Page 24 of Blood and Trouble

“Oh, I didn’t,” I said. “Father would have been very displeased. But Maeve had no such qualms, and she yanked me along any chance she got.”

“I bet she did,” he replied with more than a hint of innuendo.

We ate the rest of our meal and drank our beers. When they were empty, Lycan excused himself to go to the bar for a refill. I sat at the table and watched the people dance in front of the band, clapping and jumping and hooting with laughter. Such a lack of decorum would never happen in the places I’d been allowed to frequent.

“Well, hello there,” came a silken voice from behind me. I turned around to face the handsome man standing on the other side of the table. “Who are you?”

He was tall, green-eyed, and beautiful, and he held himself like he knew it. Like he expected me to beg for his attention.

“I’m Ava,” I said, holding out a hand to him. “You?”

“Magnus.” He took it and brought it to his lips for a gentle kiss.

I managed to hold back a mocking laugh.

“You need a drink?” He set his beer down on the table and leaned forward with the devil dancing in his eyes.

“No, thank you. My friend went to get one.” I tried to give him a polite smile, but he took that as an invitation to sit at the empty seat Lycan had vacated.

“How long are you in town?”

I drew up my corporate battle mask, preparing to flay him open. I’d agreed to be on Lycan’s arm tonight, and Magnus was not part of that arrangement.

“Long enough,” I said.

A warm, comforting hand landed on the small of my back as a beer appeared in front of me. I glanced up at Lycan, who raised an eyebrow at the intruder. “And you are?”

Magnus’s grin slipped, but only slightly.

“This is Magnus,” I said. “He was just offering to buy me a drink.”

“No need,” Lycan said. “She’s all taken care of.”

Magnus looked between us, eyeing Lycan’s hand on my waist. “She yours?”

“Yes,” Lycan answered. “Now, fuck off.”

Yes. No hesitation. No check-in with me to see if I agreed. Lycan staked his claim, and my stomach fluttered with that little swoop. I filed that away to examine when I was sober—right next to the way my thighs clenched at the feel of his hands on my skin.

“Oh my God, Magnus,” came a voice from behind him as a woman slung her arm over his shoulder and rolled her eyes. “You’ll have to excuse him. He can barely keep his cock in his pants when a pretty new woman shows up.”

I laughed as Magnus glowered and shoved the woman’s arm off him. “Shut up, Madeline.”

“Is he bothering you?” Madeline smiled at me, her black hair braided back from her face. “Go stick your prick in some other hang-around. This one’s clearly spoken for.”

“She’s not a hang-around,” Lycan added as Magnus rolled his eyes, muttered something about Madeline being a cock-block, and walked away.

“Well, whatever she is, she looks like she needs a dance.” Madeline held her hand out to me. “C’mon, then.”

Lycan nodded with encouragement, and I grabbed her hand to let her lead me out to the writhing bodies beyond the pool table. Out there, among the sea of sweat and blaring bass, I shoved the old Ava to the furthest recesses of my mind. Madeline held my hands and twirled me around, and we laughed while we shouted along to lyrics for a song I didn’t know in a language I didn’t understand. It didn’t matter. It unlocked something inside me.

Somewhere across the ocean, my sisters were asleep in a house that wasn’t ours, and my family’s company was quietly bleeding out. I’d done nothing in hours to stop either one. Tomorrow I’d go back to being a Vanderbilt. Tonight I was a woman in a too-short skirt, shouting along to a song in a language she didn’t speak. I should have felt worse about that, but I didn’t care.

Eventually, Lycan joined us, holding my hips while we swayed to the heavy beat, occasionally letting his hands drift farther down to my thighs and back up again. He toyed with the hem of my miniskirt, skirting his fingertips over the bare skin on my legs just enough to make me tremble and send a licking heat between them. Then he’d return to my waist and fiddle with the edge of my tank top, leaning down to whisper something in my ear.

“You look beautiful when you smile like that,” he said.

The sensation of his hot breath shooting down the front of my shirt and the tingle of his lips ghosting across my skin curled my toes. Perhaps it was the beer and whiskey. Maybe it was the levity of being unknown in a place with no preconceived rules and boundaries for a Vanderbilt. Or maybe Lycan had been right, and wearing my best lingerie gave me more confidence than I might have had otherwise.