Made: A Bad Boy Romance (Bad Boy Games) (10 page)

The minute Tucker Voss and the two players hammer out their agreement; I’m hustled into the elevator. It’s Davis who marches me down the hallway on a new floor and into a room that belongs in a luxury hotel. Smart guy, Davis doesn’t hang around long enough for me to ask questions. I hear the snick of the lock as the door closes behind him.

Once I’m alone, I wander the room like a gray poodle we had when I was little, and Samantha was only an infant. I named the dog Maggs. Maggs was afraid of everything. She would never stray more than a few inches away from a wall and preferred to lurk in safe corners. My mom said the dog had been neglected in her crate too long before we rescued her. She was afraid of new spaces and anywhere that was larger than what she’d always known.

I feel like Maggs, ripped out of a cramped-but-safe life and dropped into a new place that appears nice on the outside when, in reality, danger lurks on every floor. This place is home to handsome men who are killers; old men who think their wealth and privilege puts them beyond the law; younger men who play games within games, and young women desperate to better their circumstances no matter the cost or the risks.

I still don’t know how things have worked out for Caylee.

This place is the fanciest I’ve ever seen with thick, plush carpet in a pale shade and windows lined with silk curtains that puddle on the floor like ball gowns. Tiffany Blue paint covers the walls. I sit on the champagne-colored couch and hug a pillow against my stomach, rocking gently back and forth to ease the fear that threatens to overwhelm. After a while, the slow movement and the softness of the pillow helps calm me.

A knock on the door makes me jump to my feet. The door opens slowly. Samantha sticks her head inside. “Brooke, are you there?”

I run to her, gathering her into my arms while the door swings shut behind her.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.” Her voice is muffled from being crushed against me. I can feel her tears against my skin.

When we finally break apart, we sit on the sofa that anchors an elegant seating area before the gas fireplace. Samantha leans her head on my shoulder and curls her fingers into my hand. For what feels like a long time, we don’t say anything. Then I start telling her all the things she will need to know if anything happens to me.

Where I stored my will. Our parents died without one; I’ll never do that to Samantha. Where she can locate the insurance policy I took out the year I turned twenty-one. She’s the only beneficiary. Even though my boss, Chad, is an ass hat, he’ll help her process the claim.

“You don’t need to tell me all this stuff,” Samantha protests. “I’m not going to need it because you’re going to be fine. You have to be fine.”

I don’t tell her things I remember now, things Nathan said when he was trying to reassure me about Caylee:
As far as I know, she’s on a conventional date.
I’m about to find out just how
unconventional
Harley & Sweet dates can get.

“Listen. Are you listening?” I wait until she nods, eyes gleaming with unshed tears. “I’m going to do everything I can to get through this, but I want you to be prepared in case something happens.”

Samantha collapses against me, sobbing. Because I know being harsh or stern with her won’t help, I have to wait until her tears subside.

I lift her chin with two fingers. “While I’m gone you can stay at Rachel’s house, all right?”

She shakes her head. “I want to stay at our place. I want to be there when you come home.”

“If you’re alone, I’ll worry about you. I’m going to need all my focus on the game. I can’t afford to be distracted.” My words aren’t kind, but they still her tears. “You have to be strong. Keep going to class and acing all your tests.”

“They don’t matter now.”

“When I come out of the game, and I’ve won all this money, it’s going to be sad if you screw up the end of your senior year and have to go to junior college.”

“We can use the money to pay off your student loans.” Samantha attempts a smile.

I stare at her. “You found the letter, didn’t you?”

She nods. “I was looking for the calculator. I pushed some papers out of the way, and the letter fell on the floor. When I picked it up, I couldn’t help but read it. I didn’t mean to snoop.”

For months I’d tried to work with the loan authority, negotiating lower payments because of our financial difficulties. When I couldn’t make the new, lower payments, I received a letter stating the entire balance was due and payable immediately. It wasn’t a million dollars, but it might as well have been. I didn’t have a thousand to my name, let alone tens of thousands. As long as I couldn’t pay the entire amount, interest would be added to the loan along with late fees while the debt grew larger and larger. The only escape was to pay the loan in full.

“That’s when I found the Harley & Sweet card.” Samantha’s eyes find the floor. “One night and $10K. It’s pretty tempting; you have to admit.”

“But not enough to pay off the loans.”

“It would have helped.”

I sigh. “You’re right.”

“You’re forgetting something.”

I frown. There’s so much I want to say and so little time.

“I can’t go home until you come home. I have to stay with Alexander until the game ends.”

I lift a brow at her use of the billionaire’s given name.

“You don’t have to worry about me. He’s very nice.” She takes my face in her hands. “I will be fine. I don’t want you to spend one minute worrying about me. I want you to kick ass and take names and come home with a pile of money. You’re smart. You can win.”

I want to believe her. The problem is that in this so-called
game
, I don’t know the rules or where to find the goal line or
how
to win. My fears must have telegraphed onto my face, because Samantha says, “You have to win. I’m counting on you. Promise.”

She holds out her pinky. I link mine with hers. “Promise.”

And then Davis is at the door again, announcing that Samantha’s time is up.

When she’s gone, and I’m alone again, I stand at the floor-to-ceiling window staring at the lights of the city.

NATHAN

Saturday morning, I slam my locker door closed and cram the last of my stuff into my bag and zip it closed. What a fucking day. Night. Whatever the hell yesterday was.

How did things end up like this? One minute I’m bored out of my gourd, handing off red shoes girls to Hunter or Marco, and the next I’m in the shit, not only with Tucker but with Alexander Ferrara, as well. To make matters worse, if I make one mistake or stray an inch from his exact instructions for the game, Tucker will have my ass in a wringer. No way does he want to risk pissing off a first tier client like Ferrara. And considering what he’s holding over me, he has every reason to believe I’ll be a good boy and follow the rules.

Jesus.

I knew I’d made a mistake when I couldn’t keep it in my pants with Brooke, but it wasn’t like any of the other guys hadn’t done the same thing. We’re men forced to spend hours watching-but-not-touching some of the most prime females in the city. No one with a pulse can resist temptation a hundred percent of the time. As long as it doesn’t become a regular thing, Tucker looks the other way.

What I should have done last night—if my other head hadn’t been in charge—was take Brooke home, tie her to my bed, and fuck her until I got her out of my system. Sure, it might have taken a day or three, but I would have had my fill of her and been ready to move on. That’s how it works with me. I’m not the kind of guy who wants anything steady and what woman would put up with the type of life I’d offer?

Except I can’t forget the way her hands and her mouth felt on my cock. I’m regretting like hell that I didn’t take her for my own then and there. I want her on her knees with those full, red lips suctioned on my cock, taking all I can pump. Heat rushes through my veins like a shot of smooth bourbon. She’s everything that’s ever turned me on in a woman: skin like creamy silk; perfect round breasts with rosy nipples; a soft belly between those hips that were made to cradle my cock; big blue eyes I can get lost in, and that hair—a mix of red and brown that gleams like molten metal. With her Hispanic last name, she doesn’t look like a Latina, but what do I know? Maybe she’s adopted. That mouthy sister of hers does, though, with her dark hair, big eyes, and an ass that won’t quit. Probably why Samantha chose that stupid fake name—
Deja Booty.

They’re both crazy in their unique ways.

Crazy and hot, although it makes me slightly nauseous now to think that the sister came on to me. Thank God I followed the rules for once and kept my hands to myself. Talk about a complication I don’t need.

Last night, everything about Brooke screamed
fuck me
. Now that we’re both stuck in Ferrara’s game, that isn’t going to change. The craving for her is going to drive me up a wall. If I have to spend every waking (and probably every sleeping) minute with her (and I do), I’m going to have a hard-on the whole time. What I want to know is how the fuck am I going to be able to think straight when all I want is to sink into her sweet heat again.

Since we’re both players, I’ve got to get it together. She’s counting on me. I’m going to have to help her with the rules and strategy and shit, assuming I figure out what Ferrara has hidden up his custom-tailored sleeve. When Ferrara arrived in the city, Brooke and I were already going at it. I’d never met her before. Our hookup was a random thing, so there’s no way Ferrara could know about us. . .

Unless he has spies inside Dominion as well as inside Harley & Sweet. Could he? Unless I have cold, hard proof, I don’t want to take it there.

Watching Ferrara when we were all up in the Eye with Brooke and Samantha, I had this feeling that he was playing de Hainault like a fiddle. He wanted the Frenchman out of the game. Not only that, Ferrara
wanted
me to step in for de Hainault, but only as long as de Hainault thought it was
his
idea.

Games within games.

Again, was it chance that Ferrara and de Hainault arrived at the same time? That’s too much coincidence to be believed. It’s against about ten H&S rules for opposing players to be in the house at the same time, so no wonder Tucker was pissed. H&S can’t afford to take sides; it would kill their business model.

That’s all good and well, but it doesn’t get me anywhere. I don’t know what angle Tucker’s playing or how he’s involved or even if he’s involved. I could sit here all night trying to tease a theory out of what’s happened so far and still, Ferrara would be two steps ahead.

Brooke is in this up to her beautiful chin, too. That shit Tucker tried to pull, acting like he was ordering me to kill her little sister was total theatrics, but it worked. The ruse shifted de Hainault’s thinking and made him believe he was showing himself as the bigger man by shaming Tucker for suggesting murder. Which makes me think Tucker and Ferrara are working together against de Hainault.

But where’s the angle that makes it worthwhile for Tucker? I can’t see it.

When it comes to the games, the only constant is that the house never takes sides and never loses. For that reason, if not any other, it’s unthinkable that Tucker might have thrown in with Ferrara against de Hainault. If that’s what Tucker has done, however, and the news spreads among other players, H&S will be destroyed. Not even the power and reach of the De Luca syndicate will be able to save them. No one cheats or embarrasses the one-percent of the one-percent and lives to tell the story.

All this thinking gets me exactly nowhere because I’m playing for M. de Hainault. I win; he wins. If I lose, I’ll be at Alexander Ferrara’s mercy.

Something cold and hard forms in my gut.

That
theory would make sense
if
Ferrara learned I was trying to take him out five years ago. If he knew about me back then, why wait to act until now? It’s not like he couldn’t have hired another hitman to remove me as a threat. Because Ferrara is nothing if not strategic, I have to conclude that he hadn’t targeted me before because it didn’t fit in with any of his other schemes.

I’m useful to him now, and I need to find out why.

I sling my duffle over my shoulder and head out of the locker room, allowing my long stride to eat up the ground until I’m in the elevator and on my way to Brooke’s suite.

Next problem: do I tell her all this? Or keep it to myself and focus on keeping us alive and in one piece as long as I can? With any luck at all, the only thing Ferrara wants to win from de Hainault in the game is money or stocks or an intangible like bragging rights.

The entire ride up the elevator, I keep repeating this logic, hoping I can convince myself. It doesn’t stick, and I’m the reason why. Like everything, there’s a good side and a bad side to this thinking: the first side says that if Ferrara wants a player with my particular skillset in the game, it means there’s going to be action and not just the cock-and-pussy variety. The flip side insists Ferrara plans to use the game as cover to take me out of the equation while at the same time gaining some business or personal advantage over de Hainault. Two birds, one stone, yadda, yadda, yadda.

No matter which way you look at it, I’m fucked, which is pretty much business, as usual, considering the way my life has been going lately.

The elevator dings and the doors slide open on the tenth floor. I exit and turn left, following the signs until I reach Brooke’s door.

Go ahead. You might as well fuck her every chance you get because how much time do you have left?

I love it when life is simple, and it comes down to two choices: life or death. These are things I understand.

Brooke answers my knock. Our gazes lock. She’s the first to look away. Her hair is wrapped in a thick, white towel and one of the white H&S signature bathrobes swathes her body. She steps aside to let me enter and won’t look at me again. One hand clutches the lapel of the robe like she’s afraid I’m going to rip it away. Nice idea.