Chapter 7. He could feel the urge paring from bones and joints, probing for freedom.

He was unraveling.

He could feel the urge paring from bones and joints, probing for freedom.

It began well before dawn, extracting him from a restless slumber. So he kept moving, occupying fevered, jittery fingers. He tore through his room. Making his bed. Dumping clothes into the washer. Organizing his dresser. Throwing clothes into the dryer. Racing through homework. Folding clothes and sorting them into drawers. Starting another of his projects.

It helped. Marginally.

He went to the gym. Ran five miles. Swam ten laps. Benched two-hundred.

But his breath still came too fast, his pulse a hammering gavel behind his eardrums.

Too twitchy to roll a joint, he smoked a bowl.

He smoked two.

By the third, he felt more stable, more in control. But it didn’t erase that kernel of doubt. Of panic seeded in the furthermost reaches of his mind.

What had triggered the compulsion?

Anger?

Guilt?

Or was it beginning of something else…

The prospect of the latter made him pack another bowl, but the plastic baggie was empty. He sped-dialed his dealer. “More already, bruh?”

“What do you think?” Adonis barked.

Instead of taking offense, he just laughed, no stranger to his customer’s moodiness. “Come by the crib.”

Feeling disjointed, he pocketed the phone and grabbed his keys. He headed out the back door, not wanting to attract attention. Someone called his name anyway as the screen door cracked behind him.

His car snarled to life. Strapping in, he blasted down the skinny side street, the Ferrari a voracious wolf amongst suburban sheep. The sun was a flattened disk squatting over the horizon. It was night already? Shit, there went another two classes missed. At this rate he’d be lucky to make it to midterms.

Several minutes later, dirty blond dreads greeted him at the door of a dilapidated brownstone. The man herded him in. They made the exchange.

Adonis turned to leave when the sweetest of temptresses planted herself in front of him. “You down? It’s so lonely doing it by myself.”

Bull-fucking-shit.

He used to do it by himself all the time.

An eight ball was child’s play.

He didn’t spare the girl a glance. His gaze clung to the baggie swinging between her forefinger and thumb, greeting him like a long lost lover. The white powder shone like freshly fallen snow under the hooded, hallway lights. He swallowed reflexively and licked his lips. His sinuses burned and gums itched. “I’m clean,” he said woodenly.

“One bump won’t hurt.”

He closed his eyes. He remembered cresting the highest pinnacles of ecstasy. Remembered the subsequent flameouts. The last had been a crash and burn that burned and burned. He almost hadn’t come back. Not after broken bones and blood staining his hands and being handcuffed and thrust into the back of a flashing red and blue.

He couldn’t take that road again. He couldn’t do it to himself. He couldn’t do it to Cameron.

He couldn’t do it his mother and brother.

“Maybe another time,” he gritted through the pain and steered around her.

It whispered behind him, a powder-white finger crooking, beckoning.

He kept his gaze forward until he sat in the driver’s seat.

Adonis clenched the steering wheel and exhaled hard through his nose. It’d get better, they’d told him. Time heals all wounds.

No. Time was a scab. A flimsy patch on a leaky pipe. Enough pressure and it would burst. Just like everything else.

He mashed the accelerator to the floor, as if the convertible could somehow outrun his demons.

But there would be no escaping the devil.

He always collected his due.

_________________

Cameron scowled as the front door slammed behind Adonis. More than familiar with his friend’s pattern of behavior, he recognized the signs: the excess energy, the OCD urges, and cranky irritability. In a few days melancholy would take their place and then he’d balance out.

So the itch was back in kicking force. He would have to keep an eye on him in the meantime. He didn’t like keeping tabs on his best friend, but after the shitstorm that had went down back in April, there really wasn’t any other option.

After receiving the call, Cameron had booked a red-eye flight out to Berkeley, California. If uniformed officers hadn’t escorted him to his jail cell, he wouldn’t have believed it. The emaciated, gaunt-faced man whose hollow-eyed stare pleaded with him through steel bars had almost made Cameron disgorge his in-flight breakfast. Nothing about him resembled the guy with whom he’d grown up. Yes, Adonis liked to push the envelope as far as drugs were concerned. But what rebellious, red-blooded adolescent didn’t, even amongst the upper echelons of the leisure class.

Even though he begged him not to, Cameron tracked down Adonis’s father, who’d been conducting business in Beijing. In less than a day, Lionel Benoit had gotten the charges dropped and his son released into the tender-handed care of rehab.

Detox hadn’t been pretty. Cameron stuck around for a couple of days, but it’d been enough to turn him off drugs forever. Buckled in restraints, Adonis had been a half-raging, half-sobbing wretch. He threatened suicide, cussed out nurses, attempted to bite fingers off doctors, and tried to bribe the orderlies with obscene amounts of money.

It was the reason why, after treatment, Cameron agreed to go with him abroad. Adonis needed time away from the sycophants who posed as his friends and only exacerbated his reckless behavior. They saw Adonis as a source of entertainment. He was the life of the party, an energy source to which people were inexplicably drawn. Well, that and the party favors, which ranged from free booze and blow to access into exclusive clubs he rented out for shits and gigs.

Part of Adonis’s recovery regimen had been to calculate how much money he spent recreationally. In the past year alone, Adonis had blown through hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Instead of interpreting his son’s tacit cry for help, Lionel had merely smiled and said, “Boys will be boys.” After ensuring all parties—plaintiffs, prosecutors, judges—were suitably compensated and grievances laid to rest, he withdrew from the scene entirely.

Cameron wondered if his parents’ coffers ran that deep if he’d be allowed to wallow in pure, indulgent excess and engage in such diversions without consequence. Unlike Cameron, Adonis’s resources weren’t tied up in trust funds and stipulations. College didn’t serve as the foundation for a vocational safety net. It was merely a pastime.

Perhaps that was why he lacked direction and ambition.

On a whim, Cameron suggested Adonis transfer to his school, since there would obviously be no going back to Berkeley. Hopefully he wouldn’t live to regret it.

So far he’d been behaving.

Cameron scrubbed his face and tried to remember how he’d ended up as caretaker to a grown man.

Adonis had always been a moody, insolent child. The older they became, the more it showed. Temperamental and without the iron-tight dictatorship that governed Cameron’s life, Adonis had taken his unchecked freedom to the head. But after the crash involving his mother and brother, his behavior nosedived.

At eleven he started bringing vodka in water bottles and smoking pot. By thirteen he’d graduated to snorting lines in the bathroom and dropping acid. By high school, Cameron had become accustomed to his highs and lows of his drug use.

There was only one destination for the path he traversed and it ended with an oblong box.

Half an hour later, Adonis charged into the house. Cameron cocked a brow. “Where’ve you been?”

“What’re you, my fucking probation officer?” he snapped as he paced back and forth, seemingly unable to sit still. His suspicion proved true as Adonis roamed into the kitchen and came back with a bottle of vodka. He sat, got up, returned to the kitchen, came back with a plastic cup, and plopped down again.

“What did you take?”

“I haven’t taken shit! Do you want me to piss into a bottle and have it tested for you?” Adonis lashed and then after hearing himself, shook his head. “Sorry,” he said gruffly. “I’ve been in a shitty mood all day.”

“Really? I couldn’t tell.” He either didn’t hear the sarcasm or chose to ignore it.

“I can’t shake it.” Adonis shot up and resumed patrolling the length of the den. “I’m pissed and I don’t know why. I want to break something. I can’t fucking sit still.”

“Because you want to use?” Cameron deduced.

He raked an agitated hand through his shaggy black hair. “No. Yes. Fuck, I don’t know.” Adonis took a seat and emptied his pockets.

Several Ziploc bags of weed spilled onto the coffee table. Cameron watched as his shaking hands pulled bud from stubborn stems and retrieved a bowl from his jacket pocket. “You can’t go on like this forever.”

Fire torched green and lungs stretched to accommodate unfolding smoke. Resentment garbled his chuckle. “What choice do I have?”

“Don’t give me that. Look how far you’ve come.”

“Getting here wasn’t the problem.” Exhaustion bracketed his vision as gravity bundled his limbs. He reclined back as a comforting layer of fog compressed his brain, rerouting his tempestuous stream of consciousness to more placid waters. “It’s staying here that’s the issue.” A half smile hung at his lips. “I have to smoke half an ounce a day to stay sane.”

“The cravings will lessen, eventually.” Or at least Cameron thought.

“It’s been five months.”

“You’ve been on this shit since you were thirteen. Don’t expect it to disappear overnight.” Cameron allowed the silence lapse for a minute or two before offering a quiet suggestion. “Maybe you should see a doctor. Just in case.”

For a second, stark terror petrified his soul. “No. I’m not like them. I’ll lay off the drugs for a while.”

“Still, you shouldn’t rule out the possibility.”

Adonis ignored his last comment. He refused to accept that the same shit that’d laid waste to his family would sideswipe him. He wasn’t like them. He was stronger.

What the fuck did Cameron Reynolds know anyway?

Pressure stabbed his larynx. Fucking Boy Scout Cameron with his perfect family and perfect life and a girl who worshipped the ground he walked on.

Why did he have to be so noble?

Why couldn’t he be a scumbag piece of shit like all the other pieces of shit in his life? Why did he have to care?

Cameron was a true friend. More than what Adonis deserved. Did growing up together justify such unfailing loyalty and trust?

And what had he done to return his show of good faith?

Fucked his girl and wouldn’t have a problem doing it again.

A half-formed apology blistered, ruptured, and crusted over on his tongue.

He never should’ve come here. He was a user, an abuser, and a destroyer of all things good and beautiful. No amount of detoxification or therapy group sessions would change him or his ways.

He was a good-for-nothing son of a bitch, predestined for an early grave.

He might as well enjoy the ride down to hell.

_______________

Two hours and three cups of strawberry flavored Everclear into their first Halloween bash, the party was in full swing. The house hopped with more people than he’d counted on showing up. But they were stocked to the teeth. He didn’t mind doing this sort of thing. Call it conceit, but he enjoyed seeing people having a good time and knowing he provided for them.

Unlike Adonis, Cameron could distinguish between those who wanted to leech off of him and those who he could call friends.

He glanced at his watch and frowned.

“If you check the time one more time, I’m goin' to toss it out the window.”

“Why? Because I want to know how we’re doing alcohol-wise?”

Riley handed him a drink. “No, because you’re on the lookout for her.”

Cameron didn’t bother arguing. It was a quarter past nine. The party had commenced two hours ago. “Where is…where are they?”

The other man smirked at his faux pas, but let it slide. “They’re lasses, Cam. Usually they take longer than us.”

“Says the guy in a dress.”

“It’s not a dress,” the Irishman snipped. “It’s a toga.”

“Whatever keeps your balls intact.”

“Calm down 007, she’ll be here soon enough.”

Despite their heart to heart the other day, he didn’t know how to approach the situation. She still hadn’t given up her mystery lover’s name. He didn’t care, shouldn’t care.

Besides, why did he need to know? It wasn’t as if he clued her in on all of his hookups.

“Did Tess tell you she was seeing someone?”

Riley’s cup wavered midway to his mouth. “Is that what she’s calling it?”

“So you do know,” Cameron said flatly.

He looked away. “She didn’t tell me, if that’s what you’re pissy about. I saw it, in a manner of speaking.”

Cameron knew when to spot a lie by omission. And it irked him that his roommate, his friend, chose to keep him in the dark. Who the hell had Tess gotten involved with? “What’s this guy all about? Anyone I know?”

A tug-of-war of emotions played out across his face before neutrality boxed and set them aside. “It’s not for me to tell. Y’need to ask her for the nitty gritty.”

Lance kneed open the sliding glass door, a box of assorted liquors in his arms. “Hey, someone go to my car and get the kegs out of the backseat.”

“On it.” Riley volunteered and promptly took his leave.

Cameron parked his irritation. He didn’t have anything to be angry about. But why did he have to be the last to know? “You know anything about Tess dating someone?”

Lance’s deer-in-the-headlights look confirmed his suspicions. “I’m sorry, man. Jade made me promise not to mention it.”

His smile was brittle. “Don’t sweat it.”

“From what I hear it’s not even that serious.” Lance hefted the box on top of the counter and withdrew a bottle of coconut-flavored Ciroc. “Here. Let’s take a shot of the good stuff before these nobodies get to it.”

Five shots later and the world seemed as dismal a place as when he’d departed sobriety. He tried not to let it show and bullshitted with his friends as if a black hole hadn’t taken residence in his chest.

Needing something to occupy his hands, he left the others to their game of flip cup and fiddled with the stereo. The girls had come by yesterday to decorate. Initially he was skeptical, but they hadn’t done a bad job.

Red, purple, and black lights submerged the living room and den in a sultry, sensual glow. Spiders, ghouls, and pumpkins dangled from the cobwebbed ceiling. White, blood-spattered sheets draped the walls.

An explosion of catcalls and whistles pulled his attention from the Halloween-themed playlist. There were too many people for him to see the cause of the commotion. Then he heard her laughter trickle out, as if meant for his ears only.

Cameron’s heart rocketed into his throat when he glimpsed her through a break in bodies.

Her cheeks were tinged red from the brisk walk over. Her hair hung unfettered in riotous waves. A subtle dusting of eye shadow deepened the green in her eyes and a touch of lip gloss enhanced the shapely pout of her mouth.

He suppressed a groan when she came into full view.

The intricate, black corset interwoven with red satin accentuated her ample bust. Satin garter belts fastened sheer stockings that rode into her laced boy shorts. The ribbons of her red stilettos encircled delicate ankles and calves, extending already impossibly long legs. Black, downy wings completed the costume, their structure resembling more of a butterfly than a fallen angel.

His fallen angel.

Their eyes connected and he watched as her features lit up. Her saunter was slow and he didn't know if it was deliberate or if her stilettos wouldn’t allow a faster transit. “You look good.”

“What?” He snapped his eyes up to meet her face.

“Totally worth the hundred dollars,” Jade crowed behind her.

Her hazel-green eyes shone with a soft sparkle that emptied him of words. “I guess so.” She grabbed his hand and led him to the kitchen. “It’s shot time.”

Tess didn't know if it was the alcohol or the sense of empowerment donated by the costume, but for the next few hours she couldn't stop smiling. Like some self-imposed bodyguard, Cameron never strayed too far from her side and acted as a protective buffer against other guys’ advances.

Jade had been right.

Her getup was a certified win.

His hadn't been too bad on the eyes either. His James Bond-esque suit fit him like a glove. He'd lost the jacket at some point, but it didn’t matter. A loosened, black skinny tie hung askew against his starched white shirt, its top buttons undone, revealing a wedge of firm, golden skin. With sleeves bunched at his elbows, his gun holster's straps crisscrossing his back, and hair finger-mussed, he could’ve given the real 007 a run for his money.

That alone was enough to qualify as a good night in her book.

But fortune seemed to be on her side tonight.

Cameron hadn't taken his eyes off of her. Or his hands. He used every excuse to casually touch her. His fingers lingered when he passed her shots. His mouth grazed her ear whenever he spoke to her. His thumb sketched maddening circles along the small of her back.

And it was driving her crazy.

“I’m a genius, aren’t I?” Jade grinned at her.

“An evil genius,” Tess begrudgingly capitulated to her brilliance. The costume had been entirely Jade’s idea, from the shoes to make up. Tess had wanted to wear something a little more low-key, considering she was on direct orders not to actively pursue Cameron. Lucky for her, Jade hadn’t taken no for an answer.

In the end, she caved. Adonis never said anything about torturing him a little.

And it was paying off. In spades.

Even her roommate’s costume caused quite the stir. Jade’s hair was styled in a sexy, curly pin-up, a few ornamental leaves dispersed throughout. Dressed in a dark green, one-piece, armor-plated leotard that left her back out with matching opera-length gloves, a thick, ivy-shaped encrusted belt, and dark, slouch boots, Jade was the perfect stand-in for the fictional Poison Ivy. God knew she had Lance panting after her like a dog in heat.

“I don’t know why you don’t major in fashion design.”

Jade snorted through her straw. “Because my parents would shit a brick schoolhouse. They’re not shelling out fifty-something grand a year for me to become a dressmaker,” she said, her tone laced with resentment.

“J, if you really want-”

“What’s done is done, Tess,” she interrupted. “Now, tonight is all about you. Don’t look now, but 007 has you in his sights.”

Fastening her with a look that said this conversation would be continued at a later date, she glanced across the yard. Although Cameron spoke with someone else, his eyes remained on her. His mouth shaped into a crooked smile.

“Didn’t I say don’t look?”

“You can’t tell me not to look and expect me not to look.”

“Ugh, just go to your man!”

“Could you say that a little louder? I don't think the neighbors heard. And speaking of which,” Tess craned her neck, “where’s yours? A black captain Jack Sparrow can’t be that hard to miss.”

“Lance isn’t my man. Just a man I occasionally do,” Jade said breezily.

She stifled the impulse to grab her by the shoulders and shake her. Lance didn’t have eyes for anyone but her. And Jade was crazy if she didn’t see that. He could put on a front of wanting the play the field, but Tess knew better. His lie reflected hers and it rankled her every time Jade shit on his feelings.

“And since we’re on the subject of men, where’s your other one?”

Still sober enough to be cognizant of prying eyes and ears, Tess hooked an arm hers and dragged her to the least populated end of the yard. “Care to use a little tact?”

“Tact? But I’m drinking,” Jade said sullenly and readjusted her brassiere.

Paranoid, her eyes pounced over the crowd, taking in everything and everyone at once. When her gaze returned to Jade, a strange look had overtaken her features before it melted into sly knowing. “I see. Someone’s looking for another dose of the D.”

Tess’s face flamed. “No, I’m not. I just want to make sure he isn’t here to make things awkward.”

“Mm, sure,” she said smugly. “If you told me who he is, I could be a lookout for you.”

“Not drunk enough to fall for that one.” Tess gulped down the rest of her screwdriver. “I’m going inside for another.”

“One for me too?” Jade shoved her empty cup at her and batted her fake eyelashes.

Tess snatched the cup. “We’re going to fight.”

“No we’re not.” She shooed her off.

Tess crossed the yard and bit back a smile as she felt the heat from Cameron’s gaze.

Mission accomplished. Now if he could only stalk her into a deserted bathroom and ravage her until she was senseless.

Inside, the house had become a living, breathing entity. People packed the narrow halls like sardines in a can. The sheets draping the walls clung in sweltering, wrinkled clumps. Her eyes watered from the humid pungency of booze. Tess was surprised the cops or public safety hadn’t showed up to shut them down.

Not surprisingly, the liquor supply was nearly depleted. She headed upstairs to procure more from the reserves. Sure enough, two plastic jugs of bottom shelf whiskey idled under Riley’s bed. Securing her bounty, Tess closed his door and headed back downstairs. Her tread stalled at familiar voice.

She scoured the lower level until she singled him out.

Her stomach plummeted.

He looked like a debauched, Hungarian warlord. His black coat was long and black, the collar fringed by a beige, animal pelt. Leather pants neither too tight nor too loose clung to the hardened muscles of his thighs. A fanged necklace dangled below the dip of his clavicle. Beneath that, his chest was bare. Tess swallowed and tried not to stare at the firm stacks of corrugated abs, the erotic twin cut of V-shaped pelvic muscles sloping into his waistband. He’d sheared his lengthy locks into a deliberately tousled cut, the ends curling at his nape and forehead.

Along with the physical change came a complete personality transplant.

His laughter was too loud, too wild. His gestures animated, his face lively. Around him people, his people, roared, their own laughter either delayed or overly enthusiastic.

So he was back on the powder. She wasn't surprised. Adonis and sober never played well together. But it was going to kill Cam, who’d placed so much faith in his turnaround.

Grinding her teeth, Tess gripped the handle of whiskey and set off for the kitchen.

But she’d been careless in her perusal. Tess felt the searing presence of his attention like a laser beam probing for its intended target. She ducked down, a useless feat considering her height and the gigantic wings springing from her back.

It was too late.

Moving faster than the densely packed house should allow, she felt his hands close around her midsection before she could escape to the kitchen. “And where do you think you're running off to?” he growled roughly into her ear.

Awareness ripped through her: his scent, the warmth of his breath, the heat of his touch. “Away from you, obviously.”

“And here I was thinking we had something going.” He nuzzled the arch of her neck.

“Get away from me.”

“Aw, why do you have to be like that, baby?” Tess stiffened as his free hand possessively traced the prominence of her cleavage.

“Adonis!” she hissed and swatted his wandering hand. Instead of meeting the action with truculence, he dissolved into hysterical laughter.

“Who is this delicious morsel?” A guy with long, scraggly brown hair haphazardly stuffed under a red beanie grinned dopily at her.

Great. More junkies.

Adonis’s arm swung around her shoulders too tight. “Deck, have you met Tess?”

Sleepy gray eyes lightened with interest. “No, introduce us.”

“What the hell’s the matter with you? Let go!” she struggled to free herself.

“Let go? I’ll tell you how this one lets go-”

Tess threw an elbow into his ribs. He released her with a soft grunt. “Excuse us.” His friend wolf-whistled as she dragged him into the bathroom.

Tess tried slamming the door, but it caught on her wings. Yanking them off, she closed it with renewed force and set down the jug of whiskey. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“What do you think?” he replied, his eyes glued to her breasts.

“I haven’t defaulted on my end of the bargain. What gives you the right to?”

“Settle down, wildcat.” His fingers plundered her sides, greedily seeking flesh. “Did it ever occur to you that I like seeing you this worked up?” He nibbled at her earlobe. “All angry and hot and wet. ”

Her body revved. No, he probably iterated the same phrase to a thousand girls before her. “Don’t play like that. This isn’t a joke.”

She may as well have been talking to herself. His pupils were ebonized saucers swimming amid pools of bright amber. Wild and agitated, they seemed unable to focus on anything for more than a second. His aura fizzed with adrenalized fever. Yet, beneath agitated excitement, fatigue grayed the skin below his eyes.

“Adonis.” She collected his hands and urged him to look at her. “What are you on?”

The genuine concern backed in her tone seemed to catch him off guard. He recovered quickly. “On? Why do I have to be on anything? Why can’t I just be high on life? Is it that so hard to believe? That I can be this happy about being alive and breathing?” He laughed, but it was a harsh, ragged sound, edged with self-contempt.

“You know this isn’t you.”

“How do you know? You don’t know me, Tess. You think you do, but you don’t,” he said, speaking so fast it came out like one run-on sentence.

“We should get back to the party,” she said uneasily.

“Why?”

He pushed her into the sink’s edge. Her body quaked at the feel of his arousal. This was beyond sick; beyond anything that she could wrap her mind around. Had three years without sex driven her to such depraved depths? “Didn’t I make it clear that there would be no second time?” she pushed through clamped teeth.

A pastiche of hatred, fury, and lust eddied in his eyes. “That’s where you’re wrong. There was already a second. And a third. Now I want a fourth.”

“Adonis, please,” she breathed heavily, not fully aware of what she asked.

“What gets you in the mood, baby? Do you want me to say how you haunt me?” he blathered on as if she hadn’t spoken. “Your softness.” A finger trailed her quivering thigh. “Your smell.” His nose coasted the rise of her breast. “Your taste.” A shudder quaked through her as he licked her throat.

She tried another avenue. “If Cameron finds you like this-”

Tess jerked, startled, as he bit her. “He’ll what?” Wild joviality veered headlong into something darker. “Cameron this and Cameron that. Why is his name always a mantra with you? Fuck him and what he wants.”

“You don’t mean that.”

Mischief glimmered in his eyes. “Oh, but I do.”

Her heart thundered as he stroked the small of her back, frenzying the nerves into a mad scramble. “I’ll scream.”

“Then scream.” His mouth descended hard against hers.

Fire lashed to her extremities. Somehow doing this with him, in an enclosed, lit space made it seem more real than the last time. Struggling to rebuff his advances, Tess sealed her lips, barring him access.

Not to be dissuaded, he soothed fractured indifference with melting licks and gentle nips. He nibbled at the corners of her mouth, traced her lower lip with his tongue before sucking softly. His stuttered, frantic movements tapered, consumed by concentration. His fingers twined through her hair to cradle the back of her head, almost tenderly.

A Neanderthal she could handle. One swift knee to his junk would lay him out flat. A man who cajoled was infinitely more dangerous. It clouded her judgment and distorted good sense. Her brain strove to regroup, but the signals crisscrossed, toppling over one another and became lost under a rolling torrent of heat.

He deposited a trail of kisses along her jaw, and then down her neck, recommitting her texture and taste to memory. Pleasure shot down her spine as he chanced upon a particular nerve. Her limbs trembled with the effort to contain the involuntary shudder, but he’d felt the fierce reaction. He tugged her hair, tilting her head back, and delicately gathered the skin between his teeth.

Tess bucked into his chest as he lightly grated the sensitive patch of skin. “Adonis,” she rasped.

He wasted no time and crushed his mouth to hers. She offered no resistance and locked her arms around his neck. Connecting and disengaging, they worked furiously against each other, fighting for domination.

Energy ruptured anew beneath his skin. His hands were everywhere at once. Hers were no better. She grappled his hair, yanking him close even as she wanted to shove him away.

Mouth still fastened to hers, Adonis clumsily jostled her on top of the counter. Her legs fell apart. He wedged himself between her thighs and swallowed her muffled gasp as his erection dug hard into her.

Her resistance crumbled to nil. His piquant flavor, the spiced taste of him, it was about as much as she could take.

He divested her of the scrap of material covering her sex with his free hand.

“S-stop,” she whispered as he wrenched her costume bottoms down, garters and all, and dragged impertinent knuckles along her sensitive center.

“Stop? Say it again.” Eyes ablaze with the fury of a thousand suns threatened to overwhelm her. “One more time and I'll go, Tess. Just one word.”

He stooped down, maniacal eyes bonded to hers.

Before Tess could get the words out, the sharp blade of his tongue stabbed into her. Mouthing hanging agape, she bowed off the counter in shock and mortification. His grip on her thighs steeled as she tried to scoot away. Tess didn't want to fall victim to the slick rush of sensation, but it threatened to sweep her in its tide.

Unlike the caring treatment he’d bestowed to her mouth, Adonis ravaged her like a man sentenced to death row who’d been served his final meal. His velveteen tongue parted her in broad, lapping strokes before sucking hard on her clit.

She strangled a moan, refusing to give him the satisfaction. She knew he didn’t hunger for her, but for her surrender. Her submission.

Tess jerked as someone banged on the door. “Hey, c’mon! I gotta piss.”

“A-Adonis. P-please,” she gasped.

He paid her no mind, apparently unconcerned with the fifty or so people just beyond the door. Panic and shame tangled in molten heat as he inserted a finger into her. The added sensation smashed through her feeble objections.

She writhed and twisted, half out of fear that someone would stumble in, half from the wicked play of his mouth.

Another finger joined its companion. Against her will, her hips began rocking against his face, unrepentantly taking all that he offered. As if spurred by her desire, he pumped harder, faster.

It became too much. The eroticism of potential discovery, the sight of his dark head moving between her legs, the dual action of his mouth and fingers.

Convulsions wracked her body, liquefying her bones. As if sensing her impending release, he hastened his motions, thrusting, sucking, wheeling her into a tailspin that stripped her nerves raw. Her head cracked against the mirror as she came hard with a cry.

He coaxed her of every last, aching drop, making her orgasm stretch on until her bones turned to jelly and her breath came in jagged pants. Relinquishing his hold, Adonis stood, his mouth red and glistening.

Tess could scarcely move let alone summon the energy to glare. “What the hell.”

“You're welcome.” Her stomach bottomed out as he thumbed her moisture from his lips and sucked the appendage dry. “Do you want to know how you taste? Like peaches, sweet and ripe for the picking.” He drew close enough that she could smell herself on his breath. “Too bad Cameron will never know the pleasure.”

Her post coitus buzz sputtered out. “Or maybe he will,” she said abruptly, tired of him dangling the threat over her head. She pulled her bottoms up and refastened the garters. “Because you stand to lose more than I do, isn’t that right? What was that, nineteen years of friendship over our meager three?” Ignoring his flash of surprise, she maneuvered past him. “Be my guest.”

His hand came down on the door before she could open it. “You won’t tell.” He pressed his other hand low on her stomach. “You’re enjoying this too much.”

“Being mauled at a moment’s notice? Hardly,” she said, even as the coal of truth glowed hot.

“If I wanted to, I could take you again, right now, and you’d let me.”

She shivered, knowing he was right and hating him all the more for it. “Just because you managed to get me off doesn’t mean I’d sleep with you again. You’re crazy to think I’d want anything to do with you.”

Tess jumped as his fist smashed against the door above her head. “Don’t call me that!”

Warning bells tolled. Tess didn’t reply until her voice steadied. “Then don’t give me a reason to.” She tensed as he planted a lingering, chaste kiss on the curve of her shoulder.

“Deny it all you want. This is just the beginning.” He fed the words into her ear, his breath heavy and soaked in want. “Next time, I’ll make you beg for it.”

And as quickly as he’d appeared, he was gone.

Whiplashed, it took Tess a second to reclaim her faculties. What the hell just happened? Had he given her an orgasm of cataclysmic proportions and then turned on her like a rabid dog?

She didn’t understand his motivations. What was he trying to prove? Tess wouldn’t be surprised if he’d staged the entire scene to expose her to Cameron.

Tension cramping her stomach, Tess donned her wings, picked up the whiskey, and left the bathroom on shaky legs, half-afraid of what awaited her.

But no haranguing mob or Cameron laid in wait. In fact, no one seemed to care what may or may have not taken place as a guy in meth-cooking gear shoved past her into the bathroom with a muttered “finally”.

Before relief could catch on her breath, Tess caught sight of him out on the other side of the room. Adonis had attached himself to a lissome, spandex-clad catwoman. One hand wrapped around her waist and the other caressing her backside, her face bloomed bright red as he whispered to her with the mouth he used not so long ago on her.

Disgust, and another emotion she didn’t deign to recognize, shriveled her skin. So much for raising a stink over being rejected.

Tess shouldn’t care. She didn’t care. In fact, she felt sorry for the poor girl. If she wanted the deranged asshole, be her guest.

But the reassurance did nothing to assuage the lump of emotion holed in her throat.

The bastard. He’d done this to her on purpose. Made her feel used and dirty and humiliated.

She should’ve kneed him in the balls when she had the chance.

Tess turned to sneak away unnoticed and collided head-on into a masculine chest. She froze at the fury spinning in blue-green eyes.

So much for a clean getaway.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-16