by TARA GALLINA
A threesome? Nathan would be all over this. Me? I like my sex one-on-one. "Thanks, but I have plans. I’m sure you ladies won't have a hard time finding another willing participant."
Her dark-skinned twin scowls at her friend. "I told you they weren't broken up."
The girl in front of me shrugs and says, "Your loss," as she walks back to her friends.
I keep on toward the back stairwell, hearing one of the girls say, "What the hell does it take to get that glorious guy's attention?"
I don’t quite know myself. There's no point in venturing down a path that's never been attainable.
Chapter 7
I step out the stairwell and enter the hallway that leads to the great room. The moment I round the corner, I’m hit with a wall of perfume, cologne and sweat from a dozen or more dancing bodies near the TV area. A tray of Jell-O shots rests at one end of the large breakfast table.
I swipe a small cup and chug the blue goop. Tastes like candy. Too sweet for my preference.
"Sebastian?" Tyson shouts from where he sits at the other end. "How've you been, man?"
"Good." I give him half a smile. "How about you?" Tyson and I had several business classes together last semester. He's all right.
He leans back in the chair and hooks his hands behind his head. "Same old, same old. I’m moving back to New York after graduation. You too?"
The coincidence of us both being from New York is just that. I know because I had him checked out when he first told me. Better to be safe than sorry. Turns out he's from a small town mid-state, nowhere near where my father lives.
"Not sure," I reply as Riley walks over, dripping with sweat.
"Jesus. Do I need to turn the air down? You're drenched." And drunk. He and Nathan only ever dance when they're wasted enough that they don't care.
"It's hot over there." He shakes his head, sweat spraying from his hair.
"I just showered." I wipe the splats from my arm and give him a light shove. "Fucker."
He stumbles more than the shove should have caused him to. Yep. Shit-faced. The thing about Riley and Nathan is they drink so much, it's hard to tell—unless you know them like I do.
"So who's the lucky chick tonight?" I ask, when he rights himself.
"Not sure." He stares into the dancing crowd on one of the many rugs in the house. The couch, tables, and chairs that usually line it are pushed up against the wall. "I was thinking the chick with the tits, Harper, but she seems distracted like she's waiting for someone else." He shrugs. "Her friend is hot too, but I think Nathan wants her. Doesn't really matter to me. Anyone will do to keep my mind off Sera."
Seraphina, Riley's ex, dumped him when she found out his dad will never let him marry a girl who isn't Caucasian. Riley could tell his dad to fuck off, the man doesn't own him or threaten his life like my father does, but then his dad would cut Riley off and that's not something he's ready for, even if he does love Sera.
Just then a tumble of golden waves comes into view between two dancing bodies. And there she is. One side of my mouth hikes up for reasons beyond me. She rolls her hips to the music and swings them in the most sensual way. Girls in strip clubs do similar moves, I just didn't expect to see them from Ainsley. She lifts her hair off her shoulders, her eyes closed, and continues to sway to the beat, looking like a wet dream. My dick twitches.
Riley points to her. "That's her. The blonde."
There are several blondes but none with hair as long or moves as hot as Ainsley's.
"I know her," I say.
"You do?" He turns his head my way, his brows pinched from what I can tell from the corner of my eye.
I don't meet his gaze, too caught up in the show Ainsley is putting on for every guy with eyes. My fingers curl in to fists. Why does that piss me off?
"Well, fuck. There goes my chance with her," Riley murmurs and drags his gaze from my profile.
"What?" I ask with a quick scan of the crowd to see who else might be undressing her in his head like I am. Damn. She is all legs. Her black pants seem painted on, showcasing her pert little ass. Each time she lifts her arms, her half-shirt reveals more of her tiny waist and lightly tanned skin. The bottom of what might be a red bra appears when she raises her hands high in the air.
Motherfucker. Red is one of my favorite colors, maybe my absolute favorite now.
Can this girl be any more of a mystery? Shy and insecure, yet sexy as fucking hell with moves like a stripper.
She breaks away from the crowd and fans herself off, talking to herself or else she thinks someone is with her, following her? Again, she lifts her hair off her neck and uses her other hand to fan herself as she heads for the kitchen.
I follow her, barely aware of my actions. She rounds the corner, moving out of the view from the crowd dancing in the family room, but not out of sight of the guys sitting at the table. Lucky for them they don't seem to notice her, only me when I stalk by.
Ainsley chugs a bottle of water she pulled from the fridge, and then sets it on the counter to cup ice in her hands from the dispenser on the door. She runs a cube down her cleavage, across her neck, and then opens the pantry door.
I'm at the island about to ask her what she's doing when she tears off her shirt and tosses it on the floor before slipping into the pantry.
What the fuck?
I glance behind me to see if the guys noticed. They're all staring. Fuck. If one comes over, I might start a fight. I scoop up the tiny t-shirt she discarded and stop at the opening to the walk-in pantry.
Ainsley stands inside running another ice cube over her flushed skin. Holy fuck. I'm hard in an instant. A red bra covers the perfect sized tits, her light pink nipples visible through the lace material. The way she glides the ice cube down her cleavage makes my dick swell more. Thing is she seems clueless to the erotic show she's displaying.
She pops the ice cube in her mouth and moans. "Mission accomplished. I am no longer hot."
"I disagree," I murmur without thought.
She jumps and turns to face me. Her hands drop to her sides and her wild hair cascades over her shoulders to her waist, giving her a sexy, just-climbed-out-of-bed look. The alarm and innocence gleaming from her eyes says she's in fact clueless of her sexual prowess, which only pisses me off.
"This isn't the place you want to walk around without a shirt." I lift my hand, the tiny tee hanging from my finger.
Her eyes narrow on the white material. "That's mine. How'd you get it?"
Drunk and clueless. Not a good combination for a girl like her. "You stripped in the kitchen, tossed it on the floor, and then came in here to make out with an ice cube."
"I wasn't making out with an ice cube." She yanks the shirt from my finger. "I was cooling off."
"Clearly." Amusement mixes with my anger. She's mad at me now? And why does that little scowl on her face make her look so damn cute?
"You didn't give me a start date. I can't start without a start date and a phone, unless you route the calls to my cell, which works for me," she says as if sober all of a sudden.
Don't crack a grin. "A second ago you were dancing your ass off, and now you want to talk business?"
"I'm sorry," she says in a mocking tone and stumbles a little. "Is now not a good time for you?"
Again, with the challenges? I can't stop a grin from spreading. Nothing about her is predictable and as frustrating as it is, I also find it arousing. Not just arousing but … fun.
One of the guys who was sitting at the table with Tyson calls my name, drawing my gaze.
"Who's there?" Ainsley teeters toward me.
"No, no." I shake a finger at her.
She giggles. "It's cute that you think you can finger me to stay."
My gaze whips back to her, my brows hiked high. Did she just say I can finger her? She must be drunker than I thought.
"Two points for Ainsley." She raises her fists in the air like she's at a football game.
What the hell? I shush her, because now Tyson's
friend is walking over.
"Who are you talking to?" he asks, approaching the island.
"Don't worry about it." I scowl. "And don't come any closer." If he sees her in her bra, I'll get in a fight for sure and I'm not in the mood for another rumor to spread about me having a violent streak.
"Why?" The guy stumbles closer, seeming as drunk as Ainsley if not more. "What are you hiding in there?" As if he doesn't know. He saw her strip in the kitchen.
I raise my arm, my palm to him, and shoot him a don't-fuck-with-me look. "I'm serious, man. Back off. It's not for you."
He gets the hint and stops his pursuit.
At the same time, Ainsley rushes from the pantry. "It's not for you either," she says with a playful grin.
"Ainsley!" I bark and wrap my arms around her to cover her lacy bra and tits. "You don't have a shirt on."
Nathan appears behind the guy, staring over his shoulder at me. "Ainsley? What are you doing in there?"
"I got hot," she answers before I can speak.
"I can see that." He scans her tiny body in my arms.
My instincts tell me to shove her into the pantry, where they can't see her. I tighten my hold on her instead. She's so warm and soft and feels so good against me. I even like how petite she is in comparison. Eye level with my pecs, she tilts her head back and wiggles that sweet little body, turning me on more.
"You're hot." She leans toward my chest and inhales a deep breath, softening in my arms. "Mmm. You smell good too." Her eyes close with the words and my pants tighten with my hardening cock.
Motherfucker. This girl.
"So … okay," Nathan says, drawing my thoughts from my erection and the sexual images of Ainsley filling my head. "I didn't know you were interested." He backs up.
Wait. What? "I'm not," I blurt, wanting to take the words back at once. I'm not. I can't be.
"Yeah. Ew. He's my boss." Ainsley wiggles up against me again, forcing me to shift my weight so she doesn't rub against my stiff dick.
Hang on! Did she say … "Ew?" I gaze down at her. "No one has ever ew'd me before." Girls beg for me to violate them. Why isn't she?
"Well, there's a first for everything." She turns her hand, which is currently smooshed between our bodies, and pats my chest. "My friend won't ew you. She wants to fu—"
"I knew it!" a frenzied female voice calls out. "You like him."
The chick in the silver dress, who I saw Ainsley arrive with on the door camera, is standing beside Nathan. Her tits are huge and as fake-looking as Marina's. She's pretty but not any more than the other girls here who are done-up, reeking of entitlement, money, and in want of a good fuck. Typical.
"What?" Ainsley scrunches her nose. "That's crazy. Why would you think that?" she asks the girl, sounding offended.
The maple-haired beauty stuffs her arms under her chest, pushing her breasts up higher out of her low-cut dress. "Maybe because you're in your bra and in Sebastian's arms."
Whoa. The claws are coming out.
Instead of arguing back the way I've seen other girls do, Ainsley glances at her chest with a confused expression. "Where's my shirt?" She turns her head and tries to twist in my arms, but her attempts are weak.
Could be that I'm holding her too tightly, still unable to let her go. Not yet. People will see her, and I don’t want anyone seeing what's mine. Mine? Where the hell did that come from?
Since letting her go out here isn't an option for me, I walk her backwards into the pantry and force myself to release her.
"You dropped it on the floor." I nod at the shirt, ignoring how empty my arms suddenly feel without her in them. "Put it on and keep it on."
Before I do something else stupid, like toss her over my shoulder and haul her upstairs to my room, I stalk away, putting much-needed distance between me and this too-fascinating girl.
Chapter 8
I stop at the top step to my attic room and read the text from Marcus.
Marina is walking up the driveway.
I tell him to let her in and head to the second floor to wait for her. If we don't let her in, she'll throw a fit until she gets her way. If I let her in my room, she'll make a bigger scene without an audience or try to suck my dick again.
Neither will do. I lean with my back against the wall and stare over the railing of the two-story foyer.
Marina walks in dressed to kill in a blue dress, which she thinks is my favorite color, and heels with tiny spikes. Her cobalt eyes zero in on me. Her hips swing as she makes her way up the grand staircase to where I stand.
"Let's go to your room." She reaches for my hand.
I fold my arms over my chest. "Let's not."
She rolls her heavily lined eyes. "Let's stop with the games."
"I am."
"Ugh." She groans. "You can't break up with me, Sebastian. Your father will never allow it. I’m your fiancée now. It's you and me until the end. Accept it. I have."
The more she reminds me of the this, the angrier I become. "Nothing is final yet."
She laughs, the sound like cracking ice. "You're lying to yourself then. Tell me?" Her voice drops, sounding seductive. "Is being with me so awful that you can't imagine us having a future together? Think of all we'll have. The power, the control, the sex."
"You have no idea what I want for my future," I say, my tone as sharp as a blade.
Her glossy lips tilt at one corner with a racy smirk. She presses her big breasts against my chest and caresses my cheek with her long blue fingernail.
I stand taller, my chin high as I peer down at her with a bored expression.
Undeterred, she leans in and kisses me, trying her best to part my lips with her tongue.
I don’t respond in the slightest.
"Don't be like that." She pets my chest now. "It's been so long. You used to like having fun with me." She kisses me again, repeating the same pathetic trick with her tongue.
I take her wrists and pry her claws from my pecs. "I used to like a lot of things."
She tsks. "Fine. Be a douche. It's your loss, but if I leave here, I won't be coming back tonight."
I let go of her wrists. "Good."
"You can be such a piece of shit." She stomps toward the staircase but stops near the top step.
A flash of golden waves catches my eyes before disappearing inside the bathroom.
"If you don't get it from me, you don't get it from anyone," Marina barks, drawing my attention back to her. "I mean it, Sebastian. Don't even think about hooking up with another girl. I'll know. I know everything."
Whirling around, she stalks down the staircase, her long ponytail swinging with her steps. She opens the front door and slams it shut with enough force to rattle a few paintings.
Normally, her drama and bitchy remarks set me on fire, reminding me of what I have to look forward to for the rest of my life. Tonight, a petite blonde hiding in the bathroom has me distracted.
She pokes her head around the doorframe and locks eyes with me. Yep. That'd be my girl.
My girl? No.
Before I can blink, she springs back into the shelter of the bathroom.
I wait for her to reappear, amused and somewhat annoyed that she overheard my conversation with Marina. Yes. I kept my interaction with her in the open where people wander around, I didn't know we'd have a front-row audience though or that the person would be Ainsley.
She doesn't come back out, but she doesn’t close the door to the bathroom either. I should go upstairs. If only I weren't so damn curious to see what Little Miss Enigma does next.
Moving closer to the bathroom, I lean against the wall and cross my arms over my chest as if I've been here for hours.
The moment I’m settled, she peers into the hallway again.
"Having fun?" I ask.
Her eyes bulge and her cheeks turn crimson.
"Come here." I crook a finger for her to walk over. "We need to talk."
What I need is to ignore her. What I also need is someone to answer t
he phones at the auto body shop. Such a dilemma.
She shuffles over and stands with her fingers clasped, her thumb grazing the top of her hand giving away her nerves.
Baffling woman. "Why so quiet?" I ask.
"Are you firing me?"
I clip a laugh. "I haven't even hired you yet. Not officially."
She nods, and her shoulders tense-up. "Did my ice-cube-pantry-dance ruin that chance for me?"
A grin breaks free. "Ice-cube-pantry-dance?"
"Riley. He gave me a nickname. Ice cube girl or Pantry girl. I’m not sure if he decided which to use."
I release the laughter trapped in my chest, aware of the awestruck look she gives me all of a sudden.
"Let's go upstairs." I push off the wall and walk toward my room.
"We are upstairs," she utters from behind me.
"Not quite." I pass the grand foyer. "There's a third floor."
"What's on the third floor?" she asks.
"You'll see." I open the door to the dark stairwell and gesture toward the attic. "Ladies first."
"It's dark." She stops on the first step and peers up toward the room at the top.
I inch a little closer to her. "Are you scared?"
"Ever see Flowers in the Attic?" she asks.
A movie? That'd be a strong no. "We can talk in Nathan's room, if you'd prefer." I point to his bedroom door not far from where I stand.
She glances at it. "We could, but now I’m curious about what's upstairs."
It's crazy how she makes the simplest things fun. I give her a tiny smirk. "The scariest thing up there will be me. I can promise you that."
Her cheeks flame red again. She turns and starts up the stairs, her hand gripping the railing on the wall.
I follow close behind her and tug the string to the light that's halfway up the steps.
She freezes, glancing up and then over her shoulder at me. The movement causes her to lose her balance. She teeters backward as if to correct herself but then falls forward.
She catches herself, one of her tiny hands landing on my shoulder while the other grips my bicep. Her face is an inch from mine. Her shorter nails dig into my skin, but it's not painful.
