“Less of the little.”
“Yeah. Built like a tripod, I told him. But I left the finer details to you.”
I sigh then turn to him. “What?”
“I was thinking you might like to tell me why you cancelled your involvement tonight.”
“If I’d wanted to explain myself I would have already.”
“Who’s the HVT?” High Value Target.
“Isn’t that usually me.”
“Not tonight, it isn’t.” He flicks his hand negligently over the balustrade, indicating our partygoers. Filthy rich, and just plain filthy. While I’ll lie to myself and lie to my friends, is she down there looking for the one? And would that be the one whose dick she’ll choke on or the one who’ll fuck her asshole in front of all these fine, upstanding people tonight? “Who caught your eye down there?”
“You know, Tucker, usually when someone’s pulling my dick, they have better tits than yours.”
“Not tonight, they don’t. Riddle me this, asshole. How can you be so good at keeping secrets and be such a terrible fuckin’ liar?”
I don’t even spare him a glance.
“If you grip that railing any tighter, it will bend, and we won’t get our quarter mill security deposit returned.”
Straightening, I slide my hand into the pocket of my pants. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“And I know you look like someone stole your puppy.”
“I’m not sad,” I mutter, refusing to look at him.
“I never said you were. You look more vengeful. Who’s the lucky girl?”
She doesn’t date. Everett’s assertion pounds in my brain, blood pumping through my veins hot enough to scald.
Is this why?
Is this her kink? Her thing?
Maybe ‘the one’ is just a line she fed Rose.
Maybe she’s living her life like me. Secrets. No strings. And if that’s the case, why doesn’t it make me happy? Happy that I could have her once more, right here, right now.
Because you wouldn’t be the only one with access, and you don’t want to share.
No, not her.
My hand tightens on my glass as I contemplate how only a small portion of members avail themselves to private rooms, the majority of our members getting off more on the public nature of the illicit, even more so than the fucking.
“Remember when we came back from our last tour, and I found out Kasey was foolin’ around with someone else?”
This catches my attention. This discussion, this thing, this time in history—the reason Ardeo is business divided into equal shares. A business with departments, and accounts, and a legal jargon to hide behind.
This something we no longer talk about.
“I recognise that look you’re wearing. I saw it in the bathroom mirror, even as I pushed the gun into my mouth.”
He was wretched, heartbroken, and vengeful. Just a shell of a man.
But which of these does he see in me?
And as though hearing my question, he answers it for me. “You look like you want to play, Hayes. And not nicely.”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” I murmur as I raise my glass to my lips, my gaze sweeping the floor below once more. The reckless and the revellers. Those waiting to fuck and be fucked.
“Well, I’ll leave you to your brooding. I gotta hit the head.”
And then I see her. A lamb among the wolves.
As my eyes devour the sight of her, I know who I’ll be eating tonight.
19
Fee
“A freaking sex party!”
Why in the blueberry fluff muffin would anyone bring me along to something like this? I mean, me of all people?
“Keep your voice down,” Beth hisses back, her eyes sliding to a gathering which, at first glance, looks like an upscale cocktail party. An upscale cocktail party we’re not entering as she pulls me into a corner. “That’s not what this is.”
I scan the room again. It all looks so normal. Pretty dresses and men in tuxedos, a mixture of ages and looks. But the one thing they all have in common is how relaxed they all look. Confident in their own skins.
I shake my head as though shaking off flies. At the end of the day,
“People have sex here.” I stab my finger in the direction of the open door. “They pay a membership fee to shag each other. A party plus sex equals a sex party.”
“Shag?” She arches a brow. “This is a very elite event. An adult lifestyle event.”
“Oh, excuse me,” I reply as though mistaken. “But I think you’ll find that’s still a mothertrucking orgy.”
“It is not an orgy. Tonight is much more classy than that. The connections you might make here—”
“Connections? How can you even say that with a straight face?” Hand on my hip, I lean in a little closer, conscious of being overheard though a lot more freaked out. “I’m not interested in the kind of connections where people have paid for the chance to have sex with strangers.”
“It’s not just about sex,” she argues. “It’s about meeting likeminded people, about exploration—”