Chapter 23
D on’t go, don’t go, don’t go.
I watch past Mallory’s arm as Crue disappears through a door, triggering a tremor that begins in my heart and works its way outward to my limbs. No. Where is he going? He said he’d stay close. He swore. Him being in an entirely different room isn’t close at all.
“Most of the time, the fox survives.”
Still searching the crowd in hopes Crue’s face will magically appear, I don’t bother with more than a “Mm” to my dance partner.
Mallory either doesn’t notice or care, because he just continues on, mansplaining fox hunts to me despite my father partaking in the pointless expeditions every winter. A bunch of people on horseback, along with twenty hounds, and depending on the terrain they’re going through, maybe even a whipper-in traveling in a vehicle, go on a wild goose chase, except there is no goose. They chase a fox…if they’re lucky enough to pick up one’s scent. Typically, guns aren’t involved, so they literally follow a fox through the woods for “sport.” It’s just an excuse for men like my father to drink hard liquor at seven in the morning and feel the anticipation of murder without technically murdering anything—usually. Like Mallory said, most of the time the fox survives. Sometimes the dogs get a little too eager, sometimes the hunters do. Sometimes the fox just dies of natural causes because it’s a wild creature living its life. The hunts my father goes on have scouts up ahead that keep the fox fed—essentially alive—along the way, ensuring the hunt is worthwhile because although chasing a heavily outnumbered, ten-pound fox through the woods is thrilling, chasing nothing through the woods is embarrassing. To him.
To me, it’s all embarrassing. Of all the frivolous things we waste money on, fox hunting has to be the dumbest. And Mallory seems to be a huge advocate for fox hunts, so much so he’s still talking about them two months after the season ended.
“…rode his horse right into a ravine and it took five of us to get them both out. I told my father we should’ve left him in there.” His deep chuckle stretches several moments too long for a joke that didn’t land.
At least I hope it was a joke. It wasn’t the horse’s fault its rider was an elitist dumbass.
“But I love it. I’m hoping to become Huntsman myself one day and lead my own hunt. The Huntsman has five buttons on his jacket…” Mallory stops dancing to point out five spots down his torso, his expression serious. “Everyone else only has four.” Grabbing my hand again, he resumes our dance in a room full of people who are not dancing, completely unconcerned with that or the fact that I couldn’t care less about anyone’s buttons, let alone his. “I already have three American foxhounds I’ve been training myself. Unlike other breeds of hunting dogs, American foxhounds are great with kids so they’re sound long-term investments.”
I drop my eyes to the floor, wishing it’d fall away like a sinkhole. Not only is he already planning for a family, he’s referring to dogs as investments. This is our first time meeting and these are the things he says to me?
Thankfully, the classical music stops, causing a hush to fall over the party. My father appears on the second-floor landing, tapping a tablet in his hold before returning it to a docking station on the wall beside him.
The house has never been lived in. World-renowned artist, Bardolph Villegas, was commissioned to make several sculptures for the property, including this one, making it an ideal location for private events.
As I turn to see Father better, Mallory wraps an arm around my back, trapping me against his side. That tremor kicks up, rattling my insides as if my skeleton is just floating in a hollow shell.
But if that were true, why does everything in there hurt so bad right now? Being hollow would be a dream compared to this.
Leaning down, Mallory nuzzles my ear.
I have to force myself to stay still and not jerk away from his touch. I don’t know him for him to be so close.
“I’ll have to thank your father for telling me you were a dancer.”
I internally scoff. What did he get out of our dance other than the sound of his own voice?
My hand on his chest pushing to create some space between my ear and his hot mouth, I gaze up at him, and through a grin, reply, “I’m a cheerleader.”
One of his eyes partly closes before he corrects it, his own smile growing. “That’s over now though, right?”
The corners of my lips quiver with the added strain to keep them up. After a swallow, I nod.
Mallory gives my father his full attention while I, once again, give mine to the floor.
He’s not that bad, I tell myself.
From what I’ve seen so far, he’s not that great either. Would he stand for ninety minutes straight—without complaint—just to see how someone does my hair? Would he learn how to stunt just so I can fly? Would he insist on putting my shoes on me even when they’re pumps and I’m perfectly capable of slipping them on myself?
Nobody compares to Crue Brantley. He’s… Still missing. Where is he?
I send another glimpse around the room for him.
My father’s voice invades my search.
“We’re standing in a home of the future…”
And all Mallory can talk about is a tradition from the fifteenth century.
“The floor we’ve been standing on, walking over, dancing across…” He pauses and I look up to find him, as well as dozens of others, staring directly at me.
I nod at Mallory, silently blaming him for the impromptu dance, which triggers knowing laughter.
“All while generating electricity,” my father finishes.
A surprised round of “oohs” and “aahs” rings out as people check under their feet, probably expecting to see sparks.
Father goes on to list other features of the smart home, from the presence detectors in each space to the AI companion robot.
“Growth takes courage and determination, both of which Munreaux Motorcycles was founded on…” He pauses for an enthusiastic round of applause, then lowers his voice ever so slightly. “And will continue to exude even in the darkest of times.” Another pause, this one to allow solemn murmurs. A grin tugging at one side of his mouth, he says louder, “Which fortunately for us, are a thing of the past because like the movement-generated lights in this house, the future is looking bright. Very bright.” Amidst the cheers, he holds up his glass and shouts, “To new horizons, may we race toward them the way we always have—fearlessly!”
Amidst the cheers, corks begin popping from the very few human servers, one of which delivers flutes of champagne to me and Mallory.
“To new horizons,” he says to me.
“To new horizons.” I clink his glass with mine.
Chatter, as well as movement, commences around us, and for some reason, a solo stationary figure pulls my eyes past our glasses over to…Crue. Across the room, my bodyguard’s leaning against the wall, staring directly at me with a hand up to his mouth, his sleeve dropped a few inches to reveal my amethyst bracelet.
He didn’t leave.
He didn’t leave me .
Some of the weight eases on my mouth, allowing a real smile to take shape.
“Can I get a picture of you two?” a photographer asks.
“You can get several,” Mallory replies before I can.
Lowering my glass, I lift my chin and press my tongue to the roof of my mouth, holding the pose.
Crue should look ridiculous with the purple beads against his all-black suit, but he doesn’t. He looks sexy. Sexier than before. Sexier than ever.
I let myself imagine walking over there, the crowd parting like the sea as I stroll right up to him, taking him by the back of the neck and kissing him full on the mouth, no regard for the repercussions whatsoever.
After a series of shutters, Mallory says, “If we don’t complete our toast, it won’t happen,” making me finally take my eyes off Crue.
It’s stupid. He probably wouldn’t even let me get close enough to kiss him.
And if he did, he might recognize me. I know I’d recognize him, even after kissing a lot of people since ours. I could pick Crue’s lips out of a thousand others. A hundred thousand. A million. I would know his from a single lick. I’ve memorized every detail of our mouths coming together. It was brief yet left the biggest impression. He left the biggest impression.
The hand at my hip pats once, twice, three times, each one a little harder than the last, but I don’t dare react. Not with Crue watching so intently.
When I glance up, Mallory’s gazing down at me through lashes blacker than mine.
“I toasted with you.”
“But you didn’t drink.”
“I didn’t?” I got distracted and forgot all about the champagne. And Mallory.
“You didn’t,” he says with a deep chuckle. “Shall we remedy that?”
“We shall,” I manage to get out with a straight face before taking the smallest sip in history.
My father appears, Mallory’s father not a moment later, then the four of us get a picture together as well.
Despite the flashes nearly blinding me, I seek out Crue. Unfortunately, he’s nowhere to be found.
Damn it. Where’d he go now?
“Would you care to accompany me outside?” Mallory asks me. I’m assuming anyway. I’m not paying him the least bit of attention, not while my bodyguard is missing. Again .
“Um, actually. I’m feeling a bit—”
Another thump to my hip that’s a bit too hard to be coincidence.
“You wouldn’t refuse me in my time of need, would you?”
Time of need? He seems needy, all right.
I glance at our fathers, the hope on their faces palpable. Could they be any more obvious?
I attempt to keep the sarcasm from my voice as I ask Mallory, “What exactly are you in need of?”
His thin lips spread.
Letting him lead me away, all I can think of is Crue.
Look for me.
“Someone needs to cut my mother off. She’s already on her second rosé of the evening,” Mallory says as soon as we’re outside.
This is what he needed? To complain about his mother’s drinking? Two rosés isn’t bad at all. Our fathers are probably on their third or fourth whiskeys by now.
His hand glides down my back and settles on my ass, then he asks, “You don’t drink rosé, do you?”
“Not really,” I mutter with a half turn to try to get him off me.
I assumed there’d be people out here, too, but we’re all alone.
Mallory pulls me closer, my cheek in his rough grasp.
“Where’s yours, by the way?”
“My drink?” He’s the one who took it out of my hands on our way out here.
“No, your mother.”
He’s heard so much about me but doesn’t know my mother’s dead?
“Martha’s Vineyard,” I say because that’s where we were. Since her body was never recovered, maybe she’s still there.
“I didn’t realize anyone still went there. It’s so overrun with commoners.”
By anyone, he means people like us, the elites.
“They do.” At least they did. A lot can change in five years. “My mother spent every summer there. We’d go visit her the last weekend of August before bringing her home.”
“Your father has the right idea. Ship the missus off for the summer so he can have free run on the mainland.”
It wasn’t his decision. It was my mother’s. She chose to be away from both of us, just like she chose death over life. And my father had free run anyway. They all do.
I tilt my head back. “Is that what you’d do?”
His dark gaze moves from my eyes to my lips. “That all depends.”
I right my head, studying his red-and-white pocket square. “On what?”
He leans down and I hold my breath that he doesn’t kiss me.
His lips on the shell of my ear, he whispers, “How satiated my woman can keep me.”
Is this supposed to be a turn-on? Whispering sweet nothings about adultery into my ear? He’s basically admitting to being a faultless cheater and I’m expected to swoon?
I’m more likely to vomit.
“Sounds like you have quite the appetite,” I deadpan.
“Downright rapacious,” he admits unabashedly, his hot breath trickling down the side of my neck as both his hands clasp my ass cheeks, trapping his hardening cock between us.
A gasp leaves my lips before I can stop it. Mallory is an attractive man. His family is both well-known and well-off. He fits into the same circles I do. I should want him.
Yet I don’t. Not even a little bit. My entire world is full of endless circles. I crave something different, something unique.
Crue appears from the shadows, his steps slow but intentional as he approaches.
Now, he is unique.
Running my hands up Mallory’s arms, I latch on to his biceps.
“We have that in common,” I say without looking away from the only man that makes me feel gluttonous.
“Do we?”
“Mm-hm.”
“Excuse me, miss? There’s been a security breach. I’m gonna need you to come with me,” Crue says from a few feet away.
Mallory’s hold on me tightens, a move that does not go unnoticed by my bodyguard.
“What kind of security breach? This is an exclusive event in a smart house.”
“So I’ve been told,” Crue murmurs, his gaze locked on the hands currently squeezing my ass. “But that isn’t my concern. She is, and she’s in danger out here. I need to move her to a secure location.”
Both men look at me, but I can’t give in so easily. I could… But Crue left me alone after he promised he wouldn’t. He has some groveling to do.
“I’m sure whatever—”
“Miss, if you’ll come with me.”
“It can’t be—”
“Miss, please.”
“As Mr. Larson pointed out, this is a—”
“Miss Munreaux.” The deepening of Crue’s tone silences me as does his hand on my elbow. “I need you…to follow me. Now .” His fingers curl around my arm, not painfully, just…desperately. Is something actually wrong?
I tear my eyes off his to give Mallory a shrug. “Sounds serious. I should probably do as he says.”
“For once,” my bodyguard mumbles.
“I’ll call my limo and—”
Crue literally rips me out of Mallory’s hold, putting his body between ours as he guides me in the direction of the house.
“Miss Munreaux’s is already out front. After you, miss.”
Crue doesn’t wait for any sort of a response from me or Mallory, only shoves me toward the back door, through it, then down a hall that illuminates as we go, the lights triggered by our presence as opposed to motion like the ones Munreaux Manor has.
“Goddess, it’s that bad?”
“Worse,” comes from behind me in that same no-nonsense tone, making real fear enter my bloodstream. What the hell happened?
“Crue, what—”
I’m forced into a bathroom, the door slamming shut with just the two of us inside, me at one end, Crue at the other.
“What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong? What’s wrong? You were about to fuck that privileged prick.”
Of course it’s my fault. Of course! I didn’t even want Mallory’s hands on me, much less any other part of him, but no, it’s always me. I’m always dick hunting. If dick is in the vicinity, I’ll find it, chase it, and ride it. Hell, I don’t even require a full team. I’m the one who deserves the five buttons. Me, the Huntswoman of the century!
Except I’m not. Not really. Hickeys are not proof of a fuck. It’s proof of someone sucking on my neck. That’s it. Some of them come from sex but not all of them. Even if they were, it’s my body, my choice, my fucking life. I had six months to live it my way. Six measly months. Only five down and my father ruined that plan, too. He ruins everything.
“You know what? Fuck you!” I yell, expecting Crue to scream right back at me, wanting him to so I can forget this asphyxia for one fucking second. That’s why I let guys suck on my neck so much—so I can focus on something other than the ever-present noose around my throat because it is always here, choking me, and I can’t escape it. I won’t. It will suffocate me.
It already is.
Ticktock.
My inhales become shallower and shallower, my lungs aching from the effort it’s taking to pull in the slightest bit of air.
Breathe. Breathe!
I can’t breathe.
Through the whooshing, I somehow hear a gritted, “Fine.”
My chest about to cave in, I gasp out, “What?” What’s fine? Certainly not me. I think I’m dying.
I kinda wish I was.
“You want off, I’ll do it myself,” Crue practically spits.
A hysterical sort of sound leaves me. Off? Does he mean…
Suddenly Crue’s in motion until he’s crowding me, my back against the wall as he plants his feet outside of mine, shortening himself by several inches.
He means off-off, as in orgasm. Is this the grovel?
I’m still not going to make it easy on him.
I shove at him, my limbs weak and numb and not making a difference. Nothing I do ever does.
Catching my hands easily, he looks between my eyes and says, “You want me to, don’t you?”
Yes.
I make my head rotate side to side.
“That’s not what it looked like the other day when your panties were drenched.”
I choke out a garbled version of “Well,” then rip my hands from his hold to rub at my throat to clear my airway. “They’re not now.”
Crue’s gaze drops briefly before returning to mine. “No?”
“No,” I lie.
“You still sick?”
All I can do is frown.
“Your pussy, it’s not still… Have you been using your medicine? Eating your yogurt?”
“Yogurt?”
“I read it was good for your pussy.”
That’s why I’ve been eating it every morning?
“I’m…fine.” I never even needed that cream. Or that disgusting plain yogurt.
“Then how ’bout I check to make sure?”
“If I still have a yeast infection?”
“If you’re wet. For me.”
“What if it’s for him ?” I point in a random direction, not even sure where Mallory is now. Not even caring.
Despite the fire in his eyes, Crue shrugs. “He’ll never get the chance to enjoy it.”
“Why not? A privileged prick like him wouldn’t derail my future. That was your stipulation, right? As long as the dick—”
“As long as the dick…is mine. That’s my new stipulation.”
The guy from Hide and Keep, Major Danger, locked me in a bathroom with him and is telling me that not only can I fuck him, I can only fuck him.
I’ve dreamed about that exact scenario, but not this one. Not the one where he’s being paid to be around me.
Another push to Crue’s shoulder, this one much harder, only gives me a few inches of space, but he gives them to me, standing to his full height again.
We hold each other’s eyes for what feels like hours but is probably only seconds.
“I need my hair done, you’ll style it.”
Crue gives a curt nod.
“I want to stunt, you’ll be my base.”
He crosses his arms. “Correct.”
“I’m anxious, you’ll wear my amethyst bracelet.”
I reach for it, but he backs up.
“I have an itch, you’ll scratch it.”
Crue frowns as he unfolds his arms. “I thought you said you were using the medication.”
“I meant sex! I need dick, you’ll provide it.”
“Exactly. I’m the—”
“You can’t be my everything!”
His eyebrows crease a split second before he finally raises his voice, too, shouting, “Why the fuck not? You’re mine!”
“Your…what?”
“You…” He half-twists like he’s going to leave, but I want him to stay. I need him to. What am I to him?
“Hello?” I prompt.
Silence stretches so tight it almost snaps. Before it can, Crue spins back around, rushing out, “You’re my protectee. My sole priority is to take care of you. All of you.”
My scoff knocks around my chest, battering my already bruised heart. That’s all I’ll ever be to him.
“I don’t need taken care of in that way.”
His scoff sounds just as incredulous as mine did. “You need taken care of in every way.”
“That’s what our valet’s for.”
“Edwin doesn’t do for you what I do.”
“Ruin my life?”
“Make you so wet your thighs look like they’re crying.”
He tries coming closer but I stick out my arm, palm to his sternum, the thumps I feel beneath it identical to what’s happening in my own chest.
“Stop.” It’s a warning but sounds like a plea. He’s my father’s employee. My bodyguard. My enemy.
I should hate him, everything he’s doing, everything he will do…
And yet…
My fingers twist in the material of his shirt, pulling him the rest of the way to me because he’s more than that. He’s the object of my obsession, the catalyst for my transformation, the highlight of my existence.
Bending to my height again, Crue closes the distance between our faces, centimeters separating our lips.
“I’ll make you feel so good you won’t even consider looking for it elsewhere.”
My lips suddenly dry, I lick them, my tongue grazing Crue’s at the same time, the top one first, then the bottom. They’re exactly like I remember—full and delicious.
His breathing accelerates, drying them all over again.
A whispered, “Prove it,” from me sends crackles around their edges.
Crue’s mouth descends so quick I have to whip my head to the side to avoid contact.
“Not that.”
I see him flinch out of the corner of my eye and shut both.
“I can’t kiss you?” Crue’s voice carries the hurt I know is on his face, making me ache to cover my ears, too.
“That’s not what you offered.”
“Are you fucking…” he grits before my dress lifts, allowing air colder than Crue’s voice to hit my thighs. “You’re such a stuck-up bitch.”
I know.
A hand dives into the front of my panties, causing a gasp from me and a curse from Crue. His tone several degrees warmer but still mocking, he says, “A stuck-up bitch that’s soaked…for ‘the help.’”
He’s the one who said I’m just his protectee.
“Hold the commentary and get to work. You are on the clock after all.”