“Ohhh, this is a good one,” Kit snickers.
Bristol hands his phone over to Hayes. “I’ll let Hayes choose one, with agreement from everyone. But it has to be appropriate, and it can’t get me in trouble with Coach or my agent,” he explains, armed with a dark look and an even deadlier scowl.
Everyone scrambles around Hayes, and some conspiratorial murmurs wend their way into the atmosphere. Hayes throws his head back, a raucous chuckle barging out of him. He’s picked the most horrifyingly unflattering picture of Bristol he could find. It’s a photo of him taken with one of those fisheye lenses, and he’s in nothing but a speedo, eating a banana, with his bare feet hogging the whole bottom half of the frame.
He shows the phone to Bristol. “Dude, why does this exist? Like, I get taking it for fun. But why would you keep it?”
“You’re not uploading that to the internet,” Bristol growls, grabbing the device out of Hayes’ hands.
“Twenty-four hours. After twenty-four hours, we’ll take it down,” Hayes negotiates, holding his arms up. Some of the guys have to hold back their laughter.
“It’s really not that bad,” I pipe up, biting back the inelegant chuckle that’s storming inside of me. I don’t know why Bristol didn’t delete that image the second he took it. A Navy SEAL team couldn’t waterboard that picture out of me.
After a minute of arguing from both sides, Bristol begrudgingly agrees to twelve hours, and the guys are losing their minds as all the likes start to flood in.
Fulton’s smirk is infectious, and he points at the screen like an iPad toddler. “Look, this comment says, ‘Bristol, I want to suck on your toes—’”
“Okay! Aeris, I think you should go,” Gage says loudly.
I swallow the coil of anticipation in my throat, reaching for the drink that’s going to get my blood rushing in either one of two ways—humiliation or arousal.
The second I read the dare, I want to will this nightmarish experience out of existence. This was a bad idea. It’s like when you make the wrong decision in a story-based videogame, and you have to live with a domino effect of consequences.
My heart feels like it’s been drop-kicked out of my chest, and I chew my bottom lip. I can’t do this, can I?
“What does it say?” Casen asks.
Here goes nothing.
“Lick whipped cream off the person sitting next to you. Anywhere below the neck,” I recite, my pulse hiccupping, mortification a missile aimed directly at me.
I consider the potential outcomes. One, and the most reasonable option, is that I drink and don’t subject myself to this twisted game. Two, I pick Bristol, and things become really awkward. Or three—and my favorite option—I pick Hayes.
Gage’s mouth parts into an O shape, same with Kit’s.
Heat erodes my insides, and not the good kind of heat. The feverish, disgusting, sticky kind of heat that dials my libido up a few notches while simultaneously making me feel like I’m a second away from passing out.
“What will it be, Aeris?” Gage asks.
“I…”
I want to do the dare. I want to lick whipped cream off Hayes so badly, in some X-rated places if we didn’t have an audience to entertain. Luckily, before I can answer, Hayes says with a wink in my direction, “If she wants to do it, I’ll be her willing participant.”
I’m as quiet as a church mouse when I nod my head.
I blink, and there’s a can of whipped cream in my hand, and Hayes’ shirt has already been discarded. Oh, how I’ve missed staring at those magnificent muscles of his—the glistening bulge of his pectorals to the clean-cut ridges winding through his abs. Hayes Hollings is ruination, and he wears sin like the snug fit of a leather jacket around his shoulders.
Kit sticks two fingers in his mouth and whistles, and the rest of the guys eagerly wait for me to make the first move.
Gage shakes off thermal waves of my concern. “Don’t worry. None of this is going on camera. Right, guys?”
“Right,” they all respond.
There’s a driving need in Hayes’ eyes, one that rips my own desire from deep within me, and it trembles in my bloodstream, making me want to take his mouth and kiss him with raw abandon.
I spray a line of white confectionary down his hard stomach, watching as his body contracts from the cold. I can’t hear any of the guys when I’m trapped in his intoxicating thrall, which is a good thing for both my dignity and the slicked surface of my pussy.
Without thinking, I dart my tongue out to lick up the whipped cream, exploring those eight squares of muscle with each drawn-out flick. Hayes throws his head back against the couch, and I’m close enough to hear the quietest moan rising at the base of his throat. He adjusts his hips ever so slightly as I feel his length hardening against my breasts.
What I wouldn’t give to have the rest of the guys evacuate the premises as soon as possible. The gusset of my panties is soaked by the time I’ve cleaned the broad sweep of his skin. Lust-fueled flames whirl in my chest, descending into my gut, and my thoughts feel like they’ve all fractured into a million different pieces. I can’t believe I just did that.
Kit fans himself. “Wow, that was…”
“Damn, is anyone else hot in here?” Gage teases.
Hayes’ pupils seem to swallow his irises, a hungry gleam to them. The rest of the guys have already moved on to Fulton’s dare.
I rise to my feet, ready to reoccupy my spot next to Hayes, but he grabs my wrist and stops me.
“Sit on my lap,” he orders, his tone rife with urgency.
Before I have the chance to protest, he yanks me onto his thighs, and the force evokes a surprised yip from me.
“What—”
His lips play along the shell of my ear, and his breath fires off electrical impulses in my brain. “Don’t move, or the guys are going to see the raging hard-on I have right now, and I’ll never hear the end of it.”
16
BLTS AND BODACIOUS BEAUTIES
HAYES
That game of Drink or Dare hasn’t left the back of my mind. It’s a constant reminder of how addictive Aeris Relera is—how one wrong move can lead to a Chernobyl-sized disaster. After she went home, I took a shower and jacked off to that image of her on her knees in front of me. I don’t know why I haven’t made a move.
I don’t want to hurt her, but with this big plan lingering over my head, I know I’m going to. It’s too late to come clean, so I’m gonna show her that what I’m feeling is more than sexual. More than an arrangement.
It’s just more of everything. And that scares me as much as it draws me in.
I’ve decided to take her on a nice picnic date. Something relaxing, something…less intensive than a five-course meal. Ethan called to tell me that he’s been pleased with the positive publicity from my stunt so far. He said he would’ve talked to me in person but he’s on some business trip in Oregon trying to schmooze potential clients at this well-established country club.
I’m not sure if I’ll ever tell her about the fake relationship stuff. I mean, my feelings for her are real. I don’t need to upset her by talking about something that never even happened, right?
This is the first time in a long time that my name hasn’t been dragged through the mud. I’m in the public’s good graces. I haven’t gotten into fights. I’ve been killing it out on the ice. It’s only been two weeks, but a lot has changed since Aeris came into my life.