The Invitation

“How the hell do you know this shit?” I said through gritted teeth.

“I know so many things about you.” A sinister smile settled on his lips as he reached across the table to clasp my hand in his. “So many, many things.”

I was usually pretty unshakeable, but Tobias and his all-knowing abilities were starting to freak me out.

His attention drifted from me to the waitress as she placed the check on the table.

Without looking at it, he passed a stack of crisp bills to her. “Keep the change.”

He watched her closely as she crossed the restaurant, and the moment she was out of earshot, his gaze snapped back to me. “Now onto more important matters. Who do you want to take the blame?”

Take the blame… That seemed counter-intuitive. Surely my blame was his entire point here?

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Let me just get this straight. You deliberately exposed her body so you could threaten and leverage me. And now you want me to pin it on someone, when you could have just left her in the ground to begin with?”

“Chad Davis, Brendon Walters, or Christian McClure?” He listed off students. People I barely knew. “Who do you want to go to jail for her murder?”

God, he was diabolical. “You want me to pick a fall guy?” This made zero sense to me, but then, Tobias wasn’t exactly sane.

He circled his finger over the rim of his wineglass. The muted hum mixed with the tinker of cutlery around us. “Unless, of course, your conscience tells you to turn yourself in…”

I had no conscience, not really.

“None of them are nice people, Preston.” He chuckled. “But I don’t think it would matter if they were…”

Was anyone really nice?

Out of the three guys Tobias listed, the only one who even flickered within the bleak, gray sea of my peers was Chad Davis.

He’d tried out for my captain position on the football team. He also hit on Leah a time or two while we were exclusive, and the rumor circulating campus was that he date raped a freshman last year.

In some righteous corner of my mind, that made this feel like justice—not that I could judge him, but there was something distasteful and cowardly about fucking an unconscious girl. “Chad Davis,” I said, then took another sip of wine.

“Very well, then. Now if you’ll excuse me.” Tobias pushed to his feet, smoothing a hand over his suit jacket before he crossed the restaurant.

Was he going to handle the situation right now? And how—how would he pin Leah’s murder on Chad when my DNA was all over her body?

Maybe Tobias was fucking with my head. Round and round my thoughts went until they no longer made sense, and the longer I sat alone at the table, the more an edge of paranoia slowly crept in.

I grew suspicious of the server who moved past our table, the damn wine he picked up from our table and poured into my glass—even though both Tobias and I had been drinking it throughout lunch.

Tobias had reduced my life to a waiting game, one which depended on what move he intended to make next. By the time he came back to the table, my nerves were on edge.

“I apologize it took so long,” he said, taking a seat beside me, instead of across from me where he’d been for the duration of lunch.

I lifted my wine, studying him from the corner of my eye. Waiting…

“Unbutton your pants.” One of his dark brows lifted, daring me to deny him.

And maybe I would have if he didn’t hold the power to destroy me in the palm of his hand. Or maybe I wouldn’t have, because when his hand landed on my thigh, my dick hardened at the prospect of whatever he had planned.

Tobias might have been a crazy asshole, but my cock sure as hell didn’t care.

I pulled the tablecloth over my lap and unfastened my pants, telling myself it was because I had no choice. Pretending the entire situation didn’t send dark excitement skittering through my veins.

Tobias leaned in by my ear. His warm breath teased my neck. “Take out your cock.”

I fought back a groan before doing as told.

“Good boy.” His hand inched closer to my erection, so close I could feel the heat of his skin.

I waited in anticipation as he lifted his glass to his lips with his free hand and took a sip. I wanted his touch more than my next breath.

His gaze met mine, hard and dark and full of sordid promises I knew only he could fill. “Chad Davis did a terrible thing, didn’t he, Preston?”

Fuck, he was such a psycho. Why was it so hot?

My jaw clenched as his fingers edged closer. “Terrible,” I whispered.

“He murdered your loving girlfriend, raped her with no regard you had made love to her hours before. The DNA evidence will make that apparent.”