Staying in Vegas (Vegas Morellis 1)

Pointing to the front door, I tell her, “I’m going to go back around front. Open the damn door this time.”

When I get to the front door, she already has it open. That seems all fine and good until I’m about to say hello and the alarm starts squealing.

Ah, fuck. Gently moving Laurel out of the way, I head up the stairs toward the keypad mounted on the living room wall. “Do you know the alarm code?” I ask her.

“Definitely not,” she answers, unhelpfully.

Neither do I, but I’m down to seconds before this thing sends an alert to Sin. I think I get three tries. That’s fine. I only have two guesses.

I push in the first—Paula’s birthday.

Nope.

Fuck, what was Ellie’s birthday? I close my eyes, picturing the party. Summer. July? Or was it June? Well, I have two tries left, so I try July first, but no luck. I try again with June.

Nope.

Fuck. I thought for sure it would be one of those. Then again, that’s probably why it isn’t.

“Well, this is going a little differently than I expected,” I tell Laurel.

Now that I look at her, I can’t help noticing she is much more alarmed than I expect. Sure, it’s annoying that the alarm is going off, but her sheer panic seems an overreaction. “Is this going to notify Sin?” she demands. “He’ll think I’m trying to leave. Text him and tell him you’re here.”

She no more than gets that out and her phone starts ringing. Laurel looks around frantically like she doesn’t know where to find it. The sound is coming from the kitchen, which she realizes and runs in there. She grabs it and quickly taps the screen.

“Sin?” Her stress seems to ease at the sound of his voice. That’s annoying. As she goes on, her tone softens in the way that a woman’s does when she’s talking to the man she’s involved with, and it aggravates the fuck out of me. “Hi. No, everything is fine; I only opened the door because Rafe is here. I…” Her gaze flits to me, somewhat apologetic, but she goes on anyway. “I didn’t answer at first, but he saw me through the back door. I was just doing laundry, definitely not trying to leave the house.” She pauses again. “I’m not sure, hang on.”

Now I get her attention back as she asks what I’m doing here. I hold out my hand to take the phone, but she doesn’t hand it over. “Laurel, give me the phone.”

She wrinkles her nose up at me, but mutters, “Rafe wants to talk to you,” into the phone and hands it over, however reluctantly.

“You changed your alarm code,” I say.

“No shit,” Sin answers. “What are you doing at my house?”

“I came to see Laurel. I figured you were busy today, might as well see if she wanted to get out of the house, grab some lunch.”

His tone is dry and knowing. “Aren’t you thoughtful?”

“Yes, well, I didn’t realize you had her on lockdown over here,” I remark, watching Laurel’s face. Her expression shutters in a weird way and my eyes narrow. What is that all about? To Sin, I go on, “Is Laurel your guest, or your prisoner?”

With a low chuckle, he taunts, “She’s the warm, wet hole I sink my dick in before I go to sleep each night. Feel free to ask if stays because she likes my cock, or because I won’t let her leave. Go ahead, I’ll wait.”

I barely bite back the “fuck you” I’d love to deliver. Keeping my tone pleasant and my face clear for Laurel’s sake, I say, “Great. Then you won’t mind if I take Laurel out today while you’re working.”

“Be my guest,” he replies.

“Wonderful. Want to help me turn this fucking alarm off?”

“Give the phone to Laurel. I’ll give her the code.”

I don’t bother responding. He’d like that too much. Instead, I hand the phone back to Laurel and despise the conciliatory tone of her voice as she starts talking to him again. As she asks if he’s sure it’s okay if she goes with me, like he’s her fucking boss.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I would fucking love that—for me. If her submissive side came out for me. Not Sin. I really want to punch Sin in the face, but since the cocky bastard just gave Laurel permission to go out with me, I shut off my annoyance at him and refocus my attention on Laurel. I already wanted to take her out and give her a nice day, but now I want to give her an even nicer fucking day. Just to piss Sin off.

Well, you know, and so Laurel enjoys herself, but if I’m being honest, right now I’m eyeing Laurel more like a prize. I want to rub it in Sin’s face at the end of all this when she’s back on my arm and he has to watch her with me, the way I have to watch her with him now.

Sin tells her how to disarm the alarm and talks to her for another couple minutes, probably just to annoy me. Once Laurel finishes telling Sin she’ll see him later, she hangs up and turns back to face me.