Page 99 of Hunted

“Because we feed you. Have you even opened this fridge before?” Weston says with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes! Maybe?” I reply, my answer getting less sure as I try to recall ever actually doing that. It’s not my fault they’re always bringing me food and drinks. “What is that?” I ask, pointing to the blue bottle and changing the subject.

“It’s a cooler. We’ve had it here for when you were ready to try drinking. It’s got a lower alcohol content than hard liquor like whiskey. I don’t think you’ll like beer; the cooler is sweeter.” He uses a bottle opener to open the cooler and pushes it across the counter to me. “Try a sip.”

I take a small sip, and my eyebrows raise in surprise. “That’s really good!” I lift it back up to my lips and take a few gulps, but Weston pulls it back and puts it down on the counter.

“You can’t drink it like juice, Darla. You have to take small sips. You could get sick if you chug it.”

I nod my head. Even though I want to drink the whole thing right now, I’m learning to trust his judgement, especially on things like this that I have no first-hand knowledge about. “Okay.”

Reece’s phone buzzes in his furry pocket and he pulls it out, looks at the caller ID, and answers it. “Hey, Dad… No, we’re just going to stay home tonight. Uh-huh. Sure, I can come take a look. How’s tomorrow? Yeah, that’s fine. See you then. Bye.”

He hangs up and sighs. “My dad wants me to look over some paperwork tomorrow. Not a big deal.”

“Why don’t we play a game?” Kingsley suggests, as he grabs a beer. Weston pops the top off the rest of them and passes them out to the guys.

We all move to the couches, and I place my drink on the coffee table as I ask, “Okay, what game do we play? The only one I know is King’s Cup.”

“Let’s try something else,” Bower suggests. “How about Cups?”

“No, that involves chugging your drink. We need something with less… drinking,” Reece says carefully.

“Darla has missed out on all the classic teenage and young adult party games. We need to show her some of those,” Kingsley says, before taking a sip of his beer.

“Oh! Like spin the bottle!” Bower says excitedly.

“No fucking way I’m kissing you,” Weston says instantly, making me laugh.

“You’d be lucky to kiss a guy like me,” Bower says with a wink. “But I was thinking of a modified version. If we spin and it lands on another guy, they take a drink. If it lands on Tink, we get a kiss from her.”

“I’m in,” Weston says, immediately changing his tune.

“Let’s use this remote until we have an empty bottle.” Reece places the remote in the middle of the table then gestures to me. “Ladies first.”

I spin it and it lands on Kingsley. I stand up and move over to straddle him, giving him a heated kiss as he grips my ass. I retake my seat, and he spins. It lands on Reece, who takes a drink. His spin lands on me and he pulls me into his lap, kissing me fiercely.

After about five minutes, I look around at our drinks and frown, realizing theirs are all almost empty and mine’s completely full. “Wait a second… there is no scenario here when I have to drink.”

Bower starts laughing and the other three smile. “You caught on to that did you?”

“Hey!” I say in mock outrage. “You tricked me!”

He holds up his palms to me in surrender. “Sorry, sorry. We can just hold a lot more alcohol than you. We needed a head start.”

“Fine,” I say, crossing my arms as I glare at him. “But we’re playing a new game now.”

“Okay, how about seven minutes in heaven? That’s a classic.”

“How do we play that?” It sounds familiar, but I can't remember.

“Well… you spin the bottle, and whoever it lands on, you take them in the closet, and you can’t come out for seven minutes.”

“What do we do in there?” I ask, not understanding the point. Was it supposed to be scary?

He grins at me mischievously. “Anything you want.”

“Oh. Ohhhh!” I say, finally catching on. It’s a make-out game. I lick my lips as I eye the guys. Can’t say I’d mind that, but the point is to play a drinking game and unless part of those seven minutes is spent chugging my cooler, then it will have to wait for another day.