Lane’s jaw clenched and his hand on her arm must have tightened, because she couldn’t see, but the girl shrunk away from him.
Good survival instincts. Lane didn’t seem like someone you should yell at.
The way she flinched though, he guessed Lane probably hit her in their earlier scuffle. Not that he should be surprised that Lane
would hit a woman. Not that Lane thought of the girls as people.
Christ.
Before Lane could react, Ethan cut in, “Seems like she figured out her place.”
Making a non-committal noise, he replied, “Still. Have a go.”
Chuckling uneasily, Ethan said, “I don’t know.”
Chuck chose then to chime in. “Aw, c’mon, you were just sayin’ you needed to get you some pussy.”
“Yeah, but this… isn’t what I meant,” he said, forcing a half-ass smile. “You don’t buy a bitch dinner first, you don’t feel like you earned it, y’know.”
Chuck uttered a bark of laughter. “Dinner—look here, Jackie’s a gentleman.”
Lane wasn’t amused. Frowning in Ethan’s direction, he said, “Don’t tell me you’ve got a weak stomach. It’s one of the few perks of the job. Everyone else has taken a turn—you’re the only one who hasn’t tried out any of the girls. What’s that about?”
Typically Ethan kept cool under pressure. With Lane looking at him for the first time with something akin to suspicion, he got a little hot under the collar.
“C’mon, don’t be a pussy,” Chuck said, approaching the terrified girl. He reached out and pinched one of her tits, causing the already trembling girl to flinch and a muffled sob escaped. “Look at these, don’t tell me you don’t want to hold onto these while you’re fucking her. She’s a lot better looking than the one I fucked. Hell, if you don’t want her, I’ll bite the bullet and break this one in.”
“You’re a real martyr,” Lane said dryly. “No, this one’s for Jack.”
Stifling a sigh of frustration, Ethan forced a casual smile and a nod. “Alright, alright, you talked me into it. Which room’s empty?”
Chuck started to point in the direction of the empty room but Lane interrupted, raising a single hand. “No room. Break her in right here.”
Ethan stared at the other man. “Right here? In front of you guys?”
“Is that a problem?” Lane asked coolly.
“Hell yeah, it’s a fucking problem,” Ethan said, making a face. “Man, I can’t get hard with you and Chuck watching. That’s some voyeuristic bullshit right there.”
Lane glanced over at Chuck, but Chuck was as dumb as a bag of socks and didn’t smell anything fishy.
Ethan was starting to get really fucking nervous. It was all he could do to keep from checking to see if Lane had his pistol tucked into his pants. That would be even more suspicious.
He needed to stay cool. He needed to stay fucking cool. Yeah, he wanted to go home—but not in a body bag. Images of his beautiful raven-haired wife, their daughter and two sons flashed before his eyes.
Peering at the girl, he also knew intellectually that someone would “break her in.” Chuck was salivating at the chance. Lane… Ethan suspected Lane was a sadist, so she definitely wouldn’t want Lane to touch her.
Not that she wanted any of them to touch her.
Tito came strolling in from the back room where the rest of the girls were kept. “I could get used to having all these girls around.” Then, noticing the tension in the room, he asked, “What’s wrong?”
Lane spoke first. “Jack here seems to be prudish about where he fucks.” Glancing at Jack, he smiled thinly and said, “You were going to fuck her in the back room, weren’t you? The empty one?”
“Of course,” Ethan said, and instantly flinched, hearing the defensiveness in his own tone.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. He was fucking everything up. Tito caught his eye, and he was staring daggers—since Tito vouched for him, if they thought something was up with Jack/Ethan, they would blame Tito.
The mental body count was getting a little nerve-racking.