Page 39 of Hate the Game (Playing Dirty #1)

***Cole***

Icouldn’t shake the feeling of dread as I drove Savannah to my favorite overlook.

I kept hearing her words about her brothers and her loyalty to them was so clear that I no longer wondered why she was at USC, trying to take us down.

She seemed so real when we were alone… It was hard to remember that everything was a game.

Especially when she spoke so openly about her dad.

It made me fucking furious and she just said everything like it was nothing at all.

Like it was the most normal thing in the world for her father to treat her horribly because she was a girl.

My hands shook from the need to hold her. I wasn’t sure if she was so good that she was sucking me in or if she was just so fucking sweet that I couldn’t help being sucked in. Either way, I was on a collision course with pain if I didn’t get my shit together.

Instead of driving back to campus like I should’ve, though, I was driving to a lonely spot in the middle of nowhere to park and be alone with her. The sun was already setting and the temperatures in the hills would start dropping soon. I couldn’t make myself care, though.

Savannah unbuckled her seatbelt as soon as I parked and leaned over into the backseat to look for the blanket I mentioned might be back there somewhere.

Her dress climbed up the back of her thighs as she did and I had to sit on my hands to keep from gripping them.

I was too on edge to even begin pretending like I was being smart.

I already had multiple texts on my phone from Jax and Ryder, asking me where the hell I was and then blowing up when I told them where I was.

“Got it!” Savannah fell back into her seat with the blanket clutched in her hands. Her face quickly shifted to horror and she shoved it away from her. “Oh, god! Is this your sex blanket? Are there…fluids on there? Cole!”

I glared at her. “It’s not my fucking sex blanket, Sav. It’s from last year when there was a meteor shower we had to watch for class. Pervert.”

She took it back but she still looked hesitant. “I’m not a pervert. I know you get around and I didn’t want to sit my bare ass down on it and chance getting knocked up.”

I choked, face going bright red as I tried to breathe without feeling like I was drowning. “What?!”

She giggled. “Kidding. I know that’s not how that works.”

I gasped for air and swept my hand through my curls. “And? Are you bare?”

She winked at me as she opened the truck door. “Play your cards right and maybe you’ll see.”

I sat there staring after her, my heart beating harder than it had during any game ever.

Her laughter danced over my heated skin. “You should see your face. I’m joking, Cole. I have no plans to lift my dress and show you my ass. At least not until the sun goes down and it’s pitch black out here. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

My anger spiked. “What the hell does that mean?”

She froze as she leaned back in the truck to put her phone down. “I’m not stupid, Cole. I know that I don’t look like the other girls you’ve been spotted with. My body is-”

“Fucking perfect.” I had a wave of unhinged anger at myself for ever being seen with thin women.

It was that anger that had me slamming my truck door closed and stomping around to Savannah.

The vulnerability on her face as I approached her made me want to do anything and everything to wipe it off permanently.

“Cole?” She stumbled back a step and her back hit the side of my truck.

I caged her in and gripped her waist. “If you ever do get the urge to show me your ass, you’d better fucking believe that I’ll get on my knees and pant like a dog for you.

Don’t use my voice to paint your negative thoughts about your body.

I want to devour this body. It’s the personality that gives me pause. ”

Her eyes widened and then narrowed when she realized what I’d said. She was doing her best to get pissed when I winked and grinned. She groaned and pushed me away. “Jerk.”

I set us up on a boulder that looked out over a darkening valley and then rushed back to the truck to get the cooler of food from Antonio.

It was getting darker by the minute but I wanted to feed Savannah.

After hearing her insinuate that her body wasn’t perfect I had the insane need to prove to her that I liked the thickness of her thighs and fullness of her ass.

She stretched out on the blanket, long legs bare and exposed to the chilly wind. “I needed this.”

“This?” I sat beside her and pulled out two sealed containers of horchata. Shaking them up before stabbing a straw through each of them, my mouth watered at the promise of Antonio’s famously good drink.

“This open space. This distance from the crush of humanity on campus and in LA. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a people person most days, and I love being able to hang out and do things whenever and wherever.

There’s always something happening here and that’s nice.

I grew up in the middle of nowhere, though.

Open land as far as you can see in every direction, more cows than people, and this sometimes overwhelming sound of nature.

The crickets, the bullfrogs, even the cicadas…

I miss that.” She took a drink and let out a filthy moan.

“Jesus Christ, we don’t have horchata like this at home, though. ”

I shifted to hide the effect her moan had on me. “What was it like growing up like that?”

“Depends. During football season it was lonely. I went to every game and practice but just had to sit back and watch. That’s how I ended up wanting to be a sports journalist, actually.

By the time I was eight I could describe every play that happened in detail and knew where it’d gone wrong or right.

I’d get home from a game and scribble in my journal about it and when I realized I could do that professionally, I was all in.

” She leaned back on her elbows and tilted her head to watch me.

“The other times of the year were fun with my brothers. I stressed them out all the time. I liked to explore and then forget that I was supposed to be back at home for lunch or dinner or whatever. I’d sit down somewhere especially pretty and daydream for hours.

“When they finally found me they’d never get onto me.

They’d sit with me for a while, getting my daydreams out of me.

Later on, I realized that they were always nervous when they couldn’t find me.

They never let me see that they were bothered, though.

” She shook her head like she was clearing the memories. “Sorry. I’m rambling.”

I was lost in my own imagination, trying my hardest to imagine the lonely little girl she must’ve been, sitting alone in the middle of nowhere. It was gutting. It also made me feel a moment of appreciation for her brothers.

“Cole?”

I cleared my throat. “I like hearing you talk. You don’t need to apologize.”

She reached over and put her hand on my thigh for just a second. “Tell me something else about you.”

I caught her hand when she tried to pull it away and pinned it to my thigh. “What do you want to know?”

Her throat worked as she swallowed, eyes on our hands. She took a greedy drink and then took a deep breath. “The tattoos. Tell me about the tattoos.”