A quick swipe of Jagger’s tongue and the squishy green worm disappears. I drop the rest in his bowl, check his water, and adjust his heat lamp. Per his usual, he turns his back on me and climbs his gnarled wooden branch, sunning himself.
“Ungrateful asshole,” I mutter and watch him for a few more minutes.
Done with pet duties, I turn around, staring at the boxes of my things I’ve packed up since deciding to buy an art studio and open my own art gallery. I do a little dance. It feels right. It feels good to do it on my own. I haven’t asked Jace or my Father for anything.
After our fight, I backed off from being around Stone even more. Jace tried to apologize again, but I couldn’t help but feel like he was watching me for any move. I know he and Stone have seen each other.
Living with Kingsley for the last few months, I marvel at how little I have. Over the last year of medical school, I haven’t amassed much. I left Reed with everything, except for my clothes and shoes. I’ll need to buy everything from scratch.
I haven’t seen the new place, but I put a deposit down once I saw the photos online and had the video tour with my realtor. I didn’t care about the small one-bedroom apartment as much as the 6,000-square-foot gallery underneath it. The apartment next to mine is much bigger, but it was rented months earlier. I really should be getting ready to move in, but I don’t want to think about all the things I have to do right now. Tonight is girls’ night, and I want to hang out with the ladies.
I need this night out. A drink, some laughs. A chance to forget the fact that I haven’t had sex in a long ass time.
I open my closet and think about what to wear. It’s freezing, but I do not want to wear a thick sweater in a hot, sweaty club. Pulling out my red micro skirt, I wonder ifhewill be there. I wouldn’t mind Stone being the one to help me orgasm. No onehas to know. Not that the girls will care. They are all in favor of having a good time. And if that means sex, then they are definitely on board. My brother might put up a stink, but he’s so in love with Sophia, who is now six months pregnant with their daughter. I was so happy when she told us at Christmas, despite the pall over everything with my father’s cancer diagnosis. Pulling out my polka dot top, I hold it up against my red skirt. Perfect. I think I’ll skip the underwear too. Fuck it, why not? I’m going to have sex tonight if it kills me. A nice one-night stand. A flash of Stone pushing his hands up my skirt and finding me without underwear flits through my mind. I squeeze my thighs closed, hoping that it might happen, but knowing it might not. Maybe I can find someone else, someone like him. But I have a feeling that a man like Stone will be in short supply. Our favorite club isn’t exactly crawling with sex tattooed bikers who look like they could make you scream.
“You might haveto let it play out. See what happens. Unless you’re ready to grab him, take him home, and fuck him,” I quip, reapplying my apple red lipstick. Looking back at Meela, my friend who is struggling to decide if she wants to fuck her best friend. Her face is so sad, and I feel for her. I also want a man who seems way out of my reach.
Turning in the mirror, I think about taking my own advice. Take Stone home and fuck him. Kingsley is off on another adventure, and I have the place to myself. Which is another reason to move into my new place ASAP. The moment he walked in, I knew. I felt his stare from across the room. Fuck pretending like I didn’t see him. We never got that kiss. He wanted to kiss me, and Lara interrupted us, and I never got thechance. Then he disappeared off the face of the earth, it would seem.
But tonight he’s here. I’m here. Jace’s life is back on track. There is no Reed. No drama. Just an opportunity. I’m feeling reckless, horny, restless, tired of fucking my fingers and glass dildo to his image.
I smooth down my red micro skirt, remembering I have no underwear. Oh god, the thrill runs through me. Never in my life would I imagine doing something like this. I listen absently as the other women chatter on about Meela and her issues with Tate. The man she’s been in love with for almost a decade. I head to the stall. I’m wet, embarrassingly so, but it feels nasty, slutty, and I want that. I want to be fucked. I’m not frigid. Reed’s words come back to me, and I push the hurtful feelings away.He’s gone, Cam.His opinions don’t matter anymore. Seducing Stone is what matters. He can probably deliver. Who am I kidding? Iknowhe can deliver. No one has to know. My brother doesn’t have to know. Just one damn night.
Leaving the bathroom, I try not to look like I’m actively seeking him out. And it’s not long before I find him. The cluster of men who are somehow part of my life form a circle. Jace has Sophia wrapped in his arms. Dru is resting on Silas as he lifts her enormous belly in his massive hands. Lara is dancing next to Jacks and talking to a man who looks like he’s on some sort of steroid. She’s scowling, and he’s smiling. Onyx is sitting in a corner looking like a bodyguard, and Riggs is watching Jacks, who is dancing confidently while he studies her. I wish I had her confidence. Eleanor is texting on her phone and smiling. I wonder who put that flirty grin on her face.
I step next to Jacks, who pulls me toward her, singing as Tate’s McCrae’s “Greedy” booms out from the speakers.
It feels like fate. The lyrics are about a man eyeing a young woman, half his age. She’s his sweet escape, and I want to bethat for Stone. I want that for myself. I wish, like the subject of the song, that I was getting a chance for one night. When I turn to Stone, he’s watching me. Jacks’s confidence must be rubbing off on me because I follow her. I dance for him. I dance knowing he can see me. I wish I were brave enough to reveal that I’m not wearing underwear. I could bend over and flash him my ass. But I’m not that brazen. Maybe one day. For now, I let go of my inhibitions and my worries. My father, my brothers, Reed, medical school, and the fear of failure are all sent to the back of my mind. They can stay dormant tonight.
When I open my eyes, sweaty and relaxed, I turn around and stop short because somehow he’s gotten closer. He stands in a dark corner next to the bar. Sloane Alexander is there too, but he doesn’t hold my interest. He’s the only one whom I care about. There’s something otherworldly about him. Erotically malevolent. It scares me, but also makes me want to get closer to sample the darkness I can sense inside him.
There are just a few feet between us, but it might as well be the Grand Canyon. There are too many eyes watching. But I can enjoy dancing for him. He doesn’t take his eyes off me, and I move as close as I dare, feeling that electrical pull that’s there anytime I’m around him, buzzing up my spine. It’s the best kind of voltage.
Chapter 17
February
If that skirt goes up any higher, I’m not sure what I’m going to do. It’s been months of limiting myself to just stalking her. Restricting our interactions. And my control is starting to unravel. That one touch of her skin at Silas’s wedding and all the lust inside me mutated into something more substantial, sharper, than before. I was ready to take her, drag her out of Jace’s house and onto the back of my bike, fuck her in that blood red dress, and damn the consequences.
Tonight, there’s something different about her.
Sloane Alexander approaches me, and he looks as hungry as I feel, staring at the curvy red head in the baby blue dress. Men are approaching her, and I feel for him. You can see that she belongs to him, and I can’t figure out why he won’t claim her.
“Stone.” He lifts his glass, but his eyes are still on the freckled redhead.
“If you stare any harder, you’ll pop a blood vessel,” I mutter, sipping the excellent glass of bourbon. It’s the only thing in this club, besides her, that’s worth staying for. I must be getting old ifthe loud music and grinding bodies are getting to me. The same shit happens when I’m at the clubhouse. But I sure as fuck didn’t say no when Riggs casually mentioned that he was going to meet up with Jace to go to the club. I knew what he was doing when he mentioned it last night at the shop. Cagey bastard. He’s poking a bear by taunting me about Camryn. Although he has his own motives for coming out tonight. He’s attracted to the woman Dru calls Jacks. Not sure why Onyx went along out of boredom, perhaps.
“Is it that noticeable?” At my nod, Alexander sighs, facing me, sipping from his tumbler. “She works at my son’s school. So she thinks we should be off limits.”
“And you don’t?”
“Fuck no. I want her. We met over a year ago before I knew she would be in New York and part of my new damn friend circle. If I had my way, she’d be in my bed right now instead of on a dance floor. I can’t think about anyone else, but I respect her choice. And she’s probably right. I have too many complications already. Shitty ex-wife skulking around for more money. I’m fucked.”
Same, is all I can think. I’m equally fucked. I look over at Camryn dancing. I watch the seductive way she moves and hate that she’s not dancing for me, alone, only my eyes devouring her. But I’m not. Every other man in here is looking at her, and it pisses me off. A younger man, with a polo decorated with tiny lobsters all over it, khaki pants, and loafers, approaches Camryn, and fury engulfs me when he touches her back. Her naked back. My naked back. The one I imagine bent, her delicate spine visible, as I fuck her from behind.
I could kill him easily. My knife is strapped to my back under my shirt. One well-placed puncture in the mid-back, left side. The blade would easily cut through the latissimus dorsi. His heart rate would increase. His breathing would speed up.He’d start to sweat and feel weaker. His skin would become clammy and bluish. He’d feel cold and not understand it. Then the dizziness would start. And finally, an intense abdominal pain would grip him. The swelling would last; a final sign that the soft tissues were bleeding out. Thirty minutes later, he would be dying by my feet on the dirty dance floor. The fantasy continues with me holding Camryn against my chest, her legs around my waist as I watch his body. I could slip my hard cock under that short red skirt, slam into her pussy while I watch death take him. Each of my thrusts, hitting the deepest part of her pussy, getting faster and faster, in time with the beat of whatever song came over the speakers. I’d hold her close enough that I could whisper in her ear how good she feels while my knife is wet against my back, covered in traces of his blood. I’d listen to her climax as his body gets colder and colder.
Once she calmed down, I’d take her somewhere safer, then dispose of his body, return to her, and fuck her again. Unfortunately, it probably wouldn’t happen that way; the men I destroy don’t have people who will miss them. This yuppie bastard probably has people who would call attention to his death. Cameras everywhere, and I don’t exactly blend in with most of the people here. Too big, too tall. My tats are everywhere.
