by Marie James
“Whoa!” Ignacio holds his hands up, offended on my behalf.
“A fucking catnapping!” Brooks clarifies. “Tell him he can’t do this shit. Remind him of the time he thought he could sneak into that party.”
Ignacio grins. “He couldn’t convince the bouncer to let him through the front door.”
“Saw you coming from a mile away,” Flynn reminds me, but his face doesn’t hold the same humor as the other two. “Even with perfect credentials… what’s going to be your story? You going to tell them the animal has to be quarantined because of some weird reaction to a chemical? It won’t fucking work.”
My frown begins to match his own because that’s honestly something I’d considered. I even drew up the correct documentation to do exactly that, but then I remembered how easily I get distracted, and my acting skills are absolute shit.
“I wasn’t going to go through the front door.”
“Holy shit.” Brooks gasps with a little more surprise than warranted in this situation, but he’s always been a little dramatic. “He was going to break in at night. A downright fucking cat burglar.”
“Look, man! I got what we need—” Finn stops dead in his tracks when he steps inside my office and notices the other guys.
Like an accident happening right before our eyes, Finn looks down at the ski masks and back in our direction three times before he slowly drags them behind his back.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Flynn says, each syllable slow and filled with warning.
I know now wouldn’t be the best time to lie and doing that while caught red-handed never worked out for anyone, but Finn pipes up before I can open my mouth and lets the shit fly.
“Come on! I’m fucking bored. They have twenty-four 4K 8MP @30fps IP Vandal-Proof Cameras, with inside and outside motion detectors.”
Flynn holds his hand up. “Don’t talk that shit to me. Did you understand any of that shit?”
Ignacio chuckles. “I speak many languages, but techie isn’t one of them.”
“What he’s saying is that—”
“Don’t care. You guys aren’t going to go abduct her damn cat.”
I slow blink at Flynn. “Then you’ll call in some favors and go pick him up?”
He clenches his jaw so tight, I’m certain I hear a few teeth crack. “Not a chance in hell, and you need to stop getting others involved in your messes. What the hell is wrong with you anyway?”
“Whitney found the fucking box the night Jones went down.”
He tilts his head to the side, jaw still working like he’s preparing to chew through steel ropes. “The box? The one you told Deacon weeks ago you gave back to her?”
“I didn’t—” I grip the back of my neck.
“You’re an idiot!” Ignacio points to the bird as if doing so qualifies it as truth.
I happen to agree with both of them right now.
“I told him I took care of it.”
“Meaning you returned it.” Flynn stares at me, refusing to let my eyes drift away.
“I got it out of the office and took it home. She found it in my closet while looking for a blanket.”
“Idiot,” Brooks mutters, his arms crossing over his chest. “Why didn’t you just trash it.”
“That doesn’t solve the problem,” Flynn interjects. “Deacon will be home in a few days from his honeymoon, and no matter how happy and in love that man is, he’s not going to be very happy with the way shit went down while he was gone.”
“I’ll fix it,” I promise. “I’ll figure out a way to make it all work out, and then no one will have to even breathe a word to him about my stupidity.”
“He already knows,” Flynn says with a pointed look.
I feel the color drain from my face. “H-he knows? How does he know?”
“He does,” Flynn confirms. “I’ve been sending him case notes.”
Slow blinking doesn’t make the interim boss change his story.
“Don’t look at me like I’ve betrayed you. This is damn business. If we’re using company assets, then we’re tracking company assets. Not doing so is how people get shut down and thrown in prison.”
“I’m going to return these,” Finn says holding up the ski masks.
“And maybe stop using the company credit card for illegal shit,” Flynn mutters to his back as he leaves. “I have to fucking track everything.”
“Just go to her and make her listen,” Brooks says with a quick shoulder shrug.
“I can go smooth the way for you.” Ignacio marks his offer for help with a wink.
“They’ll never find your body,” I threaten.
“I don’t care how you do it, short of breaking the fucking law, but straighten this shit out. Deacon is already going to be out for blood when he returns. The calmer the situation is, the easier it’s going to be on all of us.” Flynn sighs, and only now do I see the shadows under his eyes, and the lines that crinkle with the stress. “I’ll be lucky if I still have a job after all of this. The man is gone for the matter of a week, and I run this place into the fucking ground…”
His voice trails off as he leaves my office.
“Go get your girl,” Brooks says, reaching under my arm to urge me from my desk chair. “You aren’t going to get anywhere just sitting here and moping.”
“She’s fucking gone.” I shrug off his insistence.
“Gone?”
I point behind me to the screen. “Do you think she would board her cat at that damn place if she was in town?”
Ignacio chuckles.
“And people think I’m the one who struggles to catch the clues. She’s in California.”
“Then why isn’t your ass on a plane right now?”
“I can’t go across the country and make her listen to me.”
“Do you care for her?” I scoff at Ignacio. “I’ll take that as a yes. All I can say is don’t give up. Walking away and never looking back will eat at you for the rest of your life.”
Brooks tilts his head, looking at his friend with confusion, but he doesn’t ask questions or for historical proof of how Ignacio would know something like that. I ignore the opening also because I’m too damn wrapped up in my own dilemma right now.
“Just go get her? It can’t be that simple.”
“Didn’t say it was going to be simple.”
“It won’t be,” Brooks agrees. “But it’ll be worth it if it works out.”
“You have three days before the boss man gets back. Better act quick.” Brooks slaps me on the back before following Ignacio out of my office.
“I love the beach!” Puff squeals, wings flapping like I just offered him a dream vacation.
I’m not going to take him with me, but I can appreciate the fact that having him with me while she’s there would be one hell of an ice breaker.
Chapter 34
Whitney
“You can go to work if you need to,” I tell Sarah, keeping my eyes closed and my face pointed toward the sun.
California is just what I needed, and the salty air is the perfect distraction from the thoughts warring inside my head.
My friend doesn’t answer, and when I look over, I find her frowning with her eyes directed down at the phone in her hand.
“Sarah?”
“Hmm?” She doesn’t raise her eyes as her fingers rush over the screen of her phone.
“Do you need to go to the office?”
“No. I can take care of everything from here. Besides, I have plans for tonight.”
“Really?” I try to hide the disappointment in my voice, but it’s nearly impossible. I’m a jerk for thinking that she could drop everything at a moment’s notice to tend to my shattered heart, but that doesn’t prevent the pain from creeping in.
“Yes.” Her eyes finally find mine, and the mischievous glint in her eyes makes me suspicious. “We’re going out.”
“Out?” I hate the sound of anything that doesn’t include lounging on the beach and feeling sorry for
my life choices. “I’d rather stay in.”
“And that’s the reason we need to have a little fun.” Her phone buzzes once again. “I’ve got to take this, but wrap your head around it, Whitney. You’ve pouted long enough. It’s best to just get back out there after a disappointment. No sense in dwelling on something you refuse to change.”
I scowl in her direction, watching her walk away.
I don’t have the ability to change anything. Giving in isn’t an option. I didn’t ask to be betrayed. I played things cool, kept my physical distance from Wren for as long as I could. I got to know him, spent time online with him until I felt like he could be trusted. He hurt me, not the other way around.
I scoff, the irritated sound getting lost in the ocean breeze. “I didn’t even like him that much.”
I close my eyes against the burn the lie causes and settle back into the lounge chair. If going out and having fun will speed this pain along until I can breathe without feeling like I have a knife in my heart, then going out is what I’ll do.
***
“This is not what I had in mind,” I hiss after the man in the front room places a white band around my wrist.
“You should learn to ask the right questions,” Sarah chides with mirth as she presses her hand to the gold band around her own wrist.
“You would’ve lied even if I had.”
“Maybe?” She shrugs as she walks deeper into the room, forcing me to follow her because staying close is the only goal I have tonight. “You could’ve gotten a different color.”
I look down at the white band circling my wrist but knowing what it stands for doesn’t set me at ease.
“Yellow would’ve been more fitting.”
“I don’t think jumping in feet first on my maiden voyage in a sex club is smart,” I argue. “When you said we were going out, I figured we were going to belly up to a bar so I could drink my sorrows away.”
“Look.” She points across the room and my eyes follow the tip of her finger. “A bar. So, let’s belly up.”
Relief washes over me when I find only a couple people chatting at the bar. Ignoring the activities going on in plain sight, I smile at the bartender.
“Two drink limit. What can I get you, gorgeous?”
So much for drinking all of my pain away. Two drinks won’t even touch the issues I need to deal with going on in my life.
“Whiskey. Neat.”
His charming smile widens. “First time?”
“No,” I shake my head indignantly. “I’ve had whiskey before.”
Sarah chuckles beside me. “He means coming here.”
“Oh.” Embarrassment heats my cheeks, and it only proves that I’m so far out of my element. “Yes. First time.”
“For you, Lady Persephone?”
“Same,” Sarah answers, her eyes growing serious once again.
The bartender licks his lips before backing away to fill our drink order.
“He’s terrified of you,” I whisper. I love seeing her power and control.
The low lights of the bar shine off the gold on her wrist, and it makes me wonder if just the sight of it there is what caused such a reaction in him. The bartender’s thick, corded muscles work along his back as he lifts the whiskey bottle, tilting it to fill our glasses.
“He knows his place.” She winks at me before turning her back to the bar to scope out her surroundings.
“He’s submissive?” I keep my eyes on the side of her face, wanting to judge her reaction. “There’s no way. I mean look at him. He’s got probably seventy pounds on you.”
“Size doesn’t matter in this world,” she says as her head turns and she levels me with a stare.
“Don’t look at me like that. You know those eyes don’t work on me.”
Her grin is quick and genuine. “Too bad that band isn’t yellow. I’d show just how much of a reaction I can get from you.”
My skin tingles, the threat of being dominated by a woman a little thrilling, but I know it wouldn’t work between the two of us. Firstly, although I can appreciate her sexiness, I’m not into women. Secondly, there’s only one person who could make my skin tingle. Only one person I want commanding me, and as it turns out, he’s a lying asshole.
I turn back toward the bar, thanking the heavens the bartender dropped off our drinks before going to help another person.
I down the whiskey, pinching my eyes closed against the burn. When they reopen, my white band glares like a beacon. It makes me a coward, wearing a band that tells everyone around me that I’m off-limits, that I’m only here to watch. Yellow, as Sarah suggested would express my desire to be dominated by a man. Alternatively, an orange band would indicate my need for a woman to step in to get the job done.
“You don’t have to babysit me,” I find myself saying, even though the thought of her leaving my side even for a second makes my heart rate increase.
“And leave you here for the wolves to descend? Not likely.”
“I thought this,” I hold my arm up so she can see the white gleaming from my wrist, “was supposed to prevent that sort of thing.”
I’d doubted the ability of a colored band to control a group of oversexed-up people, and now she’s just confirmed it.
“No one will touch you, but that won’t prevent them from talking to you, trying to convince you that you can switch that band out for another color.”
The guy at the front had told me as much, but I knew when I selected the one I have, that I wouldn’t be changing my mind. It had nothing to do with being shy at first glance, and everything to do with the fact that I can’t even imagine anyone touching me but Wren. And that pissed me off nearly enough to make me go grab the black band that tells everyone around that I’m willing to do everything under the sun.
“Jesus,” Sarah pants, and at first, I think she’s getting annoyed with me, but then I see her eyes focused across the room. “That’s talent.”
I bite my lower lip, a little embarrassed at taking in the scene, but still too curious to look away.
In the center of the stage, a woman is being railed by two men, both of her holes being used with brutal force. A third man grips both sides of her head as he pounds with relentless thrusts into her mouth. The groan of release can be heard all the way to the bar because silence fills the room as the quartet of people enjoy each other.
Tears streak her face, forcing her dark makeup down her cheeks, and I feel sorry for her, being used this way, but after swallowing the man’s cum, she looks up at him with such adoration, whispering thank you before he steps away.
I feel those two words in my soul, knowing exactly how she feels. I mean, I’ve not had two men inside of me at the same time, much less three, but her gratefulness is reminiscent of the way I felt the night Wren made me his. She wanted this from him, just as I wanted it from Wren.
The man, not going far, palms the side of her face, and after a second of leaning into his touch, she opens her mouth again. Another man steps forward to fill her mouth just as the man riding her ass groans. Seconds after he pulls free, the man originally in her mouth leans down, dismissive of the cock invading her throat and whispers in her ear. The cock in her mouth dislodges for a brief second, only long enough for her to nod an answer to his question. My thighs clench when a totally different man angles his cock down and slides home into her ass.
“Wow,” I whisper, my eyes locked on the sight. “She’s okay with all of this?”
I ask the question, even though I saw her acceptance from the man who seems to be controlling the entire situation.
“She loves it. Loves getting fucked. Her pussy is as sweet as honey, and there aren’t many people in this place that haven’t had a taste, me included. She gets off on being used. Her husband gets off on watching her getting taken by other people. The dynamic is perfect for them. If you watch long enough, you’ll see that Eric checks in with her often. He’ll know when she’s done, and things will stop as quickly as they start.”
/> “Takes a lot of trust.”
“It does,” Sarah agrees, finally turning around to pick up her own glass of whiskey. “I’ve seen him put an end to it even when she’s begging for more. He knows when she stops doing it for her own pleasure and is only trying to please him. He doesn’t get off on her pain, and sometimes he has to step in even when she’s telling him no. That power isn’t always even. That’s why there are employees walking all over, keeping an eye on things to make sure no one takes it too far.”
“It’s fucking intense,” I tell her, raising my hand to the bartender to indicate needing another drink. He winks in my direction before grabbing the bottle of whiskey. As the sounds of sex continue at my back, I pray that he pours with a heavy hand. “Are we just going to wait here all night?”
“I’m waiting for someone.”
I thank the bartender when he hands me my fresh glass before turning to my friend. “I can grab an Uber when your friend shows up.”
There’s no way I can stand here and watch what’s going on around me without someone by my side. I might die of embarrassment in the first five minutes, and the thought of someone watching me watch someone else? I shudder, not giving it another thought.
“That won’t be necessary.”
“I’m not going to follow you like a horny little dog and watch you make some grown man cry.”
She chuckles, her lips turning up at the edges before she takes a sip of her drink. “You could always get naked and ride his face while I clamp his balls in a vice.”
“The only person that will be seeing her naked cunt is me.”
The voice startles me so much, I knock over my half-empty glass of whiskey, and a rush of thoughts swarm me at once. Will the bartender replace my spilled drink, or am I going to be stuck licking the whiskey from the bar top? Why does my friend look less surprised than me? And more importantly, what is he doing here?
I don’t turn to face him. I can’t. Just the sound of his voice makes my throat threaten to seize, and the tears I felt earlier sitting on the patio of Sarah’s condo come rushing back full force.
“You had something to do with this,” I snap at my friend, a slew of emotions hitting me all at one time, so quickly, I’ll never be able to sort through them all.
