5. Hotaru
I wave Leonard, Arlo’s driver, off and open the door to the limo that just stopped in front of me.
“Now, who’s avoiding whom?” my friend rasps from inside.
“If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a hundred times.” I grin, and then let it fall off my face. “Fuck off.”
When he makes no move to shift his long legs out of the way, I shove them from my path with the toe of my casual boot. I climb inside the car, close the door behind me, and move to the long bench seat, putting space between us. I barely restrain myself from tossing my coat at his face. I lay it across the front bench seat.
My chest is tight and my palms itch, and the car hasn’t even started moving. Maybe I can bail. There’s still time to get to the door.
“Don’t even think about it.” Arlo shifts his legs back into the path to the door I just entered.
“Too late.” It’s not the only exit. I eye the door closest to me. It’s also close to the midmorning traffic zipping by. If I leap now, I might kill two birds with one stone. Literally.
I would never do that to him.
No. Matter. What.
“I’d stop you,” he threatens.
Yeah right. You’d have to touch me to do that.
“You’d try.”
The car pulls away from the curb, muting our argument.
We ride in silence for several blocks. I study the amber liquid taunting me from the minibar. The drinks I indulged in yesterday in Arlo’s office left me with a headache the likes of which I hadn’t experienced since my senior year of college, when I had funds to afford liquor for just one night. I overindulged then because I could, not because I wanted to dull the ache in my chest.
“Why didn’t you answer my texts?” he asks, pulling my gaze up.
“Why didn’t you answer my texts the two days before?” I shoot back but don’t give him time to answer. “Because you want me to fuck your girlfriend and knew it was a bad idea.” I stretch my legs out in front of me and brace my hands on my lap. “Maybe I have someone I want you to fuck, and I know it’s a bad idea too.”
“Don’t be an asshole.”
“I am what I am.” I shrug.
“You’re not an asshole.”
Debatable. I’m not an asshole to him. To others? Sometimes. Mostly, though, I’m just me. The good. The bad. The ugly.
“Where are you bringing me?” When I ignored his incessant texts last night and calls this morning, he knew I wouldn’t ignore the buzzer in my condo. The moment I answered, he ordered me to get dressed and meet him in the car.
“We’re headed to pick up Hailey from the airport.”
“So I can fuck her?” I deadpan. “Do you want me to do it on the tarmac, or should I wait until she’s in the car?”
“Hotaru,” he warns.
I suck on my teeth and glare out the window but don’t say another word as we wind our way to the private airstrip. The closer we get, the more Arlo, a man in full control at all times, a man nothing like the young one I once knew, fidgets. He worries the edge of the car’s seat. His foot bobs. His gaze flits around the car.
“Having second thoughts?” I poke.
Arlo doesn’t bother answering. His gaze has settled onto the plane that taxis off the runway. The moment the car comes to a stop, he shoves out of the door and hurries over to the end of the stairs that await the plane’s arrival.
I watch the reunion of two lovers in all its smoochy-faced glory. The show of affection overrides my animosity over what Arlo asked of me. For a minute, I’m allowed to appreciate the connection they’ve made. They connect on a level I thought was lost to my friend forever.
Eye to eye. Heart to heart. Skin to skin.
Then he grabs her hand and hurries her toward the limo. She beams up at him as her shorter legs hurry to match his strides. The wide legs of her red trousers billow in the wind. She pulls her black coat closed over a soft pink silk blouse that peaks the crest of her full breasts and the face of her dragon.
Something resigned and ugly settles in my belly. It’s how I felt when eating out of grocery store dumpsters the first winter at school. It’s how I felt sleeping on the roof of the library close to the vent return so I didn’t freeze to death.
Cheap and dirty.
In all my escapades, I’ve never felt cheap, and I’ve never felt dirty. Because I was in control of those. I had some power, even with Arlo calling the shots.
My sexual prowess was a weapon I wielded to get him off, along with myself. The other people between us were window dressing, an illusion. Now, it’s real.
Hailey is real.
She can get close to me in a way those others couldn’t. She can use me for her pleasure in a way the others weren’t allowed. And when she’s had her fill, she’ll leave. They’ll use me for their own needs and then be done with me.
Hailey has the potential to carve out another shape in my body.
If the little redhead with luscious curves and art for skin weasels her way inside me, leaving another gaping wound, there’ll be nothing left.
I look at the door closest to me. If I slip out before they get in, Arlo won’t bring it up again. It’s the safest bet. It’s the only bet that leaves me intact, as much as I am.
When have I ever done anything for myself?
Not since I met Arlo.
Hailey slides into the car, shifting along the back seat and making room for Arlo. Her long red hair clings to her neck. My fingers itch to pull it from the creamy column and bite my way from her collarbone to her jaw. She shakes out her mane, righting it before the temptation becomes a compulsion.
Then her gaze finds me.
She pauses for a fraction of a second before her green eyes widen, and her mouth falls open. “Hota!” Her open lips curve into a massive grin that somehow brightens the winter gloom.
Hailey pokes Arlo in the ribs before he’s fully seated. “You didn’t tell me Hota was here!” Then she launches herself across the car.
I have no choice but to open my arms and brace for impact. She knocks me back into the seat and wraps her arms around my neck. Her hair blinds me for a second before I brush it away from both our faces. It’s so soft and smooth, it would have caused a war on the Silk Road.
Arlo’s features are locked on us. Where I expect to see a grimace or a lusty scowl, there is a hopeful smile. It warms my insides while simultaneously signaling danger.
“What are you doing here?” Hailey levers back and smacks a kiss on my cheek.
It’s at that moment I realize her lush ass is nestling in my lap.
I grab her around the waist and set her on the seat beside me before she feels my quickly hardening dick. “What I’m told to do.”
Her smile falters, then falls off her face completely. A tiny furrow gathers between her eyes. “You always do what you’re told.”
My shoulders bob. “I don’t mind it.”
“You’re a grown man, Hota. A brilliant one at that. You shouldn’t always be taking orders from him.” She hikes her thumb over her shoulder at Arlo.
“He doesn’t,” Arlo defends. I’m not too certain whether he’s defending me or himself.
Hailey scoffs and rolls her eyes at Arlo. She turns, letting him see her expression too. When she looks back at me, her gaze is narrowed to a dangerous point. “If you could do anything at all right now, what would you do?”
“Put the smile back on your face.” Even though it’s the complete truth, I don’t mean to say it.
Her head tilts. “Why?”
I pinch my lower lip between my fingers, wishing I’d just kept my mouth shut.
She jabs my ribs just like she did to Arlo.
“Ouch,” I grouse while I pick her up again and set her in her original seat.
My friend’s laughter fills the car. It’s an intoxicating sound that I haven’t heard in too long.
“Oh, hush,” Hailey threatens him with a sinister grin, then she turns her eyes on me.
“You might as well tell her. She’s a lioness with a bone,” Arlo advises.
Before he’s finished his sentence, Hailey is back on my bench and pushing me toward the front of the car with her hip.
“If you want to kick me out, you’re going the wrong way.” I laugh and shift over, not because she’s moving me but because she’s trying to, and I oblige.
“I’m not trying to kick you out.” She shakes her head, removes her coat, tosses it onto the back seat, and then crooks her finger at Arlo. She pats the space next to her that she made and Arlo comes without argument. “I’m trying to get us closer.”
“Why?” I ask the question, truly baffled by the gesture.
She crosses her arms over her chest, plumping her cleavage. “You first.”