Though the last thing I wanted to do was pull out of her, it was exactly what I did, and as I did so, as I reached down and put myself away, Roman’s voice came on the phone: “Good. Now, Carter, don’t let her clean herself up.”
Still breathing hard, I said, “Will do, boss. Anything else?”
“No.” And then he hung up, leaving me to deal with her.
I took my time in moving to the sofa, sitting there with my knees spread apart, my eyes glued to her backside. Her skin had become flushed during the fuck session, a bit sweaty. My cock still ached with a need, but I held myself back, glaring at her.
Zoey tried to turn around, tried to move from her position on the wall, but I wasn’t having any of it.
“Ah, ah,” I said. “Don’t move.”
She set both hands flat upon the wall again, throwing a glare at me over her shoulder. “He said not to clean off your cum—not that I couldn’t move—”
“True,” I relented, “but I’m telling you not to move. I want you to stand there and feel it dribbling down your thighs, and when it dries, I want you to realize that you don’t just belong to Roman. You’re mine, too.”
Zoey groaned, fully annoyed with me, but she did as she was told. If she didn’t, she knew I could always whip out my phone again and give Roman another call. She stood there, leaning against the wall, freshly fucked, with my cum dribbling down her inner thighs like the little slut she was.
My slut. Roman’s slut. Ours.
Oh, yeah. That would never get old.
The days passed in a blur. Time itself was an odd one when you weren’t really paying attention to it. I made it out like I hated every single day I had to babysit Zoey, but in reality, I didn’t. That didn’t stop me from putting up a front, though, from telling Roman I’d rather do literally anything else.
Whether or not he believed me or whether it was simply fate, but one night he needed my help on a job, so I had to leave Zoey and take my place at his side once again.
That had been three hours ago, and now Roman and I were back at his place. I had some explaining to do, apparently, if the bullet in my arm was any indication.
Roman took me to the room where he kept all of his medical supplies. He sat me on the chair in the middle of the room, glowering. A bit of blood splattered on his cheek, staining the white undershirt of his suit, but he didn’t care. He simply stormed to the glass cabinets in the corner of the room, got out a metal tray, along with anything else he might need.
Me? I simply sat there, biting back the pain, wondering why the fuck I’d been so careless. You didn’t deal in shady business, in blackmail and family business when your mind just wasn’t in it.
And it wasn’t. Why? Because I’d been thinking of Zoey, as stupid as it was.
“Your shirt,” Roman muttered as he got out tiny metal pliers and disinfectant.
I winced as I worked to unbutton my shirt, soon enough pulling it off my chest and my arm, exposing the red hole in my upper bicep. I could still move my arm, so it didn’t hit anything too important, but it would take a while to heal, and if he needed me again, I’d be useless.
Although, I’d been damned near useless tonight. It was like Roman had brought a knife to a gunfight instead of the nine-millimeter he normally used.
Fuck. I really fucked up.
He rolled a stool beside me, fixing my arm to the armrest with a tight leather strap to my elbow. You know, so my body didn’t jerk when he was digging around inside it, trying to find and pull out the bullet.
The man who shot me was dead now, but that was beside the point. I should never have gotten shot to begin with.
Roman’s dark eyes were on the metal instrument he’d shortly use to dig into my arm and pull it out with. He was in the process of sterilizing it before he grabbed a clean rag and dumped a whole bunch of the fluid onto it, pressing it against my arm. It stung like a motherfucker, but I did my best not to let the pain show.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” Roman asked. “You’ve never been so careless before, Carter.” His jaw tensed, a vein in his forehead throbbing, pulsing as he added, “You could’ve died tonight because you were so stupid.”
“I know,” I muttered. It wasn’t like I was happy about it myself. Almost dying was not on my agenda anytime soon, let alone ever. If there was one man I never wanted to disappoint, it was Roman. I literally owed him everything; without him, I was nothing, so the least I could do was have a clear head when he needed me on jobs.
“What we do is dangerous,” Roman spoke, tossing down the towel, which was now stained with my blood, before grabbing the surgical tweezers he’d use to dig in and grab the bullet. It was a weird thing, to feel metal caught inside of you, almost worse than the pain itself—a foreign object lodged inside your body that most definitely should not be there. “When you work for the mob, you need to always have a level head, and tonight, Carter, you acted like you were fifteen again.”
I said nothing, because there was nothing to say. He was right. Roman was always right.
Searing hot agony blew through me when he dug the metal tweezers inside the small hole in search of the bullet, and I ground my teeth in order to keep myself from wincing. The muscles in my arm were spasming uncontrollably; it was a good thing he’d tied it down.
“Where was your mind?” Roman hissed, eyes zeroed in on my arm as he worked. “What the fuck were you thinking about?”
I didn’t want to tell him, but I knew if I kept quiet, he might start to think I would forever be useless on jobs, and that wasn’t something I wanted to be. No, I wasn’t helpless or inept; I had been training to follow in Roman’s footsteps for the last ten years now. This wasn’t my first rodeo, and yet I’d gone into it like a blind man.
So I told him. I told him the truth, because he’d find out eventually—that, or he’d draw his own conclusions about where my mind was at. If there was one man whose trust I never wanted to lose, it was his.
“I was thinking about her,” I muttered. When I spoke it, his dark eyes lifted from the wound in my arm, the metal in his hands freezing as we met stares.
Zoey. I had been thinking about Zoey, and it could’ve cost me my life.
I mean, what the fuck?
Roman said nothing for a while, returning his focus on finding the bullet. It was a few minutes later when the red-stained bullet was dropped on the metal tray near his feet, pulled out of my body as carefully as it could possibly be without going to a hospital.
Bullet wounds were something that had to be reported to the police, and though there were some members of the local law enforcement that were in our pocket, not all of them were. It was always best to avoid them whenever possible.
“You need to learn to separate your private life from your work life,” Roman chided me, sounding almost like a parent—or, at least, how I imagined a parent would, in a situation like this. Roman was only ten years older than me, not much considering everything, but he’d seen a lot more of the world than I had, he’d done more, experienced more. He knew what he was talking about.
I nodded, turning away as he started to stitch me up and slap a bandage on the wound. My arm would be sore for a while; it was my shooting arm, too.
Goddamn it all to hell, I think… I think, in spite of everything, I liked her.
I liked the fucking pink-haired girl.
I liked Zoey Marbella.
Chapter Eleven – Zoey
Eventually I got used to the routine. Carter would watch me during the day and even some nights, meet up with Roman at the Dollhouse when I worked Tuesdays and Thursdays. It wasn’t like I enjoyed being babysat like a child, like someone neither man trusted, but I couldn’t fight the way I grew weak when I was around them, how my thoughts always ended up in the gutter.
How could they not, when I was constantly surrounded by two sex gods with faces and dicks that could kill?
But then, just when I started to get used to the grind, something strange happened. Carter stop
ped showing up at my apartment, leaving me to wonder just what the hell happened. Of course, I didn’t have either his or Roman’s number, so it wasn’t like I could call either of them and ask. Maybe I was just being silly.
It was one Thursday night when I was leaving my apartment to go to work, when I met Lake in the hall. It looked like he was just coming up from taking out trash or something, for he was empty-handed as he headed from the elevator to his apartment. When his blue gaze landed on me, though, his feet stopped immediately. His blonde hair had gotten longer, and since he hadn’t gotten it cut, it was perfectly cute and messy in every single way.
The perfect length to run my hands through, really.
Not a thought I should have, I knew, since Carter and Roman wanted to dictate everything that went between my legs, but still. Lake was a reminder of what life could be like if everything was normal, and for whatever strange reason, I liked the reminder.
“Hey,” he said, reaching to rub the back of his neck. He and I hadn’t exactly spent a lot of time together lately, since Carter was always here, it seemed. “Your boyfriend not here anymore?” When I only blinked, shocked that he’d bring him up—especially so soon—Lake quickly shook his head and said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s none of my business who—”
Maybe it was because I couldn’t take his fumbling, or maybe it was for another reason entirely, but I cut in and said, “Carter’s not my boyfriend. He’s… well, he’s more like a babysitter than anything else.” A babysitter, a bodyguard, someone to keep me in line, whatever. Same thing.
Of course, it was when I said it that I started wondering how thin the walls actually were. Had Lake heard Carter fucking me against the wall? He was my neighbor, but the wall Carter took me on was not a shared wall, so maybe not.
Lake’s expression appeared dubious, and he questioned, “A babysitter? For you? Why on earth would you need a babysitter?”
Since he still stood awkwardly a good ten feet away from me, I took a few steps closer to him, hugging my jacket closed. I wore my typical pink sneakers, along with shorts and a jacket to cover everything underneath—my work outfit, basically. My work outfit was not something I would ever be caught dead strolling around in.
When I said nothing right away, he guessed, “Your parents?”
Yes, saying Carter was sent from my parents to keep an eye on me would be the simplest explanation, wouldn’t it? I came from money, ran away from it and tried to leave it all behind, but my blasted parents just couldn’t let me go.
But it would be a lie, and right now, I didn’t want to lie to him. Lake didn’t deserve that, especially since he’d gotten what was basically the cold shoulder from me the last two weeks. After our almost-kiss, it wasn’t something he deserved. This one… I meant it when I said he deserved so much more.
Still, even though I didn’t want to lie to him, telling him the truth would be too much, and I knew he’d look at me differently if I told him everything about Roman and Carter. I said the only thing I could: “Yeah, you could say that. I guess I’m a bit of a troublemaker when left to my own devices.” I shrugged, giving him a small smile, wishing I could come clean.
Could I? Even assuming Lake would still want to speak with me after knowing the truth, what would Roman do?
He’d probably have Lake strung up and skinned, or something. Shot to death, his body tied down with weights, and then tossed in a lake somewhere.
Well, that got dark fast, didn’t it?
Lake grinned, and it was good to see the dimples in his cheeks again. Those dimples were cute, and I felt the need to touch them, but I held back. I had no idea what it was about those tiny things, but they made me go crazy.
“I can see it,” he told me, still grinning, still wearing those dimples proudly.
“Can you?” I asked, glaring at him in what I hoped was a playful way. Not a real glare, but a look that meant so much more. Was it wrong to have feelings for multiple guys at the same time? I mean, in elementary school I had crushes on different boys, but that wasn’t the same. I didn’t really talk to them. Here, now… I actually felt my heart being pulled in several directions at once. That couldn’t be normal.
Lake could give me a normal life, and Roman and Carter… the opposite. The absolute opposite.
I wanted both at the same time. A normal life, but also one that was filled with displays of dominance and possession, obsession in its rawest, most carnal form. I wanted to be free to make my own decisions, but also under someone else’s thumb.
Fuck. I needed to get a handle on myself.
“Totally,” he said.
Even though the last thing I wanted to do was leave Lake’s side and go to work, that’s exactly what I had to do. “I have to go to work,” I told him. “But it was really nice to see you tonight, Lake.” I didn’t bother to hide the wistfulness in my voice, instead letting it coat every single word, hoping Lake heard it.
He stuck his hands in his jean pockets, looking sheepish as he blushed a bit. “It was,” he said. “Maybe, on another night when you don’t have to work, we could hang out again.” Lake must’ve realized what he was suggesting, for in the next moment he was hurriedly adding, “I mean, if you want. If you’re not too busy with that babysitter of yours—”
Hanging out with him would be dangerous, I knew, and yet before I left, I still said, “I’d like that.”
I mean, just because I’d like it didn’t mean it would actually happen. I could yearn for something without doing it, right? Roman might claim to want to control my thoughts like he did everything else, but he couldn’t really do that.
The walk to the Dollhouse felt abnormally long, partially because of my little encounter with Lake. Lake was not the type of guy I would’ve gone for before, but then again, neither was Roman or Carter. Not once in my wildest dreams did I ever picture myself agreeing to give myself to a guy who had to belong to some organized crime syndicate or something. The mob. The mafia. The… whatever the hell they were called these days.
The truth of the matter was, my life had taken such a hard, drastic turn after I walked in and saw Bryan and Willow together that I couldn’t have predicted any of it.
Ah, well. Life took turns you didn’t expect sometimes, and you had to roll with the punches.
My current punch being an oddly Roman and Carter-free night. Neither man showed up to the Dollhouse, commanding me to remain by their side, to serve them drinks and sit on their lap while they exerted their control over me. Neither man was there to pull me into the backroom and have their way with me on that couch. By extension, neither man was there to stop me from going onto that stage and giving the few men who were our Thursday night patrons a good show.
Huh. This was weird, but okay.
It was an hour or so into my shift when I stood near the bar, leaning on it, feeling so out of place here without either Roman or Carter watching me. Like, even though there were a few men in here who’d love to see me strip and dance, who’d get off on watching me tease my body, I was lonely.
Lonely. Me. Who knew?
Jamie leaned on the counter, watching me. Her dark stare had observed the way I fumbled around all night, and it was like she knew, for she said, “Don’t tell me you’re standing there missing those two.”
I jerked my head back, my eyes wide. “I, uh… no?” Okay, I did not sound believable in the least, so it wasn’t a shock when she shook her head at me and made a disapproving sound. Crystal wasn’t here tonight; it was just me. I’d never gotten friendly with the other girls.
And it was then I had a thought. A very bad thought. What if Roman and Carter were somewhere else, at another club, with another girl? Or, worse, what if Roman had forced Carter to bring Crystal back to his place?
Though it was probably just my mind overthinking it all, I caught myself wondering why the hell I had to be good and obedient when Roman could have Carter pull anyone else and offer them the exact same deal he offered me? Why should I stay
away from Lake when he could theoretically be watching Carter shove his dick into someone else?
Oh, no. I didn’t like that thought at all. In fact, it made me unreasonably jealous, like, so jealous I felt like destroying something. Taking a baseball bat to the fancy car Carter drove and smashing out the headlights and windshield, slashing his tires and leaving it broken and useless.
“You are,” Jamie said knowingly, crossing her arms as she stared at me, frowning. Out of everyone who worked at the Dollhouse, Jamie was probably the nicest; she was the only one who went out of her way to speak to me anytime I worked. The others, I think, tried to steer clear of me because of Roman.
“I am not,” I muttered, and I couldn’t sound like a worse liar. I was. I knew it; she knew it, so why pretend otherwise?
“I told you, hun, to steer clear of Roman and Carter,” she said. “Now look at you—they have you wrapped around their fingers like you’re nothing but a toy, ready to be used.”
Even though they weren’t here, even though I just riled myself up with the thought of them with another woman, I couldn’t help but snap, “They only use me because I let them.” I didn’t think I’d ever sounded so bitchy while talking to Jamie. A part of me felt bad, but another part of me didn’t care; I didn’t appreciate what she’d said.
Jamie let out a laugh, and it was a sound that cut me to my core. “If that’s what you think, you’re further gone than I thought.” She didn’t let me get another word in, edgewise. She instead turned her back to me, indicating she was done with this conversation.
But you know what? So was I.
The next time I worked at the Dollhouse, Roman and Carter still didn’t show up. Carter hadn’t popped up in my apartment, either, leaving me to wonder just what the hell was going on. When Thursday arrived, yet another shift at the Dollhouse without hide or hair of either of them, I thought, fuck it.
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