“You okay?” Kira asks me, her hand on my shoulder making me jump.
I nod, but it’s a lie. I couldn’t tell you the last time I felt okay or when things were normal. Or I felt normal.
“Kira?” I hear a girl I know by the name of Sarah call out. She’s dating another Lord. We saw them when we first arrived. “I’ll be right back,” Kira tells me.
I wave her off, not caring that she leaves me here. After I ran out of Sin’s bedroom at the house of Lords, she gave me a ride to her house. I didn’t ask why she was there, and thankfully, she didn’t ask me. I’m not ready to tell her I’ve slept with her brother. She’s the only stable thing I’ve ever had in my life, and I don’t want to lose that over dick.
She took me back to the university, and I got my car and followed her to her house. We watched a movie then got ready to go out. There’s a party at the marina tonight and I need to get out and drink until I pass out. Otherwise, I’d sit at home in my room all alone, staring at the broken cell phone that no longer reaches the one person I need.
I stand at the boating house, looking out of the floor-to-ceiling windows, watching kids jump from boat to boat. Some even fall into the water and their friends pull them out while they laugh at them. I wish I was at that level of drunkenness. Hell, I’d settle for some ecstasy right now. Anything to fuck me up.
I haven’t been here in years. It makes me miss my old life. The one when my father was still alive. After he passed, my mother sold his yacht. Said we didn’t need it. Its name was Ellington. I know it sounds stupid, but I felt like it was just another way to erase me. Another way to be forgotten. I never mattered. Not to her and not to her career. But my father? I was his girl. My father was a Lord, but my mother worked for them. Her job came before anything else. Even she and my father fought over it.
“Hey, Elli.” I hear my name being called from behind me.
I turn and give Mack a smile. “Hey.” I take a step closer to him. By the way his brows rise, he thinks I’m interested all of a sudden. I just want to feel something. I’ve lost my masked man, David, and now Sin as a friend. I’m all alone.
“Are you here with anyone?” he asks, looking around.
“No.” Just as the word leaves my lips, an arm falls over my shoulders.
“There you are, baby.” Sin pulls me into his side.
The use ofbabymakes me cringe. He’s never called me that, and I know it’s because of Mack.
“Who’s your friend?” Sin goes on, and I wiggle out from under his hold and shove him away, but of course he doesn’t budge. I should have known he’d show up. The place is crawling with Lords tonight.
“Mack,” he answers timidly, reaching out his right hand. Sin doesn’t move to shake it.
I roll my eyes, taking a drink of my vodka. I saw the way he grabbed the girl in his room. The way she looked at him like she’d do anything to please him. I know that look because I do it too.
I’m not the girl a guy falls in love with. I’m the girl he fucks until she comes around.
Mack awkwardly looks around and then turns, giving us his back before walking off into the crowd. “Go away, Sin,” I tell him. “I’m not here with you.”
He steps into me, his hard chest bumping mine, and I swallow nervously at the look in his eyes glaring down into mine. “Do I need to fuck that attitude out of you, little demon?”
I don’t answer.
He reaches up this time to cup my cheek. “Get on your knees and open your mouth.”
I snort. Yeah, right. So everyone here can record it? You can’t do shit without kids pulling their cells out and posting it on the internet. “That’s not happening.” I give him my back.
A hand tangles in my hair, yanking my back to his front. His free hand goes around my throat, holding me in place, and whispers in my ear, “You either drop to your knees and open that mouth, or I bend you over and fuck that ass.”
I whimper, and the mention of my ass has my breathing pick up. It still hurts from the masked man last night. He was so rough and made me bleed. And I liked it. I sat in the bathtub for over an hour just staring at the cell that he broke. His lastfuck you. What did I do that pissed him off so much? That I said his dick was worthless? He proved it wasn’t. Why take away my only line of communication?
“Which one will it be, Elli?” Sin interrupts my thoughts.
Sucking in a deep breath, I manage to growl, “Fuck you, Sin.”
“Ass, it is.” He starts pushing me forward toward a narrow set of stairs with the hand tangled in my hair, but I’m saved as Jayce walks up to him.
“Hey, man. I need to speak to you.” His eyes go from Sin’s to mine. “It’s important.”
Sin lets go of me, and I don’t even look back. I down more of my vodka while I go off to find Kira. I thought coming here tonight would be fun, but now that Sin’s here, I need to go.
CHAPTER TWENTY