The Game Series (79 page)

Her words ring true every part of my body. He’s still alive as long as we remember him. Cam’s still alive as long as we hold a piece of him inside the way he would us.

It’s just like Iz said. Dead doesn’t mean gone.

I wrap my arms around Roxy’s waist from behind her and rest my chin on her shoulder. “I get that. I feel it too, y’know? He’s still here. I’m waiting for him to grab me and shove some fire snaps in my hand to throw on the sidewalk, or I’m waiting for his text to tell me he’s got some great plan.”

“The plan was usually to piss me off,” she whispers and smiles.

“Oh, yeah. Nine times out of ten. We only did about half of them, otherwise we’d be forever winding you up.”

“Jesus, if all the times you hid my stuff and filled my shampoo with shaving foam was only half of it, I’m glad you didn’t do more!”

“The shampoo thing was Cam’s idea. At least it was at first.” I grin remembering her shriek when she realized what we’d done. “But now I think about it, you looked good in that towel.”

Roxy elbows me with a small laugh. “Would you believe the shit he gave me for running out like that? He didn’t speak to me for like two days.”

“Oh I believe it.” I pull her down to the floor and lie back, taking her with me. Her head rests on my chest and her arm lies over my stomach. I hold her close to me, breathing her in, and smile.

“He was so protective of me,” she muses, drawing circles on my side. “What do you think he’d say if he saw us now?”

“I think he’d punch me and call me a dick, but he’d get over it.”

“I think he’d be okay with it.” Her voice is small and nearly broken.

“You know what? He would be. He told me once. Besides, this is the best way for everyone.”

She tilts her head back and looks at me. “How is it?”

My lips curve to one side and I brush some hair from her face. “This way I get to keep my promise
and
make you happy. As long as you’re happy, I’m happy, and in the end that’s all that really matters.”

“He’d call you a pussy for saying that.” Roxy laughs but cuddles in tighter to me. I look up at the sky with a smile on my face.

“Ah, well. Can’t say I give a shit.” I laugh with her.

If you’d asked me a year ago if I’d have been here with Roxy, feeling the way I do, I’d have laughed at you. I never thought I would ever feel for her as more than just Cam’s sister, but here we are. I feel for her more than I thought I’d ever feel for anyone. More than I ever thought possible – and I know why.

I know her. I know every little quirk and habit she has, how she likes things done, how to tell her mood from just a glance, and she knows me the same way. She knows me as intimately as I know her and it works.

We both share so much pain. We both had our hearts broken, and it’s strange to think it’s the pain that’s pushed us together. It’s ironic we managed to find happiness in a time where there is none.

Perhaps this was always meant to happen and we’re the healing the other needs.

Perhaps we were always meant to find beauty in our pain.

~

A body shifts next to me and I instinctively hold it closer. Roxy’s gentle giggle reaches my ears as she climbs on top of me, and I smile.

“What are you doing?” I open my eyes to hers. She’s sitting on me, her knees either side of my hips and her hands on the ground next to my head.

“Good morning.” She beams and drops her lips to mine.

I place my hands on her hips and take her kiss. “Apparently it is,” I mutter. “Why are you on top of me?”

“Are you complaining?” She wriggles, rubbing herself over my dick, and I feel it harden. I push my hips up.

“Does it feel like I am?”

She runs her tongue over her lips and shakes her head. That movement combined with the glint in her eyes does nothing to help the erection I have digging into her pants. Because of course she’s wearing a skirt and the only thing separating us is her underwear, my underwear, and my jeans. She bends her head forward, her hair falling around us, and rests her forehead against mine.

Her lips are soft and sweet when they press against mine, and I wrap my arms around her body when she lowers herself so she’s lying on top of me. Every part of us is touching as she flicks her tongue between my lips, and her fingers slide through my hair as her other hand creeps beneath my shirt and tickles my stomach.

“Rox. We’re outside.”

“Don’t care,” she mutters against my lips.

“What if I do?”

“We would have done a lot more than just kiss up against that tree the other day if I’d had my way.”

Don’t I know it.

She presses herself onto me and every part of my body responds. My brain thinks about what’s under her skirt, my hands want to remove what’s under there, and my dick wants to
be
under the skirt and inside her. Right inside.

So fuck outside.

I slide my hand up her back to cup the back of her head and pull her face against mine. This time I kiss her. I kiss her hard, holding our mouths together, and graze my teeth along her bottom lip. She loops her legs around mine and runs her hand across my chest. I ease my hands up her bare thighs and inside her skirt, taking her ass in my hands, and hold her lips to mine.

Her exposed skin is too tempting as she sweeps her tongue against mine. She wriggles again, and my hands shift down. I’m straining against my jeans as my fingers touch the wet, tender area between her legs, and if I wasn’t so fucking caught up in the way she’s kissing me, I’d have to grit my teeth to restrain myself.

Because right now all I want to do is flip her on her back, tear away the scrap of lace she thinks passes as underwear, and fuck her the way our bodies are begging me to.

Roxy traces her fingers down my stomach to my waistband, and her fingers fiddle with the button on my jeans for a second before she pops it open.

“Impressive.” I kiss along her jaw and down her neck.

She grins. “Efficient, actually.”

“I like your efficiency.”

“So do I,” she whispers, creeping her hand lower.

The flick of her fingertips against the head of my cock makes me buck my hips. She wraps her hand around me and rubs her thumb across the tip. If it’s possible, I need to be inside her. Now.

I let go of her and reach into my pocket for a condom. Roxy takes it from me and rolls it onto me without looking. Her eyes are focused on me as she wraps her hand around me again and guides me toward her.

She jumps when I sit us up and kiss her, and I laugh into her mouth.

“Bastard,” she mumbles.

“Mhmm.”

My fingers splay in her hair and across her ass as she lowers herself onto me. She tenses for a second but doesn’t stop until she’s taken all of me and I hiss a breath. She’s wet and tight and
fuck, she’s squeezing.

She giggles out breathlessly. “Payback.”

“Bitch.” I drop kisses along her collarbone as she raises herself up and falls back again, grinding her hips the whole way.

“Mhmm.” She finds my mouth with hers and moves her tongue against mine in time with the movements of her body.

She’s crazy. She’s crazy and she’s driving me crazy. With every squeeze of her core, every flick of her tongue, every sharp breath combined with a tiny moan, she’s driving me to the brink of insanity. She’s making me need her so fucking badly I don’t know if she’ll ever be able to get rid of that need. I don’t know if I’ll ever not need to hold her body against me, over me, under me, and do this to her.

I drop us back and move my hips against hers. She buries her face into my neck and we’re both breathing fast. It doesn’t matter that we’re hardly skin on skin. I can’t feel anything but her. All I can feel is the burning temptation and desperation to take her to the edge the way she’s taking me. And I will.

I’m determined to take her to the edge and tip her the fuck over.

I have no idea how much time passes until she falls. Until we both do. I’m completely lost.

“Shit,” Roxy breathes. “What’s the time?”

“After that, that’s what you have to say?” I smirk as she gets up.

“No, really. What’s the time?”

I sort myself out, tuck the condom into the packet and into my back pocket, and dig my phone out. “Half nine.”

“Fuck! I have to work at ten!”

Her eyes are wide, surrounded by smudged make up, and her hand is covering her mouth. It’s priceless and I can’t help but laugh.

“Kyle!” She shoves my arm. “Don’t laugh. This is your fault.”

“Hey – how is this my fault?”

“You… You seduced me!” she sputters.

I laugh again and pull her into me. I brush my lips against her swollen ones. “Watch it, you, or I’ll do it again.”

“Not a very scary threat,” she mumbles, stepping back and wiping under her eyes. “Let’s go.”

I follow her through the trees. “Who said it was a threat?”

She shoots me a glance and carries on walking without another word detouring at the last minute to take the back route to her house. A perk of living in practically nowhere. I run up behind her and link our fingers, wrap our arms around her waist, and kiss the base of her neck.

“Do you have to go to work?” I mumble into her skin.

“Yes.” She squeezes my hand. “Mom is already gonna wonder where I am when she goes to wake me up.”

“What are you gonna tell her?”

“I’m undecided.”

I smile to myself as we reach her house and walk round the front. Roxy untangles herself from me, kisses my cheek, and turns to her house. She calls that goodbye?

“Hey!” I yell.

She stops and spins to me, her eyes widening at me as I walk toward her purposefully. I grab her, cupping her head and bending her backward. A squeal leaves her as my lips drop to hers, but she doesn’t fight me. She clings to my shoulders and kisses me back with a nip to my bottom lip.

“That was a movie kiss,” she mumbles.

My lips twitch and I touch my nose to hers. “Tell that to your mom.”

Roxy stands and looks at her house. Myra’s face is poking out from the corner of the curtain and there’s a smile on her face – the first real smile I’ve seen since getting back.

“I don’t think I need to tell her anything,” Roxy muses. “Perhaps some explaining, but no telling.”

I laugh and kiss her again, normally this time, and swat her behind gently as she walks to her house. Ray opens the door and points a finger at me, a frown on his face.

“What you doing keeping my girl out all night?”

“Dad,” Roxy groans. “Really?”

“Who do you think you are?” he insists.

Another laugh leaves me, and I salute him. “You don’t scare me, old man!”

“Dammit.” He shrugs. “Worth a try.”

~

I grin at Iz as she walks around the kitchen and makes lunch. She keeps glancing at me and every time my grin widens a little more. She’s going mad trying to work out why I’m doing this – trying to work out what I know. Winding her up is probably my favorite thing ever.

Next to kissing Roxy.

Iz rounds on me, pointing the butter knife in my direction. “Alright, I’ll bite. Why the fuck are you looking at me like that, you little creep?”

There we go.
I don’t say anything, just smile at her. God, this is fun.

“Kyle.”

Grin.

“Kyle!”

I scratch my nose.

“
Kyle!
”

“I was just wondering if you enjoyed making out with one of my best friends.”

“Funny, I was wondering the same thing.” She waves the knife.

“I do. Very much.” I wink at her.

She screws up her face. “Mmph.”

“Si. Why Si?”

“Seriously? You want to know how my brain works?”

Not really. “I just never pictured you two… You know. Flicking each other’s tonsils.”

“God, a frat house is doing nothing for you, is it?”

“Good job I’m moving out next semester.” I shrug. “Seriously. Why Si?”

Iz smiles slowly, the corners of her lips seeming to reach her eyes. “Because he has this a solid chest that could make a girl weep and an ass so tight it hurts to look at it. And judging by—”

“Alright, alright!” I hold my arms up. “I do not need my sister’s evaluation on the size of my friend’s dick.”

“—judging by the way he kisses, he probably fucks like a pornstar.”

I snort loudly. “A sorority is doing nothing for you, is it?”

“Good job I don’t give a flying, tap-dancing monkey then, isn’t it?” She rips off a bite of her sandwich.

“I actually need to ask you something.”

“Aside from the sexual attraction I have to your friend?”