“What are you doing?” I ask.
“You did it first.”
“Why are you hard?”
“Because you’re touching me,” he says, tucking his top arm around me so he’s cupping my tit in one huge hand. My nipples are instantly, painfully erect, and my clit throbs at the sensation of his warm, whiskey breath on the back of my neck. I once thought a girl would need some massive tits to make a handful for him, and I’m right. My tiny tit doesn’t fill half his hand. He doesn’t seem to mind, though. He lets out a soft, sleepy moan, running his thumb over my nipple and tightening his hips against mine.
He nuzzles against my ear, and I think I’m so fucked, I’m not going to be able to stop this if it’s what he wants. I drop my head back, and he skims his lips down the column of my throat and onto my shoulder, sending spirals of heat coiling through my body.
He lays his head back on the pillow and groans. “Now for the last time, will you please shut the fuck up and go to sleep?”
I can’t sleep, though. I’m all keyed up in every way, and as soon as I feel Royal’s body relax around mine and his breath go deep and heavy with sleep, I slip from under his arm and lie on the far side of the bed. There’s too much in this house, and I’m drowning in it—the shadow of his dead sister, the memory of what I saw the twins doing in another room, Royal’s hatred for his dad, and the mystery in all of it.
Finally, I get up and tiptoe to the door, holding my breath. I check over my shoulder, expecting him to be right behind me, ready to grab me, his eyes all dead and empty. But he hasn’t moved. I slip out the door and close it carefully, making sure it’s not locked from the outside.
Morbid curiosity wars with the desire to find out something useful as I stand in the broad hallway, wondering where to go now. Lantern-style lights line the walls between the rooms, but the only room I know is the one I saw from next door, which I’m assuming is Duke’s.
Royal told me all the doors were locked, but that doesn’t mean it’s true. I can’t bring myself to go in a dead girl’s room, especially when the memory of Mabel’s empty, barren room returns to me. I think about snooping in the twins’ rooms, but what’s the point? I don’t even know what I’m looking for. Just something to bring back to Mr. D, since I didn’t report back to him today.
But the best place to get information isn’t digging through old desk drawers or even logging into someone’s laptop. Sure, I could read emails and look at their social media and shit, but that stuff is all meant to be seen, at least by someone. I don’t want to know things I can find online. I want to know them, these dangerous, damaged Dolce boys who confuse the fuck out of me, most of all because I can’t seem to stay away from them any more than they can stay away from me.
I tiptoe on bare feet back toward the stairs. The house is so big it feels empty, even though I know at least two other people are here. From what I’ve heard, the twins haven’t come home, but they might be downstairs. My stomach flutters at the thought, but I’m not sure if the sensation is fear or excitement, dread or hope.
I step onto the cool hardwood at the bottom of the stairs and turn toward the huge sitting room. I can’t see most of the details, but I can make out the stone fireplace in one wall, a chandelier hanging high above, and a lot of leather furniture. On my left is a doorway that leads to what looks like a long, formal dining room with chandeliers above the table and a skylight inset in a ceiling I can’t even describe. Where I’m from, ceilings are flat or popcorned. This one has like crazy-ass molding and carvings and gold trim. It makes me feel like I’m dreaming again, like this can’t possibly be real. People can’t actually live like this.
“Harper, right?” comes a deep, accented voice behind me.
I spin around, my heart thudding. “Mr. Dolce,” I say, trying to sound normal, like I wasn’t just snooping around his ridiculous house. “You scared me. I didn’t hear you.”
He’s standing outside the open door to the same room he came from earlier, the warm light slanting across the hall and lighting up the edges of his form in silhouette. He slides his hands into his pockets and regards me from the dimly lit hallway. I can’t see his face clearly, but I imagine the suspicion etched there. “Are you looking for something?” he asks.
Shit. He probably thinks I’m down here to nick some silver.
“No,” I say quickly. “I mean, I just couldn’t sleep.”
I realize he probably thinks I’m fucking his son. Shit.
I don’t do parents. Why am I meeting all the parents of these rich guys, and why do they seem to actually want to talk to me? I’ve known Zephyr for years, been to his house a dozen times, and I could count the number of words his dad has said to me on one hand. Maybe rich parents actually give a fuck about their kids’ social lives. More likely, they’re trying to protect their sons from the gold diggers they must attract on a daily basis. When you have next to nothing, it’s easy to pick out people who want to use you, because you only have one thing they want. When you have everything…
“I see,” Mr. Dolce says.
“Royal set me up in the guest room,” I blurt. Surely a house this big has at least one of those. “In case you were wondering.”
Even I didn’t expect myself to freak out quite so hard when I met his parents. Not that I ever thought about meeting his parents, but damn. I can throw out the bitch attitude to anyone in school, even the administrators and teachers. I’m not the type of person who gets thrown off her game so easily, who gets flustered. But apparently rich parents are a line I can’t cross without turning into a complete dumbass.
“I see,” Mr. Dolce says again.
God, would he stop saying that? My palms are fucking sweating, and all I want to do is turn and run back upstairs. This was the worst idea ever. Who was I even wanting to meet down here? The twins, yes, but I wasn’t sure they were home. I didn’t expect their dad to be up so late. Maybe I was just going to walk around, haunting the halls like their sister’s ghost, waiting for her to talk to me, to tell me if she really bought a shitty car from a guy outside a liquor store in the middle of the night. Looking around this house, it’s hard to believe someone who lived here would want Mr. Hertz’s rattly old heap.
“Would you like a drink?” Mr. Dolce asks.
No, I don’t want a fucking drink. I want to end the painful awkwardness that’s humming in the air around us so hard I swear I can feel it making my limbs stiff as I dumbly follow Mr. Dolce into the room he was in.
When I get to the door, I see a large office, the walls lined with books. Now this, I could get behind. Maybe we’ve read some of the same ones. Fuck knows we have nothing else to talk about, nothing in common. What can I say to a guy who’s lost his daughter, whose son hates him, whose wife, if rumors are to be believed, ran off and left him without a word.
I pull my eyes to the long, fancy wooden desk where he’s standing, pouring whiskey into two crazy, double-walled, geometric glasses. God, even their cups look like they cost a fortune. That weird sense of unreality sets me off balance again, making me feel like I’m in a funhouse where the mirrors make the floor look slanted. Wonderland is not my jam.
I take the glass without thinking when Mr. Dolce holds it out. I was expecting him to pour me a glass of water and send me off to bed, not give me a real drink. Instinct kicks it, and my focus lasers in on him.