Billionaires Dollar Series

I grin even wider.

“Timmy might have been exaggerating on that point a bit. Anyway, what’s up?”

Then she gives a suppressed sigh-I can hear it all the way from here. “Why can’t you use your car? Doesn’t Jason have one?”

Jason doesn’t, apparently, and this is explained vigorously enough that even I hear the mumbled words on the other end of the line.

“Fine, fine. No, okay. I need it this weekend, though.” A pause. “Yeah, that’s fair.” A much longer pause. “All right. Bye.”

I’m grinning at Skye when she comes around the corner. She groans, putting a hand to her forehead. “You heard everything, right?”

“She’s been nagging me about you since the baseball game. Timmy has been laying on the praise thick, let me tell you.”

“As well he should have.”

She tosses a throw pillow my way and I catch it easily. “It’s getting harder to dodge the questions,” she says.

“What have you told her?”

“That you’re someone I’m seeing casually. She’s not buying it.”

I reach out and grab Skye around the waist, pulling her down to the couch. She lands on my lap. “Because I’m your first casual hookup.”

“Yes. How long are you going to lord that over me?”

“Just a few more times.” I smooth my hand over her thigh, the skin soft to the touch. “She asked to borrow your car.”

“Yes,” Skye says irritably. “Last time she had it for almost a week.”

I pull her back against me, our bodies flush. She’s warm in my arms. “Why don’t you stand up to her like you do to me?”

Skye relaxes against me. “Like I do to you?”

“Yes. You have no problem telling me when I’m being an asshole. The first month you told me regularly that you hated me.”

“I still hate you,” she murmurs, fingers trailing up my arm.

I grin. “See? No problem at all. Stand up for yourself with her, too.”

Skye is quiet for a beat, but when she speaks, her words are not about her sister. “I really was awful to you, wasn’t I?”

“Well-deservedly so.”

She rolls her hips, grinding against me, and my body reacts right on cue. It’s impossible to hold her and not want her. “But you enjoyed it.”

“Very much.” I bite her ear, moving down lower, pressing a kiss to the soft skin of her neck. “I don’t know what’s more fun, arguing with you or sleeping with you.”

Skye chuckles and rests her head against my shoulder. She grabs my hand and slides it down her front, right to the waistband of her shorts. It’s all the cue I need.

“Sometimes we do both at the same time,” she says, her voice breathless.

I slide my hand under the elastic. “Mhm,” I say. She’s like silky velvet against my fingers, soft and smooth and responsive.

“Remember what we did in your bathtub?”

“Yes.” I use an arm around her waist to secure her to me, using my thigh to spread her legs further apart. Skye shudders as I slip a finger inside.

“Do you think we could manage it in a shower?”

I smile at her suggestion, at the way she’s spread, at the self-confidence. Standing, I grip her around the waist, hoisting her up against me.

“It’ll be a tight fit,” I say, “but then again, so are you.”

Skye doesn’t blush. She kisses me instead, warm and enthusiastic and willing, drowning out the number pounding in the back of my mind. Six days left.

What happens then?

I’m in the storage room when my carefully constructed double-life comes crashing down around me. It’s done in a heartbeat. I should have been able to predict it-and the fact that I haven’t makes me question not just my morals, but my intellect too.

I overhear the whole thing.

“Want to see something cool?” Timmy asks Karli, having arrived earlier than usual from school.Property of Nô)(velDr(a)ma.Org.

She indulges him with a smile in her voice. “Absolutely.”

“This is one of my signed baseballs. I brought it along to school today to show my friends.”

“Wow! Where did you get that?” she asks.

I’m out of the storage room and halfway through the room, but I’m not fast enough. There’s no stopping what’s said next.

“I went to a baseball game last week.” The pride in Timmy’s voice kills me. “Skye and Cole took me. We had the best seats.”

“Yeah. Skye’s boyfriend. He gave me tips for the coming tryouts, too.”

Karli turns to me, where I stand breathless and guilty in the doorway. “Skye?”

“Which Cole is this?”

I can’t talk. I can’t even breathe, wondering if the guilt is like a shining beacon from my eyes.

It must be, because hers widen with horror. “Skye!”

“I’m sorry. I should have told you.”

“How?”

Timmy’s eyes are moving from one of us to the other, and I shake my head at Karli. She catches on immediately. “Sorry,” she tells Timmy. “That’s lovely, and I’m glad you got to go to the game. Skye and I just need a moment, okay?”