“Sex? Hardly secretive,” I whisper, flexing my fingers. I know that I shouldn’t answer back, but something over the past couple of hours has given me confidence, even if it does only exist inside of my head.
He holds my stare, resting his ankle on his knee. “Not just that.”
Finally, I yank the zipper up, covering my body. “Is there a reason why you wanted me in here? To come with you?” I ask, and the way his mouth twitches is enough to confirm it.
“Maybe.” He stands to his feet, dusting off his immaculate suit pants and putting his hand out to me. “I will take you back to your dorm.”
I falter in my step. College. My classes. Everything that I should be doing instead of being fucked seven ways to Sunday at some high-end sex club.
I take his hand as he leads me out, pushing open the doors. This time when we move through the main room, the energy is dying out, some asleep in various areas of the room. I must have been in the room for a couple hours, at least. Turning my head over my shoulder, the words Niveau un are written in the same cursive font as L’artisaniant, only illuminated in a gentle shade of blue.
Level one? That’s what level damn one entails? To be fair, I enjoyed it, and I desperately try to squash the question from spilling from my lips. “How often do they hold these… events?” It comes out anyway.
James leads us back out the front door until we’re on the wooden porch as he hands a valet our ticket. “Once a month.”
“And why do they do it?” I find myself asking, but not really wanting the answer.
He doesn’t answer anyway, and when the Maserati is back in front of me, I slide into the passenger seat with an eerie feeling that someone, or someones were watching me as I did so. We don’t remove our masks until we’re down the road.
I’ve only ever felt true fear once in my life. Jade was around five, and she fell off her bike while I tried teaching her. She tipped, fell, and skinned her knees, leaving blood smears all over our parents’ pristine white marble driveway. I remember feeling so helpless that my stomach ached with anger. I was angry at myself, but I was also angry at my dad. He bought her that bike, and in essence, he wasn’t to blame for it, but at that time, all of my wrath was aimed at him. I was irrational. I flew off the handle big fucking time and swung at him, jacked him straight in the jaw. I wish I could say that I’d want to go back to that same boy. To Royce Kane. The possessive older foster brother who jacked off to the thought of his underage sister behind his closed doors, but I can’t. Never. Time hasn’t just aged us. It tore us apart too.
There’s a knock on my front door and I pick up my gun from the coffee table, shoving it into the back of my jeans.
“You gonna be this on edge for the rest of the week, or…?” Gypsy teases, nudging his head up at me from the sofa. “Fucking gangster.”
“You gonna go stay at your house this week, or…?” I snap back at him with a snarl, opening my front door wide before bringing my eyes to the person standing on the other side.
“Son,” Dad murmurs, popping the collar of his Armani suit.
I step aside, waving him into my house. The first fucking thing I bought when I left home. Situated right near the ocean, with a dock, floor to ceiling windows shaped in a diamond in the sitting room, and all log-style furnishings. I never wanted to be in the center of LA, in fact, I fucking hate LA. Near the ocean is where I need to be, and this way I get my boat, I get nature, and I get peace and fucking quiet when I don’t have Gypsy or Wicked hanging off my fucking arm. Wicked is harder to get rid of since he lives with me.
Kicking the door closed as he enters, I bypass the granite counter and varnished bar stools, taking the two steps down into the lounge. Mountains spill out the sides, small islands jacked all over the ocean in the distance. “Everything all good?”
Dad takes a seat on one of the chairs, resting his arms on his legs. “Yes, well.” He pops off the button to his suit jacket and leans back. “We may have a slight problem.”
“Nope,” I say, pointing a finger at him with one hand while reaching for my cigarettes with the other. I fall down onto the single black leather chair, blazing the end of my cancer stick. “The deal was that there would be no fucking issues.”