be?” Cris asked me. “Emerald, diamond, or sapphire?”
Once again, I became trapped in Lexi’s radiant stare. “Sapphire.”
My new favorite color.
I could drown in those blue oceans of hers. Especially when they darkened on me like they were now, a reaction I’d seen from her only once before. When arousal had been unmistakably stirring inside her.
That morning in the kitchen.
When we’d both been half naked and couldn’t take our eyes off each other.
The second round was fill in the blank, or just questions with no multiple choice. The guys were still up by one point until it came to Jasmine’s question. “In football, how many points are awarded when a team scores a safety?” Roxy asked her.
All the guys groaned in unison because we knew she knew that one.
“Two,” Jaz answered correctly. “That one’s for you, Sam!”
Sam was her best friend who lived in Atlanta with her husband, Kade. They both worked at the Football News Network down there as studio analysts. They had actually been the ones who’d discovered that Raphael Esposito had been bribing NFL refs and fixing games. To prevent Sam from broadcasting the story, Raphael had gone after her.
Long story short, it was a damn good thing that Kade and Cris had been friends for years because Cris had come to their assistance when shit went down. Despite the fact that the clusterfuck had ended in Raphael’s arrest, the life-threatening events of that night had set a series of even more chaotic shit into motion.
Fast forward several months and here we were.
Lexi answered her question about poker correctly, and then it was me again. “Nico,” Cris said, “when a child birth is a C-section, what does the C stand for?”
Ah, shit.
The word was right on the tip of my tongue. I knew it. I sensed Lexi watching me anxiously, but I forced myself not to look at her. I couldn’t have her distracting me when we needed another point.
Gia started humming the Jeopardy theme song just as it came to me. “Caesarean.”
All the girls grunted at the same time.
“Correct!”
Third and final round: charades.
Most of us were a few drinks in, so it was bound to get interesting.
One person from each team was supposed to act out the action on the card and try to get the rest of their team to guess it. We scooted the table and chairs aside to give us more space. A few other games were going on around the bar, but for whatever reason, a small crowd had begun to form around ours.
Lexi and I were always the last ones to go on our team.
Gia acted out “changing a flat tire,” which the girls got right.
Rome mimed “having a tea party”—fucking hilarious.
Roxy got “playing hockey.” Too easy.
Luka drew “going to the spa.” We did not get that one right. I still didn’t know what the fuck he was doing.
Jasmine had “watching the Super Bowl,” which the girls couldn’t figure out.
Since we had one more player than the girls, it was Ace’s turn to opt out of this round, sending it to Cris, who acted out “playing with dolls.”
As Lexi drew her card, her expression morphed into one of adorable concentration. When her time began, she started running her finger over her stomach, like she was drawing something.
“Having surgery!”
“Getting liposuction!”
“Tickling?”
Shaking her head, Lexi started getting frantic when they still weren’t getting it and time was running out.
Then she suddenly lurched at me and shoved up my shirt.
What the fuck?
Oh, fuuuuck. She was touching me.
I understood what she was doing when she pointed to the tattoo along my side and started tracing the words with her finger.
“Getting a tattoo!” Roxy shouted, shooting a sly look toward Ace.
“Yes!”
All the girls cheered.
But Lexi’s hand didn’t move. It lingered on my skin, unconsciously sliding toward my abs, causing them to tense beneath her fingertips.
She was on her goddamn knees as she did this, for fuck’s sake.
There was no other outcome for me. I was so fucking hard I could barely stand upright. When her nails scraped my flesh just the slightest bit, I hissed through my teeth.
Her hand jerked back as if I’d burned her.
It took what miniscule self-control I had left not to snatch up her hand, place it right back where it had been on my stomach, and tell her to explore all she damn well wanted.
Her eyes grew wide with panic when she stumbled to her feet, disbelief overtaking her features. She looked angry with herself as she stomped back over to the girls’