20. Rae
20
RAE
“I mpossible.” Leni drops onto a stool at the VIP room bar, putting a shot of tequila in front of me.
“What is?”
“We broke sixteen hundred on Monday,” she reminds me. “Tonight, we’re at eighteen hundred and you haven’t even taken the stage yet. There’s a line around the hotel.”
We clink glasses and toss them back.
“At least I can go out on a high note,” I say after I swallow, the alcohol burning down my throat. “Thank you for this.”
I’m a few minutes from my final performance at Debajo, and it’s bittersweet.
In a month, this place has become familiar in a way I never asked for. The leather seats of the VIP stools creak predictably. I know the names of all the security guards and most of the bartenders. Even Leni and I have become more acquainted through working on concepts for my nights here.
“You know that having you close on a Saturday was Harrison’s idea,” Leni says. Under my stare, she finally rolls her eyes. “Fine, I didn’t argue much. You’re going to be big. It’s clear to anyone who watches you. You’re not so Little, Little Queen.”
She nods to my outfit, a fitted, sleeveless gold dress with a raven black wig, plus eyeliner that makes my eyes look even darker than usual. It’s a subtle channeling of another queen.
“It wasn’t a snake bite,” Leni says. “Cleopatra, I mean. The artists tell whatever stories they want,” she waves a hand in the air, “but she poisoned herself. A tragic end.”
“A realistic one,” I correct. “The most powerful people spend their lives fighting external battles. It’s the internal ones that get them.”
Leni clunks the empty glass back on the bar. “You should stick around for the rest of the summer. We could find a couple nights a week for you here.”
Surprise sets me back. “I have some other gigs lined up in July and August, but nothing for a few weeks. I guess I’d have to talk with Harrison. I haven’t seen much of him in the last couple of days.”
He said he’s been working on persuading Christian to sell him La Mer.
“Since your birthday.” She rises with a wink, nodding toward the headphones around my neck.
I’ve barely taken them off because they’re precious in a way that has nothing to do with the diamonds I can’t begin to value.
But as she goes, I stare after her, wondering exactly how much Harrison told her.
I know he and Leni go back, that she’s the right hand of his business, but what happened on that yacht is personal. At least it was for me.
The birthday party was spectacular, but the part that left the biggest impression was the time I spent with him on the top deck that night.
I’m supposed to leave in two more days, and maybe that’s the last moment we’re meant to have together.
If it was, I should be grateful. When I arrived here and learned who I’d be playing for, I thought there was no way I’d make it through the month.
Now, I’ve turned around this club that deserves to be full, earned enough money to help my cousin keep the doors of her charity open, and met a man who makes me question everything.
That’s why I don’t want to think my birthday was our last night together. I’m not ready to let him go.
I shove it from my mind and put the finishing touches on my set.
When I get to the stage, I’m home. The crowd erupts, delight on the faces of hundreds of men and women.
The music is in me, around me, consuming me.
The countless hours I put in were worth it.
Tonight, in this club that’s as close to mine as anything ever was, pieces of that persona fall away.
I love this club.
The patrons love me.
It’s not enough.
When I look up toward the VIP section, Harrison’s leaning over the railing.
My heart kicks in my chest at the fact that he’s here.
I wanted to believe he wouldn’t miss this but couldn’t be sure.
He’s alone tonight, dressed in another impeccable suit. The bespoke armor clings to every inch of his hard body. Those shadowed eyes bore into mine as if he knows me.
I want to be known.
“Eighteen hundred!” I holler, my voice lost in the pulsing beat and driving bass and throbbing melody of the club.
There’s no way he can hear me, but he lifts a glass in my direction.
I never thought it would feel so damn good to have this moment and, more than that, to share it with someone.
When I flip both middle fingers in the air, his smirk fades.
He’s too far away to read what’s in his eyes, but he holds my gaze.
What passes between us is more than reciprocity. Connection, understanding, a tacit agreement that we built this together.
I want to celebrate with him. To tell him how fucking good it feels.
“You think you can teach me about sex?”
“No. I think I can teach you about yourself.”
Each song bleeds into the next, and I bleed with them. When the set wraps, I don’t know if it’s been an hour or a year.
I’m energized and exhausted, sweaty and exhilarated.
I need to take selfies with fans, but as I trip out of the booth, someone beats me there.
The man looms over me in a designer suit, a shock of red silk in his breast pocket resembling a wound. “You are a rare talent.”
He’s all muscle, his head buzzed, his eyes cold. As if there’s nothing behind them but emptiness.
I look over his shoulder at my waiting fans that security is holding at bay.
“I’m a friend of the owner,” he says, answering my unasked question of how he got back here.
“Which friend?” I don’t want to cause a scene, but I also don’t want this prick in my face.
“I’m sure you don’t know all Harrison King’s friends.”
“Try me.”
His grip tightens on my wrist, and I twist away. He grabs my other wrist too, and I bite down on a cry of pain.
“I’ve been asking myself a question all day. Why would he give this up for you?”
He must be talking about Harrison, but I have no idea what he means.
My breathing is off the rhythm of the afterparty song, but all I feel is my ribs expanding and contracting against the gold dress I chose at a boutique yesterday with Ash’s help.
He pins me in the curtains backstage, his cloying cologne drowning me.
Sweat rolls down my neck, my body already straining to run. I reach for the only weapon I have—the defiance I’ve clung to for weeks, months.
“If you have a thing for Harrison,” I manage, “you’re out of luck. I don’t think you’re his type.”
Fireworks explode behind my eye socket, impossible heat blossoming across my cheek. The physical impact stuns me.
On the other side of the stage, security is dealing with the crowd and giving me a minute to get ready.
I wish they weren’t.
“You think I don’t know what to do with bitches?” my attacker spits.
This isn’t happening.
Do something.
No one answers my silent plea.
The man hulks closer, his body looming large and threatening.
Do something!
This time, I’m screaming at myself.
When he comes at me, I dig my fingernails into his neck. He bellows, his hand flying to the wounds.
They’re not deep enough to keep him occupied long, and he’s about to land another blow when there’s motion at the curtains.
The next second, my attacker is gone.
Harrison drags the man out of the curtains, tossing him against the front row of the crowd. The patrons stare as the owner of the club pulls back a fist and looses it on the man before him.
The man lurches, listing as if he’s been drinking before straightening with a cruel grin. “Is that it?”
It’s his opponent’s turn to land a punch, leaving a streak of blood across Harrison’s cheek. My heart hammers until I realize it’s the other man’s. From where he was covering his neck.
Harrison barely stumbles before straightening. Even without the tic in his jaw, the heavy breathing, the icy fire in Harrison’s eyes would be terrifying.
He grabs the other man by the collar, dragging him close to whisper something I can’t make out. Then Harrison hits him again, hard enough the man topples.
Harrison shakes out his hand, his grim expression cast in the semidarkness of the club.
“Get him the fuck out of here, or you’ll never work again,” he bites out to security.
Across the crowd, Leni runs interference, trying to get things back to normal despite the fight that broke out.
My back hits a speaker, and I shift up onto it, my hands curling into my stomach. The sight of blood under my fingernails makes my stomach lurch.
I didn’t feel the full effects of fear when everything was happening so fast, but now I do.
I haven’t felt that fear in a decade, but it’s fresh. A forgotten record pulled out of a box and set beneath a needle to play as fully and crisply as the day it was inscribed.
There’s a bucket of waters in ice next to the speaker, and I force myself to reach for one as my cheek throbs.
Before I can press it to my face, the curtains move.
My head snaps up.
Harrison’s usual elegance is rumpled. His shirt has lost two buttons, his jacket hanging haphazardly from his shoulders as if it refuses to let go. His hair is sticking up as he rubs a hand across his jaw, each knuckle dark with blood.
He closes the distance between us, stopping when my shins brush the tailored fabric of his dress pants. He inspects my face, lingering on my cheekbone that feels as if it might explode.
He’s a king tonight, and for the first time, I see its weight on his face, his bones.
“You’re hurt.” The words are forceful, but strained. His eyes narrow on the unopened water bottle in my hands. “Where did he touch you?”
When I don’t answer, his hands go to work searching for damage.
I stiffen as his touch roams my bare arms first, then my torso, finding a rip in my dress I hadn’t noticed.
He shrugs out of his jacket and loops it around my shoulders, warming me before I realize I was shivering.
Then he presses between my thighs, lifts my skirt.
My mouth falls open as he runs his hands up my thighs. It’s confident, competent, not meant to arouse but to assess.
“Stop,” I whisper.
The backs of my eyes burn. Outside, I’m as frozen as the moment the man came at me. Not in fear, but in shock.
“Harrison, don’t touch me.” I want to scream the words but when they come out, they’re barely audible.
It takes everything in me to grab his face and force his attention up even as his hands linger under my skirt.
His jaw clenches as he leans his forehead against mine. “I need to know you’re all right.”
I’m not.
I don’t say it, but I might as well have.
The shaking starts somewhere in my chest and radiating out to reach my fingers, my toes, my lips.
Without warning, his arms are around me.
He lifts me, carrying me through the crowd before I can protest.
Leni grabs him on our way past. “Harrison, the police need to talk to you!”
“Tomorrow.”
Then we’re through the door and outside.
He settles me into the Ferrari, and I yank at the pins securing my wig with shaking hands.
Then I throw all of it on the floor and stare at the pile the entire way back.
* * *
“I can walk,” I murmur when Harrison opens my car door at the villa.
He loops an arm around my waist, unwilling to let me support myself.
We step inside and Barney trots sleepily to the door, whining when neither of us reaches down to pet him.
Harrison helps me out of my shoes and up the stairs, but when I try to turn toward my room, he pulls me gently the other way.
“I have first aid equipment in my bathroom.”
Of the ways I imagined seeing his space for the first time, this never entered my mind.
There’s dark wood furniture, a dresser and night tables without photos or adornment. A tufted area rug that’s soft beneath my bare feet.
My brainpower is limited, a highway reduced from four lanes to two for some unauthorized repair.
Harrison seats me on an enormous bed with navy covers. “Don’t move.”
He disappears, returning a moment later with ice from the kitchen. I shift over to let him on the bed, but instead he kneels on the floor, lifting the ice to my cheek.
The cold burns my bruised flesh.
I take the ice from him, and he gently slides the jacket off my shoulders, then reaches around me for the zipper on my dress. I suck in a breath but don’t argue as he drags it down.
Tonight was supposed to be my crowning achievement. A victory lap.
Now, it’s tainted.
He shifts my hips so he can lift the hem, work it up my body and over my head.
Another inspection begins, more thorough than the one he did at the club.
“So that was Mischa,” I guess, mostly to make sure I can still speak.
Harrison’s attention lingers on my side as he nods. I didn’t think I could take his touch, but being here, safe in his home, every stroke of his hands helps to steady my breathing.
“No offense, but I hope he’s not the only friend you kept from school.”
Harrison huffs out a breath at my attempt at humor.
He takes my hand with the ice and lowers it, brushing his thumb over my half-stinging, half-numb cheek. “Did he speak to you?”
A memory scratches at my brain. “He said you gave something up for me. What did he mean?”
Harrison doesn’t answer. But when he lifts his clear, blue gaze, the anger’s gone. “I never should have brought you here, Raegan.”
He’s inches away, but it feels like he’s putting more distance between us with every breath.
The sudden ache in my chest eclipses the pain in my face.
Moments ago, I wanted to erase tonight. But he wants to erase the past month.
All of my time in Ibiza, my time with him.
His jacket in the pool. Our kiss at La Mer. My birthday on the yacht.
The tragedy of that hits me harder than anything else.
I don’t want to forget .
That thought has me straightening, lends me the strength I’ve been seeking for the last hour.
“You’re an asshole,” I decide. The words land between us, raw and loaded. “You think you decide everything? That you have all the answers? You don’t get to decide what this month meant. You don’t sure as hell don’t get to take this away from me.”
I shove myself off the bed, ice burning my hand, and head for the door.
He beats me there, filling the doorway. “Take what away?”
I don’t want to talk, and I can’t stand the distance he’s putting between us as he tries to reason out what happened tonight.
There’s no reason to be found in violence.
I grab his neck and drag him down to me.
He stiffens when our lips collide, surprise evident in every inch of his taut body.
His breath mingles with mine. He’s fighting his need, every bit as determinedly as he fought the man at the club.
Whatever we’ve become in these short weeks is real.
The moment of danger, of remembering that all I am could be gone in a moment…
I won’t lose it without experiencing this.
I rub my shuddering body against his.
The words I can’t say are clutched in my grasping hands, clinging to my desperate lips.
I’ve never begged Harrison for anything, but now, I am. I’m demanding and pleading in the same breath.
“Fuck, Raegan.”
The moment he takes control, my heart skips in warning, in anticipation.
His tongue thrusts inside my mouth. His groan reverberates through my body, his need colliding with mine.
I want him in me everywhere with the same driving possession.
I grab his hair to change the angle between us, seeking relief even as he chases more friction.
When his hands slide up my legs, no longer inspecting but memorizing , the hunger inside me grows into something alive and throbbing.
The ice falls from my fingers to the floor. My hands run down his untucked shirt before sneaking beneath to caress the hard lines of his abs. Harrison groans, pressing his hips closer.
“So many buttons,” I mutter as I work off his shirt.
He shoves my hands away and rips the garment down the front.
This isn’t sweet—it’s a race to the bottom. The only relief we’ll find tonight is the kind we can give each other.
He backs me into the wall, his hands racing over my breasts, my pebbled nipples.
His fingers settle between my thighs, rubbing through the wet panel of lace.
My face hurts, my body shivers, but his capable fingers make me ache—for more, for him.
He drags my panties down, the lace digging into my hips.
“Fucking beautiful,” he murmurs once they’re gone.
Appreciation isn’t what I need from him.
He’s a storm I can’t control—but he’s one I can choose.
I reach for his belt, fumbling until it falls loose. I drag the zipper down over his straining length.
When my hand closes around him, my throat dries.
He’s strong and male and undeniable. The arousal beading at his tip is for me. The tension in every inch of his glorious body and the fierce possession in his eyes is mine alone.
For the first time outside of a DJ booth, I feel powerful.
Harrison reaches for the bedside table on a hiss, returning to rip at a package and toss the wrapper to the floor.
He rolls the condom down his length, then lifts me against the wall, encouraging me to hook my legs around him.
My head hits the edge of a picture frame. Harrison bats at the frame until it slides down the wall and hits the floor with a thud.
He grabs my hip, positioning himself between my thighs. “Need you now.”
It’s a warning or a declaration, because the next second, he thrusts.
He’s big and thick. My body has to stretch to take him the way he’s demanding.
Every inch he buries inside me is one more reminder he’s unlike any man I’ve experienced.
My back arches, my nails digging into his arms hard enough to leave marks.
“God, you’re slick.” His voice is thick with arousal.
Pleasure and pain blur, the throbbing core of need deep inside me the only thing I feel.
He withdraws, a slow drag, then shifts back in on a groan.
His jaw works, and I don’t know if it’s from the effort of what we’re doing or the effort of holding back.
It’s decadent and brutal, his muscled body pinning mine. Giving and taking. Daring and fulfilling.
He bends his head to bite the curve of my breast, and my body clenches around him.
My legs ache.
Wallpaper scratches my back.
Sweat has my fingers slipping on his.
The more I writhe, the tighter he holds me. His lips skim my neck, my jaw, my ear.
I was already close to shattering tonight, and I thought this was what I needed.
But it’s not. It’s more.
He’s over me, inside me, around me, part of me. This man I thought was the last person I’d ever trust.
Every punishing stroke of his hips chases away my fear, his regret.
It’s another few strokes before I arch, my climax starting at my core and rippling outward.
He moves through it, hips thrusting faster, deeper. I shudder with every movement of his gorgeous body.
The pace is relentless until the moment he freezes over me, going still. His jaw clenches in anguish as his release rips through him.
I’m in awe. It’s as if I’m seeing him for the first time.
When he shifts forward, his lips brushing my ear as he groans, “Fuck, Raegan,” I wrap my limbs around him to hold him there.
After, he pulls down the covers and tucks me into bed before heading for the bathroom. I hear the sound of the sink, water running, then nothing.
I stare at the ceiling, my heart echoing in the darkness.
I feel...alive.
Instead of healing me, what we did made a new edge, bright and gleaming and raw.
The difference is this edge is exhilarating. Full of possibility.
But most of all…
I’m not alone.
It feels like an epiphany.
When he returns, reaching for his discarded clothes, the feeling deflates.
“You’re leaving?” I ask quietly.
“I have to talk to the police. Leni texted to say it can’t wait until morning.” He dresses quickly and competently, knotting his tie and adjusting it. Every motion is as smooth and natural as how he moved inside me moments ago. “I’ll be back before you wake.”
The wave of anxiety sneaks up on me, settles into a vicious knot in my chest. I press a fist to my ribs under the sheets and silently count each shallow breath. “Promise?”
His gaze flicks to mine.
I’m not the woman who needs anyone’s assurance. But now, in the dark, after what happened tonight... I’m not ready to be alone.
Whatever he sees on my face has him crossing to me, pressing a soft kiss to my lips.
“I promise.”
Then he’s gone.