Page 13 of Anthem of Love and Loathing

“I mean it.” He picks her up and carries her toward his room. “You don’t have anywhere to stay tonight. You’re going to take my bed.”

“Such a gentleman,” I sneer at his back.

Anger and anguish cross Kelsey’s features. But there’s more than that in the way she peeks back at me. A brokenness that resonates in my own body.

I shove it away. I’m not the one who ended us. She doesn’t get to make me feel anything. Knotting my fingers in the blonde’s hair, I thrust deeper into her wet mouth.

She winds her arms around his neck. “I’ll stay, but only if you stay with me.”

“If that’s what you want…” he says gruffly, kicking open the door on the darkened bedroom. He glances back over his shoulder. “You’ve got something on your face, dickhead.”

The brunette licks my face and shows me the white powder dissolving on her tongue.

The door shuts me out.

“Way to go,” Golden says sarcastically as he stands from the couch. Stretching, he makes his way back to his room and the tonight’s double date he brought back to the hotel earlier. “I have far more fun things to do than watch you implode.”

I stick my middle finger up at him, but he’s already closing the bedroom door.

I focus on Bronx’s door. Why’d he bring her here? He had to know I wouldn’t be happy about it. And now they’re in his room...

If he touches her...

“Riot?” the brunette calls me back into my body.

Kelsey thinks she can come back into our world. I’ll remind her why she fucking left in the first place. I pull the blonde off my cock while I order the brunette to, “Bend over the couch.”

The brunette does as she’s told.

Grasping her neck, I line up and fuck into her. I wrap my other hand around the blonde’s throat when she stands next to me and crash our mouths together. I was planning to fuck that bitch right out of my memories. She can hear it all as I do.

“Don’t hold back,” I tell the brunette as I fuck her rough. “Let everyone know who’s fucking you, tonight.”

4

Kelsey

Seeing Riot like that... naked and covered in groupies was exactly what I expected. It stung, but not as bad as the night I walked in to find him and Sonatina curled up in post sex bliss. But I never would have imagined he could be this callous and cruel. Or coked to his eyeballs like that.

“He’s really embraced the rockstar lifestyle, huh?”

“You’d think after... but no, it’s like he decided he needed to fill Neil’s shoes.” Bronx opens a drawer and drags out one of his shirts. He hands it to me, where I sit on the bed. “I’ll turn around and—”

“No matter.” I unfold the shirt and tug it over my head, then reach under the cotton to undo my bra and remove it through the sleeve. Tossing it on the floor, I curl up on one side of the mattress. Then he finds me some sweatpants to go with. “You warned me he was a mess. That’s why you asked me to come back, remember?”

I didn’t realize it would hurt this much to be reminded that I was just another in a long line of idiots he stuck his cock in. Or that I could feel so damn conflicted when I hate him so damn much. If Marco wasn’t searching for me and I still had somewhere safe to go, I would have left like my butt was on fire when Riot first came into the room.

One of the women screams Riot’s name in a sultry overture.

I force my attention from the sound to Bronx as he strips down and shoves his tree trunk thighs into a pair of white sweats with gray flecks threaded through. He unconsciously rubs his hand over the ginger snail trail on his ridiculous abs—forget a six pack, he has an eight pack—and leaves to brush his teeth and call to cancel Doc’s house visit.

When he comes back, he crawls onto the bed. He stretches out facing me. One arm under his head, his green-eyed gaze stays steady on my face as the sex noises continue out in the main room.

“Is he always like this?” Or is this show for me? It’s because he’s making sure I hear what he’s up to, isn’t it? He wants me gone as much as I want to be gone.

“He’s an asshole these days.” Bronx pushes my hair behind my ear.

The gesture is friendly, but it’s been a long time since I’ve had a friend. Emotion overwhelms me.