I was high out to dry with not a thing to do about it outside of Eric being there. The only fucking thing I could do was trust my brother to keep as good a handle on events as he could muster.
Fuck, it was a big fucking ask.
I was still looking out on a rainy sea through the windscreen when my phone buzzed with a message. It was the unrecognised number again, Eric somehow managing to find a few seconds to ping one through.
I kept my dick out of it, but fuck me, you owe me one. Get here soon, because there ain’t gonna be much longer I can keep my pants up. Drake will see to that.
It took me just a second to fire off a reply.
I’ll be there asap, trust me. You did great, bro.
And on that note I didn’t waste another fucking second before tossing my cigarette butt clear out the window and firing back up the engine.Chapter Twenty-OnePaigeMy heart couldn’t believe it. My very soul couldn’t believe it.
Wouldn’t dare to believe it.
Only it had happened.
Brandon’s brother’s words had been ringing with truth. I knew it was true.
How much I’d have given to ask him more questions. But I couldn’t. There was no way I could risk it.
So I managed to swallow it down. Swallow it down and hold it tight, even though the joy was screaming.
My heart had been hammering all the while he’d finished freeing me from my bonds. It’d been pumping like a crazy train in my chest when he left me in there alone and disappeared on through the door at Mr Sin’s intercom summons.
It was still pumping now as the security guard came calling, gesturing me after him back through the corridors and stairways to my holding room with Rebecca. I was barely walking straight, legs bandy and uneasy as I followed him along with my emotions jangling loud.
“Good show,” the guard said, and I nodded, a million miles away. “Maybe that’ll be me in a few days, when the others start coming in. It’ll be a bit of a free-for-all then.”
His laugh was cutting. Sleazy. But it didn’t matter. Not anymore.
I had nothing to say to this guy. Not a single word.
It was magic how far the world can shift from just one little muttering. In just one whispered sentence from Brandon’s brother I’d lost any acceptance of giving myself over to a load of strangers.
It was no longer about the money. Not now I knew everything I’d been feeling between us was real. I only wanted him. The man I was in love with.
The man who seemingly loved me right back.
And he was coming. Coming for me. Oh hell, how I wanted him to come for me.
“Get with the show then,” the security guard pushed as he opened the bedroom door. “Tell me you’d like it. Tell me you can’t wait to suck my dick.”
But I wouldn’t like it. Didn’t want it. Didn’t want to get with the show for a second longer, unless Brandon Grant was the ringleader.
I didn’t want to say a word to the asshole in the doorway, slipping past him like a shadow ghosting a wall, but he gripped my shoulder and tugged me back.
“Come on, slut, tell me you’d like me fucking you. Tell me you want it.”
I spun to face him. Tugged back hard enough that my eyes smashed into his, and they were hard. I felt different. So crazy different.
“No,” I said, not quite believing my own voice. “I wouldn’t like it.”
His expression changed right in front of me, eyes narrowing to spite as though I’d just slapped him in the face.
“What the fuck? Who the fuck do you think you are, little skank? Think you can choose who you turn your nose up at in this fucking place?”
I didn’t even really register his grip holding on to me, not with my heart still pounding hard. I twisted away surprisingly easily, retreating back into the room like he was some random idiot I was shrugging off as nothing.
I stepped backwards, still looking over at him. Wondering if he was coming for me. Wondering if this would become a physical confrontation.
But no.
“You’ll fucking regret this!” he snarled, but didn’t seem to think it worth it to charge in there after me. Either that or thought better of overstepping his mark with the men upstairs.
Yes, that felt much more like it.
In a flash I was looking around the room for Rebecca who didn’t seem to be in sight.
“I fucking mean it,” the idiot said, loudly. “You just wait and see what your fucking pal comes back like. That’ll be you, you mark my words. You’re gonna be such a fucking state you’ll wish you were with me ten fucking times over, believe me.”
“She’s gone?” I asked. “Rebecca? Up for a performance?”