I love you.
I push my phone away, ignoring the next text, and then I lean into Bishop.
“Can you promise me something?” I say to him, even though he doesn’t owe me shit.
“What?” He doesn’t agree, but there’s no surprise in that.
“Don’t do anything stupid until you know the full story.”
He rests his arm over the back of my seat, his grin smug as fuck. “Yeah. Sure thing.”
He’s such an asshole.
“I’m trying not to be super weirded out about how it’s so easy for us all to switch partners…” Eli murmurs, leaning into Bishop but close enough so I can hear him too.
Brantley chuckles. “I rest my case.” What fucking case.
I ignore the rest of the banter, my eyes going around the room in search of Hector. I wonder how Bishop feels about this revelation, and I wonder what they hope to achieve by confirming this. They can’t kill him, can they?
A girly laugh comes from across the table and my eyes zip to Nate and Billie. She’s leaning into him, his lips on her slender neck and his hand under the table, presumably on her leg.
I clench my jaw.
“I don’t mean to interrupt,” a voice whispers from behind me. An unfamiliar voice.
I turn around in my seat, noticing a tall, masculine man who has to be in his mid-twenties. “Please do.”
His eyes drop to me, and vivid blue hues peer back at me through a bright red bone mask. “Want to dance?”
I smile at the stranger, eager to get the fuck away from this circle, so I stand and take his hand in mine. Tattoos sneak out of his suit jacket as he leads me all the way to the dance floor, then he twists my body against his, wrapping an arm around my back.
“Can you follow my steps?” he whispers, his mouth coming to the side of my neck.
I swallow. “Yes.”
He pushes me closer to his body as I fight the urge to ask what his name is.
“Listen to me very carefully, but smile and act like I’m telling you how much I want to run my tongue over your clit and make you scream my name so loud that Nate’s existence in your life is questioned…” His voice is low and sexy, and his words touch me in places I’ve been yearning to be touched.
My thighs clench.
He chuckles. “Good girl.”
I smile, though it’s not fake, it’s because of his dirty words and his hard body beneath the palms of my hands. Who is he?
“Your suspicions are not quite correct. Hector is, and is not, responsible for the death of your daughter. My condolences about that, by the way.”
We dance around the dance floor as “Myth” by Tsar B starts playing. We move to the beat, like we were made to dance together. His lips move across my collarbone. “Things are moving at a speed that your Kings do not know about. We don’t trust them enough to set up a meet with them. Their loyalty is and always will be with The Kings.” He flings me out and then crashes me into his body again.
I lean back to get a good look at his eyes. So blue. Dark eyelashes and a shadow scattered against the edge of his perfect jaw. There’re tattoos everywhere on his skin and something tells me that if he removes that mask, my panties will melt away.
“Who are you?”
He tilts his head, his lips curling with a smirk and showing perfectly straight white teeth. His hand travels down my back and rests on my ass as he presses me into his crotch. I groan, dropping into the crook of his neck. He expels sex like no one I’ve felt before—except for Nate. I’m well aware of how this must look to people around us. His other hand comes to my chin and he tilts my head to face him.
“I’m with the Rebels, sweetheart.” His lips crash against mine and I let them, his tongue slipping across my bottom lip as I reach up to his hair to pull him back, only I end up pushing him closer. He stops and then smiles at me. “You’ll get a text.”
He lets me go and leaves me breathless on the dance floor with hormones raging all over the place.
Well.
Then.
Call me a rebel because I want to be fucked by one. But as soon as he’s left and taken his energy with him, I start to fill with guilt. Not about kissing him, screw Nate. But about kissing a Rebel.
I make my way back to the table, Madison grinning at me with another glass in her hand.
I take it from her and shoot it back, sitting back in my chair.
I don’t even bother looking at Nate, but Bishop leans into me. “Good girl, play the game. But can I trust you?”