Exposed (VIP 4)

As it is, I don’t eat another bite of food. If it isn’t Brenna in my mouth, then I don’t want it. Thankfully, no one notices. That’s the strange thing about being the clown, if you’re not talking shit and acting like a fool, people tend to forget about you. I’m not sure if that’s comforting or insulting. At the moment, I don’t care.

Finally—finally—the dinner is over. Somehow, I find myself down on the street, sucking in the crisp night air as my friends pair up and pile into their respective Ubers. I don’t remember if I said goodbye to Brenna. Or if she knows that, as soon as it’s humanly possible, I’m turning my ass right around and coming for her.

“Did you want to get a beer?” Whip asks.

We’re the only ones who haven’t arranged for a ride. Mainly because, while the rest of the guys go home to sleep with their women after these dinners, Whip and I usually go looking for hookups or sometimes play a round of pool. Anything to avoid returning to an empty apartment.

“Nah.” I roll my tight shoulders and lie my ass off. “I ate too much. I think I’ll walk for a bit.”

Weirdly, he seems relieved. “Yeah, I’m not feeling it tonight either. I’m going to catch a cab home.”

Something about the way his gaze slides to the street and won’t meet mine has me paying closer attention. “You all right?”

“Sure.” He does the chin lift thing—a tell that means he’s lying. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know,” I counter. “Why wouldn’t you be?”

Around us, pedestrians flow, cabs honk, and a siren wails in the far distance. Whip and I stare at each other. The thing about Whip is that, out of all of us, he hides himself away the most. He does it so well, no one truly notices they’re not getting the real deal but a shadow. But I know him better than anyone. Something is up.

Finally, he lets out a breath and shakes his head. “When you’re willing to tell me what’s going on with you, then maybe I’ll do the same.”

A lump of regret fills my throat. We share everything. Always have. But I can’t share this, and he knows it.

He makes a move to go, and I say the only thing I can. “It’s not my secret to tell.”

“As long as you know what you’re doing.”

I have no fucking clue what I’m doing.

He knows that too because he full-on grins. “Have a good night, then.” He turns to go.

“Whip.” He still hasn’t told me what’s up with him.

Whip stops and glances over his shoulder. He’s not upset anymore, but the cagey bastard just gives me another enigmatic smile. “I’m not ready to tell either.”

With that, he walks away.

“Asshole,” I mutter with a chuckle before I realize I’m still standing outside. With another curse, I run back into Brenna’s building.

Chapter Eleven

Rye

The elevator rises, and my thumb beats a bass line onto my thigh. It plays harmony with the insistent thud-thud-thud of my heart. I’m horny as fuck and nervous as a stray cat. I start humming “Stray Cat Strut” and get side-eye from an older guy stuck in the elevator with me. I’d forgotten he was there. With his tweed suit and thin, gray mustache, he reminds me of my English grandfather, and I have to fight the compulsion to stand straight, maybe check my shirt for wrinkles.

It’s enough to make me laugh at myself under my breath.

“Do yourself a favor,” he says with a slight smile. “Don’t sing that song to her when you get there.”

I snap to attention. The hell? Is he a mind reader?

He shakes his head at my apparent ignorance. “Wore that same expression the first night I slept with my now-wife. Knew it mattered, and that scared the bloody hell out of me.” The elevator doors open to his floor. He gives me a small salute. “Good luck.”

The doors slide shut again, and I catch sight of myself in the bronze matte-metal panels. I look…hungry, impatient. Scared.

I have to laugh at myself again. Because I am freaked. Brenna James has me by the balls, and I don’t want her to let go.

The smile is gone by the time I get to the door and she opens it. For a second I just drink her in. She hasn’t changed out of the flowing knee-length skirt made of some gauzy violet fabric. I remember the cool kiss of it along the back of my hands as I slid them up her hot, silky thighs. She has on a white top that doesn’t hide the fact that she’s taken off her bra. The soft knit clings to the small mounds of her breasts, lovingly outlining the hard points of her nipples.

My abs contract painfully as my dick rises. I haven’t yet seen her tits. It’s a travesty. I’ve spent countless hours fantasizing about what they look like, how they’d feel against my hands, in my mouth. Years of dreaming, wanting, waiting.