“Same reason you are.”
“She’s a sex addict too?” I say brightly. I’m not the only one out there. Wow, that feels good.
“No, she’s just a normal horny girl.”
Oh, damn. My shoulders droop.
Lo starts rubbing my calf.Thatfeels even better. I sink against the back of the chair, relaxing. Lo scrolls through his cellphone for a moment, and I watch as Ryke motions to Daisy in the pool without calling her name.
She swims over to his spot by the pool wall, and since he sits out of the water, he towers above her and hunches slightly to look down at Daisy. He holds the taco out to her.
She sets her empty cup beside the sopping magazine. “I thought you said I could only have a taco if I went with you.”
“I’m making an exception.”
Her eyes flicker between the taco and Ryke, and I don’t like where this is headed. It reminds me of the time where he tempted her with a piece of chocolate cake. She ate it, but only after a string of inappropriate events. Lo didn’t see that. And he’s too focused on his phone to look up and watch Daisy and Ryke.
But maybe…maybe it’s all in my head. I mean, my thoughts circumnavigate to sex all the time. Maybe these past three months without Lo, their time together has been innocent and not as bad as I believed. And Idowant Daisy to eat that taco.
“What will you do for me if I eat that?” Daisy asks, a scheming smile lifting her lips.
“We’re bargaining now?”
She swims a little closer to him, her shoulders the same height as his knees. “It’s only fair. You want me to do something. So I think I should get something in return.”
“You get the nutrients of this fucking taco,” he tells her. “That’s a win-win.”
She tries hard not to smile and just shakes her head. Oh, she’s learned how to play his games since the last time. Ishould break this up, I think. But I’m hypnotized by their easy banter.
“What do you want?” he asks.
I nudge Lo with my foot. He needs to see this! They’re about to strike some deal that is not going to be pretty. I try to find Rose and Connor too, but they’ve drifted over to the pool-side bar.
Lo reluctantly tears away from his phone and follows my gaze, watching my sister and his brother.
And then Daisy’s sly smile falters. “I don’t know what I want,” she realizes.
“Well that’s a problem.”
Lo gives me a stare likethat’s what you’re freaking out over?Really? It’s all in my head, isn’t it?
“And I don’t have time for you to figure it out,” Ryke tells her. “The taco will be cold by then.” He peels the aluminum foil back and holds out the end to her. “Come on, just one bite.” His tone isn’t kind or soft. It’s rough and forceful, something that Daisy is not used to, I think. Her curiosity twinkles in her eyes.
Daisy stares at Ryke for a long moment. “Why do you want me to eat this so badly?”
“Because your body needs something more than fucking rum, ice and piña colada mix.”
“My agency would disagree.”
“Your agency fucking sucks,” he says.
“You would try to make every model eat cake, wouldn’t you?”
He doesn’t deny it.
She smiles. “You know they’d just throw up afterwards.”
“You better not?—”
