Sugarbaby

by Crystal Green

  “Okay,” I said. “It’s just that I did my own research on you two, after I started to suspect you were sending those texts.” I faltered. “I’m sorry to hear about what happened to Noah.”

  Something in Simmons’s eyes softened, but it was gone in a flash. He looked at me longer than usual, and it was so unlike yesterday, when he wouldn’t gaze at me at all, that I frowned.

  I wasn’t sure if that was what put him back on guard, but he stood away from the table, grabbing a plate and setting the hors d’oeuvre he’d picked up on it. “So there you have it—the short version of the long story.”

  “I’d hoped for more.”

  “I only said it was long. I didn’t say you were going to get all of it. Besides, you did your research, and I’m sure there’s not much more for me to fill in.”

  Bull. But what could I say? That I’d hoped there would be some kind of surprising romantic angle here with Noah? That I’d been wishing he was more interested in me than in Aidan Falls?

  Yeah, I was a regular Cinderella, all right. The two richies had definitely come down here to sweep me off my feet. In reality, Simmons had only invited me here to apologize, to offer the Angel’s Seat waitress a big night out after he’d fulfilled his curiosity about me in a way that only an affluent guy with a rich friend could. Noah had been his wingman.

  Or could it be that they were tag teaming the poor, textually inept waitress in some kind of perverse billionaire game?

  As I thought hard on that idea, Simmons filled up the rest of his plate and began to walk toward the door. I noticed that he was taller and lankier now that he wasn’t sitting in a café or leaning back against a table.

  “Enjoy everything in this room, Jadyn,” he said. “We had you in mind when we stocked it.”

  Carley spoke up. “You ordered all this for her?”

  Simmons offered that polite smile. “Certainly. Everyone deserves a night out.”

  Carley was already eyeing the champagne buckets, and Bret was already eyeing Carley again. I got the feeling that I should grab some grub and vacate before kissing ensued.

  Then the door eased open, letting in blasts of acid country music.

  Letting in a sight that made me thaw and nearly lose all shape.

  Noah Reeves. And he exchanged a long look with Simmons, who didn’t say or do anything but nod. Meanwhile, my body started doing the thump-de-dump dance of need again.

  Tag team, I thought, feeling stranger than ever.

  Then Noah jerked his chin at Bret in greeting and acknowledged Carley with a bow of his head.

  My friend smiled before she stopped herself. Then she made doe eyes at Bret. Oh, babe, I’m not looking at anyone but you.

  Then it was my turn to receive the full force of Noah’s attention, but I’d already built myself up for it. When he looked at me, I only lifted an eyebrow.

  “Everyone have what they need?” he asked in that low, smooth tone that reminded me of cream over fine chocolate; decadent, something to stay away from.

  If a girl could.

  “You didn’t have to go to these lengths,” I said. “Thank you for it, but an explanation from Simmons would’ve been enough. It wasn’t as if you turned my life upside down.”

  Noah stepped all the way into the room, and it was as if that was Simmons’s cue to vacate. He left the door gaped behind him, the music hammering its way in.

  It was becoming very hot in here, and I’d gotten what I’d come for, so maybe this would be a good time for me to leave, too. The Hellfire Club wasn’t as titillating as I’d thought it would be, anyway. Also, with Noah looking at me the way he was, I was sure that I was more unsettled now than ever.

  But why? A billionaire wouldn’t want any of this, so I had to be crazy to think he was into me when there were hundreds of barely dressed women writhing around in the main room. And it wasn’t as if I were up for any more games, either. I’d had enough of those with Micah Wyatt, who’d liked to play with women like catnip. It hadn’t been fun to end up as his toy.

  Surely that’s what these boys had been doing—playing with me. And I wasn’t about to get into that kind of trouble again. I was in full control of myself now, not any guy.

  “Ready?” I said to Carley and Bret.

  He was inspecting what looked to be a small stuffed mushroom, and she was already drinking from a champagne flute. She had another glass in hand as she walked over to me.

  “Can’t we stay?” she asked. “This is so way better than the first Hellfire Club.”

  I would explain everything to her later, but I took the glass, set it down on a nearby table, then not-so gently guided her toward the door, hoping Bret would take the hint to follow. Then I walked past Noah.

  Maybe I didn’t want to stay as the guest of a guy who was older and more experienced and probably much better at playing girls than I was at playing boys. But I wasn’t an ingrate, either. “Thank you for the tip yesterday. And for any trouble you went through setting up this spread.”

  “You’re not staying?” he said in such a way that my belly flipped.

  Did he want me to hang around that badly? Right.

  But those eyes were a compelling light green color that had me swimming. They were enough to make me pause, make a secret part of me ache, just as I’d ached for Rex and Micah for a brief time.

  Aches never turned out well.

  “We were just going to stop by to see the sights,” I said, nodding at him one last time before I tugged Carley along.

  “Thanks for the tip at the café!” she said back to him as we were enveloped by music again. We passed the muscle man outside the door, and he impassively watched us leave. I wondered who he would be letting in the room now that these VIPs had gone on their way.

  Hah, me a VIP. Well, it’d been fun while it’d lasted. And the farther I got from that room, the more I wondered why I couldn’t find it in myself to be less defensive. Couldn’t I stay a little longer, letting my friends have fun . . . and letting myself?

  But I’d proven that I didn’t know the line between fun and overindulgence before. Maybe it was myself I didn’t trust rather than some billionaire boys who’d asked me to the Hellfire for kicks.

  The crowd had thickened, the music clanging on as if it’d never stop. To my left, a spectacle had started on the platform—a line of women parading in a kinky fashion show. There was a Halloween fox, pawing at the cheering audience while the strategically placed fur on her seemed to slip away, moment by moment. A cat-woman in leather, swiveling her hips to the beat. A ninja lady with two swords crossed at her back, grinding against a cheerleader.

  The room was louder and hotter now, and I wanted out, but the crowd . . . it was so tough to get through, so many people . . .

  I felt Carley’s hand slip out of mine, and I spun around to find her again, but I was surrounded by bodies, undulating, dancing, carrying me farther into the center of the room until—

  A hand grasped mine, pulling me back from them.

  But it wasn’t Carley.

  Noah looked down at me, and I almost drowned in those eyes. I struggled for air as the lights throbbed over him and my gaze settled on that scar on his neck.

  Something came over me, and I itched to touch the wound, to touch him.

  Was it wrong to think that he was thinking the same about me? Because the yearning in his gaze ripped me apart, right down the middle, splitting me until I felt it between my legs.

  “Don’t go,” he said and, somehow, I heard him over the music, even though he hadn’t shouted. His words vibrated through me.

  My skin felt as if it were a mass of tingles, my breath caught in my chest. I don’t want to go.

  But then I remembered that there’d been another night when I’d told myself the same thing. I’d been drunk, sad, and ready to be a boy’s toy.

  I’d n
ever be ready for that again.

  I started to pull away from Noah, but he held firm.

  “You don’t like me much, do you, Jadyn?” he said near my ear.

  “I don’t know you enough to like or dislike you!”

  “Then don’t run away.”

  Did he have a fetish for hard-to-get blue-collar girls who weren’t interested in games? “What do you want from me?”

  When he smiled, it was with a predatory slowness that mixed cryptically with the sadness and anger that always seemed to haunt him.

  At that moment, the crowd swarmed, pressing in on us while a woman dressed in nothing but a well-placed ribbon bow strutted down the platform. One guy who smelled like too much cologne fell into me, and the next second, Noah was surging toward him as if something inside had snapped.

  He took the guy by his collar, heaving him away from me. My heart throbbed as Noah stared at him as if . . .

  As if he was daring him to punch him and start something up?

  That couldn’t be right, though, especially since he was surrounded by guys who looked like they were ready to fight for their cologne-soaked friend as he yelled, “Fuck off, man!” and shoved Noah.

  He wasn’t moved at all, stone-solid as he merely stared them down. A tight smile owned him, his eyes seeming to go dark with temper and gleam with something else I couldn’t describe.

  But there was no time to figure him out because, suddenly, the throng welled toward the stage with the ribbon girl. They pressed in on me, and I gasped, pushing back at them, starting to fight my way out. My gaze met Noah’s.

  His expression seemed to change, panic taking over as I reached for him . . .

  Out of nowhere, two men in black shirts appeared, dragging people off me one by one, and as the room swirled around me, I was aware of only one other thing—Noah, picking me up, throwing me over his shoulder, parting the crowd as he busted through.

  I was too shocked to do anything, but at least I could breathe now that I was out of that mob. Too bad that every breath I tried to take was thwarted by the fact that my lungs were tight, due to the fact that I could feel his hand on the back of my bare thigh as my dress rode up.

  The contact sent delicious shivers over my skin, webs of heat spinning through me. It wasn’t until he set me down near a back staircase far from the action that my heart started up again. But his hand was still there, his fingers pressed over the back of my leg as I struggled for breath, my pulse beating in time to the flashing lights.

  His skin—soapy and nice. His body—so close . . .

  I told myself to push his hand away, to stop myself from sliding down the wall that was holding me up and get out of here quick. But his mouth was inches from mine—so near that his breath bathed my lips with warmth and set them to tingling.

  Don’t fall into another boy trap, I thought.

  Yet I was at least tripping, fast and hard, into his gaze.

  He bent even closer, his mouth only a soft word away from mine now—a word that felt like Yes. And when he eased his fingers higher up the back of my thigh, to the curve of my bottom, I couldn’t think of any words at all.

  My body took over, doing the talking for me, my hips shifting, giving him silent permission to inch up farther until his finger swept under my panties, catching my bare skin.

  Just a flutter of a touch.

  Just a caress that made my sex clench.

  As my vision went blurry, I gripped his sweater, expecting a kiss, just a whisper more . . .

  My eyes half-closed as I held my breath.

  Then, much to my shock, he pulled back, and my sight cleared, as if ice water had wiped it clean. He had a look of self-loathing to him that made me pull back my hand from his sweater and wonder what had just happened.

  He retreated, acting remote, maybe even remorseful for taking advantage of the situation.

  Was he being a gentleman? I wasn’t sure about that, either.

  As I wobbled, he started talking.

  “Some of the people I invited obviously tend to go overboard,” he said over the music, which wasn’t as loud here in this nook. “I don’t know who the girl in the Christmas trimmings is, but she set off the drunks, and some of those drunks don’t care who they crash into.”

  “You mean you didn’t plan for all this insanity?” I asked, and, somehow, my voice wasn’t even shaking.

  “I just wanted a party,” he said quietly.

  His cologne . . . or maybe it was his soap . . . whatever it was, I could smell it on me. It was subtle, unlike all these loud lights around us. I fought the urge to close my eyes in the pure delight of smelling him.

  Keep your eyes open, I told myself. You know better.

  “I should be more careful about who to invite.” He was shaking his head. Was he blaming himself because I’d nearly gotten run over by the crowd?

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  “Not really. I invited people who posted on online boards about . . . let’s say ‘alternative entertainment.’ If they seemed like they’d be interested, I told them to come here without screening them, because I wanted . . .” His jaw tightened. “Maybe I wanted some variety. But I contacted the kids on the regular Hellfire list, too, even though I don’t see many around now.”

  “That’s because you hijacked their Club.”

  He frowned. “You think they’re unhappy with how this party turned out?”

  Was he serious? It was as if he didn’t know anything about Texas or, heck, regular people at all.

  “Yeah. From what I know, the Hellfire Club was arty, boho, more casual than this.” Like Bret. And speaking of Bret . . .

  I started to leave, but that only brought me closer to Noah, so near to him that that all he had to do was whisper as I passed.

  “Stay,” he said.

  Lord help me.

  But my defenses were already up, bolstered by my common sense. “You’re not serious,” I said, my voice close to shaking now.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Because I’m a waitress and not a socialite, for one.”

  “I guess you don’t know much about me, then,” he said. “If you did, you’d know that I haven’t been on that social circuit for a while.”

  At the longing in his voice, a slow melt trickled down me, from stomach to belly, from belly to a part that still ached, but even worse now. I was going damp, somehow turned on by the confusion of the night.

  It’d been Simmons texting me, but here Noah was, actually pursuing me, touching me . . .

  God, yes, he was tracing his finger over the back of my hand, and it was the dirtiest, most innocent thing I’d ever experienced. He touched me like he knew me, or wanted to know me.

  But, sadder but wiser girl that I was, I moved away, a knot in my chest.

  “What’s your game?” I asked, thinking of Micah Wyatt again. “Do you always use Simmons to hook the ‘different’ girls and then you reel them in the rest of the way?”

  His gaze clouded in the hint of those flashing lights from the main floor. Light, dark, light, dark—his mood seemed to be one thing the first second, another the next. Changeable. Unpredictable.

  What had Simmons said earlier? “Rash”?

  In the end, he seemed stung by my insinuation, but he covered it well, backing off, his shoulders tense.

  “Again,” he said, “I’m sorry if you were unsettled.”

  Then he looked to the side, nodding his head, and before I knew it, one of his men in the black shirts appeared.

  “This way to your friends, miss,” the guy said, gesturing toward the party.

  I turned back to Noah, just for one last look, but he was already gone.

  6

  That night at the Hellfire Club was almost like a dream, and when I went to sleep, I told myself I’d only imagined everything
—the VIP room, the ear-crunching music, the sexy costumes, and the way all the people in the room had wanted to get at the girls on that runway.

  But those sensations were only the confetti in my fantasies, the falling debris that obscured the real reason I was in my bed, hugging my blankets to me, smiling.

  Mostly, I couldn’t stop thinking about how Noah had unexpectedly tossed me over his wide shoulder, his hand pressing down on the back of my thigh as my skirt had crept up. And then there’d been that startling moment when he’d stroked my sensitive skin there, making me shameless.

  Somehow, some way, Noah had my number.

  Fantasy or not, though, he was gone. Yes, I’d blown him off thoroughly, so why would he ever come back for more smart-mouthing from me?

  Better yet, what exactly had attracted him in the first place?

  There were still so many unanswered questions, and I slept on every one of them. Then I trudged to classes in the morning, barely hearing anything about modern literature, advanced physics, or anthropology, and when I got home, I fully intended to hit the books since I had the day off and I usually got a lot done when I didn’t have to report to the Angel’s Seat.

  But I couldn’t concentrate worth a cock’s crow.

  What I needed was to distract myself, and some physical exertion would help me with that, so I ended up going to the garage, where I was still sorting through Uncle Joseph’s possessions. Delroy had asked if I would take care of that, and I’d agreed since I couldn’t bear the thought of my great-uncle’s precious boxes being given away unopened to just anyone.

  I’d already managed to get through half of his things, and believe me, it wasn’t easy to part with what I’d found: old turntables with a library of jazz, country, and blues vinyls; vintage suits that came in all colors; an acoustic guitar and a fiddle; faded slides and photos of Delroy when he was little, hanging out with family members I barely knew, although I’d tucked the ones that included my parents into a shoebox that I kept on top of my desk. I hadn’t been able to give away any of those other things, either.

  That made me kind of useless as I went through Joseph’s belongings, but I felt as if he lived in these objects, and it was hard to let go.