16. Chapter 16 – Sloane
Chapter 16 – Sloane
“E arth to the broody Rainbow that’s ignoring us!” Trixie’s youthful voice cut through the chaos in my mind that had been running rampant for days now and drew me back to the present.
Four pairs of eyes stared at me from around the table and I sighed, shaking off the distractions so I could focus on my friends. “Sorry,” I murmured, sitting up in my chair as Raven refilled my mimosa. The only part of waking up on Sundays that I enjoyed was the weekly brunch date we had after busy Saturday nights. “I was distracted.”
“About that.” Val tilted her head to the side as a smirk danced in her eyes. “You know his e-payments are public, right?”
My blood froze as I stared at her across the table.
He. Tamen . The arrogant son of a bitch that deceived me and had sex with me against my will.
I cringed even as that thought crossed my mind, because it was a lie. One that had tried continuously to take root in my head since I saw him leave the room at the private event five nights ago, simply because I was mad.
He didn’t have sex with me against my will, I was for hire, and he paid a hefty fucking price to sleep with me. And it wasn’t like I was against the act itself; I was literally begging him to do it.
No, the part that I was stuck on was not recognizing it was him while it was happening.
Because I couldn’t get him off my mind the entire time, sometimes even imagining him as the John I was enjoying at that time, and it had made me feel sick to my stomach that I was objectifying the act with thoughts of my broody boss. Then he articulated the last thing he said.
And I knew.
I fucking knew .
Right before he walked out of the room completely, I got free from the privacy bench and saw him leave, glancing over his shoulder at me with those intense blue eyes before he disappeared completely.
He left so fast, knowing I was on to him, he didn’t even put his shirt on, leaving in just his pants.
Dear. Fucking. God.
That man was sinful in a business suit with the parts and pieces of tattoos peeking out above his collar and on the backs of his hands but seeing his exposed back as he fled.
Jesus.
He was covered in delicious black ink and muscles and every time I closed my eyes since that moment; I saw him with the swirly black art and those piercing blue eyes.
I was officially crazed by it.
By him.
Hence why even bottomless mimosas and carb overloaded brunch wasn’t keeping my attention.
Val smirked at me again, as I tried to remember all the messages he sent to me via payments since I blocked him every other way.
The night of the private event had been mild, as he threatened me with sexual tension and sass, paying me large amounts of money to unblock him.
And then two days passed after that night before he reached out again. It had been almost four in the morning when my phone pinged with a new payment alert and his veiled message attached.
I’d pay the fee twice over again. + $1,000.00
He didn’t say sorry. Or apologize for deceiving me. Hell, he didn’t even acknowledge that he was an unhinged bastard that slept with me using lies and obvious connections to get what he wanted. Tamen simply threw more money at me with his own deranged version of praise.
Did it mean he liked it? As much as I did?
Because that was the part that kept me up at night.
I loved what he did to my body. I loved the way he made me feel as he controlled the situation. Yet with other men, I usually rolled my eyes in secret and laughed at their pathetic egos when they tried to use fake power against me when they hired me.
Not with him, though. Not with Tamen. With him, I craved it.
“Sloane!” Trixie snapped her fingers dramatically, bringing me back, again. “Are you really going to sit there and act like we aren’t watching the most interesting show in the world right in front of us?”
I sighed and took another large sip of mimosa, “I have no fucking clue what’s going on, or what you’re watching, or what I’m doing.” I shrugged, “I’m out of touch over here.”
“Damn.” Raven whistled, leaning back in her chair to stare at me. “It’s always the broken ones that fuck us up the most.”
I scoffed with wide eyes, “You’re right about that.”
“So, what happened between you two?” Val asked, digging for more information. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure I could trust her with anything related to Tamen, considering their night together the night he closed down the Den and changed it over to Prism. Not that I cared in the least that they were together physically, that didn’t bother me in the least. But I didn’t know her feelings toward him, personally or professionally, and I wasn’t going to expose mine when I didn’t even understand them.
“We hate each other.” I shrugged, remembering the last payment he made late last night.
I think I hate you as much as you hate me. + $5,000.00
I didn’t hate him nearly as much as I wanted to, but no one needed to know that.
“Hmm.” Mya held up her glass to cheers me. “If you have the energy to hate someone, it’s because they meant something to you to begin with.”
Looking away over the heads of everyone in the restaurant, I noticed a familiar face in the crowd of people outside and got the urge to make myself suffer even more. “It doesn’t, actually.” I tossed back the rest of my drink and then stood up, laying down money for the drinks and my food on the table. “He’s a total stranger to me. It’s purely just a case of two auras that can’t stand each other or coexist in the same space without fighting for control. I’ll see you girls later.”
“Go ahead,” Val called out as I walked away, “Leave when things get difficult, that’s your specialty. Good thing we love you anyway!”
Clearing the front door of the restaurant, two matching pairs of green eyes found me and I gave a gentle wave. “Hi.”
Peyton and Olivia both smiled brightly at me as they waited for me to catch up to them up the street.
“We were just talking about you.” Peyton said.
“Oh?” I asked cautiously.
“We were talking about how Tamen is more grumpy than usual.” Olivia shrugged, “Figured maybe you had something to do with that.”
“Oh.” I deflated as my cheeks bloomed red. “Sorry.”
Peyton rolled her eyes and weaved her arm through mine, walking down the sidewalk and taking me with her as Olivia walked on my other side. “We didn’t say it was a bad thing. We actually approve of you torturing him. More than approve, we want to help.”
“More torture. Definitely more torture.” Olivia grinned, and I felt like a sacrificial lamb walking between two guards on the way to the altar. “Did you know Tamen’s afraid of spiders?”
“And heights.” Peyton added as I fought the urge to chuckle at their tactics. “Ooh,” Peyton cheered excitedly, looking around me at her sister. “And Dolly.”
“Dolly?” I stammered, so lost, but had a feeling they were going to tell me so much more about Tamen if I stayed with them.
“The Feral Post Office Lady.” Olivia clarified, but I was still so lost. “I’m sure he wouldn’t tell us if she did, but I think she held him hostage one time. Nobody heard from him for days after that night.”
“I’m so confused.” I giggled, shaking my head.
“That’s okay.” Peyton patted my arm and winked. “Do you have any plans today?”
“None.”
“Good. Then you can join us on our monthly girl day, and we can corrupt you.”
“Hmm,” I shrugged, “Usually it’s me doing the corrupting. I don’t usually meet women who are darker than me.”
Peyton tipped her head back and laughed boldly. “Oh girl. You’re wrapped up with a Line Walker now, you’ve got a lot to learn about darkness.”
I held my sides, trying desperately to not let sparkling water shoot out of my nose as Olivia tipped her head back and cackled loudly at Peyton’s impersonation of her husband Dane running through a dark corn field years ago. I still couldn’t wrap my head around a little old lady causing such mischief in a small town, but from the sounds of it, she had a thing for the hunky men.
The Line Walkers, as Olivia, kept referring to them.
Dane, Maddox, and Tamen.
Of course, there were no specifics given to me, but the way the two sisters looked at each other and kind of shrugged, sidestepping around certain topics, I was sure it was illegal.
Dark, even.
Which would fit with the brokenness I had seen in Tamen that night in the parking lot when he pinned me to the wall. The same night I held the shiny, incredibly sharp knife I found in his belt to his chest and took back control of the situation.
Before he stole that control back from me at the private event.
My phone pinged from the table, and I glanced down at it, skimming the message on the screen.
You get on my last nerve. + $5,000.00
“Another one?” Olivia gasped, leaning over the screen to read it. “Damn, what’s the grand total up to?”
Blowing out a breath I shrugged, “Today? Probably over thirty grand.” I sighed and locked my phone screen. “He’s going to run out of money eventually, right?”
Peyton snorted. “No. The man can turn dust bunnies into cash. It’s quite annoying, but also obnoxiously fun to watch.”
“I don’t need his money. I’m not Tamen level rich, obviously, but I do just fine on my own. It was just a joke at first, but now he’s relentless.”
“Give a dog a bone—” Olivia sang and then leaned forward on her elbows. “There’s more between you two than just work, that’s obvious.” She tilted her head to the side, “But I can’t tell how much more than that. You’re a hard nut to crack, Sloane.”
I scoffed and looked away from her penetrating stare. “I’m an open book, actually. Maybe it’s a hazard of the job, I don’t keep much secret or hidden, I don’t see the point.”
“Then is it more than just a game of cat and mouse with Tamen?” Peyton questioned, “Because I want to think that maybe he’s found someone to put him in his place and boss him around, besides Olivia,” Her sister snorted and Peyton went on, “But I can’t tell if it’s just fun for you.”
I blew another breath out, and rounded my eyes. “I can genuinely say with one hundred percent certainty that I hate that man. He aggravates me with every single breath he takes. My skin crawls when he tilts his head to the side in that creepy mocking mannerism that makes him look like a clown in a haunted house.” My teeth clenched as I held my hands out in front of me, mimicking what it would look like to strangle him. “I want to bang his head off the wall every time he undercuts me and demeans my intelligence at work, like I haven’t earned my place with more than my body. And that ego,” I groaned, “God, I want to cut him so quick he can never act all high and mighty ever again. I want to scramble his brain up in a pan and put it back in his skull so he can act like an actual nice human being for once, just once in his life.”
Sighing, I blinked away the rage and then froze when I saw the look on their faces, aimed my way.
“But you also want to tie him down and do indecent things to him until you can’t walk straight.” Peyton mused with a cautious smirk on her face, breaking the tension inside of me that built thinking I’d offended them by talking about him that way.
“God, I’d ride that man until the sun came up and went back down again.” I cried, deflating even more and giving into the urge to tell them the truth about the turmoil building between their brother-in-law and me. “We hooked up, kind of, one time. It was the best sex of my life and now I can’t think of anything else, but I can’t decide if I want to strangle him or fuck him.”
Olivia shrugged nonchalantly, “I vote that you strangle him while you fuck him. I think that’s the only way to tame that beast. Isn’t there an old saying about biting an alpha dog in the ear to show him who’s boss?” Peyton cackled again, and Olivia went on, unphased by our hysterics. “I feel like that’s the only way to get Tamen reset. Maybe it’ll be like hitting Control - Alt - Delete.”
Laughing so hard, I wiped away tears and doubled over in pain. I was supposed to go to the gym later, but after lunch, my abs were going to be toast.
“I have an idea.” Peyton gasped, picking her phone up off the table, “Come here.”
“Huh?” I stammered, fighting the tilt a whirl in my brain from the sudden change in direction.
“Come here,” She scooted her chair closer to Olivia’s and patted her shoulder. “Chin, right here.”
“Okay,” I gave into my curiosity and walked around the table, leaning down behind them and when she pulled her phone out to snap a picture I posed, smiling brightly along with the two. “Okay, explain.”
“I want to test a theory.” Peyton said, typing something into her phone and then laying it down with a smug look on her face. “My theory says that in about ten seconds, my phone is going to ring. And I’m going to ignore it. Then Olivia’s phone is going to ring. And she’s going to ignore it. And then you’re going to get another money transaction, though the message accompanying it will be far less vague.”
“I think I see where this is going.” I mused, not sure if I loved the idea, or hated it.
“And then my guess is before we finish our desserts, one very hot and horny Tamen is going to show up here, and he’s going to have to face you head on. But we’re here, so he won’t get away with any funny business.”
“And how exactly will he know where we are?” I pondered, working through her brain.
“Easy.” Peyton shrugged, “Finding people is my husband’s specialty. And he can hardly ever tell his little brother no these days.”
“Except that one time Dane shot the tippy top of Tamen’s ear off for sneaking into your guest house.” Olivia chuckled and my mouth dropped in shock.
“Shot?” I stammered, “Like with a gun?”
“Two actually.” Olivia held both her hands up and made finger guns with them, pretending to shoot them at me and then blew at the barrels like an old western cowboy.
“Jesus.” I passed on my water and picked up my mostly untouched glass of wine. “I think I need to hear more about that story.”
Before the words were out of my mouth, Peyton’s phone went off with an obnoxious ringtone that sounded like the theme song from a 90s slasher movie. “Show time.” She smirked and hit the ignore button. “Time to see how much groveling that man can do.”