CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX MOLLY
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
MOLLY
The night was a dream, which was the point.
I wanted a night away from guns and people dying and missing family.
And so far from my normal life that it was laughable.
This wasn’t my normal. I wasn’t the girl who got this type of life.
Work. Grind. I fought to keep what I had, and even that was almost conned out of me.
That’s the girl I was. My dad made it very clear what kind of girl I was growing up, what I deserved, but Ashton. He was something else.
He wouldn’t last. I knew this was all temporary. I didn’t get the happily ever after. That had never been in my stars. I’d known from the beginning what to expect.
That’s how I knew I would enjoy every minute I got with him while this lasted.
I was going with it, and if that meant seriously hot sex, sign me up.
I was there for it. I was going to savor every second of it, because we both knew that one day, we’d find Kelly’s killer. My dad would come back, and all this would be over.
Just the thought was making my heart palpitate in a painful way, but nope.
I wouldn’t go there. I already knew I’d crossed over into the “feelings” land.
Until all of this was done, I was in the moment.
No more worrying about the future. Enjoy the moment. The here and now, while I had it.
“It’s almost closing.” Ashton came back from the inside area, a new drink in hand and a plate with some hors d’oeuvres.
I took the plate, moving as he sat beside me. We were both in various states of undress.
Me, I was wearing only my shirt and panties. Ashton hadn’t let anyone into the area we were in, and he reassured me we were private, so I was lounging. I mean, seriously. To be in this state in a nightclub? And no one could see? Once-in-a-lifetime moment. Totally enjoying it here.
As for him, he was wearing his pants. His shirt was unbuttoned.
That’s when I thought about how I’d gone barefoot from our patio area to the inside to use the bathroom. “Please tell me you’ve had this floor cleaned?”
“What?”
I lifted one of my bare feet.
He chuckled. “Yeah. We have this place cleaned before and after we leave.”
“Oh, good.” I could eat with ease now and reached over for another—I had no idea what these were. They looked like fancy mini cheeseburgers. They were delicious. “Do we need to go soon then?”
He gestured out over the dance floor. “I like to leave before lights go up, otherwise Anthony will be up here.”
“Who’s Anthony?”
“He’s our main manager.”
I popped one last mini thingy in my mouth and took my drink before getting up. “I’ll go and get dressed.” I began heading off, but a tug to my shirt pulled me back. I looked over my shoulder, seeing Ashton’s eyes right on my ass and darkening.
He pulled me back to his lap and took my drink from me, placing it farther down on the seat so it wouldn’t get knocked over. Then he positioned me, straddling him, but with my back to his front.
God, I loved how he touched me. Possessive.
Alpha, but tender, and so very hot. He ran a hand down my back, tunneling into my panties, and I felt his fingers slip inside of me at the same time his mouth opened over my shoulder.
His teeth grazed against my skin, and I relaxed back against him, my whole body melting as he began thrusting up into me, his fingers moving deep, and then rotating.
Grinding. Pulling out, his thumb moving to my clit, working me like magic.
My body was conditioned to him by now. It wasn’t long until I was combusting over him, my legs sprawled out. He was completely holding me up, but I felt his dick underneath me. He lifted me up, moving aside his clothes and mine, and sank deep into me.
I leaned forward, my hand to his knee, and I rallied my bones to reform so I could move with him.
He went in bare our first time tonight, and we’d had a conversation right after. I was on birth control. He was clean. I was clean, and that’d been it. He went bare again, and now it was the third time tonight.
If this kept happening, I’d well and truly be addicted to him. I knew I already was, just to having sex with him, but man. The heart stuff always got in the way—and when I felt his mouth move down my back, I stopped thinking.
I really, really loved having sex with this man.
It was after closing. Lights were on in the main area, and we were both dressed. It gave the nightclub a whole different feel to it now that you could see the corners and nooks and crannies.
I was coming out of the bathroom when there was a knock on the main door.
Ashton was at the bar and lifted his head up. “Yeah?”
The door opened. Elijah stuck his head inside. “Remmi West is requesting to come up.”
Ashton’s eyebrows furrowed together. “Remmi? Now?”
He nodded, grim. “She’s by herself, and I’m told she’s irate. It’s about Marco, doing what you told him to do.”
Ashton cursed before sending me a look.
I’d picked up on the last name. “Trace’s sister?”
He gave a nod, almost grim like Elijah. “I should talk to her.”
My own eyebrows went up because he did not sound like he wanted to. “You want me to ...?” I motioned for the patio.
He shook his head, turning to Elijah. “Put her in Anthony’s office. We’ll come down.”
He nodded, leaving.
Ashton didn’t move, not at first. He was staring at the floor, his hand resting on the bar before he dragged himself out of whatever he’d just been thinking. “Remmi is ...”
“A handful?”
He frowned. “Jess talked about her?”
I shook my head. “The expressions on both Elijah’s face and yours said enough.”
He grunted before pushing off from the bar, rubbing his hand over his face.
“That’s fair. Listen.” He moved in, not quite looking at me but more over me, but standing so close that I could feel his body heat.
“I don’t want her to see you. When we get down there, I’ll have Elijah take you to the main floor.
Just hang out at the bar, have a drink if you’d like.
If you hear screaming, don’t come running. It’s just Remmi’s melodramatics.”
I nodded.
I’d been uneasy with her before, but now I was all sorts of reluctant, except if she was going to be Jess’s future sister-in-law, then I had a whole friend duty to adhere to.
As we went down in the elevator, Ashton’s hand to the small of my back, I made up my mind that I would not seek this Remmi West person out, but if we happened to cross paths .
.. so be it. Friend duty. Or at least that’s what I was telling myself.
The elevator landed, and he cupped the back of my elbow as we stepped out.
His thumb swiped over my skin, sending sensations through me.
I glanced back, seeing a heated look from him.
One that went straight to my core. Man. My body’s reactions to him were getting worse.
I was so highly sensitized and in tune to just a thumb graze over my elbow.
Still. I shared my own heated look with him before he nodded in the direction Elijah had gone and was waiting for me. We separated. He went down a back hallway, one of his guards standing outside the door. A second one remained at this corner, and Elijah walked me into the main area.
A few employees were cleaning up. A couple were behind their own bars, doing inventory checks.
Another guy, dark slicked-back hair, a shirt unbuttoned, some comfortable-looking loafers on his feet, was leaning against a bar, tapping his finger when he saw Elijah and me.
He perked up, an idle hand reaching for his shirt, and he began buttoning his shirt as he straightened to his fullest height.
He looked just under six feet. His eyes narrowed, growing determined on Elijah before focusing on me and staying there.
He started toward us, but Elijah held a hand up. “Not this one.”
“But—”
“Walden’s orders. Not this one.”
Not this one what?
The guy moved his head to get another look at me, giving me a different reassessing look and lingering on my lips.
I frowned. His gaze jumped to my eyes.
“I’ve seen you before.”
“Seriously, man. Not tonight. Not this one.”
He gave Elijah a distracted nod before turning my way again. “You’re friends with Montell.”
I frowned. “How do you know that?”
“I saw you here with her the other night.”
“You know Jess?”
“She used to work here, at that bar actually. That was hers that she manned.”
I looked down, giving it another perusal. I knew Jess had worked here, but I’d never come when she was working. Her or Kelly ... a knot was forming in my stomach, a reminder about everything. All the bad stuff, but what brought some good stuff to my life. Ashton.
When this was all over, I’d go back to being just a bowling alley owner.
Although, what was I doing? I used to be proud of that.
I was. I am . Owning and running a successful business was nothing to sneer at.
That was me. Screw anyone who made me feel otherwise, and in this case, that was me. Screw you, Molly.
You survived Shorty Easter—that alone deserved a commencement speech delivered by the president. Fist-pump in the air to yourself.
I raised my chin up toward this guy, who Elijah was still blocking and he was ignoring, trying to talk to me around him. “You knew Kelly too?”
I ignored Elijah’s quick glance my way.
The guy nodded. There was no reaction on his face. He didn’t warm up, but he didn’t look sad either. “I knew Kelly. She was a good shots girl. You know Kelly, then?”
Was he being serious?
He caught my look, frowning. “What? Those two fall out or something?”
That knot in my stomach jumped to my throat, lodging right there, smack in the middle.
Elijah must’ve read my face because he turned, completely blocking the guy from me. “For real. Step back. I’m not joking this time.”
The guy snorted. “Were you joking before? What’s your problem? I can’t do anything. My office is being used. Just let me talk to her. I kinda miss Jess.”
I folded my head down, but I sensed Elijah’s look before he said, more firmly, “I said no. You want to talk to her, you wait till Walden comes out.”
The guy snorted again. “Yeah, right. He’s probably dick deep in that chick—”
I tensed, pain lacing through me.
The way he said that, as if it happened all the time, as if it happened all the time with that girl or any girl, and me—I was a no one.
That’s why I was feeling how I felt before, because that’s what this guy was thinking about me.
He thought I was just another girl. He knew I was here with Ashton, but he didn’t care what Elijah was saying. That spoke volumes.
And I remembered, Not tonight. Not this one.
More pain was slicing through my inside, down my chest.
Ashton had done this before, brought a girl here, had her waiting for him, and this guy was what? What was he doing? Why was he saying these things to me?
I swallowed that knot. I was raised by a con. No one could hurt me unless I let them.
“Shut up,” Elijah hissed. “This one’s different.”
This one. Because I was one in a long line of ones. Just another girl.
No. No, “this one” wasn’t. End of the day, I was just Shorty Easter’s daughter after all. That said enough.
I cleared my throat, spying a bathroom sign beyond the bar. “I’m—uh—I’m going to use the ladies’ room.” I didn’t ask for permission. I grabbed my purse and headed over.
Later I would admit to being hurt and being irrational.
I’d blame some of it on the alcohol, or that’s what I was telling myself because as I went to that bathroom, I knew I was going to do something very, very stupid. Then again, I’d done a lot of very stupid things in my life, but I wasn’t so helpless.
And thinking all of that, not wanting to feel the pain that that guy’s words inflicted on me because they shouldn’t hurt as much as they did, I did something my instincts were telling me to do because I was in a situation where I was only going to lose .
Physical danger or heartbreak danger? I chose.
I ran.
Slowing down at the bathroom, I reached for it, pushing it open a little, and looked back. Elijah wasn’t watching. That guy wasn’t, either, and I sailed right past.
Yes. So very dumb, but I’d had an amazing night with Ashton, and hearing I was just another girl had way too much power over me. Too much power.
I’d been fooling myself.
Stay. Ride the ride as long as it lasted.
Nope. Not now, not experiencing that pain, though it was fleeting.
The universe was telling me to cut my losses. I’d deal with the fallout later.
Walking to the hallway, I glanced where Ashton’s guards were, but a door opened suddenly across from me, and I darted in. It was a locker room. There was a girl inside, coming out of a dressing room. She frowned at me. “You new tonight?”
“Yeah. I—” I smiled. “I got lost. Sorry.”
“Oh.” She laughed, motioning over her shoulder. “Exit door is out this way. You’re not taking the train by yourself, are you?”
“Uh.”
She shook her head. “I’m Amy. I work on the second floor.”
“I’m Molly. I ... I’m not even sure where I work. I kept getting turned around tonight.”
She laughed. “You’ll get the hang of it, but do you want a ride? My boyfriend is picking me up. We usually head to a diner with some of the other staff to unwind. You could come if you wanted?”
“Uh—” Talk about another gift from the universe. “That’d be great. Thank you.”
She took me out another door, and we turned left, down a short hallway, and out another door. We were in a back parking lot alleyway. A vehicle was idling, a guy behind the wheel, who waved at seeing us.
“That’s my boyfriend. Nick.” She motioned to the back seat. “My boxes are on the other side, so climb in here.” She opened the door. A wave of warmth blasted us, along with some rap music. “Hey, honey.”
“Hey!” He glanced back, giving me a chin lift. “New friend?”
“This is Molly. She’s riding with us to Nancy’s.”
“Solid. Nice to meet you,” he said as I got in.
Amy got in on her side. “It was Molly’s first night tonight.”
“Oooh! How was it?”
“It was ...” My smile was forced. “Interesting.”
Amy smiled as we left. “It’ll get better. I promise.”
No. No, it wouldn’t.
I just did a very stupid thing.