A week later
I roll the dice and lean against the wooden table to see them settle. Loud cheers erupt from the women behind me, one throwing her hand around my face and kissing me on the cheeks.
“And another win for this fine gentleman right here,” the dealer says.
I take the chips and give one to the dealer, then walk off, the two girls flocking behind me like birds flying to a feeder.
Walking up to the guard near the VIP area, I show him my ID, and he swiftly removes the line for me. “Welcome, sir.”
Everyone here knows who I am. Perks of being the owner’s son.
I nod at the guard, and the two women follow me inside. I settle down on a red velvety couch in the back of the VIP room and stack my chips on the table.
“Champagne, sir?” a server asks me.
I take a glass off the tray, and so do the women, then they settle down beside me, snuggling up against me like they want to rip the skin off my body. And I’m not even sure I’d mind.
“That was such a good game,” the left one says, running her fingers over my thigh.
The other one hangs her legs over mine, trying to claim me. “We brought him some good luck, don’t you think?”
I take a big sip of my champagne, the heat keeping my rage at a minimum while the ladies start to feel me up, kissing my neck and cheeks. I just know they want me to bring them up to my private room here at the casino.
But I’m not in the mood right now.
I grab a chip and stare at it, the pink color on the backside making me think of a particular pink-lipped girl who’s been a thorn in my eye ever since she stepped foot on this campus.
She’s been following Caleb and me around, and I know it’s not just to catch us in another kill.
I came here to distract myself, yet …
I flip the chip, annoyed that I worry so much about just one girl.
Why all of these kisses and touches remind me of her.
Why they make me want to push them aside and walk out of here so I can hunt her down and give her the chase she’s been quietly begging for.
Maybe I should.
I take my last sip of the champagne and look up, only to see a shimmer of a figure walking past the VIP section, our eyes connecting in the same instance as wild rage becomes me.
“Kai?” I mutter.
What is he doing here?
I get up and walk off.
“Wait, where are you going?” the girls ask.
“Out.”
“But your chips—”
“Buy yourself something nice.” I leave them with a literal gold mine, but it’s mere pocket change to me.
I march out of the VIP area and catch up with him. I grab his shoulder and make him turn around. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
He smirks. “You know why I’m here.”
My nostrils flare. “He invited you, didn’t he?”
His eyes drift off to the room in the back that’s well guarded, the one no one but highly privileged staff and trusted people are allowed to enter.
Yet … he’s invited?
“It’s just a conversation,” he replies.
My fist balls. “Give him my warm fucking regards.” I chuck a remaining chip at his face.
“Ares … really?” Kai scoffs, picking it up from the floor.
“Have fucking fun with him,” I growl back. “By all means. Stoke those flames some more.”
“I can’t help that he wants to talk with me. You know that,” he replies.
“You could tell him to eat a bag of dicks,” I growl back.
“And then what?” He raises his brow. “You think that’s gonna go well with him?”
I snort. “Like you have any clue what it looks like when he pops off.”
“I’m just saying, I’m trying to keep the peace here,” he says, shrugging.
“Yeah … you’re running to him like a toothless dog with its tail between its legs,” I grit.
“Says the eternal coward,” he retorts.
That’s it.
That motherfucker is dead.
I grasp his collar, lifting a fist, ready to strike.
“Go on. Do it.”
I glare him down, wishing I could cut him as deeply as my father cut me.
“Do it. Hit me,” Kai eggs me on.
But if I did, I’d give him another reason to become a martyr.
I swallow my rage and put him back down.
“Should’ve just punched me,” he says.
“Yeah. But then I’d be just like you,” I spit. “And I’m not that kind of man.”
I shove him away and out of my reach before I do something foolish.
“That’s a low blow.”
He’s right, but I don’t care.
He pats down his shirt. “Do you always have to be such a raging animal?”
“You know why,” I quip back at him.
His mellow face slowly changes into something more sinister, darker, and I don’t like it one bit. Not because it looks just like how I see myself in the mirror, but because it’s turning softer and softer. Unlike him.
Like he’s actually starting to pity me.
And I fucking hate how it looks.
“I’m so—”
“Don’t.” I raise a finger. “Don’t you fucking dare. Fuck you, I’m out of here,” I growl, fishing a cig from my pocket to light up in the middle of the fucking casino. Fuck the rules. “Give him this.”
And I stick up my middle finger as I turn around and march off.
When I get outside, my phone rings, and I pick it up so fast I nearly crush the screen when I press the button. “What?”
“Ares?”
Caleb’s voice takes off the edge a little, and I take a drag of my cig and blow out the smoke.
“What’s up?”
He sounds at the end of his rope. “Fuck. I need your help.”
I toss my cig aside and walk straight to my car. “On the way. Tell me where.”
Caleb
Thirty minutes ago
I sit back in my chair and shove my fork into the piece of meat lying on my plate without ever taking my eyes off her.
Crystal fucking Murphy in her cute little button-down onesie with wildflowers on it. She looks like she walked straight out of a picture book. Like a magical creature that doesn’t exist.
She’s casually drinking a Coca-Cola while ignoring my stares, pretending she doesn’t care when she’s clearly affected by my mere presence.
I can’t blame her. I feel the same way.
Especially after getting my hands all over her ass the last time I saw her.
But something about this whole get-together in this suburban home puts us both on edge.
“There you go,” her mom says as she puts a salad on the table. “Jonathan will have more steaks ready in a few minutes.”
So they’re on a first-name basis already. Great.
I cut into my steak like I’m butchering someone, and I think Crystal knows just as well as I do who I’m imagining here.
“No need to destroy your steak like that, dear,” her mother says, giggling when she sees me go to town.
I just shove the biggest piece into my mouth and watch her be abhorred by my chewing habits.
“Do you have to act like a pig?” Crystal asks, picking up a magazine and hiding her eyes behind it.
I smirk. “You should know best of all.” And I take another big bite. Nothing beats Dad’s steaks … except maybe when I have to fucking share them with the most vexing girl on the planet.
“You’re disgusting,” she says, rolling her eyes before she lifts the magazine back up so she doesn’t have to look at me.
“Yet you happily moaned to my filth,” I muse.
Her cheeks turn the same color as the beets in the salad. “Can you not say that out loud? Jesus,” she hisses, looking around to see if her mom heard, but she’s still in the kitchen busy with the spatula in some atrocious dish to impress my dad with mediocre cooking. Why he bothers coming here to eat when we’ve got cooks back at home is beyond me.
“And for the record, those weren’t moans. They were gasps of shock.”
“Right.” I shove the last piece of steak into my mouth. “Just like that wetness between your thighs were just tears of joy.”
Her jaw drops so far I swear it’s going to hit the table, and all I can do is grin.
She promptly pulls up the magazine again to block me from looking at her, but I’ve seen enough already to know the goddamn truth.
She’s still thinking about my handprint on her ass, and so am I. In fact, I haven’t been able to stop fantasizing about it and jerking myself off to the mere memory, wondering when I can fuck around with her next.
But this whole barbecue thing with my dad and her mom is really making it hard.
Harder than my dick ever will be.
Fuck.
“You’re imagining things if you think I enjoyed that,” she hisses from behind her women’s magazine.
I plop some cherry tomatoes in my mouth. “And you’re lying to yourself, so I guess we’re both delusional here.”
“I am not,” she retorts.
“Yes, you are.” She glances over her magazine just when I swallow, and her eyes immediately follow my Adam’s apple as it moves up and down. “Want me to prove it?”
“You’re despicable,” she hisses. “And I’m trying to read.”
I snort and pick up more cherry tomatoes. “Didn’t know you could read upside down.”
She smashes the magazine down on the table and growls at me. Actually fucking growls. And I don’t know why, but I love the sound coming from her pretty little mouth.
Which is fucked up because I fucking hate her for inserting her mom and herself into my life.
I start laughing.
“What are you doing?” she mutters.
“What does it look like?”
She swipes her blond hair to the back. “Stop laughing at me.”
“You make it hard not to laugh,” I retort, biting my lip piercing when I see the anger in her eyes.
I’ve always had a thing for people getting mad at me. I can’t help it. It eggs me on and gets me hard. And she makes it so damn difficult not to get excited.
She picks up a cherry tomato and chucks it at my face. “Stop. Just stop it.”
Right then, her mom comes back out with a pitcher of cold water and a whole lot of silence, which seems to overwhelm everyone here.
“Well, you don’t have to stop talking because of me,” her mom muses. “Go on, talk with each other.”
“I have nothing to say to him,” Crystal says, piercing a sliced strawberry with her fork.
My eyes home in on her fork as she brings it to her lips, and I can’t help but focus on that delicious tongue as it wraps around the strawberry and plucks it off the fork.
Good God.
“Crystal, that’s not nice,” her mom scolds.
I shift in my seat to hide the boner and clear my throat. “It’s fine. I don’t want to be here either.”
“Caleb!” my father growls from right behind me.
He leans over me to place a plate with more steaks on the table.
“Can’t you two get along?” he asks me. “You’d do me a big favor if you could just be a gentleman for once.”
“Him? A gentleman?” Crystal scoffs, snorting loudly.
I tilt my head as she stares right back into my eyes, and fuck me, it makes me want to grab her and bend her over this very fucking table to show her just how much of a fucking gentleman I can be.
“Bitch,” I retort.
“Caleb!” My dad shoves me.
Crystal scoots her chair back. “Let me help you in the kitchen, Mom.”
Crystal throws me a snooty look, but I ignore it as she heads to the kitchen.
“Really, Caleb?” my dad scolds me.
“What? I don’t fucking like her. Big deal.”
“Don’t. Don’t fucking do this.” He breathes out a big sigh. “Not today. Please.”
I roll my eyes.
“Go make up with her,” he says, pointing at the kitchen. “Now.”
Reluctantly, I scoot my chair back too and saunter into the kitchen. She’s cutting a cucumber lying on a wooden board, maybe a little too hard.
The closer I get, the harder her cuts become, like she’s trying to slice through the board itself.
Or me.
I lick my lips and watch her seethe.
She’s probably still thinking about all the things I did to her to make her filthy as hell.
Just as filthy as me.
I approach her from behind, placing both hands on the counter so I can look over her shoulder.
“You’re bad at this,” I say.
“Probably not as bad as you.”
I grab her hand that’s holding the knife, and she freezes in place. I guide her hand across the board and cut through the cucumber so thinly that the slice that’s left is practically see-through. I keep going, each slice causing her to take a ragged breath as I push up closer and closer, growing harder and harder.
“That’s how you do it,” I whisper into her ear.
She takes another ragged breath, her hand tightening around the blade while mine tightens around hers. Her body quivers against me, and I’m wondering if I just made her wet.
“I want to skewer you,” she murmurs.
My bulge twitches.
“Do it,” I whisper into her ear.
She spins around on her heels, poking the knife straight into my belly. “Do you always beg like that?”
“Do you see me on my knees?” I grip her hand and push the knife even farther into my belly. She’s taken aback and flinches. “It will take a knife to get me there.”
“You’re an asshole,” she grits.
“Only to people who annoy me,” I reply.
“Why are you so protective of your dad?”
Fuck, is she really trying to interrogate me right now while I’m so close to busting a nut all over my pants because of her presence alone?
I lean in. “I hate you for interfering in my life.”
“This isn’t about you,” she replies. “It’s about our parents’ happiness.”
“Except it isn’t. This was about me. Because you weren’t there in that café out of pure luck. You were there to find me.”
She retracts the knife so fast, my hand lingers near the blade, and it cuts into my hand.
“Crystal, Caleb,” her mother says as she walks in, but her pupils dilate the moment she spots the blood drops running down the palm of my hand. “Oh no, you’re bleeding.” She grabs my hand and inspects the wound.
“Cut myself,” I lie.
Crystal narrows her eyes at me while her mom starts dabbing the wound with a towel. “Let me go grab a Band-Aid.”
“No, it’s okay,” I say, smiling at her to add an extra level of fakeness. “Thank you.”
She smiles back. “Can you guys come back outside? There’s something we want to share.”
I frown when she turns around and heads back outside, and Crystal seems equally confused. She shrugs and places the knife back on the cutting board before she follows me outside.
Her mom and my dad hold hands and hug while they stand near the edge of the table, and I have a sense of overwhelming dread.
“Crystal. Caleb,” my dad begins, smiling awkwardly. “You might want to sit down.”
Crystal grabs a chair. “What’s going on?”
“Crystal …” her mom mutters, rubbing her neck, which has become red.
“Tell us,” I say.
Her mom looks at my dad with complete devotion, and it makes me want to puke.
“Abigail and I …” my dad begins, breathing out a loving sigh as he grabs her hand. “Are engaged.”
