Partner Games
Page 58

He clicked off his phone and then flung it down on the bed. Swift laid flat on his back, pressing his palms to his eyes. I bit my lip and watched him, wondering if I should go comfort him or let him have a moment. I decided on comfort and moved to his side, gently stroking one arm.
“You okay?” I kept my voice soft. “Want me to leave you for a bit?”
“God, no.” He turned and pulled me against him, dragging me down on the bed until his face pressed against my stomach. I was startled, but it felt good to be held, and so I dragged my fingers through his long, shaggy hair. He seemed like he needed to be touched right now. “I’m just…really glad we won,” he said after a moment.
“I’m glad you won, too.” I nudged a lock of hair from his forehead. “For you and your dad. And what Plate did…that’s wonderful.”
He nodded against my stomach. “I didn’t ask him to. He just…said he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if Dad needed the money and he blew it on a few new Harleys. And the club said if we won, they’d match it. So between us and the club…he should have enough for his treatments.” He sucked in a ragged breath. “I’m so fucking glad. You don’t know how helpless it feels to know that someone you love needs all this money for something to save their life and you don’t know how the fuck to get it.”
I stroked his hair. I didn’t know how that felt, he was right. Georgie had always had money from her modeling success, so I knew that if I ever had a dry spell, I could turn to her. “I feel like such a jerk.”
He lifted his head, reddened eyes looking at me with confusion. “What? Why?”
I sighed. “Because for a while I wasn’t sure if you were telling the truth about your dad or if it was a sympathy ploy to help you get ahead. And I feel terrible about that.”
Swift stared at me, aghast. “You thought I’d really lie about something like that?”
“Well, I was hoping not…”
“I would never!”
“I know that now! It’s just that sometimes during the race, you were acting weird. Like you weren’t telling the truth all the time, and I didn’t know what to think.”
His arms tightened around me. “I wasn’t telling the truth all the time.”
A sick feeling curled in the pit of my stomach. “Oh?” He had a girlfriend, didn’t he? Or he was married. Or something else equally horrible and unthinkable.
Swift sighed. “Yeah. See, here’s the thing…I’m not really in a club.”
Of all the things I was expecting him to confess…that wasn’t it. “What?”
“I’m a prospect. Plate, too. Our dads are both in the Brothers of Chrome but they don’t want us to join officially. Too much sketchy shit and they’ve spent too much time in prison. So we grew up with the club, and we know the inner workings of the club, but we’re not officially allowed to wear colors.”
I digested this. “But your tattoos…” The big wheel on his chest, the swallows on his shoulders, everything.
“The wheel on my stomach isn’t the official logo. Actually, when I got the tattoo, my dad tanned my fucking hide for a week for daring to get tatted up. Then he sat me down and let me know some of the shit the club’s in, and how he’d never let me patch officially. Me and Plate, we’re part of the club, but not really in the club. We’re more like…mascots.” He sounded ashamed of the word. “Everyone’s kid brothers, you know?”
“But the show…”
“The show wanted a couple of bikers and so we fudged a few things to ensure we’d be able to get the money for Dad. The club knows about it. We were careful not to show any specific allegiance. Even our cuts don’t have official patches.”
Oh. So his big secret was that he’s not a thug? “So who are you, really?”
Swift grimaced. “I’m a mechanic, like I said. Fuckin’ sad, huh?”
I giggled. “What’s wrong with being a mechanic?”
“Doesn’t sound nearly as cool as a badass one percenter.”
“Oh please. You are talking to someone that could have written the definition of ‘nerd’ in the dictionary.”
“You are pretty nerdy,” he admitted, and I smacked his arm. Then he grinned up at me. “Nerdy and hot and one of the best people I’ve ever met.”
My cheeks heated, and a knot formed in my throat.
“You let us win, didn’t you? Race is over now. You might as well be honest.”
“Let you win?” I scoffed. “Don’t sell yourself short.”
“I’m not. There was another penalty envelope on the last round, and I realized when I reached in that one envelope was fatter than the others. And I realized you knew it too when you picked it out. You deliberately took the penalty when you could have given it to us.”
I licked my lips. “Um.”
He rolled me onto my back and slid up my body, until we were face to face. “You didn’t have to do that. Why did you?”
I stared up at him, at his bright eyes and his gorgeous face. “You know why,” I croaked.
“I don’t. Especially if you had doubts about my dad.” He brushed a lock of hair off my brow. “So tell me why you did it.”
“Because I like you,” I said shyly. “And because I’d never be able to forgive myself if you were doing something as noble as racing for your dad and I screwed you over.”
He grinned. “But mostly because you like me?”
“Mostly.”
“I don’t deserve someone as sweet and as giving as you, Tiny.” Swift’s thumb traced my lower lip.
“Oh…I think you’re plenty deserving.” My voice wobbled.
“I shall, of course, have to pay you back in kind.” He leaned in and kissed my mouth, then kissed my throat, and then began to move down my body.
“In…kind?”
Swift glanced up. “I mean, of course, licking you until you can’t see straight.”
Oh. Oh my.
 
 
Chapter Thirty-Eight
 

“We never really planned from the get-go to pair up with the twins. I just thought the nerdy one was cute, and Plate’s always had a boner for Georgie Price. The fact that they’re awesome girls just made things fall into place.” – Swift, Team One Percent, Post-Game Interview, The World Races  
 
I ran my tongue over my incredibly dry lips. All the moisture had been sucked out of my mouth at his words. Lick me until I can’t see straight?
That was a lot of licking.
“Don’t freak out on me,” he murmured, and gave me another heart-stopping grin. “You’re welcome to bail out if you need to.”
“No, I’m cool,” I said, and my voice squeaked like I was fourteen and not twenty-eight. God. Why was I so damn lame? I didn’t see how it was possible that someone like him was interested in someone like me. The pieces just didn’t fit. Of course, I knew this wasn’t a long term thing, it was a game thing. And now the game was over after tonight.
So I’d take what I could get and be happy about it.