Chapter 4 #2
The party is going full swing downstairs, completely unaware of the monster haunting my footsteps.
Champagne and finger food flow freely, carted by smiling faces under black masks.
Witchery is in the air, the kind only a New Orleans night can conjure.
Money exchanges hands without a second thought among the craps and blackjack tables, punctuated by the drunken cheers of partygoers who’ve had more than their fair share by this point.
We maneuver through the crowd until we find an empty table.
I drink in the sights as one well-wisher after another assails Aiden.
If they know about my mother or what happened to her in this house, no one says anything.
Do they even care? Aiden places a glass of water in front of me.
Seizing it, I gulp down its contents, eager for the distraction, and let my thoughts drift to memories of the last time I was in this garden.
It had been for my mother’s 45th birthday party a few weeks before her death.
Afterward, my father surprised her with a trip to South America as a present and let my sister and me go with her.
It wasn’t like him to be so generous, especially not with election season approaching.
I was surprised by his generosity, but grateful for the time we spent together.
For the first time, Elizabeth and I got to spend time with our mother without his career interfering.
Little did we know it would be one of the last times we’d see her. She didn’t make it to another birthday.
By the time I come back to myself, Aiden’s engrossed in conversation with men I recognize vaguely from somewhere.
He’s arranged me at his side and slightly in a corner, where I’m mostly obscured from view of the party.
He keeps me in place with one arm around my waist, loosely holding my hip, his fingers twisting into the fabric of my skirt.
I shift on my feet, draining my glass of water dry so I keep from slapping his hand away.
“… let me into your little club, eh, O’Connor? How much will it cost me?”
“More than you can afford, Crawley,” jeers another of the men at the table. The man, I think his name or his last name must be Hudson, because he’d practically stuck his hand in Aiden’s face and said Hudson like it was supposed to mean something. Such a pretentious fucking name. Fits him perfectly.
Both men are pathetically rich in a way that has absolved them of most of life’s responsibilities.
I’d know, because until my mother’s death, I’d been well on my way to becoming one of them.
Privileged. Arrogant. Certain of my place in life and totally aware of the length and breadth of my influence.
All it would take is one moment in time for that carefully constructed world to come crashing down around them. Life’s funny that way. Sort of like how I ended up here when I’d intended to run in and out without ever drawing any attention to myself.
Aiden’s gaze shifting my way is the only thing that keeps me from rolling my eyes at this entire scenario. Definitely not on the list of Aiden-approved behavior. Judging by the mocking laughter dancing in his eyes, he’s enjoying my pain and seeming lack of self-control.
What does he get out of this anyway? It has to be some kind of twisted game. A punishment for whatever reason he’s cooked up inside his fucked-up brain about why I’m here. Guaranteed, he’s so far off the mark it’s comical.
With our eyes locked, the argument between the two men fades into the background, and my annoyance at their conversation ebbs momentarily.
He’s got this way of looking at me that gets under my skin.
It makes me want to peel it off so I can remove every piece of evidence that he gets to me.
Because, goddammit, he does. Burrows deep. Like a splinter.
You’d have to be cold and dead not to be affected by a man like Aiden O’Connor. Even if he’s a cold-blooded killer. Or maybe I’ve gone crazy enough over the past several months that his shooting someone is the least of my worries.
“I can afford it,” the first man objects. “You’re the one dropping a small fortune at Caesars every weekend. Bet your wife loves that.”
“What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”
Both men angle their bodies away from Aiden and toward me at my snort. Aiden’s hand tightens on my hip in warning, and the sound chokes off in the back of my throat. Well, it didn’t take me long to break those rules after all.
“Something funny, sweetheart?” Crawley—or is it Hudson?—asks. Honestly, they both look alike, so it’s hard to tell them apart.
They preen as Aiden finally seems to pay them a lick of notice.
He’d mostly been reclining in his chair opposite the two, enjoying knowing that it made me so uncomfortable.
But his attention swings in their direction now that they’ve noticed me, and their smug laughter cuts off.
He says nothing, so Crawley/Hudson grows more confident, emboldened by Aiden’s regard.
“Yeah,” the other says. “Something funny?”
I open my mouth to respond, then sense Aiden’s presence like a shadow out of the corner of my eye and think better of it. I’m not the type of woman to hold my tongue, but I bite back the retort that threatens to leap free, no matter how much I want to tear into them.
“Why don’t you stop by my office on Monday, Hudson?” Aiden says, and it’s like they completely forget me. “We’ll talk, and I’ll see what I can do.”
With them distracted, Aiden tugs me from my standing position at his side into his lap. Clutching his imposing shoulders is the only way I can keep myself from flying off his lap to the other side. His hands settle around my waist, so broad they nearly span the width of my hips.
“I was perfectly fine standing,” I mutter as he lifts his hand to catch the eye of a passing server. He gestures for what he wants, and the server nods so fast, I’m afraid her head may fall off.
“And now I’m ready for you to sit,” he says, voice low and so close to my ear it creates a sense of intimacy I’d rather do without.
“Why?”
“Because it’s what I want.”
“And you’re used to getting what you want,” I surmise. I’m not surprised. Based on the greeting he got when he walked into the party earlier, it’s easy to imagine he gets whatever he wants whenever he wants it.
“You would think that,” he says, and I shift slightly, hoping to put some space between his body and mine, but his arms tighten around me. “Stop wiggling.”
“I can’t help it. I can sit in my own chair, you know.”
“If I wanted you to sit somewhere else, I would have put you there.”
“Are you always this controlling, or am I just lucky?”
“Your smart mouth is going to get you in trouble,” he says, moving his mouth closer to my ear, not missing when the sensation makes me suck in a sharp breath. “Then again, you did break into my game room, so maybe you were looking for trouble.”
“How did you know I broke in?”
“Just assume I know everything.”
“I’m sure you’d like to think that, wouldn’t you?”
Aiden shifts my body until my ass settles firmly in his lap, my back against the broad expanse of his chest. He wraps his muscular arms around me until my senses are filled with him. From his heat to his strength to his scent—rainstorms and wood-smoke.
Hudson and Crawley focus intently on the game, already forgotten by Aiden, but I become more intensely aware of their presence as Aiden slides his big palms along my thighs, reaching the end of my too-short dress all too soon.
My hand flies out to cover his to stop their upward trajectory.
Tingles pepper along my skin from where it comes into contact with his devilish touch.
They glide up my nerve endings and sizzle through my blood.
Is it because of my fear and awareness of all the people around us that I am hyper-focused on the way his palms are rougher than I expect?
His psychotic chuckle rumbles against my back. “You want to break two of those rules so quickly, pet?” His thumbs swipe up the sensitive flesh of my inner thigh, causing the tingles to multiply. “So eager for a punishment, aren’t you?”
“Eager to get this over with so I can get the fuck out of here, maybe,” I mutter, but it comes out too breathless to lend my denial any credence. His hands resist mine, tugging them along for the ride as they trawl indecently high up my thighs.
No one is paying us any mind. By now, the crowd has taken full advantage of the open bar, and most of the media who’d been interviewing at the start of the event have been escorted off the premises. We could be alone for all the concern the people around direct to us.
“Is that what you think?” The words are pressed from his lips to my throat. His mask, a chilling contrast where it meets my skin.
“Ye-yes.”
As much as I try to ignore the sensation, it’s impossible.
“That’s too bad. I told you there were rules when you rolled those dice. You keep your mouth shut, and you let me do whatever I want, whenever I want. I think it’s time you learned what that means.”