Page 39 of The Killer Card

Or that. There can be none of that.

Pushing myself up off his chest, I try not to moan when his still half-erect cock slips out of me and climb off his bed. Graham pushes up on his elbows as he watches me locate and start pulling on my dress.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going home,” I inform him, remaining nonchalant and matter of fact while I sit on the edge of his bed to pull on my heels.

He lets out a small, breathy laugh of disbelief which quickly fades away when I find the light to his bathroom and begin fixing my braids and lipstick. “Are you serious? You can’t just leave—”

“You’ll find that I can do whatever I want,” I tell him without looking over. As soon as I’m sure my appearance is not too thoroughly fucked I shut off the bathroom light. My head is starting to throb in three different places, nausea churning my guts, hands shaking ever so slightly. “And what I want is to go home. No, don’t get up. I’m capable of calling a ride for myself.”

“Naomi—”

“This was hardly our typical kind of encounter, Graham,” I look around for my purse, remembering I flung it into his living room when we entered. “You are hardly in need of aftercare, and I need to get home.”

His brow furrows at my sudden insistence. So, closing my eyes, I do what needs to be done. “This shouldn’t have happened. Both of our friends are suffering, and it was selfish of us to take comfort in each other instead of offering ourselves as shoulders for them. This—” I point between us. “This isn’t real, but what they have is and that’s where our efforts should be.”

“So what?” He asks, sitting up fully, leaning his back against the wall. A grown man with no headboard, why am I not surprised. His bed wasn’t even made when he flung me onto it. “Are you saying we’re just going back to pretending this didn’t happen? That we aren’t both mad for each other? You want to just go fuck other people and forget—”

“Yes.”

He blinks at me through the dimness of his bedroom. “No…”

I watch his smile go from playful to cruel, darkness filling his eyes. It’s like a demon has possessed his body and I am utterly ashamed by how much I am both intrigued and turned on by the sudden change.

“You don’t mean that.”

He rises from the bed like a cat, all long naked limbs and predatory grace. It takes all of my willpower not to glance down at his now fully hard cock bobbing between us as he closes the distance.

“You couldn’t possibly mean that. You know why?”

I try to avert my gaze, but he cups my chin, forcing me to look at him. His grin is wicked and it’s in that moment, my jaw in his hand and my body instinctively supplicating that I realize Graham was not completely honest with me. Or perhaps my research into him at The Pink Flamingo wasn’t thorough enough. This man isn’t a Submissive, at least, not always. Graham Rosales is a switch, and he can flip it on and off as easily as the title represents. And right now, he’s trying to Dom me, to make me submit and stay with him by using the most intimate fact between us.

“I’m the only one who can make you come, mi reina,” he tells me, as if I can’t still feel my own slick mingling with his between my thighs. “You said it yourself—”

“I never—”

“Your disbelief said it all. No other man has done to you what I’ve done tonight. There’s no way you would actually want to fuck anyone but me.”

Filling my lungs, I lift my chin. “You presume too much.” Yanking my face from his grip I snap my fingers. Instantly, the switch flips, and Graham drops to his knees. Grabbing him by the hair, I yank his head back and he grits his teeth through the pleasure of the pain. “I can and will fuck whomever I please. You are not my Sub, I do not claim you. This night never happened.” I yank just a little harder, leaning in to growl. “And don’t you ever try to Dom me again. Do you understand me?”

He swallows, his pupils blown wide in the dark. “Yes, mi reina.”

“Good boy.” I release him quickly. My head is pounding and I still need to find my purse so I can call an Uber. “You stay here until you hear me leave.”

“Sí, mi reina.”

Unsurprisingly, he does as he’s told, allowing me enough time to locate my phone, call my ride, and get the fuck out of his apartment. I don’t look around, I don’t take it in. I don’t care how Graham Rosales lives because I never plan to enter his personal space ever again.

✽✽✽

When I get home, it’s only the ass crack of dawn and just like every day since Thanksgiving, I find Cristian sleeping on our couch. He’s polite about it at least, doesn’t snore and folds his blankets. What’s not normal for him is the number of beers on the coffee table. Cristian never drank heavily before all of this.

Cleaning them up for him, I find one he didn’t finish and swallow the last quarter.

It’s become a habit for me to check Nelly’s room before hiding away in mine. Most of the time I find her asleep. But then there’s mornings like this one when I open the door to find her sobbing into her pillows, gripping her chest, holding back gut-wrenching cries of agony as if her heart is being torn from her chest.

I make my way over to her quickly, setting my purse on her bedside table, next to half-drunk bottle of wine. “Nelly,” I whisper, brushing her hair behind her ear. “Oh, Nelly, baby it’s alright. It’s okay…”