8. Claire
Chapter eight
Claire
Taco Tuesday was decidedly uneventful, unless you count Rhea drinking too much and making a spectacle of us. I don’t, since that’s pretty par for the course with her, but I could tell how much Moose hated the attention being on us. I couldn’t figure out if it was because he didn’t want to be in the fold with us or because it made his job more challenging when she captured the attention of everyone in the room. Of course, that’s normal for her too. Heads swing in her direction whenever she walks by, and it’s got to do with more than just her sultry eyes and the way she walks, like a model on the catwalk. She just has an aura that’s hard to deny. It’s what drew me to her, after all.
And it’s what I’m worried about happening tonight when I leave Moose alone with her so that I can go on my date with Austin. It’s stupid and petty and pathetic that I don’t want her to sleep with him, especially when you consider that I can hardly stand him. Or at least, I tell myself I can hardly stand him. I’m not so sure nowadays. Ever since Rhea suggested fucking him, I’ve been thinking about it… almost obsessively.
“The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else,” Rhea had said.
And she was probably right, because as long as I’m thinking about seducing Moose, I’m not thinking about Remy… or at least I’m not thinking about how much I miss him, how much I want him to come drag me back to him. I’m only thinking about how much it would piss Remy off, knowing he hadn’t wanted me to leave, but he couldn’t offer what I needed to stay .
But I won’t be getting under Moose. That’s a disaster waiting to happen, and the only disaster I want to be part of is the kind I create. The kind that makes men cry, makes them hurt. I don’t know if it’s lust or blood lust that’s making me agree to this night—a night out without my best friend, without my shadow, without inhibitions or restraint. Whatever it is, it’s going to strangle me if I don’t give it some sort of offering to keep it at bay, so tonight, I’m channeling the girl I left behind in Costa Rica.
I must look as different as I feel, like I switch skins as I flip a switch in my brain, because when I step out of my room, Eli’s jaw gapes and Moose looks momentarily caught off guard, as if he’s not sure who just stepped out the door. It’s fair, of course. They haven’t seen this side of me.
Being in Costa Rica, having Remy at my side or just knowing he was at my back, had made me feel bold, confident, and unafraid for the first time in my life. I was even a little unhinged in the best way, because I had him as a security net. I knew that if I fell, he’d catch me in those black wings of his like the fallen angel he is. Without the comfort of him and with a shattered heart, I reverted back to who I was before him. But I am not the same girl I was before him, so I never should have bothered pretending I was. The last few months have crawled by and yet I have nothing to show for them, because I haven’t been living.
Tonight, that changes.
“Damn, Monroe.” Eli says appreciatively, his eyes sweeping me up and down. Next to me, Rhea smirks without the faintest bit of jealousy, which only makes me feel worse about hoping she doesn’t fuck my bodyguard tonight.
“What the fuck are you wearing?” Moose glowers.
Moody motherfucker.
“It’s called a corset.” I smile at him with a sugary sweet disposition.
“I know what a fucking corset is.” He snaps. “But what is… all this? ”
“That is the kind of outfit you wear on a date when you want to bring a man to his knees for you.” Rhea explains, adjusting the pendant that hangs around my neck. I know the corset is pushing up my tits, drawing attention to the thin red line left by Slick’s knife. But it’s not the scar that Moose is looking at—it’s the strings that lace the sides of the top.
It takes a minute, but he seems to realize he was staring, because he clears his throat as his eyes snap to Eli’s. “Boudreaux will kill you.”
“Oh, I won’t be fucking him .” I laugh at Eli, though he has eyes that could probably melt the devil’s cold heart. “So, Boudreaux doesn’t have to know.”
“It’s not going to happen, Claire.” Moose says tersely. “Go fucking change before I change you myself.”
Somebody must have turned the heat up, because that makes me instantly warm. “You don’t get to tell me how to dress.” I laugh, covering up the fact that I nearly choked on those words. “You don’t have any say over me.”
“I work for someone who does.” Moose shakes his head. “And I’m not letting you go out dressed like you’re inviting the whole fucking fraternity to come take turns on you.”
“Moose!” Rhea gasps, at the same time Eli shakes his head, looking like he’d like to slip into the floorboards. But the words don’t hurt me, even though I’m certain that is what he wanted them to do. He wanted me to get mad at the insinuation so that I’d stalk off and change into something less conspicuous. He wants me to fight him on this, and as much as I want to fight him, I also want to win.
“You think I’m a whore, Moose?” My whisper is thick as I reach for the phone tucked away in my jeans pocket. “You think I’m his whore, don’t you?” He doesn’t say anything, his teeth clamped together and his jaw rigid. “You probably saw my little video, hmm?” I close the distance between us, noticing the way his eyes dip to my chest, to the scar. He definitely fucking saw that video. And he thinks Remington Boudreaux bought me. He thinks he owns me.
I haven’t been able to decide what kind of guy Moose is in these last few months. He acts like an asshole, like he can’t stand me, like he wants to be anywhere else. And he also lets his gaze linger. I didn’t know what sort of man Moose was, but suddenly, I do.
“You like pretty things, huh? Is that why you work for Remy? Because he pays you enough to buy all the pretty things you want?”
Moose laughs, but he doesn’t deny any of the insinuations I’ve made. He doesn’t have to. I’ll let Remy do it for him.
The phone is already ringing through the speakerphone before he even realizes what I’m doing, and there’s a moment of confusion while he tries to figure out my play. I haven’t talked to Remy since the day I left Costa Rica, and I’d love to continue to ice him out, but the look on Moose’s face when realization hits makes it worthwhile.
Remy answers on the second ring, his voice choked by confusion or panic or the girl he’s got his dick in. “Claire?” I close my eyes, trying not to let myself imagine the scenario at the other end of the line. “What is it? Is everything okay?”
“Of course, everything is okay.” I laugh, hoping it will cover the doubts that came rushing through me the minute I heard his voice. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
Rhea watches me curiously as I slip out of Moose’s reach and he seethes, looking ready to knock the phone from my hand and the head from my shoulders. Remy doesn’t offer an answer, so I press on. “I was just wondering something, and I hoped you could help me out by answering it for me.”
The silence is so thick I think it may smother me, but it lets me hear the wild pounding of my heart. “Anything.” He says after a moment. I try to imagine him on the other side of the world. Is he lying in bed with another woman? Is he on his boat replacing the memories of me with another girl who was so eager for him to get her out of her clothes? Is he wrapping his arms around the throat of another, trying to claim them?
The thoughts make me angry, so I don’t know why I entertain them, but I can’t get them out of my head until he asks, “What do you need?”
“I was having a little bit of a dispute with my bodyguard,” I chuckle, because it still sounds so ridiculous to say that out loud. “You see, he seems to think that you own me.”
Rhea clamps her hand to her mouth to avoid her loud laugh from spilling into the silence, which is tense as Moose stares daggers at me.
It takes a minute before Remy answers.
“That’s not a question, Claire.”
“Fine. You see, my bodyguard seems to have seen my body before. Or my tits, at least, judging by the way he looks at them.”
When Remy says nothing and Moose shakes his head at me, promising me that he’s going to get me back for that, I decide to cut to the chase. “Moose has seen the video of my auction, and he is under the impression that you bought me. That you own me. But that’s not true, right, Remington?” I’ve never called him by his full name before, but it feels good as it slips off my tongue.
The power is definitely doing something to me, making desire pool between my legs the way it did when I taunted Wes with the knife.
There’s a long silence where I don’t even bother wondering what Remy is doing, and then he says. “Right.”
“I’m not your whore?” I prompt, waiting for the stiff, “no” he gives in response. “You don’t own me.” I say, confirming the words for both Remy and Moose. “So, I’m free to fuck whoever I want?”
“Claire…”
“Remy,” I sigh his name like a petulant child. “I just need you to clear this up for him. See, I thought I knew the answer. I thought when I came home, that anything between us was gone and I was free to do whatever I wanted. I thought that was the whole fucking reason you didn’t let them sell me into sex slavery to begin with.”
“Jesus, Claire,” he growls, growing exasperated with my questioning. “Are you serious?”
“Of course I’m serious. See, tonight I’m going on a date and if it goes well, I may just want to go back to his apartment. But even if I don’t, I need to make sure Moose isn’t cockblocking me because he thinks it’s your command… unless it was your command.”
“I don’t own you.” He says, and I wonder if I’m imagining the reluctance in his voice. “You can do whatever you want.”
“So, if I want to let the whole fraternity take turns on me…” I think those are the words Moose used, and judging by the raise of his eyebrow as he stares back at me, I’m guessing I’m right. “Then I can?”
“What the hell are you doing, Claire?” Remy sighs. “Have you been drinking?”
“Not yet,” I laugh. “But I will be. And if I get drunk enough and decide I want to… oh, I don’t know, fuck Moose or something…” I let the words hang taut in the air, daring anyone to refute me. “I can, because my body fucking belongs to me , right? I get to choose what I do with it?”
It’s probably a good thing I’ll never have to see him again, because I’m pretty sure he’d strangle me the next time he sees me for acting like this. Lucky for me, he’s in Costa Rica, and I am here. If I’m going to move on and have the life that I want, he is either going to have to be okay with watching from the wings, or he’s going to have to give up this illusion he has of control.
I expect him to give me more silence, to call me a brat, to give me the venom I’ve been giving him. But Remy does none of that. His voice is calm when he says, “I don’t know, Claire. You tell me. When you make yourself come, I know it’s my name on your lips. So maybe I do own you… or maybe I just own the best parts of you. ”
It’s me who is silent now, trying to decide whether he’s bluffing. But the smirk on Moose’s lips tells me he isn’t. Remy didn’t just guess that my orgasms are still his.
He fucking knew it.
“I have to go.” Remy hangs up the phone before I can even get my brain to process what just happened.
Across from me, Moose’s smug grin turns to laughter at the look on my face. “What’s the matter, princess?” He teases. “Earlier, you seemed excited by the idea that I had seen your videos. Now you don’t like that?”
“You put a camera in my room?” I glare at him.
Dimitri had warned me about the possibility of being spied upon, but I didn’t expect it to be by my fucking bodyguard or his puppet master. I also didn’t expect to not hate the idea that they could have seen any of what I do when I’m alone.
Moose shrugs, like he didn’t just admit to a violation of privacy. My cheeks are so red, I decide to lose the jeans that are only making me warmer. I turn and strut back to my room, not bothering to close the door behind me as Moose follows.
“You’ll never find it!” He calls out, taunting me.
But it’s not the camera I’m looking for. That can wait for another time. I strip the jeans down my legs without even the slightest hesitation, not bothering to turn back and see Moose slowly approaching my doorframe. I don’t bother trying to hide my ass from view as I bend over to the bottom drawer and dig out a pair of the shortest white shorts I own. I may not know where the camera is, but I can feel Moose’s eyes on my ass, left visible by the thin straps of the G string I put on to help me channel my inner sex appeal. I’d say it’s working, based on the way Moose groans.
My eyes make it to his just before he turns away and they’re heavy with something I can’t place.
“Hey Moose,” I call, waiting for him to turn back around. He doesn’t, but he tips his head a little, like he’s afraid to face me fully. It makes me laugh, but I tamp it down .
“Monroe?”
“I need you.” I say innocently enough that it prompts him to turn back toward me. He doesn’t dare step a toe over the threshold of my door, as though he’s scared. But I’ve spent months with this man, and I don’t think anything scares him. More likely, he’s following orders.
“What?” He demands, his eyes scanning me in as I secure the button on my shorts.
“Come here,” I beckon him into the room, and he hesitates just a minute before granting my request, coming to stand right in front of me.
“What do you want, Monroe? Want me to tell you what a pretty little slut you look like?” He’s close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off of him, and part of me wants to throw caution to the wind and throw myself at him. But I can’t bear the thought of him rejecting me, as he most certainly would. And I really can’t bear the idea of Remy witnessing it on a camera somewhere. The thickening of his voice tells me that he doesn’t actually think I’m a slut—or if he does, he likes sluts.
“No.” I laugh, pushing away from him so that I can present him with my ass, stretching the fabric of my shorts. “Can you see my thong through this?”
“Nope.” Moose says quickly, and I’m sure he’s telling the truth considering that it’s a pale blue, light enough to disappear when it’s not the only thing against my fair skin. Since I didn’t need a bra in this top, I chose those over a lingerie set, and now something about knowing how little clothing stands between me and whoever I decide to let unwrap me is exhilarating.
“Thanks.” I flash him a grin, but I don’t miss the swelling of his cock as it nudges into me when I pass him. God, he’s so warm… and so big. Something deep inside of me stirs, and I guess it’s the lust that’s driving me more than anything, because I swear, I feel myself going wet under his gaze .
“You are playing a dangerous game, Monroe.” He warns, just before moving aside to let me pass.
So what? I’m being a tease, big fucking deal. I wasn’t a fucking tease when Eric Giante crawled into my bed to peel my sweatpants off of my shaking legs, and I wasn’t being a tease in the backseat of the car when Jovich sold me out to a couple of filthy pimps. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that I can dress like a preacher’s daughter or like the whores he fucks when his wife isn’t around. Neither of them will stop a man who’s already set his mind on possessing the flesh beneath them. At least this way, I get to have a little fun with it.
“I like danger.” I tell him, tilting my head back to be able to see all of him. “I actually find it quite addictive.”
“Mmm.” He agrees. “Danger is so intoxicating, isn’t it, princess?” He grazes a knuckle down my throat, stilling my breath, my whole fucking world. “But careful you don’t lose yourself to the high.”
I want to laugh, but this time, I keep it in. “I’m not scared of losing myself, Moose. It’s been twenty-one years and I’m just now learning who I am.” He doesn’t try to say anything more to stop me, but I pause when I reach the hall and look back at him anyway. “Have fun tonight. I know I will.”