake would have gotten the same treatment. Plus, I don’t see you wearing their T-shirts and hanging out on their beds, so I apologise for assuming there was something going on between us when there axially wasn’t.” He sneered, his chest flying up and down with the force of his laboured breaths.

My cheeks flamed hot at his words.

Okay, I see how I might have led him to believe that there was something between us. But still…

“You asked me to stay and shower with you!”

“Because you did something nice for me and I couldn’t just let you leave.”

“Oh, sure, make it all my fault.” I scoffed, tossing my hair over my shoulder. “Forcing me into spending time with you was your way of thanking me.” Then, I added, “Not that I’d asked you to, mind you.”

“If you really didn’t want to, then you wouldn’t have and you know that.”

That gave me pause.

Deep down, I knew that he was right. If I really didn’t want to, then I wouldn’t have stayed that day. I’d never been a person that could be made to do something that I didn’t want to, and if I hadn’t really wanted to stay that day, if I really really wanted to leave, then I would have left.

The whole thing wasn’t entirely Alex’s fault. I’d actively participated in making him think that there was more between us.

Shit.

I was a lot of things, but I wasn’t a hypocrite.

And I knew when to admit that I’d fucked up.

Sighing, I pushed my hair out of my face and stared at the ground, kicking a stone. “You’re right; I would have left if I really wanted to, but I didn’t think you would take my staying to mean something else.” I told him, still staring at the ground, unable to meet his eyes. “I… apologise for that. However, my rule still stands.”

There was silence and the only thing I could hear was the people around us talking and the music from the bar.

After a while, he said, “No sex.”

I forced myself to look in his eyes so that he would see just how serious I was about this. “Yes.”

I couldn’t place the look in his eyes, and he was wearing a carefully blank expression that made it impossible for me to know what he was thinking.

“How about everything else?” He asked.

My palms started to sweat. “What about them?”

“Are you putting an end to them too?”

Honestly, I didn’t want to. And I didn’t necessarily have to, right?

I mean, we were going to be living in the same house for a while and I was insanely attracted to him. The attraction wasn’t going to go away anytime soon from the looks of it, and since he seemed to know my body far better than any other man, why not enjoy it until we left?

“No.”

His brows lifted. “No?”

“No,” I breathed.

An evil smirk that sent my heart into overdrive touched his lips. “Good to know.”

He stalked back inside before I could say anything else, and a strange, hot sensation took root in my chest as I watched a couple of high schoolers huddled together, ogle him and giggle as he walked past them.

Gah.

First thing when I landed in New York, I was going to book that doctor’s appointment.