Chapter 5
Chapter Five
B illy
Aubrey cocks her head at me, knife still outstretched. “Do that,” she says lightly. She’s already recovered. She tosses the knife on the cutting board and whirls as Brick opens the door and ushers his mate inside.
“Hey, girl!” Madi ignores me and comes straight for Aubrey, who picks up my drink and sashays out to meet her.
I pick up my abandoned original drink and torture myself by sipping from the same place her glossy lips marked as the two women hug then open a bottle of Madi’s favorite prosecco.
She’s my luna now. As much as I would’ve hated to say it a year ago, I serve her as much as I serve my alpha.
I pour four glasses in case everyone wants to partake.
Brick saunters up to the other side of the kitchen island–the position any normal guest to my place would take.
Fuck, what would possess that little human to come into my space and make herself so at home? To walk in without knocking? To sit on my countertop like she’s my lover, not a near stranger who has yet to exchange any polite words with me?
“For fate’s sake, you two couldn’t shower before you came down?” I mutter when I catch the scent of sex on Brick.
“No.”
Of course not. He loves having the scent of his cum all over his mate. She bears his mark, but he makes sure she smells like she’s been freshly marked every waking moment.
He picks up a glass of prosecco and drains it. As he sets it down, he studies me. “You’re taking your assignment seriously.”
“Yes, Al–” I bite off the word alpha before I speak it in front of a human. “Yes.”
I want to say, “I take all your orders seriously,” but I don’t want to sound cloying. Besides, he knows that. I’ve proven it a hundred times. He just needs me to prove it again in this most demeaning way.
I frown in the direction of Aubrey.
“She thinks you’ll want a Jack-and-Jill party.”
The women enter the kitchen. Madi was barely an adult when she started at Moon Co last fall, but after she claimed her position as luna, I stopped seeing her as a child.
Aubrey never came off as anything but a self-possessed woman, but now, with them together, laughing and talking fast in some kind of girl code, the age difference between the two of them and Brick and me feels like eons.
My conscience pricks over what a dick I’ve been to her.
Not that she couldn’t take it.
“Ooh, prosecco. You know what I like.” Madi breezes in and takes a glass from me. “Thank you.” She makes the point to meet my gaze, and there’s a sincerity to her tone that makes prickles race across my skin.
The power of a pack luna radiates from her. My need to protect and serve her is physical. No matter how much I wanted them apart before, now I’d fight to the death for her.
Her human friend, though, is a different story. I pick up a second glass to offer to Aubrey, who ignores my outstretched hand and sips my cocktail while holding my gaze.
I don’t hate having her lips where mine have been.
Having her drink from my cup gives my wolf a masculine pleasure.
It occurs to me that she’s trying to get to me. She lit up when she learned that working with her was my punishment. That must be why she climbed up on my countertop and insulted my decor.
“What’s a Jack-and-Jill party ?” Brick uses the same semi-disgusted tone I did when Aubrey mentioned it.
Aubrey answers before Madi can. “It’s a joint bachelor / bachelorette party–often at a destination like Vegas.” Seeing Brick’s frown, she continues, “Unless you want me to take Madi out to the male strip clubs for her last hurrah.”
“ What? ” My alpha’s voice grows sharp and dangerous. “Fuck, no.”
Aubrey folds her arms across her rather perfect breasts with a smug look. “That’s what I thought.”
Brick glances at Madi. “Jack-and-Jill, it is. Whatever my bride wants.”
Madi’s intelligent expression goes soft at his words. “Sounds fun to me. So…Vegas?”
“How about Monte Carlo?” I suggest because Vegas is so base. Not because I want to share a long, international flight in our private jet with her annoying maid of honor.
But the moment I think of it, I picture handing Aubrey a glass of champagne where she lies in the sleeping pod, naked except for a tangled sheet around her luscious body, her body relaxed from the hard fucking I just gave her.
Yeah, I wouldn’t mind that scenario. As a one-off, of course.
Aubrey immediately rolls her eyes. “Oh, please. Why? Because it’s expensive?”
“It has the best nightlife in the world,” I answer evenly.
Again, Brick looks to Madi, who says, “That sounds amazing. I’ve never been.”
Yeah, no shit. I doubt she’d ever been out of the country before she met Brick. She tries to hide her lack of sophistication and normally has a decent bluff, but it was painfully obvious when he brought her to the Blackthroat Family Foundation Ball as his date.
Because I’m a first-class asshole, I cock my head and ask Aubrey, “Have you been?”
Aubrey
I suck in a breath and will away the flush Billy’s words inspire. He is the biggest dick ever.
I still feel where he put his hands on me, spanning my waist as he picked me up from the counter. I guess there are some decent muscles under that button-down designer shirt.
How and when does he work out? He’s not as pasty-white as you might expect from a Wall Street suit. I see freckles and signs of weather on his face, like he spends time outdoors on the weekends. Probably in the Adirondacks with Brick and Madi.
I force myself to stop imagining him in workout clothes and return to the game of verbal chess we’re playing.
He’s obviously trying to point out my lack of worldliness.
I don’t care what a douche like him thinks–not all of us were born with silver spoons in our mouths.
But I guess his point has been made–I can hardly reject Monte Carlo when I’ve never been there.
I’ve never even been to Vegas, for that matter.
Atlantic City is the farthest I’ve ever traveled.
“No.” I meet his gaze, refusing to let him fluster me. “So, I guess you’ll have to take the lead on all the arrangements.” I give him a mock-sorry look, then add brightly, “You already promised you’d foot the bill, right?”
It was the wrong tack to take. I forgot my aim was to force him to work with me on every tiny detail. He gives a dismissive wave of his hand. “Done. Get me the number of people, and I’ll have Annabeth arrange everything.”
I bristle. “Oh no, Suit.” Because I’ve sucked down most of his drink and because he’s already laid hands on me, my normal inhibitions are gone.
I poke him in the chest with my index finger.
“We already talked about this. You don’t get to throw money at this thing to make it disappear.
And I’m not your assistant who you give orders to.
We’re working on this party together, remember?
” I don’t toss in the reminder that this is his punishment because I suspect humiliating Billy White in front of Brick would be dangerous.
As it is, his eyes do that strange trick of glinting icy grey. He snatches my hand with the outstretched finger and pulls it to his mouth, biting my knuckle.
I shriek. He didn’t bite me hard; I’m just shocked.
As quickly as he snatches my hand, he lets it go. I pull it to my chest, wrapping the other one around it protectively as I stare up at him.
He looks back impassively. I can’t read his expression at all. Was that bite a challenge? Punishment? An assertion of dominance?
Whatever it was, it turned me on. My nipples scrape against the inside of my bra, and tingling ignites between my legs.
I sense Brick and Madi staring at us, but can’t seem to move or think of anything to say.
Billy’s inscrutable look changes to one of scorn, like “asshole” is a persona he’s donning. “I remember,” he says, like working with me is utterly distasteful.
I am one part offended, one part glorying in the punishment aspect of it–that I’m forcing him to be with me when he hates it. Except I’m uncertain he does hate it.
I think…unbelievably…that he might be attracted to me.
And that he probably hates that , too.
I give him my sweetest smile. “Great. So should we talk details?”
Billy takes the empty glass from my hand and replaces it with a crystal champagne flute filled with something bubbly– prosecco , Madi said. I’ve never had prosecco. It looks like champagne.
Like when he held my jacket and opened the door for me at La Résistance, I find his attentiveness at odds with the dickish personality. Also a bit disconcerting.
Like, I don’t want to enjoy being the object of his attention, but I do.
He sweeps a hand in the living room’s direction like a proper host. “Let’s talk.”
I trail behind Madi and Brick, maddeningly aware of Billy at my back. Brick sits in a large armchair and pulls Madi onto his lap.
That familiar wave of sadness hits me again–grief over my changed relationship with Madi. I was excited to come here tonight and see her sooner than next Thursday. But even though we’re in the same room now, she’s very much wrapped up with Brick.
For the four hundred and fiftieth time, I mentally kick myself for not being happy for her. For not getting over myself. For feeling so abandoned.
I drop onto the sofa beside them and suck down half of the bubbly drink Billy handed me. It’s nice–light and refreshing. I drain the glass and set it on the gleaming chrome coffee table.
Billy does not sit down yet. He seems to be considering the three of us. “Aubrey says it looks like a prison guard decorated my apartment.”
The alcohol must be going to my head because it takes me a second to note how odd it is that Billy would offer that up as a conversation starter.