Suck and Blow: Party Games, Book 1 (7 page)

Oh, Francesca, you are in so much trouble.

“Grant Rogers and Dayne Pearce,” she said, dismayed at how croaky the words were in her throat. She snatched up her right boot and shoved her foot into it, uncaring she’d left off her knee-high sock before donning her trousers. Her socks could wait. She had to get away from him. Now.

Alex narrowed his eyes a second before he clicked his fingers. “I thought I knew them from somewhere. You all went to school together, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Frankie stuffed her left foot into her boot and zipped it up with a savage jerk. “You beat them often enough on the soccer field and cricket pitch if I remember correctly.”

An ambiguous stillness settled over his face, his eyes becoming unreadable. “You do.”

Frankie swallowed at the lump filling her throat. Something about the tension in his body made the twisting in her stomach turn into a full-on bloody knot. “They live next door,” she blurted out for no reason she could fathom. “I’m going over there now.”

The unsettling tension didn’t leave him. “Will you come back?”

She licked her lips, her mouth dry. “I don’t know.”

The answer was truthful. She didn’t. It was all getting too intense. Too…surreal. Alley Cat, the guy from the poor end of town with the uncanny knack of making her feel worthless was now making her feel…what? Whole? Substantial? Like she actually
had
worth? None of it made any sense and it scared the beejezus out of her. Big time. Was she really ready to let this go where she feared it was going? And if she did, didn’t that just mean she was wrong about him all along? Another trumping via Alec Harris? Could she deal with that? Could she?

He studied her, nothing about his expression giving away his thoughts. “Okay.” He nodded. Once. “I’ll be here at the bar if you do.”

“Waiting for me?”

His stare held hers. “Waiting for you.”

The simplicity in his statement gripped Frankie’s chest in a tight clamp. Without another word, she stepped past him and pulled open the door. The blaring cacophony of the party slammed into her, far too loud for her confused state of mind. A ripple of frustrated anger shot up her spine as she pushed into the crowd. When the hell was a party too…too much of a party for her?

“This is all Alley Cat’s fault,” she muttered, driving her nails into her palms. “Damn it.”

Threading her way through the house, she hurried for the front door. She needed to talk to Miki.

However, at the sight of Mr. Porsche smirking at some pretty young thing he’d no doubt cornered in the foyer, she stopped. The young woman looked trapped and by her shell-shocked expression, was too nice to tell the jerk to go to hell.

Frankie crossed to the corner, tapping the pretentious wanker on his weedy shoulder. “There’s a Porsche being towed away out the front,” she said, affecting an overly concerned tone. “Might it be—?”

With a yelped, “Fuck,” Mr. Porsche took off, leaving Frankie and the pretty young thing in his frantic wake.

“Oh, God,” the young woman exclaimed on a cry. “Thank you so much. I thought he’d
never
get the hint.”

“No worries at all.” Frankie gave her a smile, welcoming the familiar wave of cynical satisfaction rolling over her.

See? The same old Frankie. Dealing with dickheads and morons with casual aplomb. Nothing changed here at all.

“I was worried I’d get stuck with him all night,” the woman stated with a snort. “Which would have made it difficult to track down the tall hunk of blond yumminess I saw earlier in a pair of faded jeans and…”

A dull heat prickled over Frankie, pounding with unnerving force at her temples and eyes. Tall. Blond. Yumminess. Faded jeans… Rationality told her the chances the woman was talking about Alec were slim, but jealousy told rationality to go take a flying leap.

She let out a sharp sigh, giving the damsel not-so-much-in-distress a nod and mumbled, “Have fun,” before almost stumbling out of the foyer. Jealous? Jealous? Just what the
hell
was wrong with her?

Summer hung heavy on the night air, heating her face and bare arms as she hurried for Grant and Dayne’s house next door. That the two class clowns lived in Avalon didn’t surprise her at all. They may have spent most of their class time getting lectured by one teacher or the other for being distracting, but when it came to something they felt passionate about…well, then Grant and Dayne positively soared.

And it seemed both of them felt pretty passionate about Miki.

Which should have made Frankie grin. Instead, all she could think about was Alec
bloody
Harris.

“Fuck,” she snarled, wrapping her knuckles on the solid front door of her old school friends’ rather impressive home.

The door swung inward. Grant stood in the opening wearing a cautious smile, a pair of black boxer shorts and little else. “Frankie.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You better quickly be telling me you’re dressed like that ’cause I just caught you going to bed
alone
, otherwise…”

Grant raised his hand, the same good-natured chortle she remembered from school rumbling up his chest. “Miki’s safe from my lecherous lust, Frankie.” He grinned. “She passed out about a second after we entered the house.”

Frankie fixed him a sideward glare. “Where’s Dayne?”

Grant’s eyebrows raised up his forehead. “In the shower. Damn, woman, I know it’s been ten years and all since we saw each other, but don’t you trust us?”

Letting out a ragged breath, Frankie swiped her hand over her face. “Sorry, Grant.” She shook her head. “Just having one of those nights.” She lifted her gaze to his face, wishing she couldn’t see his surprised concern. It made her feel…weak. “Can I see Miki, please?”

Grant’s eyebrows rose higher. “Did you just say please?”

“Yeah, yeah,” she growled, rolling her eyes. “Point taken. I’m a pushy cow. Now shut up and tell me where my best friend is.”

With another chuckle—and a lopsided smile—Grant stepped away from the door and held his arm out to the side. “Down the hallway, second door on the right.”

Before she could even register the need to do so, Frankie reached up and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, Rogers.”

She all but ran to the room, her footfalls on the polished floorboards echoing around the long hallway like claps of thunder, her heart beating just as loudly. The door wasn’t closed when she got there and the sight of her best friend stretched out on a massive bed—still fully dressed and snoring softly—brought a relieved smile to Frankie’s lips.

Trotting over to the side of the bed, she perched herself on the edge and gave Miki a gentle prod in the ribs. “Wake up, Miks,” she muttered, part whisper, part desperate hiss.

Miki snored. A little louder this time.

“Miki,” Frankie poked her again. “I need you to wake up. I need that logical mind of yours.”

Miki snuffled, but that was it. She didn’t even flinch at Frankie’s insistent finger.

“Miki?” Frankie leant forward and gently opened Miki’s right eye. White. Just white.

Oh, boy, she’s out of it.

Letting out a huffed sigh, Frankie settled back on the bed, her hand resting on her best friend’s stomach. The steady rise and fall of Miki’s chest acted like a balm of sorts, and she found herself taking deep breaths in synchronized rhythm with her sleeping friend. “What am I going to do, Miks?” she murmured, staring at the bed’s simple cedar headboard. “I just…Alley Cat…”

She shook her head, drumming her fingers lightly on Miki’s flat belly. “Oh God, Miki, I just had the most amazing sex with Alec Harris in a freaking powder room. A powder room. How cliché is that? And I want to again. Maybe not in a powder room but if that is the only option I’d leap at it. It was…it was…
real
. Does that make any sense? I mean, I’ve had some pretty fucking mind-blowing orgasms in my time, but this…it was sex, it was fucking, but holy shit, it was so much more. It was like for the first time ever in my life someone knew exactly what I wanted. Exactly. How can that someone be Alec Harris? How?”

She gave Miki a gentle shake, scowling when all she got in return was a low moan and hitching snore.

“Am I truly that messed up?” she continued, her throat tight. “One look at him and I was bloody hot-to-trot. Then when he kissed me…” She stopped. Licked her lips. Dragged a hand through her hair. “When I kissed him back…I know you always told me I protested too much over Alec. In fact, I’m pretty certain you used to throw that Shakespeare line at me every time I mentioned his name…how’d it go? I think the lady doth protest too much? Something like that. But, Miks, I really need you to wake up and tell me what to do?”

Miki didn’t. Damn her.

With a grunt, Frankie flopped back on the bed, resting her temple on Miki’s calves. “I can’t deny the sexual chemistry between us,” she muttered. “But…but…” She licked her lips again. “It’s Alec Harris. I despised the guy all through school, not just because he kept beating me at everything, but because he was a challenge to…to…bloody hell, Miks, he was a challenge to my ultra-alphaness. He still is. More so. The man I just made love to in the powder room will never let me do whatever the hell I want whenever the hell I want to. I can tell just by
looking
at him. That scares the shit out of me. Big time.”

She closed her eyes, puffing out a sigh.

“It’s not just Alec’s challenging personality that frightens me. It’s his strength and assurance as well. A rock-solid belief in who he is, what he wants. Do you remember that from school? God, it used to piss me off, that personality trait. So much. He’d walk into a room and own it and it didn’t matter how cheap his money was, he was sure of himself.”

Miki mumbled something, shifting on the bed. Frankie gave her a little shake, but it seemed that was it. Miki lapsed back to her silent, sleeping self. Frankie stared at the window, the dark sky beyond a shimmer of black behind the gauzy silver curtain. “I mean,” she went on, flicking Miki a quick look, “my job is all about looking at someone and knowing—just from that one look—if they have
it
, that illusive quality that makes them…more. Alec has that. In spades. It isn’t just a star magnetism, although there isn’t a hope in hell of denying he’s the sexiest bastard in the country, but a grounded control I’ve never had in my life. Ever.”

The statement filled Frankie’s chest with a dull weight. That was it, wasn’t it? One of the things that unnerved her the most about Alec Harris, right there. It wasn’t just that he was sexy and gorgeous and all together too in control of his life, it was that he had a solidity her soul knew, without doubt, she ached for. Craved. He knew who he was and wasn’t ashamed of it. He knew who he was and was fine with that. Things she couldn’t say about herself.

She let out another sigh, this one harsher. Louder. “Do I go back to the party, Miki? Do I tell him it was a mistake? Was it a mistake? I don’t know. I truly don’t. All I know is right now, at this very moment in time, all I want to do is wrap my arms around Alec Harris’s smooth, hard body, wrap my legs around his low, lean hips and feel him against me,
in
me. Feel his heart beating against mine as we taste each other’s lips again and again. Hell, he challenged me to best of three, but I want to make it best of twenty. Best of forty.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, the confession sending shards of decidedly agreeable tension into the junction of her thighs. Best of forty? Fuck, would that be even close to—

A faint scraping sound behind her made her jerk upright, her stare snapping to the open doorway where Dayne stood motionless, his expression telling her he’d been there a while. He gave her a nervous look. “Err…”

Frankie shoved herself to her feet, glaring at him. “What?”

He blinked, giving himself a slight shake. “I…err…Grant said you were here. I just wanted to say g’day.” He shuffled his feet, the action incredibly boyish. If Frankie hadn’t been so flustered she would have laughed. “And check in on Miki.”

She waited, knowing something else—a name, perhaps? A question?—sat on Dayne’s tongue. Both he and Grant knew of her rather edgy, over-wrought relationship with Alec Harris during school. If he’d heard what she suspected he had…

“I’m still wondering,” he said instead, shaking his head and giving her a somewhat apprehensive grin, “how the hell you can party like you do, Frankie?”

She wasn’t convinced. Feeling her cheeks grow hot, she strode across the bedroom floor. As much as she desperately wanted to wake Miki up, to hear her best friend put the whole confusing thing in perspective with succinct ease like she did with every other mess Frankie found herself in, she knew it wasn’t happening tonight. Not with Grant and Dayne waiting for Miki in the wings. Not with the way both men seemed to almost breathe Miki’s name with a reverence unlike any she’d heard.

What? You mean the very way Alec spoke your name back in the powder room? That way? Like you were the very essence of his life?

A heavy knot rolled in her gut. A constricting flutter claimed her sex. “Yeah, yeah,” she muttered at Dayne, pushing past him. “Whatever. Tell Miki I’ll be back to collect her in the morning.”

“I can park your car in our driveway if you want. Rather than leaving it on the street,” Dayne offered, following her down the hallway. “I promise it’ll still be there when you…” he paused for a second, “…finish.”

Frankie felt her cheeks fill with heat again. Finish what, she wanted to ask, although she suspected his answer would only make her want to scream. Or groan. Or both.

Oh God, what a freaking joke you are, Francesca.

Forcing out a steady breath, she swung back to Dayne and gave him a cheesy smile. “Thank you, Dayne, but if you think I’m letting you anywhere near my car… I remember how many times it took you to get your license.”

He laughed, a deep chortle so very much like his best friend’s, and for a moment a longing memory of what was once theirs—carefree, uncomplicated adolescence—made Frankie ache. There and gone just as quickly. She fixed him with a melodramatic stare. “Oh, and Pearce? If I find Miki in any state apart from deliriously happy when I get back tomorrow morning, both you and Rogers are dead. Got it?”