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“Ricardo?” She breaks away. “Why are you doing this?”
Why am I doing this? Why do I press myself to her shaking body, letting her feel the bulge in my pants? Why do I kiss her when I’d been adamant before about never touching her again?
I refuse to answer her even as she shivers.
I end the kiss to drag my tongue along her neck and lap at the hollow of her throat, nibbling there.
She fits perfectly against my body, and how easy it would be to push her to the wall and take her again. Take her the way she deserves with tenderness and care. Her breasts are ripe, bare. Ready for me to bury my head between until I can’t breathe for wanting her. Ready for me to wrap my lips around her nipples until she’s breathless and there is only my name on her tongue.
I do none of those things.
I press my mouth to hers a final time before standing her under the spray to rinse her off. And once the shower is done and she’s wrapped in a towel, I leave her alone.
There’s too much strain in me to sleep yet, even with the thin and weary dawn starting to claw its way over the horizon.
I’m on my third cigarette, taking up a permanent perch on the small terrace outside the living room with my sopping wet jacket tossed aside when my phone buzzes. The screen lights, a beacon in the dark and Carter’s name in big bold type. The cell rings a second later, and despite the late hour, I answer.
“Your mother says you’re home.” It’s the first thing he says to me.
“Haven’t you guys ever heard of this thing? It’s called privacy, and I’d like a little bit of it,” I snap back. Then sigh into the silence. “Sorry.”
“If you want privacy, then choose a different life and move out of the compound.” Carter says it simply, and he’s right. “What happened tonight?”
Where do I even start?
And how much do I tell him?
Carter isn’t content to let me stay silent and clears his throat to get my attention. “Okay, if you’re not willing to go first, then I will.”
A weight staples in my stomach.
“Isabella made some shitty excuse to Mia about hanging out with one of your dancers tonight. A woman named Sarah? Poor thing had no clue she was expecting company when I cornered her after her first set on the stage.”
“Probably not the best excuse to go with,” I mutter.
“Look. I’m going to give you a chance to tell me what’s happening, and so help me god, Ricardo, if you say you took the night off to fuck her stupid, then I’m coming over to?—”
“What?” I interrupt. “Rip me a new asshole? There is no reason for me not to fuck Isabella. I’ve been rather reserved when it comes to making a move on her, but I’m well within my rights to do it.”
I hate being crude about it, and I particularly hate the fact that I actually had fucked her not more than two hours ago. In front of a live studio audience.
“In general, I do not give a flying fuck who you choose to take to your bed, but in this case, I don’t have to remind you to be careful with her. There is a lot on the line, and if you are looking for a quick scratch, then you need to find it somewhere else. Especially considering the newest trouble she’s dropped on our doorstep.”
“Christ, Pops.” My knees no longer support me, and I slowly sink down into one of the lounge chairs, the cool metal biting into my back.
My shirt is soaking wet and clings to my skin.
I draw the last dregs of the cigarette, and despite the protest in my lungs, my thoughts refuse to settle, and I halfway wonder if another smoke isn’t the fix for it.
“You know I fucking hate it when you call me that. Now tell me what’s going on,” Carter presses. “The truth this time, Ricardo.”
“And if I insist that everything is fine? If I tell you I have it handled?”
I have no clue if I’m telling the truth or not because it feels to me like everything shifted somehow. I’d taken a misstep somewhere, forgotten to calculate something, or missed it entirely, and now Isabella is asleep in my bed, and Drago has our first coupling in his film archive.
“I’d say you’re out of your mind.”
“Then we really have nothing more to say right now, and I’m spent,” I reply. “I’ll fill you in after I get some sleep, but right now, I’m beat, and I’ve got a migraine.”
