Rules of the Game (Rule Breaker, #2)

by Jessa Wilder

She was everything I had ever wanted, my seductress in an innocent package. I wondered if she had any idea just how much control she could have over me.

Strong fingers reached back between the doors and the front seat and wrapped around my bare calf. Lucas’s fingers kneaded my muscle in slow, purposeful motions, and I matched my breaths to the rhythm. Without words, he was telling me I was safe. That he was here, and God, it was melting me from the inside.

“You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to do that.” I stiffened and tilted my head to the side. “You mean kiss me?” I looked at the hollow at the base of his neck, unable to meet his gaze. “You never even looked at me.” He laughed and kissed me again before speaking against my mouth. “I’ve never looked away.”

“Lucas, this means something to me.” His fingers dug into the back of my hair, his thumb and forefinger massaging my scalp, and his low words reverberated through me. “You’ve always meant more to me. I should’ve told you sooner.”

The realization that Piper was the one for me soothed a deep fear in my chest. She was mine.

“I love her, and I’ll fight for her, Marcus. Even if that means fighting you.”

Old habits die hard. I’d been madly in love with him since I crashed my bike, hurdled over the handlebars, and my face skidded across the pavement. I still had the scar on my cheek. Lucas had picked me up and held me against him as I let out giant heaving sobs, murmuring, random stuff, whatever he could think of to cheer me up, and that was it. My seven-year-old heart clung to him and never wanted to let go. But that was then, and now I knew freaking better.

Lucas may have been Marcus’s friend, but whether he’d like to admit it or not, he was one of my best friends too.

We all grieve differently, but this wasn’t just grief. He chopped me out of his life like a tumor. It hurt so bad I struggled to breathe. He was the one person who made me feel safe, and he’d abandoned me when I desperately needed him.

“She stayed with you even when you wouldn’t get up. I don’t care how…intense she is. She’s good.”

“Keep telling yourself that. Maybe everyone else believes you, but I see the way you look at her. The way you’ve always looked at her.”

“You don’t even know her. But I do. I know what cereal she likes, that her favorite movie is Pride and Prejudice, her favorite song is the ten-minute version of ‘All Too Well.’ I have spent my entire life loving her, and it’ll be a cold fucking day before some asshole brings her to my game.”

“You have always been mine, Piper. I’m going to marry you. You’re just not ready for me to ask you yet.”

“Think of all the best ways to treat her, then double it.”