16. By Your Standards
Dom
Issy clearly wanted me to get laid. She rounded up groups of girls across the dark bar, chatting to them, pointing my way before bringing them over to the VIP section with a smile. “This is my brother, Dom.”
“Not interested, sorry,” I would say, downing the rest of my drink, my attention elsewhere. All night, my eyes had either been on Leo or darting around the bar to the rest of the drinkers, noting those who clearly knew who we were by their shifting eyes or moving clear out of our way.
Even being in her room while she got ready had been a struggle, trying to keep my distance. I lay on her bed infiltrating the law firm that Firdman was using. I didn’t get very far. The way she pouted to put her lipstick on, the way she leaned over her desk as she put on her mascara, letting me see right down her cleavage through the mirror. That was my only focus.
The desire was not mutual.
I was getting through a lot of whiskey.
For years and years, I had put up the thickest of walls, protecting her from me. From the knowledge of what I had done to her.
But I couldn’t help it. That first touch, that kiss, the freedom and euphoria of her moans…
They had brought down the floodgates and the dam was uncontrollable.
Men swarmed Leonie. Even the bouncer made a flirtatious comment about the bandage that I had wrapped around her hand. She’d been at the bar getting us drinks but, since chatting to some uni student, had now sat there and drank two herself.
“I’m bored,” Issy groaned, looking around the bar for more victims. “And too drunk to keep going for much longer. You’re no fun when you’re not angry or when I can’t set you up with someone.”
Did Leonie forget that she was training to be a lecturer? To be his superior? Maybe she needed reminding.
“No, no,” Issy said, pulling me back to the stool. “Don’t go and interrupt her when she’s doing her thing. This is the closest she’s got involved with a guy since Jared.”
But they’d been going out every night of every weekend.
“Why?” I asked as Leo put her hand on the man’s bicep. It wasn’t as muscular as mine. I could tell even in the darkness of the bar.
Issy shrugged sheepishly and continued scanning the room.
“Issy, why?” I asked, stepping into her vision.
She breathed in deeply just to sigh and, somewhat tipsy, waved her gin in my face. “Because… because she wasn’t ready. It’s always taken a lot for her to get into a relationship. And look what kind of relationship that turned out to be. Leonie wants the one, like her mum and dad. She’s waiting for something better. She’ll die waiting, that girl.”
I’ve wanted it to be you for so long. For years, Dom.
Coincidence. Pure coincidence. And if it wasn’t, I couldn’t lead her on.
I’d been clear about what I wanted.
“Now she’s going to fuck a teenager,” I said, chugging back the melted ice in my glass.
“Who…?” But Issy looked over and laughed. “He’s not a teenager. He looks the same age as you.” Her eyes narrowed on my glass. “If I didn’t know you, I’d say you were jealous.”
“I need another drink.”
I slid off the stool, but she stood before me. “Are you? Are you jealous?”
I lifted a hand for her to stop. “Don’t be ridiculous, Is.”
But she didn’t move. “Am I being ridiculous? The two of you were weird when you came back today. You bandaged her hand.”
“And that means I’m in love with her?” I laughed. “Listen to yourself.”
She placed a hand on my chest. “Well, by your standards, yeah, it does. I thought it was just teenage crushes, but…”
I shook my head. “Is. Listen. To. Yourself. Maybe it’s you that needs to get laid. Obsessed with other people’s relationships, when was the last time you had your own?”
She blinked at me, her little eyebrows bunching together like they did just before she’d wail as a child. Bloody hell, I was a prick. I wasn’t wrong, but I was a prick.
“What do you want to drink?” I asked softly, brushing her shoulder with my hand.
Her jaw was tight as she scowled at me. “A dry gin. Double. Top shelf. Enjoy your night on our sofa, asshole.”
“Great,” I said and took my glass to the bar where some people quickly vacated. I slid in just behind Leonie, pressing into her back as she laughed at whatever Dickhead had to say.
She briefly turned to see it was me and immediately went back to her conversation.
I popped my head around her shoulder to interrupt them. “Leo, what do you want to drink?”
She just lifted her glass to show me it was full. “I’m covered, thanks.”
“Did you see them make it?” Because I had. I’d watched that glass like a hawk in case Dickhead got any ideas about spiking it.
She glared at me, eyes wide in warning. “Dom, it’s fine.”
“I don’t play that way, mate,” Dickhead said with a warm smile. His hand was intertwined with hers on the bar. Fucker.
She squeezed his fingers. I wanted to rip them off.
He wasn’t a university student. He was lean. A swimmer, like Issy. Non-contact sport. Not good enough for Leo.
“So this is who you’ve chosen for the night to make me jealous?” I asked, loud enough for Dickhead to hear. “You’ve picked better.”
She spun around to confront me, pulling her fingers away. Good. I’d rather she slapped me than have them wrapped around his. “What is your problem? What is wrong with you?”
With that, she stood, pulled down the skirt of her mini dress and walked away, hips swaying. I half expected her to go to Issy, but she rounded the corner and descended the stairs.
Dickhead glared at me. “Sounds like you might need to back off, mate.”
I chuckled. “Right. You so much as look at her again and I’ll have you at the bottom of the ocean, dismembered and indistinguishable before sunrise.”
It wasn’t an empty threat.
He seemed to take it as one.
When he looked behind him, as if to search for her, I retrieved my gun and pressed it into his thigh. “One fucking look.”
His eyes widened, looking down at the pistol. “Christ,” he muttered and then nodded. “Okay. Okay.”
I pulled away to watch him gather his shit before I followed Leonie.
The music was too loud, but as I escaped down the stairs to where the toilets were, it only became an echo.
There were three doors. The men’s toilets, the women’s and then what I assumed was for staff down at the very end in darkness. I stayed there, half in shadow, waiting.
Women came and went and I was just about to text Issy to come and retrieve her friend when Leonie walked out into the corridor. As she saw me, she closed her eyes in frustration before trying to make a getaway.
I pulled her back into the shadows with me, but not before I saw the tears across her face.
“Have you been crying?”
“No,” she ground out. “I splashed some water on my face. I needed to sober up a bit to deal with you. Or to walk back to that guy after you humiliated me.”
I crowded her into the corner of the wall. “What does dealing with me entail? Whatever it is, I know I’d prefer that to you going back to him.”
“Dealing with you is slamming my heel into your shoes. Dealing with you is slapping you across the face.”
Those were weak threats in comparison to what she was capable of.
“Don’t tease me,” I said, my voice caressing her jaw as I nuzzled her cheek with my nose. She swallowed. “Come on, lioness. Show me what you’re made of.”
She was frozen stiff as I ran my hands over the bare skin of her back.
“Issy—Issy could come down.”
“Mm, she could. Do you still like the thought of people watching?” I asked into her neck. “Do you like the thought of being unattainable to all those awful men upstairs? Let me fuck you right here, up against this wall.”
Her breath caught as my hand ran from her shoulder to her throat.
On one of our trips to the cove late at night, we’d seen a couple having sex on the sand. We’d watched on the half-wall from the car park down to the beach.
“Do you like watching?” I’d asked her over the sound of the waves. “Do you watch porn?”
“Occasionally,” she said, not blushing or squirming as I expected her to. “This, though, is…”
“Not fake.”
“Not fake,” she parroted with a nod. “We shouldn’t be watching.”
“They know the risks. They know people will see.”
“I guess that’s exciting, isn’t it?” she said, voice raspy as she watched the dark silhouettes. She was leaning into my side, her hair smelling of coconuts. “People knowing. People seeing.”
“It’s called exhibitionism,” I told her and when she looked up, I gave her a purposely cringe wink, mouth cocked open and all. “For your search later.”
She snorted, turning back to watch them. “Maybe that’s what I’ll be. An exhibitionist.”
And that day could be today.
“Do you still regret earlier? Do you regret how I made this pussy weep for me?” I cupped her as I asked, holding back from passing her knickers. “How much you enjoyed choking on my cock? You regret that?”
She shook her head, widening her stance for me to have better access.
“Answer me.”
My hand tightened around her throat as she hesitated. She let me pretend to have power over her. We both knew if she wanted me off, I’d be off, probably crying in pain. Like Jared earlier.
Fuck, that had been amazing.
“I—I don’t.”
“Don’t what, Leonie?” I asked and bit her earlobe, pulling it taught.
She swallowed, wriggling so I would continue to play with her through her thong.
“I don’t regret it.”
“Mmmm,” I moaned and sucked on the skin in my mouth. I released her lobe with a pop. “Are you going to lie to me again?”
“N—No,” she stuttered. “Take me home.”
“And what will happen when we get home?” I asked, quickly looking down the dark corridor before shoving my hand down her top to grope one of her tits. I wanted to suck her nipple into my mouth.
“I’ll beg you to forgive me for lying, for being a brat,” she breathed, eyes closed as she let herself enjoy my toying. “I want a long, hard session now.”
No matter how much I wanted to hold off, my fingers dipped past her panties to drag along her wet folds. I needed to sink in them, I needed to get into her warmth.
“Oh, baby, that will come later. I’m going to show you how versatile I can be. Tonight, I make love to you.”
Around my hand, she swallowed again, her bright blue eyes intense on mine. “You don’t know the meaning of the word.”
I chuckled against her skin, pressing her further into the wall. “I’ll make you come right now for being rude.”
She shook her head, breathless, as I brushed against her clit.
“I’d fuck you hard if my sister wasn’t going to be across the hallway.”
“It’s quite far. You’ve got the living room between. She won’t hear —oh,” she cried as I thrust two fingers into her. Yes, I much preferred the dress to jeans.
“Get her out of the house tomorrow and I’ll give it to you any way you want.”
“Any way?”
“Mmm, Leonie,” I groaned, picking up pace. She was always beautiful, but here, eyes closed, face flushed, lips parted… she was almost ethereal. “Have you got some secret kinks?”
Her eyes snapped open, slightly wider than usual in panic. As people moved through the corridor, I crowded further around her so people couldn’t see me finger her.
“If you’ve got fantasies, I have a willingness to cross off every single one of them. I need you fulfilled. It won’t be the guy at the bar, Jared or bloody Sam Yun.”
“Take me home,” she rasped as my palm pressed into her clit. “Take me home now, Dom.”
I stroked her throat with my thumb before stepping back and pulling down her saucy red dress to cover her.
Taking her hand and leading her up to the stairs, I said, “Let’s find my sister and go.”
On the top step, she pulled her hand from mine. I didn’t mind being her dirty secret. As long as it was very dirty.
Issy’s ginger hair was nowhere to be seen and as I got my phone out to text her, Leo was already calling her, phone pressed to her ear. “Where are you?”
Her back pressed into me, she gave me an alarmed look over her shoulder. “Right,” she said, elongating the vowel. Another glance my way. “I need the address.”
I spun her around. “Where is she?”
But she only lifted a finger to silence me. “No, Issy, I need the address.”
I snatched the phone from her hand. “Issy, where the hell are you?”
“In a taxi,” she said coldly, then lowered her voice, “I’m just focusing on my own relationships, as you said.”
“Get the taxi to turn around right now.”
Fuck, I shouldn’t have dismissed Rocco and Andy for the night.
“Nope,” she said as Leo rolled her eyes at me. I shrugged in response. My sister wasn’t going around running out of a bar with a stranger she’d spoken to for a mere twenty minutes. Not without telling me where she was going. “I’m going to get laid.”
I sighed and tightened my voice. She needed to know I was serious. “Isabella, send me a picture of his driving licence. Then send me your location indefinitely before I get one of Dad’s men to hack into your phone. And I say Dad’s men because they’ll tell him exactly why. Do as you’re told and I’ll play fair, won’t bother you as long as you leave when you’ve had your fun. You are not staying the night.” I took in a deep breath, knowing I was going overboard. “If I have to hack into your phone myself when I’m back at yours, I’m coming over. Or I’ll send Rocco.”
The guard who had taken her virginity. The guard she had stupidly complicated feelings for.
“Location. Driving licence. And…” I gritted my teeth before forcing out, “I’m sorry.”
Leo’s eyes were pinched in confusion as she ran her hand up my shirt sleeve.
Issy didn’t say anything for a few seconds, then she groaned. “Fine. Fine. Only because I don’t want you harassing me. I’ll send it now.”
“Wait on the phone until—”
But she hung up. I shook my head as I handed it back to Leonie. Her phone dinged with two notifications from my sister. She confirmed she’d done as she promised and then turned to press herself against me.
“So…” she started, a dark glimmer in her eye. “Things have changed.”
I pulled her even closer, my hands on her ass. Damn, how had I not spanked her earlier? I gripped her cheeks, trying to fight the need to lift her and wrap her legs around me.
“Let’s get out of here.”
And, with Issy elsewhere, she let me hold her hand as I led us out.