CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
*Lace*
No one uses Jess as a bartender. Kio wants her here as opposed to anywhere else. Simple as that. He easily got his way. She just moseys about, picks up trash, or hangs out behind the bar. Her and Kio never once interact, Kal makes sure of that. The two share looks a time or twenty, though.
Minute by minute, an overwhelming sense of foreboding sucks out all the fun for the evening. Tension skyrockets. Everyone feels it. Even Jess as Kal tips her out and gives her permission to leave. She tries to say goodbye, but everything seems very… contract. Rigid. Kal shoos her out the door, and that is that.
Throughout it all, I try to be the light in the darkness, for their sakes. But the dreadful sensation becomes so overwhelming that we all end up heading to the condo. Everyone separates into the various rooms, some going as far as to pretend calling it a night early. Not me, though, because the ecstasy still swims through my veins. Waning, but still there nonetheless.
Even though Coty lost his patience well before midnight, he still makes good on his promise — again — when his watch alarm goes off, but then he quickly falls asleep at my side. The phone rings, waking him up not much longer after. I roll over to my side and close my eyes, feigning sleep. He simply gets out of bed without a word. Murmurs come from other rooms as he slowly wakes up some of the other club members.
They are quiet and quick, but I still hear the entire process as the front door creaks open and shut a few times, their exits staggered. Someone still remaining on the inside locks the deadbolt, but I never hear his footsteps move away from the door.
I sit up in the bed, pushing backward until my back is against the headboard. Then I stare at the time on the digital clock, watching as the minutes tick by excruciatingly slow. Waiting.
Waiting for what, I have no idea. The guys have done stuff like this every season, but this is different. Something is wrong.
…and it is never my place to ask. To dig. To step in.
There comes a point where I swear I can hear the electronic click of the digital lights flicking to the next number. An hour goes by before I hear anything outside of my bedroom again. Somehow, whoever is keeping watch knows exactly when to open the door — because a knock never comes. The creaky hinges betray their attempt at secretness. The light click of the door shutting paints the picture all the more vividly. Still, only one set of footsteps stomp away from the front door. The other person remains to keep a watch out for those who still remain gone.
A dark figure stops at the open doorway to my room, body drooping against the door frame. He clears his throat, and a raspy “Bella,” echoes through the room. “Did you not need your beauty sleep tonight?” he asks.
I take a silent, controlled, shaky breath. “Soon. Still coming down.” I focus on trying to absorb all of him in the moonlight — to make sure he’s okay.
He moves through the threshold, closes the door at his back, and locks the mechanism. One slow step at a time, boots both somehow dragging and clomping with each sluggish movement, he approaches the bed. I sling the covers off my body, my only protection against the boogie man, and crawl to the edge toward him.
Balancing my butt on my calves, I hold my hand out, wiggling my fingers. “Come here, hun.”
He reaches for me immediately. I clasp his fingers and encourage him forward more, eyes scanning him thoroughly.
His handsome face.
His tattooed hands.
The white shirt under his leather jacket.
Everything, everything is streaked in black under the moonlight.
But I know with every instinct in my gut that the blackness is not dirt.
Vee is covered in blood. Head to toe.
In the stream of moonlight shining over his blood-smeared face, something in his eyes changes. Darkens. In the safety of this room, and with the touch of my skin against his, he gets savage. In the matter of a touch, Vee becomes not a man, but a beast. And I am here for it.
He wrests his hand away from mine, slams me backward, wraps his fingers around my hips, and drags me to the edge of the mattress with a violent yank. Then he lets go so he can free his cock. I can see the fight in his eyes. The warning. The opt out: Leave now; I don’t have the energy for a chase. Or stay and become an easy, needed feed for survival.
The choice is there.
My escape is easy.
But do I?
No.
Chest heaving, I watch, panicked and uncertain, as his cock springs free. Thick, veiny, and throbbing. Hard, jutting, and ready.
I trust him…