Playing for Keeps

By Jenessa Beyer

Maggie:
It was supposed to be a routine gathering. A game night with friends. But a last-minute cancellation means that Jason and I will be alone.

The heat rising between us has nothing to do with the lack of air conditioning. I’ve wanted him for a long time, but he’s my best friend’s brother. The one man in my life who will always be off-limits.

Yet every wicked look he gives me makes me want to break all the rules, and pretty soon, we’re raising the stakes on more than just a game of cards...

Jason:
I’m done pretending. There’s only one woman I want in my life, and that’s Maggie.

I know she wants me too.

Getting her to admit it means pushing boundaries, and one way to do that is to alter the rules of the game.

Because I’m not playing cards.

I’m playing for her. For us.

And I’m playing for keeps.

"Playing For Keeps" is a steamy friends to lovers romance with no cheating and a guaranteed HEA.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jenessa Beyer
• Release date: Apr 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005774554

Jenessa Beyer

Jenessa Beyer has been fascinated by romance since she was a young girl. As she grew up, so did her tastes, and now she loves—and writes—hot stories full of instant attraction and desire.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

The doorbell rang, and I paused before answering. Waited for the too-familiar flush of heat to die away, if only momentarily. I needed to look as normal as possible, and the person I wanted to fool was the one who knew me the best.

I took several quick, shaky breaths then turned the knob.

The door swung open and almost all of my good intentions burned away in an instant, at the sight of Jason’s smile. Hey, Mags.

My crazy heart fluttered in a wholly inappropriate way. I forced myself to look past him. Did Jenna forget something in the car?

Jenna was Jason’s twin sister. And my best friend since I was ten years old.

She’s not coming. Jason looked me up and down, and there was a wicked gleam in his dark brown eyes. Something I’d seen from him more often lately, and which made the need to control my attraction to him close to impossible. It’s just you and me tonight.

I had suspected that would be the case. I’d gotten a garbled and hasty text from Jenna a few hours ago, saying that something had come up.

Something she didn’t want her brother to know about.

But her secret wasn’t what made my heart continue to race, and my knees wobble. I plastered on a grin and arched a brow. I don’t know about that. Can I trust you?

His deep chuckle sent another jolt straight through me, and I resisted the urge to press my thighs together in a vain attempt to subdue the aching need pulsing in my core. Maybe I should ask if I can trust you.

I rolled my eyes. Sounds like something Jenna would say.

Jason’s smile faded ever so slightly. True.

Jenna. I promised her I wouldn’t act on anything I felt for this man, a long time ago. Her brother would always be off-limits.

Forbidden.

Yet I never stopped wishing…

I stepped back, dropping my gaze as he stepped forward. Bit my lip as I caught the scent of his aftershave.

Damn, he smelled good. He always did.

After a quick, mental lecture on what I should and shouldn’t do, I trailed behind him as he headed straight for my tiny kitchen. He moved around it as if it was his own, setting several grocery bags on the counter. One made the distinctive sound of glass clinking against glass, and I glimpsed the neck of one tall bottle wrapped in a familiar red foil. Are you planning on getting me drunk?

Maybe. It’s been a long time since we did that together.

True. Though we often got together to have a few drinks, we never overindulged. The last time we’d done that was back in college. Jason had needed cheering up after his girlfriend dumped him. At his sister’s insistence, I visited him in his dorm.

We’d drunk a lot of cheap wine—mainly Boone’s Farm, which we’d considered the greatest thing ever at the time—and mixed it with other inexpensive drinks that still packed a strong alcoholic punch.

Enough to cause us to pass out together.

In his bed.

I’d woken up to his kiss.

At least, I thought I had. My mind had been hazy at the time, so I sometimes suspected it had been nothing more than a dream.

All of it.

Especially the part when our bodies pressed together, and I’d felt his hard-on.

I began breathing faster again, remembering—or letting the fantasy take over—for a moment longer than I should.

No matter how many times I saw him, I always reacted the same way.

I told myself it was only natural.

He was gorgeous, with his black hair and intense brown eyes. Recently, he’d been shaving less. Not quite a full beard, and he seemed to be content to keep this rough yet trimmed look. I’d protested strongly when he’d first talked about growing one, hating the thought of any part of his handsome face being covered up.

This?

This wasn’t a cover. Instead it seemed to highlight the firm lines of his cheeks and his jaw. And always drew my attention to his mouth.

To his lips…

Though I remembered a time when he’d been awkward as hell, with braces and knobby knees, that phase didn’t last long before he’d developed a tall, muscular frame. By the time we were in high school, the girls were already falling all over themselves because of him.

Some of them quite literally.

One incident during high school always stood out in my memory. From our junior year. Jenna hadn’t been there for whatever reason. As Jason and I walked to lunch at the school cafeteria, a girl stared at him so intently she’d tripped and fallen into a trash can.

I might have made a fool of myself over him too, if given the opportunity. He had been my first crush, and for a while, my feelings had intensified into something more.

I didn’t think there was anything wrong with that. Until the night I got cornered into confessing my feelings during a game of ‘Truth or Dare’ with a bunch of girls at a school camping function, and Jenna…

‘Horrified’ wasn’t a strong enough word to describe her reaction.

That was the first time she’d made me promise that I would never pursue her brother. And whenever I wondered if it was something she had done because we were teenagers, and perhaps her feelings on the subject had changed?

She would remind me of the vow. Would mention how she’d had a front-row seat to nearly every relationship disaster that either Jason or I had been involved in, and she didn’t want to see it happen between us.

If things went wrong, she would have to choose between her brother and her best friend.

Something she never wanted to do.

Something I never wanted to make her do.

Those reminders had come more frequently lately, in part because of Jason’s behavior. The way he’d been looking at me.

I wondered if she’d extracted a similar vow out of her twin, or if she simply