17
TYLER
I WAVED TO THE CROWD and stalked after Stella, who was beelining for a side door. My lips tingled from the kiss, hands flexing with the need to have her in my grasp again. I knew she felt it, too, this inexplicable, infuriating attraction, because her eyes kept falling to my lips while we were dancing, and her pupils had been huge, even as she insulted me.
I pushed through the door and stopped short. Stella was standing with a group of about ten other people, young people, or at least younger than most of the crowd in the ballroom, in their mid-twenties to mid-thirties.
“Nice moves,” an attractive man with dark, curly hair and full lips called out, his green eyes drinking me in.
“My parents forced us,” Stella explained. “Everyone, this is Theo. My boyfriend.” She was getting better at saying that word without tripping over it.
I smiled and joined them. “Please tell me there’s something stronger than wine and champagne in this house.”
A blond woman with large blue eyes and a pouty mouth motioned us down the hall. “This way. Cordelia keeps all the good stuff locked up when she has company. She doesn’t want anyone getting wasted and puking on one of her priceless rugs.”
“Again,” a brunette woman added, shooting a taunting glance at Stella.
“I’m sorry,” Stella said. “Who was it that set the lawn on fire at that same party?”
The brunette cackled. “Oh my god, I forgot about that.”
“Probably because you were blackout drunk,” a sandy-haired man told her.
Stella and I let the group precede us down the hall, and I tugged her elbow to slow her down enough that a gap opened between us and them.
“Who are my targets?” I asked, voice low.
“Everyone but AJ,” she said, pointing to the man who’d first greeted me.
“The rest deserve you.”
“Now who’s being an ass—Ow!” She’d pinched my side.
The blond heard us and started to turn. I grabbed Stella around the waist, but she was already leaning toward me, and by the time the blond laid eyes on us, we were plastered together, my lips at Stella’s temple while she giggled softly like we hadn’t just been on the verge of fisticuffs.
The woman pivoted back around, and Stella immediately tried to put some space between us, but I held on. “Someone else might look.”
She made a disgruntled sound but stayed where she was, and we fell farther behind.
“We need to add more items to the list of rules,” she said, her words barely above a whisper.
I dropped my voice, too. “Like what?” It was easy to guess where this
conversation was headed.
“No more kissing.”
I chuckled. So predictable. “Scared you’ll get used to it and be sad when
our time comes to an end?”
“Please. You kiss like a dead fish.”
“Is that why you just moaned into my mouth?”
“I did not—” She took a deep breath. “I didn’t do that.”
I let out a quiet, high-pitched imitation of a porn moan, and Stella scrambled to clap her hands over my lips.
“Would you shut up?” she hissed.
I licked her palm.
She pulled her hand back with a horrified expression.
“Look at the bright side,” I said. “At least your moan wasn’t as embarrassing as the way you ground down on me that first time, like you hadn’t been dicked in a while.” She went suspiciously quiet, and I tugged her to a stop, gleeful. “Is that it? You’re going through a dry spell and are worried that if I kiss you too good, you’ll come in public?”
Her eyes sparked with a mixture of fury and panic as she glanced down the hall, obviously worried someone might have overheard, but the group was disappearing through another side door. Only when the last of them were gone did she spin back to me. “Is this how you get your clients to pay
up? You torture them with your presence until they finally snap and agree to give you whatever you want just to get away from you?”
“Aww, don’t be embarrassed,” I taunted. “Tell you what. I’ll do us both a favor and take the edge off for you. I’m sure most of your shitty attitude stems from the fact that it’s been so long since the last time you came.”
“Oh, please. You probably fuck like you’re scooting a chair closer to a table.”
“And you probably fuck like a bored fitness model bouncing on a stability ball.”
She clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a noise, but I could tell from the way her eyes crinkled that she was fighting back a laugh.
The sight made something snap inside me.
I hauled her up by the armpits. Thankfully, the skirt of her dress was loose enough that she was able to wrap her legs around my waist, making it real easy to pin her to the wall. My dick, which had been rock-hard for longer than I cared to admit, ended up right where we both wanted it, pressed tight to her pussy. This close, there was nowhere for her to hide, no way to keep me from seeing her pupils dilate or feel the way her thighs shook around me.
“Oh,” she said, a smug smile spreading over her face. “So it’s like that.”
She rolled her hips over the length of my cock, and it was all I could do to hold still. “You’re not offering to get me off so I’ll be nicer to you. You’re offering because you’re desperate for me, aren’t you?”
“The only thing I’m desperate for is to shut you up, and I gotta say, the idea of using my dick to gag you? Real appealing right now.”
“You’re disgusting.” The words were spoken with what sounded like barely restrained lust.
“Hate me all you want, but don’t fucking lie to me, Stella.” I shoved a hand between us, and as I suspected, the whisper-thin fabric of her dress was slightly damp from where it had been shoved against the V of her legs.
Unfortunately for her, I more than knew my way around a woman’s body, and with the barest flick of my fingers, I had her squirming, her body betraying her. “You’re the one who’s desperate for me.”
“Uh … hello?”
We froze, heads whirling to see the blond hanging out of the open doorway thirty feet down the hall.
“You two coming in here?” She grinned. “Or coming out there?”
Stella shoved me off her so forcefully I almost stumbled. “Sorry!” she called. “Anytime we have two seconds together, he ends up begging for it.”
The blond cackled and disappeared from sight. Probably to go repeat what Stella just said. Goddamn it.
I let Stella go, needing a moment to gather myself. What the actual fuck had I been thinking, pinning her to the wall like that? If we hadn’t been interrupted, I might have slipped my hand beneath her dress and followed through on my threat to get her off just to prove she wasn’t as immune to me as she pretended to be.
Why? I asked myself. Why did it fucking matter what she did or how she felt? It wasn’t like I actually cared about her opinion.
Was this borne from my need to prove myself? Or was this something else? My inability to accept that I was the only one who noticed this completely unwelcome attraction? The only one who was as amused as I was infuriated? Painful as it was to admit, fighting with Stella was the most locked-in I’d felt in months. Normally, my thoughts were scattered, my mind racing in a million directions at once as I tried to stay on top of all the things I needed to do to ensure my next party was even more entertaining and extravagant than the last. But with Stella, I was hyperfocused, needing all my brainpower just to keep up with her whip-fast responses. I never knew what she’d say next or how she’d react, and getting the upper hand with her had turned into an addiction. Every time I succeeded in annoying
her was like taking another hit.
Brat.
Would you shut the fuck up? I told that nagging little voice. I wasn’t a
fucking brat.
I wasn’t.
Stella was just forbidden fruit. A dangerous distraction. This arrangement was only temporary, and within a month or two, I’d disappear from her life, leaving ruin in my wake. And Stella’s family would be among the casualties caught in the crossfire aimed at my true target. That couldn’t be helped, and besides, Stella’s parents were far from innocent. They kept terrible company, so who knew what other skeletons were hidden in their closet? More likely than not, they deserved what I had planned.
Half an hour later, I was reclining in the billiards lounge, which was fancy, rich-person speak for a game room. It was long and wide, with vaulted ceilings and dueling fireplaces at each end, now dormant in the summer heat. A pool table sat beneath a gilded chandelier on the far side of the room. Spread throughout the rest of the space were various games, including cribbage, chess, mah-jongg, and backgammon. I even spotted a blackjack table and a roulette wheel.
Over in the corner, two people smoked hash by an open window. Three others snorted lines off the antique coffee table beside me. I felt like an extra on the set of a Cruel Intentions remake. In the past thirty minutes, all I’d heard anyone do was gossip and complain about their first-world problems. The one topic that seemed taboo was Stella and Maddie’s encounter, and I found it fascinating how obviously everyone was avoiding it. Was this another manners thing? They wouldn’t bring it up to Stella’s face, but once she left, it would become the center of discussion?
“Strickland,” a lazy voice drawled.
I shifted in my chair, finding AJ, the handsome one Stella said was off- limits, regarding me from a nearby loveseat. Out of all the insolent, entitled, boring assholes in the room, he seemed the most tolerable. The rest were just as bad as their parents.
“I don’t think I know anyone with that last name,” AJ said.
“And?” I raised a brow. “Trying to determine if I meet the right pedigree requirements to be in this room?”
AJ glanced sideways at Stella, who was seated next to him. “Touchy.”
She rolled her eyes. “Like that wasn’t what you were doing.”
He flicked her thigh. “I was not. I just wanted to know if he had any siblings, since he’s obviously spoken for. Unless,” he bit his lip, gaze sliding back to me, “you’re as into sharing this one as you were with Caleb.”
My eyes snapped to Stella. Her and AJ? And someone else? Fuck, that wasn’t an image I needed in my head. Especially not when my malfunctioning brain made me the someone in that scenario.
Julia, the blond, lifted her head from the coffee table and dabbed at the white beneath her nose. “Oh, Caleb. He was so pretty. What happened to him?”
“I think he lives in Dubai now,” Stella said, looking everywhere else in the room but at me. Why? Because she thought I might be judging her? Or because she was picturing the same thing I was? AJ sandwiched between us, the focal point for all our unspent hatred and lust?
“Okay, wait, though,” someone else (Federico, maybe?) said. “Where
are you from? Not here.”
I shifted my gaze to him. “No?”
The redhead at his side shook her head. “No. You look like you were born in some dusty old manor in the Bavarian alps.”
I glanced around the room. “Any other guesses?”
A few people answered, throwing out responses like California or England or Sweden, all of which seemed to be tied to my light features. I smiled, feeling smug that I’d done such a good job mimicking their upper- crust accents that there was no more rhoticity for them to notice.
Across from me, Stella looked nervous. This is why I should have sat next to her when I had the chance. To place a warning hand on her thigh whenever she started getting squirrelly or showing her discomfort. She really was a terrible actress.
I leaned out of my seat and snagged a card deck off the nearest table.
“I’m from here. Just not here, here. My lineage hails from farther north.” I left it there. Let them think I was some Canadian oil baron’s offspring.
With a flick of my fingers, I shuffled the deck, and then the cards leapt to life in my hands. They fanned out in a full circle, back in, my fingers moving in a blur as I split them, again and again, moving sections outward
and inward, rotating individual cards.
Someone let out a low whistle.
I lifted the deck in one hand and let half of it waterfall into the other. A brief pause as I halved the cards before flicking the ones in my right over and around to land perfectly face down on top of those in my left.
“Oh god, please tell me you aren’t into magic,” a woman said.
I chuckled. “No. I just like cards.” I spun the deck again and lifted my head. “Anyone up for a friendly game of poker?”
AJ shrugged. “Sure.” He shot a look at Stella. “You in?”
Her answering smile was somewhat forced. “I think I’ll watch this round.”
His face fell, and he dropped his voice. “Oh, right. Sorry.”
Stella winced. “It’s okay.”
Did AJ know? That she didn’t have any money to gamble away?
Not wanting to draw attention to their awkward exchange, I stood and paced toward a table stacked with a mountain of poker chips. Several people followed, including AJ, Federico, and Julia, the bored expressions leaving their faces now that money was on the line. Or maybe what drew them in was the competition, the chance to defeat and embarrass their peers.
“The game is hold ’em,” I said, shuffling. “Everyone know how to
play?”
Nods all around.
“Good. What’s the limit?” I asked.
AJ shot me a wry look. “No limit.”
I shrugged and set the cards down. “Have it your way. The starting bet is fifty.” I went on to establish the blinds, side pots, and other rules.
“Everyone agree?”
They did, and the chips were divided.
Feddy (as his friends called him) frowned when I didn’t take any.
“You’re not playing?”
“Wouldn’t be fair.”
Tommy, the broad, sandy-haired man across from me, made a disgruntled noise. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I tipped my head toward Stella, who was observing from the couch. “I’m still trying to make a good impression. Embarrassing her old friends would be counterintuitive.”
Those within hearing distance gave me the reactions I’d been hoping for, mostly annoyance and disbelief. Because who the fuck was I to say no to these people?
Tommy tapped the table. “We can handle it.”
I tried to demur again, but they played right into my hand, all but daring me to take their money.
“Stella?” I said. “Would you come deal for us?”
She eyed me for half a second, wariness in her gaze, before standing.
Yes, she’d agreed to help me, but it was obvious she was still adjusting to
her role. “Fine.”
An hour later, Tommy was close to the breaking point. He’d decided to go all-in with me for the second time and was now down to a pitiful stack of chips.
“You’re cheating,” he declared, chucking his losing hand at Stella.
Anger tore through me at the accusation, but I did my best to tamp it down. The rules of the game were holy to me. I would never commit the sacrilege of cheating.
“Tommy,” AJ said, a hint of displeasure in his tone.
Tommy pushed back in his chair. “Tell me you don’t agree,” he said, glancing around the table.
No one took the bait, but no one stepped up to defend me, either.
“You’re just bad at poker,” I told him.
“Fuck you,” he shot back. Ooh, testy.
“You tap the back of your cards,” I said. “When you have a decent hand.
Just once or twice with your right index finger while you’re holding them.
When you have a bad hand, you nod and grin, trying to throw everyone off.
And when you have a great hand, you sit almost perfectly still to not give anything away.”
“How is that not cheating?” he said, voice rising.
Julia made a face. “Because all he’s doing is paying attention?”
“Bullshit,” Tommy spat, and now I was really starting to get mad.
“Calm down,” AJ said, rolling his head to look at Tommy in laconic annoyance.
The larger man gestured at me. “Who the fuck even is this guy?”
Stella slapped a hand against the table. “My boyfriend, you coked-out jockstrap.”
Julia and I choked back surprised laughter, which only seemed to enrage
him.
“Fuck you!”
“Not even with someone else’s vagina,” Stella shot back.
Beside her, Julia cackled.
Tommy tried to toss the table, but it was clear someone with foresight had affixed it to the floor, so he ended up looking like a toddler throwing a tantrum. The movement was still enough to send drinks and poker chips
flying, and loud, angry voices filled the room as everyone scrambled to avoid getting soaked.
Tommy pointed at Stella. “I wasn’t offering, you fucking cunt.”
I went completely still, wondering if knocking him out would expose me as an interloper.
AJ’s voice cut through the room like a knife. “You’re starting to bore me now, Thomas. Why don’t you do everyone a favor and leave?”
I stepped in front of Stella, expecting the jockstrap to protest or throw a punch, but AJ’s words had a mollifying effect on him. Face red with frustrated anger, Tommy stormed out of the room without another word.
My gaze returned to AJ. This wasn’t his house. He shouldn’t have any authority here, and yet he did. Why? Because his family was the richest?
Was that all it took to establish hierarchy amongst these bougie fucks? I hadn’t been able to find much dirt on him, so either his parents had buried his bodies deeper than most, or there weren’t any to find. Now that I knew Stella had a soft spot for him, I was even more curious about which it was.
I pulled her close, framing her face with my hands. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. “I’m fine. Tommy’s been a prick as long as I’ve known him, so this isn’t anything new.”
I kissed her forehead, knowing she’d probably hate it. “I think this is our cue to leave.”
“What about the game?” Feddy asked. “We owe you.”
I released Stella. “Let’s just agree to call it even.”
He studied me for a second before nodding.
We said our goodbyes, and on the way out, Feddy caught up to us.
“You’re him, aren’t you?” he said, his voice low.
Stella, horrible actress that she was, jerked her gaze up to me. I kept my features controlled. I’d known there was a risk of being recognized—word got around in this city, no matter how much you threatened people to keep
their mouths shut.
“Who?” I asked.
Feddy took a surreptitious step closer, and I had to credit his discretion.
“The man who throws the underground parties. My cousin Grant went to the last one.” His eyes slid to Stella. “With Blake.”
“No idea what you’re talking about,” I protested, making a mental note to send a few goons to teach Grant a lesson about the dangers of running his
mouth.
Feddy’s eyes were bright with undeterred excitement. “When’s the next
one?”
“The next what?”
“Come on,” he said. “I can hang.”
I made a show of looking him over. “Can you?”
He nodded emphatically. “Yes.”
“Good to know.” I placed my hand on Stella’s lower back and nudged her in the direction of the door. “Enjoy the rest of your night.”
Without a backward glance, we left.
“What are you playing at?” Stella asked outside. “You didn’t hand out a single invitation, and I just watched you turn down Feddy. Don’t fall for his buddy-buddy bullshit. He’s not a good person. He hazed a kid so bad in prep school, they took their own life.”
Oh, I was well aware. “That’s not how it works. I don’t send out invitations until an hour before the party. And I just met these people; I’ll need a few more interactions before making up my mind. As much as I’d love to ruin them all, discretion is key.”
“Feddy can keep his mouth shut,” she interjected.
I shook my head. “No, he can’t. I guarantee he’s upstairs right now telling Julia all about my illicit work.”
She grimaced. “He wouldn’t do that. They can’t stand each other.”
“They’re fucking,” I told her.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Great, we were back to this again. “Stella, I have pictures to prove it.”
She gagged. “They’re second cousins.”
“And that surprises you? Rich people have been inbreeding since the dawn of time.”
She looked too nauseated to respond, which was good, because we had almost reached the valet stand. Conscious of my earlier promise, I pulled out my wallet and tipped each of them a hundred dollars when we reached it.
“The S-Class,” I said, reminding them which car we’d arrived in.
While a kid in his late teens went dashing off into the darkness, I wrapped my arm around Stella’s shoulders and drew her away. “I turned Feddy down because I knew he’d tell Julia.”
“Who can actually keep a secret?”
I nodded. “And also hates being told no. By the time we see them again, they’ll be both be desperate for an invitation, and I’ll be in a better position to threaten them into silence.”
Stella made a contemplative noise that made me feel like she was finally catching on. “I don’t think you’ll have to go that far. Having exclusive access might be enough to keep them quiet.”
“Maybe, but I’m not taking any chances. There’s already more than enough risk involved.”
The car pulled around, and we thanked the valet. I opened Stella’s door before heading toward the driver’s side. One night down. Countless more to go.
“When’s the next party?” I asked when we were a few miles down the road.
“That depends,” Stella said. “The summer season is in full swing, so there’s a lot to choose from. Would you prefer a banquet, a ball, a soiree, or a reception?”
“Whatever works best for your schedule,” I said, distracted. There weren’t any streetlights this far out of the city and the road was windy as fuck.
“Soiree it is then. Clear your plans for Wednesday.”
