Page 132 of Wanna Play A Game?

I hesitate. Sawyer would be heartbroken.

The cat moves in my lap, making me stiffen again. Fuck it, she can dig her own grave. I won’t help her out of it. “Sure, whatever. Just get this thing.”

Cali grabs the animal off my lap, but as she does, it digs its claws in, causing pricks of pain to dart through me.

“Fuck!” I swipe the cat off my lap. Its claws rip through my jeans as I do.

“Weiner,” Cali hisses. “What the absolute hell?” She carries it away.

I brush the hair off my lap. My heart is pounding. I want to look up cat scratch fever.

No, that’s stupid. I’ll be fine.

I feel the pricks pounding with every heartbeat.

Cali comes back into the room, crossing her arms when she gets to the end of the couch. She waits for a second. It’s like she can see my internal panic.

“What?” I bark.

“My drink?” She raises a delicate eyebrow.

Oh. I mutter under my breath, then move to the office to get her one. When I come back with it, she’s sat herself down at the opposite end of the couch.

I go to hand it to her, but she says, “No. I want yours. No telling what you put in that one.”

I stare at her for a second. Then I put her glass to my lips, taking a swallow, leaving her a healthy amount.

“There. Satisfied?”

She watches me, then shrugs and reaches out. When our fingers brush, a little jolt of electricity goes through me.

I sit back on the couch. I’m not the one she has to worry about spiking drinks.

Cali takes a deep drink, her lips covering the same spot on the cup mine just did. It makes me wonder what her lips would feel like against mine.

She swallows the drink like she’s desperate. For a minute, I see the stress around her eyes. She stares across the room, out the back windows. We’re quiet for a while.

Discomfort fills my bones. Why the hell is she still sitting here? If she thinks just because I wouldn’t fuck her with thatman’s disgusting dick that I like her, she’s deadly wrong. Her intoxicating scent drifts over to me. I close my eyes. Focus, Ryder. I’m about to get up and work elsewhere so I can focus when she says, “So you don’t like cats?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Weiner hates men.” She throws me a glance.

“Then he has the wrong name.” I snatch my drink, take a burning sip, and go back to my phone. I won’t leave. I refuse to be uprooted by her any more than we already have.

“But he acts like a dick. Entitled and mean. So he’s appropriately named.”

I take a sideways look at her. “I think it’s you who hates men.”

Cali bristles for a second. “Only the ones who deserve it.”

I take a sip of my drink. “Who deserves it? What infraction must a man commit to deserve your hate?”

Cali brings the glass to her lips and doesn’t answer me.

The alcohol burns in my throat. “Look at you wrong? Not cater to your every need? Not snivel at your feet?”

She barks a laugh. “I get it, Ryder, you don’t like me. No need to beat a dead horse.”