The Peer and the Puppet (When Rivals Play, #1) (44)



My arms wrapped around his neck. Hard and demanding became soft and giving. Ever groaned, and I opened up to devour the sound. He didn’t hesitate to sweep his tongue inside while the hand he would have used to bring me to heel massaged my lower belly. Sometime later, when we both needed air, he lifted his head and stared down at me with lust-filled eyes.

“Jesus, Four.” His chest heaved as he fought to catch his breath. “Can I touch you?”

My brow lifted because he’d never asked for permission before, but then understanding dawned when the tips of his fingers dipped underneath the band of my cotton panties.

I was suspended between lust and common sense when a knock on Ever’s door had us jumping apart.

“I hate to interrupt, but you’re needed downstairs,” Jamie called.

“Fuck,” Ever growled. He seemed unhinged as he jammed his fingers in his hair.

I wanted to laugh, but I was done making mistakes today. Or so I hoped. I still couldn’t believe what happened, and I just let it.

“Let Four know her mother is waiting for her downstairs, too.” Jamie snickered, and we listened as he walked away.

“I need to go,” I announced after shaking off the euphoria.

“We need to talk.”

“Can’t imagine what for.” I avoided his gaze as I lifted my shorts from the floor. They must have fallen completely off sometime while we fought. I couldn’t believe I actually wrestled him in nothing but my panties and a tank top. I felt myself blushing again and angrily shoved my legs into my shorts.

He blew out air, and I smiled to myself. I guess the prince had a temper after all. “Come to my room later.”

I barked out a laugh. “More orders.”

“Yes,” he hissed. “Come, or I’ll find you, and I won’t care who’s around.”

“Whatever.” My shorts were back around my hips, and I quickly buttoned them so that I could get the hell out of there, but then he turned me around to face him and hauled me back into his lap. My body seemed to have a mind of its own. With my knees framing his waist, forearms resting on his shoulders, and his hands cupping my ass, I let him kiss me again. Somehow, his lips jump-started my hips, and soon, I was grinding down on him as we both fought for dominance.

“Goddamn it, Four.” The need in Ever’s voice tempted me, but it was the warning in his eyes to steer clear that held me back. “I’m going to be inside you soon enough.”

“Don’t bet on it.”

His chuckle was sexy and masculine as his hands massaged my ass. “I don’t need to. I’m starting to believe you being in Blackwood Keep wasn’t God or some deity’s sick sense of humor. It’s fate, baby.”

“Fate or not…” I moaned around his tongue when he fed it to me. “…this isn’t happening again.” I dodged his lips and hopped off his lap while I still had the chance. I wasn’t about to be tamed by him or anyone else. Deal or no deal. Ever sat on the foot of his bed looking hungry and predatory as I backed away to the door. Slowly, he was becoming a contrast to the cold and emotionless boy I met a year ago. It was as if I were the flap of the butterfly’s wings that started his storm. I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t turn and run. Completely enchanted, I watched this tempest brew.

The sounds outside his room were beginning to unnerve me. What if we had been caught? How would we have explained my swollen lips and Ever’s hard-on? This had to end right here and now. “Stay away from me, McNamara.”

Amusement softened his features. “Not going to happen, Archer.”





TWENTY MINUTES AGO, I’D HAD Four’s shorts around her ankles and my tongue down her throat, and now I sat across from her eating fucking birthday cake with her mom and my dad like our situation was normal. I had taken my time coming down after Four ran from my room because a family breakfast with a raging hard-on wasn’t an option.

I forked another piece of coconut cake, my mother’s favorite, into my mouth, but I didn’t taste it. I didn’t exactly care for my father continuing a tradition of birthday cake for breakfast with his plaything and her daughter, but I kept my mouth shut. My father and I have barely spoken since he brought them to live in the home he once shared with my mother. The supposed love of his life. Getting your rocks off was one thing. Replacing the memories my mother created here with us was a new low of fucked up. He didn’t seem too concerned with repairing our relationship any more than I did. Maybe it was because he knew that the only way he could was to send them away. Yeah, I told Four that fate had brought her here, but my dick had been hard at the time. I was thinking clearly now, and I realized Four was right. What happened in the bedroom couldn’t happen again. The next time she broke the rules, our deal was off. Getting rid of them would be a piece of cake, which brought the question of why I hadn’t done it already.

“Son,” my father called from the head of the table.

Everyone’s attention had shifted from cake to me.

“Sir?”

He dropped his linen napkin on the table and stood. “Take a walk with me.”

I followed him out of the kitchen and through the front door, stopping short when I saw what awaited me.

“Happy birthday, son.”

My surprise was genuine as I admired my father’s gift to me. The Range was only a couple years old, and my father was at the top of the list of people I’d been a dick toward, so a car wasn’t what I’d been expecting. And not just any car.

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