He glanced toward my phone again.
Then lunged.
I shot forward to intercept him, but he swiped it off the table and ran away like the goddamn man-child he was.
I raced after him because I’d done too much fucking work covering my tracks for him to find out that I’d essentially been lying to him for two years. If he saw some shady message on my phone, he would never let it go, and since he was a world-class hacker, there would be no way to stop him once he started digging. I knew how obsessive he could be; it would only take a day or two for him to uncover my entire illegal operation, and then our friendship would really be on the line.
“Give it back!” I yelled.
Josh skirted an armchair and raced toward the rear of the house, and fuck, he was fast. Had he been doing more cardio lately?
I ran after him, onto their screened-in catio. He vaulted over Aly, who’d been sprawled on a lounge chair, reading. She was nearly as tall as Stella, but muscular, with pale olive skin, long brown hair, and an Italian nose.
“Defend my honor!” Josh said, hiding behind her.
“He stole my phone,” I explained when she shot me a confused look.
She swiveled to Josh, who was doing nothing to hide the fact that he was trying to break into the device. “Babe. Boundaries.” She snatched it out of his hand and tossed it back to me, and my shoulders slumped in relief. Jesus Christ, that was close.
“Who’s Stella?” Josh asked in a singsong tone.
Shit.
Aly’s head turned my way, eyes wide, as nosy as her fiancé.
“No one,” I bit out.
“Ooh,” they chorused in the same obnoxious tone.
I glanced down to see that Stella had texted, telling me what time to pick her up for tonight’s party. Two weeks had passed since our night with AJ. We’d gone to four more events since, our war of words escalating, our flirtations gaining a dangerous edge, the tension building to a breaking point because the knowledge, thememoriesof what we’d done were driving us both crazy.
I knew I wasn’t the only one who felt it. I saw the way she stared at me when she thought I wasn’t looking, felt the way she trembled whenever one of us backed each other against a wall—something that happened with increasing frequency.
Part of the problem was that we hadn’t spoken about that night, hadn’t even acknowledged it. I’d tried to bring it up once (in a shitty way, if I was being honest with myself) and Stella had saidDon’twith so much rancor that for once, I’d backed down.
What a mistake that threesome had been, not just because it had made things even more awkward and tense, but because every time I closed my goddamn eyes, I saw AJ pounding into Stella from behind, his hands on her hips, his focus fixed on where I fucked into her pretty little mouth.
That night had altered my brain chemistry, imprinted upon my skin like an invisible tattoo. How the hell did you come back from that? How could you act normal around someone after having the most incredible sex of your life with them?
“Tyler’s got a girlfriend,” Josh sang.
“She isnotmy girlfriend,” I said, striding into the house.
I went straight to the fridge, pulling it open to look for a beer. Cold air rushed over me, and I closed my eyes and begged my dick to behave. It was hard again, had been practically nonstop since the night of the threesome, and jerking off only provided temporary relief. I needed something more to slake this thirst. Stella, bent over a bed as I fucked into her, AJ watching us from a nearby chair. Or better yet, my face shoved between her thighs while my tongue worked her cunt and my fingers plied those pretty little nipples.
Stop,I begged myself, resting my head against the closed freezer. Thoughts like that weren’t helping me right now.
You hate her, I told myself, but the words felt hollow. What reason did I have left to hate her? She was draining her inheritance to pay for a crime she didn’t even commit. She was actively helping me hunt down people who deserved to be punished. And it wasn’t like I could claim she was some elitist snob. Reserved, standoffish, downright rude at times? Sure, but then I’d probably earned that type of treatment.
So what did that leave? Me hating her just for the circumstances of her birth? Because she’d grown up with everything while I had nothing? That didn’t feel right. Not anymore.
“Fine.Shehatesyou,” I said, because that much was still certain. Ongoing blackmail was pretty hard to forgive, and it wasn’t like I’d done myself any favors with my “winning” personality. Fuck, most of the time I was around Stella, I turned into the worst version of myself, punishing her for my father’s sins because I couldn’t take it out on him.
Yet.
Well, that would all change tomorrow night. If everything went to plan, it was the last party we would ever have to attend together.
“Hey,” Josh said from behind me.
