Page 51 of Twisted Play (Cruel Games #1)
“Oh, that’s for me,” Eva said, mischief in her voice. I peeked in the bag. Holy shit, she’d bought luxury skin care. “More’s on the way,” she chirped.
Katie grinned. “What’d he get you?”
Eva tilted her chin up. “I got it for me. And it’s skin products.” She opened the top of the bag so Katie could peek in.
“Oh, good choices,” Katie said, holding a jar up to the light.
“Right?”
Soon, the other girls crowded around Eva.
Haruto continued to glare at me, but his eyes softened when he saw the women surrounding my girl, making her feel welcome.
The doorbell rang again. And again. And again. Soon, all my housemates were openly grinning at the five-figure overnight kit Eva’d purchased for herself using my money.
“You’re playing with fire,” Haruto said quietly. His gaze cut to Tristan, who’d dropped into an armchair so he could watch Eva surrounded by puck bunnies and a couple of girlfriends. “She’s a good girl, not a puck bunny you can drop when you’re bored.”
“I know,” I said, meeting his brown eyes with my own confident gaze. “And she knows what she’s getting into.”
Haruto’s laugh was short and bitter. “She couldn’t possibly. Girls like her don’t, no matter what she’s telling you. You’re going to break her.”
“Maybe,” I acknowledged. “But don’t you think that’s her decision?
” The lie was bitter on my tongue. She hadn’t chosen this.
I’d cornered her, used her secrets against her.
Now I was showing her off to the team like a prize instead of treating her with the respect she’d earned.
The satisfaction of owning her warred with an unfamiliar ache in my chest.
Haruto snorted and leaned back against the wall by the door so he could open it for the next courier. “I think you didn’t think about what bringing her here and introducing her to everyone as a puck bunny you and Tristan are sharing would mean.”
“She’s not a puck bunny,” I snapped before I could stop myself.
“Make that real fuckin’ clear,” he said, gesturing to the couch where fucking Rami leaned over her from the back, his nose brushing against her copper curls, oohing and aahing over her purchases.
I swore.
“You better lay your claim, and you better fuckin’ treat her well,” Haruto finished before shoving off the wall.
“What, like you have with Katie? ”
Haruto’s bitter laugh surprised me again. “Katie’s fuckin’ her way through the entire team so she can make Rami suffer. She and I both know exactly what we’re getting into tonight. Eva has no idea what it means to be your girlfriend.”
“She’s not my?—”
“Think twice before finishing that sentence,” Haruto said. He ambled over to Tristan and murmured what I imagined was the same warning.
Tristan looked up with a smile, one so fucking bright, I wanted to hide from it before it blinded me.
Haruto didn’t even look at Katie when he jerked his chin toward the stairs. He didn’t have to. She scrambled off the couch to grab his hand, and they walked up together.
“Eva,” he called over his shoulder.
“Yeah, Haruto?” she asked with a smile I found myself desperate to convince her to turn on me instead.
“If you need anything, like a ride home at any point, you knock on my door, you understand?”
Her eyes widened, and her lips parted in that adorable fucking “o” before she caught my eye.
Her smile was so fucking sweet my tooth ached, and I never wanted her to look away again.
The entire team watched her with concern, and fuck if that didn’t make me want to drag her upstairs and mark her as mine so everyone could hear.
“I think I’ll be okay. Tristan and Cole’ve got me, I think.” Her loyalty only increased the pressure in my chest.
“We do,” I said, moving from my place beside the door and making a damn decision.
I moved her bags to the end of the couch and settled down beside her, one arm wrapped around her shoulders before I tugged her temple to me so I could kiss it, ignoring the shocked silence from my teammates and housemates. “Expecting anything else? ”
She reached into her pocket and unlocked my phone.
Rami inhaled sharply, his expression surprised, but he didn’t say anything.
What? “If I was worried about Eva going through my phone, I wouldn’t have given it to her in the first place,” I said.
He lifted in surrender. “Sure, Cole,” he snorted. “You give your phone PIN to all the puck bunnies.”
“Eva’s not a puck bunny,” I snarled, and fuck if that wasn’t the whole damned problem. She was mine. She was Tristan’s. And we sure as fuck weren’t sharing. Not with anyone else, anyway.
“She sure as fuck is not,” Rami said, erupting into laughter. He reached over to tug on a strand of Eva’s hair. “Eva, unlike Haruto, I’m flying solo tonight. If you need anything, just knock.”
I glared at him until he disappeared up the stairs, then looked around the room. “Anyone else have something to say?”
My remaining teammates and their girls found anywhere else to look but the couch where I tugged Eva into me. “Good. Any more packages coming?” I asked my girl again.
“One more,” she murmured, handing me my phone back. “Hair care.”
“Excellent. Then we can get on with your punishment.”