The Game You Play: A Rixon Raiders Novel Read online

Cameron lingered, crowding Hailee against the locker and kissing her. I glanced away, giving them some privacy. I’d grown used to their PDA’s over the last couple of weeks, but it didn’t make them any easier to stomach.

  After a minute or so, I peeked over at them. Faces pressed close together, Cameron whispered something to Hailee that made her giggle. Jealousy clawed its way up my throat, but I stuffed it down. After everything they’d put her through over the last few years, she deserved this. The fairy tale romance. The happily-ever-after.

  Cameron and Hailee were couple goals and I was so happy for them.

  Not at all green.

  Nope.

  Not even a little bit.

  My day didn’t get much better. Hailee was barely talking to me, and all everyone else was talking about was the Raiders upcoming game against Millington. Which meant all day his name followed me, a whisper on the wind, taunting me.

  But it was fine.

  I was fine.

  I’d wanted to lose my v-card and I had. Okay, so I hadn’t anticipated giving it up to one of the most arrogant and conceited jerks I knew, but what was senior year if not a chance to try new things ... and then quickly regret ever going there.

  Images flooded my mind as I pushed the sandwich around my plate. His hurried and needy and oh so hot kisses. His big strong hands splayed around my hip, my throat, possessive and dominant. The sting of him filling me... the almost tears.

  “Flick?” Hailee narrowed her eyes at me. “Where’d you go just now?”

  “Huh, I...”

  “Forget it.” She went back to her fries, and guilt coiled around my heart. I hated that things were awkward between us. But she had walked in on me and Jason doing it, so I knew I had to give her time to come around. My best moment it was not.

  “You know, you can go and sit with him.” I flicked my head over to where Cameron sat with the rest of the football team.

  “I know. But we’re not attached at the hip. Besides, he needs this.” She glanced over at him. “After everything with his mom, he needs the team.”

  “How is she?”

  “Dealing the best she can. But she’s a fighter, and she really wants Cameron to focus on school and the team.”

  I nodded. “So if he’s over there to bond with the team, why is it he hasn’t taken his eyes off you?” My brow arched, and Hailee fought a smile.

  “He wanted me to sit with them.”

  Swinging my leg over the bench, I stood up. “Come on, let’s go,” I said, prepared to take one for our team of two.

  Hailee frowned. “What are you doing?”

  “We’re going over there. He might need the team, but he needs you too. And to be quite honest, I can’t eat my lunch with him making moon eyes at you.”

  “Flick,” she groaned, peeking over at the team. “I’m not sure...”

  “Fine. I’ll go by myself.” I shrugged, grabbing my tray and moving around the table.

  “Oh my god,” Hailee breathed out. “You’re serious, you’re really going to sit over—”

  But her words rolled off me as I made my way over to their table. A few of the guys glanced up when I reached them.

  “Fee, baby.” Asher’s eyes lit up when he noticed me. “And to what do we owe this pleasure?”

  “Room for one more?”

  “Oh, sweetheart,” one of the sophomore players, Joel Mackey, smirked. “You can sit right here.” He glanced down at his crotch and I rolled my eyes.

  “Back the fuck up, Mackey.” Asher nudged the guy next to him and dropped his eyes to the space at his side.

  Just as I went around to sit by him, Hailee approached the table. “I wondered how long it was going to take for you to give in,” I heard Cameron say to her, quietly. He swung his leg over the end of the bench and pulled her down, slipping his arms around her waist. “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  I sat down, trying to look at anything but Cam brushing his lips over hers. God, they were so in love. So happy. So freaking perfect. Something inside me twisted.

  “You okay over there?” Asher whispered.

  “Who me?” I flashed him a warm smile. Asher was... well he was like a stray who followed you around; cute and annoying. But he’d never been anything but nice to me.

  “You don’t need to do that,” he lowered his voice so that it was drowned out by the conversation going on around us. “Not with me,” he added.

  “Do what?” I played dumb, ignoring the pit in my stomach.

  His eyes flicked to where Jase sat. He was busy talking to one of the guys when a manicured hand slid over his shoulder. He glanced up, a sly smirk gracing his ridiculously perfect face, as Jenna Jarvis, star gymnast and head bitch of Rixon High, stared down at him with a salacious smile of her own. Without hesitation, Jase shoved his chair back slightly letting her drop onto his lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck and I almost gagged.

  Suddenly, I felt Asher’s arm go around the back of me. My eyes slid to his in question but in true Asher style he simply grinned.

  My cell phone vibrated, and I dug it out.

  Hails: Are you okay?

  Me: Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?

  I didn’t meet her heavy gaze despite feeling it burn into the side of my face.

  Hails: He’s just using her...

  My eyes flicked to Jase and Jenna of their own volition.

  Me: Doesn’t matter. I knew what I was doing.

  You didn’t tame a guy like Jason Ford. You enjoyed whatever he was willing to give you and filed it away under ‘fun while it lasted’. Jenna knew this, all the girls at school knew this, and yet, it didn’t stop them trying to conquer him. To make him fall at their feet. And there had been many who had tried... and failed. But I didn’t bunch myself with them because I was under no illusions when it came to Jason Ford, QB One, and Rixon’s golden boy of football.

  Hails: You deserve so much more xo

  The xo made me smile. She might have been pissed at me for sleeping with her step-brother, but Hailee wouldn’t stay mad for long. We were ride or die, and it would take a damn sight more than some guy to ever come between us.

  Me: I love you too xo

  I hit send and finally looked over at her, both of us grinning. But then something caught Hailee’s eye and her face paled. I didn’t need to turn around. I already knew what I’d find. But I did it anyway. To prove to myself—and maybe her—that I was in control of this situation. That Jason was just a semi-drunk lapse in judgment.

  The second my eyes landed on them—Jenna plastered against him, their lips moving, tongues licking—I knew it was all a lie though. One I kept telling myself over and over, because if you kept repeating something, it had to be true, right?

  My hands shook as I pushed my tray out of the way and stood up.

  “Fee?” Asher’s voice barely perforated the white noise in my head. Jason wasn’t only kissing Jenna, he was devouring her, and I was pretty sure in about ten seconds they would be fucking in the cafeteria. Sexual energy rolled off them, hitting me like a wrecking ball.

  “I- I have to go,” I rushed out, trying to keep my voice even. “I forgot. I have an appointment with Miss Hampstead.”

  He frowned up at me; eyes narrowing, clouded with suspicion.

  “I’ll see you later, okay?” I forced a smile that I knew probably looked wrong.

  “I’ll come with you,” Hailee said across the table.

  “No, it’s cool.” I made myself meet her sympathetic gaze. “I’ll see you in fourth period.”

  But the second I went to move I realized my mistake. To get out of the cafeteria, I’d have to walk directly by Jason and Jenna.

  Crap.

  Taking a deep breath, I grabbed my tray and kept my head held high. I was so proud of myself for keeping it together. Only a few more steps and I’d be clear of them and their live sex show. Until something brushed the back of my leg, and I froze. My breath caught as I willed myself to calm down. It was nothing. A gust of win
d from an open window maybe, or dust particles in the air. Before I could stop myself, I looked down. Dark eyes stared back at me.

  Jason.

  It was Jason.

  He stared at me, through me, as I stood there paralyzed. Jenna was still kissing him, trailing her treacherous mouth all over his skin. Skin that less than forty-eight hours ago, I’d tasted. Skin I had been kissing.

  A violent shiver rolled up my spine, my stomach churning.

  Move, Felicity. Just keep walking.

  Jason’s brow rose as he continued to stare at me, barely kissing Jenna back, but not stopping her either.

  His intense gaze was cruel.

  But then, I shouldn’t have expected anything else.

  Steeling myself, I narrowed my eyes at him, lingering for a second, and then put one foot in front of the other and kept walking. Telling myself he hadn’t just ripped out my heart and stomped all over it.

  Jason

  “We need to talk,” Cameron pressed his hand against my chest blocking my exit from the locker room.

  “Not interested,” I said coolly.

  “We are doing this.” His brow arched as he shoved me. It was only a mild push but enough for me to know he meant business.

  “Fine,” I shot back. “Say whatever you have to say, man, and let me get the fuck to class.”

  “You go to class now?” He smirked.

  “Fuck you.”

  “Why’d you do it?” Cam let out a weary sigh, his eyes asking me a million things I didn’t have the answer to.

  Shrugging, I said, “Because I was drunk and she was there.”

  “Don’t give me that bullshit. You like her.”

  “Like her?” I barked out. “I can’t fucking stand her.” Felicity Giles was exactly the kind of girl I spent my days trying to avoid. Needy. Desperate. Weird as hell.

  “You really are a dick sometimes, you know that?”

  “Never claimed to be anything else.” I shrugged dismissively.

  “I just don’t get it. Vaughn was all over you. You could have taken her back to the hotel…” He let the words hang between us. We’d gone to New York for Hailee’s birthday last weekend. Asher’s cousin Vaughn had showed us around with her brother. She was hot. Slim with curves in all the right places, and Cam was right, she was up for it. Whispered it in my ear more than once during the night. But I hadn’t gone there. Instead, I’d drank more than I should have, gone back to the hotel and found myself outside Felicity’s room in the middle of the night.

  “Look, it was just sex. Drunken sex. I was horny, and she was there.” She might not have been my type, all geeky with no filter, but there was no denying Felicity was gorgeous. Long dark hair, narrow waist, and legs that seemed to go on for miles, even if she did stand a good few inches shorter than me. And her eyes, fuck. Two pools of sea-green that had worked some hypnotic voodoo shit on me.

  Obviously.

  “Just sex,” my best friend repeated flatly.

  “Yeah, just sex. She knows the score. It was a good time. Now it’s over. So can we all just fucking move on?” I couldn’t get distracted by some girl-drama, not when I had the play-offs in sight. My focus needed to be one-hundred-and-ten percent on the team. On winning State.

  “So it wasn’t a game?”

  “Game? What the fuck are you talking about?” Irritation rippled through me.

  “You didn’t know?”

  “Seriously, Chase, spit it out already.”

  Cameron was staring at me like I’d lost my fucking mind. And maybe I had. If I’d had known it would cause this much trouble, I never would have looked twice at Felicity. But then, my step-sister wasn’t supposed to walk in on us.

  He didn’t reply, still gawking at me, so I added, “Look, I know she’s Hailee’s best friend, but she knows the deal. I didn’t promise anything, and she didn’t—”

  “Will you just shut up a second,” he ground out and it was my turn to gawk.

  A beat passed. Another. The air charged around us.

  And then he delivered the last words I ever expected to hear.

  “She was a virgin.”

  “A virgin?” I choked out. “Is that supposed to be a joke?”

  Felicity wasn’t a virgin. Sure, she’d been tight, but I just figured she wasn’t as experienced as Jenna or the other gymnasts and cheerleaders who rode dick like it was an Olympic sport. But she hadn’t said a word when I’d gone faster. Harder. I always liked to be in control and that spilled over to sex. I never made a girl do anything she didn’t want to, but I wasn’t gentle either. I liked to fuck. And then I liked to get the fuck out of there. I’d tried the whole relationship thing once before and it had blown up in my face, and I wasn’t ever looking to go there again.

  I didn’t do sleepovers and except for a handful of girls, I didn’t do repeat performances. Sex was an outlet. Nothing more, nothing less. And like football, I excelled at it.

  So how the fuck hadn’t I realized Felicity was a virgin?

  “You really didn’t know?” Cam asked.

  “Do you think I would have fucked her if I did?” He winced at my harsh tone. “She was practically begging for it.”

  I think. It was all a little hazy. But she’d wanted it as much as me.

  “Nice, real nice.” He deadpanned.

  “Are we done? Because you’re starting to piss me the hell off.”

  “Yeah, we’re done.” He let out an exasperated breath. “Just stay away from her, Jase. She’s Hailee’s best friend and things are already strained enough.” He didn’t say the rest; he didn’t have to.

  Things between us were strained. But then what had he expected when I found out about him and Hailee?

  Growing up, she had been the bane of my fucking life. I’d hated her. Hated everything about her. But a lot had changed since senior year started. I guess that was a trending theme with it being the final year of high school.

  Me and Hailee weren’t exactly friends now, but for the sake of Cameron, we’d called a shaky truce.

  “Is that all?” Anger laced my words. I was so fucking over all this bullshit.

  “I know it’s hard seeing me with her—”

  “Save me the ‘I’m sorry I chose your step-sister’ speech.”

  “Jase, come on...” His hand curled around my arm. “It doesn’t change anything. You’re still my best friend. I’ve got your back. Always.”

  But it did change things.

  It changed everything.

  It had always been the two of us against the world. Now it wasn’t.

  And I didn’t know what the fuck to do with that.

  I pushed off the wall the second Felicity appeared. Mondays she stayed behind after school for book club.

  Fucking book club. It sounded like something my grandma would have enjoyed if she were alive.

  “Jason?” Her mouth fell open when she spotted me, those big sea-green eyes widening to saucers. “What are you—”

  “Let’s go, Giles,” I said, trying to keep it as impersonal as possible. My dick had other ideas though, traitorous motherfucker, stirring to life the second my hand clasped around her tiny wrist. Remembering how it had felt to pin them above her head while I slid inside her, making her cry out my name.

  “Go? Go where?” She huffed indignantly. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  “You think you have a choice?” I dragged her around the side of the building toward the gym. It was quiet, just like I knew it would be.

  “Jason,” she hissed, trying to yank free of my grip. But I kept walking, refusing to do this out in the open where anyone could walk by and see us.

  Shouldering the door to the gym, I pulled her down the hall toward the locker room. The second we were inside, and the door closed, I was on her. Crowding her against the wall, I placed my hands either side of her head and glared at her. “A virgin? You didn’t think to fucking mention that before we—”

  Her scowl deepened, a low growl rumbling in her throa
t. It would have been impressive if she wasn’t so tiny and vulnerable compared to me as I loomed over her. “It wasn’t like you asked,” she seethed.

  “Because I didn’t think—”

  “Oh that’s right.” Her brow rose. “You’re used to fucking skanks.”

  Jesus, this girl.

  “Watch it, Giles.”

  “Or what, Ford?” she threw back without hesitation.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” My voice softened, surprising me. It surprised Felicity too, if the hitch of her breath was anything to go by.

  “It’s not a big deal.” She gave a lackluster shrug. “I wanted to get it over with, and you were available.”

  “Available?” I balked. She couldn’t actually be serious. “You make it sound so—”

  “What are you doing, Jason?”

  What was I doing?

  “Nothing, I just... shit, Felicity, you should have told me.”

  Sardonic laughter spilled from her lips. “What, so you could make it romantic? Buy me flowers and tell me how pretty I looked before dirtying me up. Please. This isn’t a fairy tale and you’re certainly no prince. It was just sex, Jason.” Something flashed in her eyes, but she quickly schooled her expression.

  It was too late though. I’d seen that look before. Right before I glided inside her.

  Fuck.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  Memories washed over me. Her damp skin, the little moans she made as I moved above her. Inside her. The way she’d clung to me, meeting me thrust for thrust.

  “You’re sure you were a—”

  “Are you kidding me right now?” Her eyes widened.

  “But you didn’t...” The words got stuck in my throat.

  “What, bleed? I did, you were just too wasted to notice.” Shame colored her cheeks as she lowered her gaze.

  I had been drunk, but I hadn’t been that drunk. Had I? It had been dark and messy. A tangle of heated kisses and desperate touches. And then Hailee had burst into the room killing the moment and I’d pretty much hightailed it out of there, not bothering to check if she was okay.

  “Can I go now?” she added, barely looking at me.

  “I… what...” I choked out unsure why I felt like shit all of a sudden. So she was a virgin. It wasn’t like I initiated it. She was as hot for me as I was for her.