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“Thank you for coming.”
As she moves into the crowd, Michel takes my hand and leads me across the room and down a hallway, before pressing me against the wall and lifting first my mask, then his. I gasp softly as he brushes his lips up the column of my neck, nipping my jaw and my bottom lip.
“It’s torture keeping my hands off you, but there will come a day in the near future when I will take you in my arms and dance with all eyes on us. They’ll know without a doubt that everything I do is to please you.”
“Michel…” I cup his cheek. “I want you so badly. Have we waited long enough?”
Indecision flickers across his features.
“I’ll be patient, Michel.” I run my hand down his body and over the growing bulge between his legs. He reaches down and squeezes my hand, his eyes fluttering closed.
“Tonight,” he whispers before claiming my mouth in a searing kiss. He pulls away abruptly, smiling as he slides his mask into place. “You could bring me to my knees, Eli.”
Then he’s off, moving swiftly down the hall while I calm my breathing and compose myself. As I rejoin the party, I find one of the fake Michels to linger around in case anyone is paying attention to me. All I have to do now is be patient and get through this evening.
Hopefully, I’ll wake up tomorrow with Michel beside me.
ChapterTwelve
MICHEL
Eli moves through the crowd gracefully, as if the suit he wears transformed him from my easy going lover-to-be to a Hollywood leading man from days past. He’s always been breathtaking to me, from the boy next door kid in high school to the handsome man he is now. Keeping my distance has proven more difficult than I anticipated, but I have to for my plan to work.
Amongst the crowd is my prey for the evening, completely unaware he’s being stalked like a lion watching the gazelle. Dale Winston. A minor player in my teenage tragedy, but a pivotal one. It was Dale who more than once turned a blind eye while Garrett, Ben, and Nial harassed and assaulted me. It was Dale who lied to the gym teacher and the principal when asked what happened. It was Dale who stood by when Garrett pulled my gym shorts down and threw a dildo at me in the shower. It was Dale who I begged to help me when Ben and Nial held me down and Garrett tried to shove the dildo in my mouth, and lastly, it was Dale who laughed with the others when I discovered my locker covered with gay pornographic pictures that Garrett told everyone they got from a magazine found in my bookbag.
Well, tonight is payback time for Dale.
I happen to know that Dale has been divorced three times and worked for Garrett for ten years before being laid off. Now he spends his days drinking and being angry. When he talks to me, he seems to have forgotten the role he played in my bullying. I plan to remind him.
I approach one of my fakes and whisper to him to call Dale to one of the private patios on the other side of the space that isn’t being used tonight. He’ll tell Dale that he, meaning me, would like to discuss something with him. And then Dale will enter my trap.
Once my fake understands the goal and the target, I slip out from the room and make my way to the patio. This is the other reason I hire the fakes. I can’t be suspected of anything if I was in the room the entire time.
Opening the French doors, I step onto the patio, inhaling the cool night air while leaning on the railing. With my advanced sensory abilities, I can hear the rustling of insects in the grass below, the slight swish of leaves from the barely there breeze, the din of laughter from the event room through doors and walls.
And then the scent of curiosity tinged with nerves hits me. Dale is close. I twist around to find him looking confused, probably wondering how he just spoke to ‘me’ in the ballroom but I’m already here waiting for him.
“Dale Winston,” I say, as pleasantly as possible. “It’s been a very long time.”
“Yeah. Hey.”
“Hey.” I watch him as he approaches me cautiously. Perhaps he’s smarter than I thought. “Are you enjoying yourself?”
“It’s really cool. Unique. Kind of surprised I was invited.”
“Why is that?”
“Uh, well…” He rubs the back of his neck, his blond hair sticking out in a purposely messy style. “We weren’t exactly friends back in the day.”
“No, we weren’t, were we? If I recall, you were friends with Garrett and his followers.”
“Not friends, really. Just kept to myself, you know?”
“I do know.” I lift a glass of champagne I brought with me and offer it to Dale. He takes it, waiting to sip from it until I take a drink from mine. He’s suspicious of me. “So you’re wondering what I wanted to talk about?”
“Yeah. Definitely.”
“Why did you accept my invitation for tonight?”
