Settling the Score (The Summer Games #1) - R.S. Grey Page 0,35

the first floor, thanks to speakers blasting in every direction, but the crowd had thinned enough so that it wasn’t hard to find an empty spot.

They’d used tinted bulbs to cast the space in red light. The other floors had been dark, but this was different, red and smoky and intoxicating. The fragments of glass were closer than ever. When we sat and I pulled Andie to the soft leather seat beside mine, I glanced up and took us in from above. My gaze caught on her thighs. Her dress had ridden up when she sat, and she was trying to tug it down, to no avail. I smiled and turned back to her, leaving the mirrors for later.

“Want a sip?” I asked, holding my drink up to her.

She shook her head and took a pull of her own drink. It was after that, when she’d swallowed and worked up the confidence, that she turned to me with a question.

“Why are we doing this? We should go back down with the others.”

She sounded resolute in her decision and yet she didn’t move. I had my hand wrapped around her waist and I tugged her closer, pulling her into my side.

“Just a bit longer,” I said, studying her eyes behind her mask.

The entire time at the gym, I’d been wholesome and restrained. I’d helped her work out and I’d kept my distance as much as possible. It’d been painful at times, and I’d left feeling more frustrated than I had in years. I had contemplated staying home and letting Andie run off to the club by herself, but I wasn’t that selfless. I knew that the second she walked in, she would never make it back out alone. I should have let that happen. It might’ve made life easier on the both of us, and yet there I was, stealing her away to the third floor and dipping close to whisper against her hair.

I knew I’d done the right thing by showing up. I’d only been there for half an hour and I’d already seen the full effect of Andie in her red dress. The bartender had bobbled the bottle when he’d passed over my drink. Most blokes on the stairs had tripped as they watched her slide past. There was a guy, even then, who kept his eyes glued to her from across the room. He was leaning on the balcony railing, too far away for Andie to notice, but I did.

“I meant what I said earlier about you being territorial,” she said, turning to face me. I caught a whiff of her perfume and it was enough to distract me from the bloke leaning on the railing.

“I’ve actually never been that way,” I said, meeting her gaze behind her mask. “In the past, I mean.”

And that was the truth. In other relationships, there’d been no threats, no insecurity concerning the future, but Andie was a wildcard. We couldn’t make each other promises because there was nothing to promise. We had moments, tiny, stolen moments that felt wrong more than they felt right. She wasn’t mine and she never would be; I knew that and I felt that every time she was around me. That’s why I was territorial, but I was also careful, because Andie was a wisp of smoke; if I tried to grasp her too tightly, she would slip through my fingers. My only hope was to keep the fire burning.

“Do you miss your brother?” she asked, changing the subject so suddenly I had to take a moment to collect my thoughts.

“Do I miss him day to day?” I asked. “No.”

She tilted her head and waited for me to continue. I loved that she was willing to listen, but I hated that she was fixated on that topic.

I relented, staring off at a patch of leather sofa past her shoulder. “The worst part is, sometimes I want him to be alive again, not so that he can have his life back, but so that I can have mine.”

The words sounded twisted when said aloud; I hoped the music would make it impossible for her to hear them.

“You really don’t have to marry her,” she said, reaching out to touch my hand. I’d been fisting it in my lap without realizing it.

I shrugged. “Why are we talking about this?”

“Because I’ve tried to keep my distance from you and yet I’m sitting here, starting to have feelings for a man who is about to marry someone else. How is