As I take the glass, he pulls it a slightly making me step a little close to him as he bends down low. I can keep the movement of his mouth on the shell of my ear, and I shiver in response.
“Are you still punishing me? You want me to wade into fights all night while I have to beat on guys staring at you for too long?”
It takes me a minute to understand what the fuck he’s talking about and then I’m pulling back just the slightest bit so I can look directly into those irises I’m a little obsessed with. Then I wink. No other response. Grabbing my drink and walking over to Peyton with the sound of his laughter at my back.
The night officially starts for us when Jack re-emerges twenty minutes later, and the real drinking begins. I try to toe the line between sober and tipsy, and constantly find myself falling on either side of it at different parts of the night.
Peyton drags me out to the middle of the crowd dancing, and we move our bodies to the music, gaining the attention of some of the people near us. They know who Peyton is though and keep their distance. Jack keeps bringing us drinks, and I think Peyton is too far gone to notice that the concoctions went from fruity and alcoholic, slowly decreasing the alcohol, slowly reducing the fruit, and now I’m pretty sure that this is just lemon water.
Deciding that if I don’t pee right this minute, my bladder is going to pop like I balloon, I make my way upstairs towards the room Peyton and I slept in, there’s an adjoining bathroom that I plan on using to relieve myself.
It’s quick work and I’m straightening myself up when the banging starts on the wall. It’s slow at first but it doesn’t take long before the bangs got more and more insistent, and I decide to get the fuck out of there. The last I need is to hear someone fucking.
I’m reaching into my bag when I hear it. “Oooh, yeah. Give it to me!” I can’t control my gag, or how unlucky one person can be. I swear to God the Blakely is going to traumatize me from anything to do with sex and I haven’t even had it yet.
I make my way down to what Nash called Mr. Spencer’s suites and start knocking and opening on doors. By the third door I’m pulling open the one that I want and stepping into a large office space.
The room is colored in charcoal grey and maroon with mahogany furniture. It looks almost straight out a catalogue from the seventies for home offices. I’m sure it would have been in style then, now it gives me sketchy vibes. The first thing I do is pull out a little device from my pocket that looks like a cellphone and scan the room for cameras. These people are richer than God, there has to be a camera somewhere.
Either Mr. Spencer is very stupid or very cocky because even after five minutes of wandering around the whole room, there’s no cameras detected. Now that I’m feeling more secure that I won’t get caught unless somebody comes looking for me specifically, I practically run over to the computer.
Naturally, it’s password protected and since I don’t have the time to try crack it today, I do the same thing I did in the deans office, hooking up my laptop and letting the program get to work. It takes twice as long to get me into the computer but as soon as I’m in, I’m plugging in the secure hard-drive and opening up files.
Nothing is well named and the longer I’m in here, the longer I’m starting to sweat. I can feel beads starting to form and slide down my arms, and my eyes keep flicking towards the door. I need more time, and I don’t have it. There’s no way someone doesn’t try coming to look for me soon.
I make the rash decision to simply download everything from the computer onto the hard drive and go through it at a later date, so that’s what I do, but when it comes up with an estimated ten-minute download time, I can feel it in the pit of my stomach that I’ll be discovered by then.
Like my mind has conjured them up, I hear the footsteps coming down the hall. It’s only been a couple of minutes and I know that whoever this is, I’ll need to stall them… somehow. I darken the screen on the computer and move myself over to perch on the windowsill.
I try to feign indifference when the door opens, spilling the light from the hall into the room. I glance over slowly and am relieved to find Leo standing in the doorway.
“What are you doing in here?” He doesn’t sound suspicious, unlike how Jack would sound, and it makes me feel immediately guilty to realise how much he trusts me, and how much I am breaking that as we speak.
I shrug at him, “I just needed a few minutes to myself without listening to Blakely fake an orgasm through the wall.” I watch him closely to see if I can detect a little sign on whether or not it was him in there with her.
He must see this because he gives me a hollow laugh and strides over. “I don’t know why you think I’m still fucking her, but rest assure that I would rather become a eunuch before sticking my dick anywhere near her again.”
He grabs my face between his hands, rubbing his thumbs across my cheeks causing me to hum at him, my eyes fluttering shut. My hands come up and grasp around the thick tendrils of muscle in his forearms, and he takes another step closer into me.
“What are we doing?” It’s barely a whisper and not very specific, but he knows what I mean. This flirtation we have going back and forth between us, it feels like more sometimes and just banter at others.
“Whatever we want to.”
“I’ve been hooking up with Nash.” He lifts an eyebrow, smirking at me, letting me know he’s more than aware of my two kisses and one orgasm that I’ve spent with Nash, and he doesn’t really care about it.
“You can want him all you want, but you want me to.” It’s not a question, and I choke on literally nothing as he says it, but I don’t get a chance to respond.
“Me shooting my shot doesn’t stop him from shooting his, it just means he needs to have better aim.”
His mouth slams down against mine. I gasp at the feel of his lips, and he takes the chance to deepen it, grunting as he slides his tongue against mine, like he’s desperately trying to hold himself back, but his lips insistently move against my own.
I feel his phone vibrate against my lower belly which is not helping my current situation, and he groans as he pulls away from me. He checks it quickly before telling me Nash is looking for him and to come find him when I’m ready.
I’m left staring after him, the whole exchange leaving my head spinning. What the fuck am I doing? I can’t just be hooking up with two guys, especially not when I’m hiding so much.
I promised myself that I would break away from Clarke and I’ve yet to take a single stride in the right direction. I need to call Nova. I’ll get through this job, and I’ll call Nova. Then maybe I can tell them everything.
Chapter Twenty-Six