Page 47 of Twisted Play (Cruel Games #1)
Tristan cocked his head and watched me. “So how long have you known Violetta?”
“Freshman year,” I answered between bites. “We met—” Violetta and I shared a long look. The boys might know just how poor I was, but her poverty was none of their fucking business. “We met volunteering,” I finished quietly. In the campus food pantry .
“I remember Rory,” Tristan continued. “And there’s one more of you, right?”
“Sage,” Violetta said. “Her dads are in a motorcycle club, so don’t fuck with her. Actually, don’t fuck with any of us.”
Tristan smiled his most charming smile and held up his hands, protesting innocence. “I wouldn’t dare.”
Violetta’s face remained serious. “That includes Eva.”
If only she knew. I couldn’t bear to watch Cole smirk and lie to my friend about how he wouldn’t fuck with me, so I focused on my food, staring at my bowl as I chewed each bite thoroughly and swallowed.
“Hey, kitten,” Tristan said, when I didn’t look up right away. “Are we fucking with you?”
“Are you for real right now?” I snapped. Were there any men in my life who weren’t fucking me up or fucking with me in one way or another?
I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I’d gone from wanting a quick fuck to relieve the misery of my daily existence to hating them both again, and Jesus fucking Christ, I was so goddamned tired.
I hated how good it felt, how right , when they treated me like they cared in public and how hurtful they were in private.
I hated the dread that coiled in my gut when I imagined any of my blackmailers finding out about the others.
The walls started closing in. Alek’s dominance. Carter’s instructions. Cole and Tristan pretending to care. Violetta’s concern. All of it pressed down on me until I couldn’t breathe.
My hands shook, and my vision tunneled. I shoved back from the table, leaving my meal half-eaten. “Thanks for lunch, Cole,” I said, my voice tight with emotion I dared not express—that I didn’t want to express.
“Hey, hey, hey,” he said, wrapping his long fingers around my wrist, “where the fuck do you think you’re going?”
Hold it together, Eva. “Bathroom,” I said shortly, wrenching my arm away from him.
Cole stood, his expression unreadable.
Tristan reached across the table to touch Cole. “I got this.”
“Just give me a goddamned moment to myself, would you?” I snapped at the both of them as my hard-won control slipped through my fingers like grains of sand.
“Eva?” Violetta asked, worry etched on her face. One word from me, and she’d help me escape. But to what? Carter would still own my father’s life. Alek, my paycheck. Cole and Tristan, my secrets.
I ignored her, striding off, determined not to lose it until I reached the privacy of a stall in the bathroom. Poor, fat, messy, everything this world liked to denigrate—crying in the student union would be the nail in my proverbial coffin. Nobody needed to see that.
“Hey,” Tristan said, grabbing my arm, gentle but inescapable.
“Could I have five fucking minutes?” I snarled, yanking my arms away from him.
“Absolutely not,” he said. “What the fuck is wrong?”
I stopped, never more aware of our audience, the students abandoning their conversations to watch one of their star hockey players fight with a fat, poor scholarship student.
“You’re what the fuck is wrong. Cole is what the fuck is wrong. This! Everything! I just—” I took a deep breath, seeking calm. “I need a minute to pull myself together. Please.”
Tristan’s brow furrowed. “Hey.” He pulled me into his chest for a hug, enveloping me with his arms. Tears threatened to spill over. “I know how fucking hard it is to pretend everything’s okay.”
“I can’t do this,” I whispered.
“You can.” He ran his arms up and down my back. “You’re so fucking strong, Eva, stronger than any of us.”
I didn’t want to be strong. I wanted to be free. I wanted a moment, one goddamned moment, without the weight of the world—my father’s life, the future of the hockey team, Cole’s relationship with his father, blackmail—on my shoulders.
“I have to be,” I admitted finally, perilously close to admitting I hated it. Hated them. Hated myself most of all.
Tristan rubbed his hand in circles over the small of my back, warmth spreading through me, his tenderness as painful as Cole’s cruelty.
“You shouldn’t have to be,” he answered into the crown of my head.
“What would make this easier? If you could tell people we’re your boyfriends?
If there were a reason for us to be spending all this time together instead of sneaking around? ”
No. Because when they inevitably tired of me, I’d just look like an idiot who flew too close to the sun.
I hated this, hated feeling like a hole for them to use and throw away when they finished playing with me, hated the hypocrisy of pretending to be in a relationship in public while they treated me like shit in private.
“Or maybe it’s the opposite,” he mused, his voice carrying the edge of possession that made my core clench and my heart flutter. “Maybe we need to let the world know who you belong to.”
I leaned my cheek on his chest, my hands resting on his waist, absorbing the warmth and solidity of him.
“I hate this,” I whispered. “I hate pretending this is real when all three of us know it’s not.”
“Isn’t it?” Tristan asked, tilting my face up to look into his eyes, dark and hooded, as he stared down at me.
“You’re blackmailing me for sex,” I said, the words barely audible. One of the students watching us raised an eyebrow, and I pressed closer to Tristan, burying my face in his chest.
His hands crept up my back, rubbing in warm circles, soothing me. “Best sex I ever had,” he murmured .
I snorted. “Everyone’s looking at us,” I said softly.
“Looking at you,” he said. “Wondering who that gorgeous girl is who’s caught my eye, and Cole’s. Envious of me, getting to hold you in my arms.”
“Getting snot all over your shirt?”
“Proud I’m the man you let comfort you,” he answered, not letting my snark dissuade him from tucking my head under his chin and holding me tight, as if he could stop me from shattering in the dining hall by pure force of will.
Maybe he could. The urge to sob my heart out was gone, replaced by a hollow emptiness.
“We planned to fuck you after lunch,” he continued, his voice gentle, but the words made me flinch. “Want to get an ice cream instead?”
I snorted, amusement finally overcoming my panic. “Like I’m a five-year-old?”
“Like you’re a fucking gorgeous woman I want to make smile,” he said, his brow furrowed. “You’re always so fucking sad, Eva, and I hate it.”
He ran one hand up my back, holding me at the waist and neck, refusing to allow any space between our bodies. Tristan’s golden eyes shone with genuineness, and when he bent his head to brush his lips against mine, I didn’t move away.
Electricity crackled between us, but he didn’t deepen the kiss.
No, he just moved his lips sweetly over mine.
When he drew away, I wasn’t quite ready, and the smile in his eyes told me he knew it.
For a moment, another moment, just like so many before it, I allowed myself to imagine a world where this was real, where they actually cared, and where I wasn’t slowly selling pieces of my soul just to survive.
“Ready to face the world again?”
“Do I have a choice?” I asked him ruefully .
He looked over my shoulder then nudged me to do the same.
Cole stood a few feet away, his fists clenched, his expression unreadable.
Tristan nodded, and Cole strode forward.
He sandwiched me between the two men and set his hands on my waist, one covering Tristan’s, trapping me between them.
I had nowhere to run, no way to escape. I gave in to the fantasy, pretending they sheltered me from the storm rather than contributed to it.
“You’ve got good reasons to be sad, pretty girl,” Tristan said. “But let us carry some of that weight for a little while, okay?”
I’d never admit how reassuring it was to stand between them, how much I liked the feeling of them shielding me from the world. Tomorrow I’d hate myself for it, but today? I could pretend.
“Ice cream after lunch,” Tristan told him.
Cole snorted with amusement. “Yeah, okay, sparrow. Ice cream and then fucking.”
And somehow, that didn’t sound so bad.