6. Callum
CHAPTER SIX
CALLUM
I like when my plans come together this well, usually. I have every piece in place. Hawk is going to accept my offer. All is going swimmingly. So why won’t my fists stop tightening on the damn armrest?
We’re in my apartment, and no one questions when I had the brand-new pole installed in my lounge. All eyes are drawn to the gorgeous blonde stretching on it, dressed in lingerie far more revealing and a thousand times more appealing than the cheap shit she wears at her club. I picked it out myself. Red lace. Black silk. Her lips are painted bright red, too.
She’s wearing a mask for now—a hand-carved Venetian affair that belongs in a museum.
The party could have been for just about anything, but as it so happens, it’s my birthday weekend, so it gave me a reason to invite everyone. They would have come in any case.
“Is that new?” my sister asks, sipping wine as she watches the dancer—or rather, the pole.
“Mm,” I reply noncommittally.
I don’t speak to her if I can help it, and she knows it.
It’s sad to say so about one’s own sister, but she truly is the worst piece of shit I can imagine. I’m no saint. I can be manipulative to get what I’m after, but she takes pleasure in causing pain. I’ve always known that. What I didn’t realize was how far she’s willing to go.
Too fucking far.
I’m the only one who knows what really happened that night. If I’d told my cousin or my friends, the viper sipping cocktails would be dead and buried. I can’t bring myself to throw her into the lion’s den, given the fact that she is my fucking sister, but I’m not going to let her ruin Hawk’s life. I’m just not.
He’s the best of us—an artist, with his heart on his sleeve. He’s also far too loyal, and easily swayed. She would chew him up and spit him back out, a fact my father knew when he arranged the engagement. He chose someone she could control, so that we Nobles could take over the fucking world.
I’m not against the concept per se, but I draw the line at using Hawk to do it.
This party goes on like just about any other in one of The Loft’s apartments: we start to drink and dine up here, then most of the guests make their way to the Royal Club. It suits me fine. The sooner we’re in closer comity, the better.
My sister usually leaves early, but tonight, everyone lingers, watching my gorgeous butterfly extend her wings on her pole. I should have realized they would.
Eventually, though, general horniness wins and my guests leave to fuck a whore, a pledge, or a lady downstairs.
I invite Hawk and my cousin Sebastian to start a game of poker before they, too, think of making an escape. Not that they would during my birthday celebration.
My gaze drifts from the table to the slender dancer still twirling on her pole. She had breaks, but she’s been at it for hours. Won’t she be tired? I should have hired someone else to dance with her, too. I need her to have some energy for later.
A part of my mind is asking a very different kind of question. Tomorrow is my birthday, after all. Twenty-five. Shouldn’t I be the one to get a present? I’ve never been one to mind sharing, but why should I give her virginity to Hawk, when I could be the one to take it? Shove right into her purity, mark her as mine.
That’s a surprise. I’ve never been one to prefer virgins. They’re terrible fucks, and rate as a ten on the cringy meter. Yet I don’t seem to mind the idea of taking hers. Claiming it.
That’s stupid. My plan is sound. I know just what to say, and do, to get under Hawk’s skin and move him like a pawn. I am my sister’s brother, for better or worse.
All guests except those at my table have left, and our game’s over. It’s time. And still…I hesitate.
But then I clear my throat, waving toward the gorgeous trap in lingerie. “Come over here, love, won’t you?”
She moves like silk and water, smooth, gracious, confident. I’ve read her files enough times to know she owes those movements to many years of training with one of the most severe ballet teachers in the country, but when she’s dressed like that, it’s easy to forget, and to think that she’s just made to be fucked.
Olivia Barrett is but a means to an end, and my little head needs to get with the program.
I offer her my hand. When she takes it, I pull until she’s standing right over me.
My hands move to her bare waist and I lower her to my lap. “What do you think of my lovely find?” I ask innocently.
“Remarkable,” Hawk declares without hesitation.
“Yes.” Sebastian’s eyes caress her body, drinking it in.
I take one of her legs and lift it up, putting her foot down on the table so she’s giving them both a full view of her tiny La Perla string, as my other hand pushes it to the side.
Fuck. She’s drenched .
Does pole dancing always make her wet like this, or is it just tonight? Just for me?
I slide a finger inside her, bringing my mouth to her slender neck.
“Want a closer look?”
Neither of my friends is shocked, it’s certainly not the first time I’ve made a similar offer, but while Sebastian doesn’t hesitate to stand, Hawk stiffens.
“Daphne wouldn’t like that.”
It takes a physical effort for me not to react. Of course, I know my sister’s demanding monogamy of him now, though she’s still fucking two of her girlfriends, our butler, and half of the peerage.
“What my sister doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” I reply.
It’s time to play my trump card, the one I know will work for Hawk. I let go of Liv’s leg to undo the ribbon holding her mask behind her tied-up hair, and take the pins and scrunchie holding it in place while I’m at it.
Her light blonde hair, slightly damp with sweat, falls around her sweetheart face. Silence follows, as Hawk watches everything he won’t admit he wants. He saw her last week. I made sure he did, so he’d understand this as a possibility at the back of his mind.
Seb, however, never saw the girl who could very well be Grace’s twin.
“How?” he gasps.
Having Sebastian here, like everything I do, is entirely strategic.
“Meet the lovely Olivia. She’s eighteen—almost nineteen, in fact—and, believe it or not, a bona fide virgin.” I trail a series of slow kisses along her neck, relishing her discreet shivers. “She’s my entertainment for tonight, but you know I don’t mind sharing.”
“How does she look exactly like fucking Grace?” Sebastian asks.
“Accident of birth.” I chuckle. “Aren’t most things? Their dad was a cheat, on top of a deadbeat.”
“Jesus,” Hawk swears under his breath.
My slow exploration of her wet opening changes, my finger dipping inside her faster, deeper. I run my thumb along her clit, taking a sip of wine, ever so casual.
She muffles a moan, her leg dropping to the floor.
“Now, now, love, I know you can keep it up for us,” I chide gently. “Our friends don’t want to miss the show, yes?”
She lifts it back up, flushing, and clamping her mouth as shut as she can.
“Want a taste?” I ask Sebastian.
“That’s just insane,” Hawk says.
I don’t see him leaving, though.
I know he won’t. He barely needs any convincing already. Because he’s wanted this since he was sixteen and they introduced him to a fifteen-year-old bombshell he couldn’t have.
Sebastian gets to his knees without further prompting, bringing his mouth to my gorgeous stripper’s cunt.
This, too, is uncomfortable to me. I don’t think she’s done much dating in her life, hence the deplorable state of her hymen, and well, if it’s the first time she has someone go down on her, why isn’t it me?
Fuck. I need to get a grip. I’m doing this for a specific reason, and it has very little to do with getting off. I will, but that’s just a bonus. I’m here to save Hawk from the misery of a marriage to my bloody sister.
Liv’s back arches over me and she can’t help the wail coming out of her throat when Sebastian’s tongue draws slow circles around her clit. I don’t stop fingering her cunt, but one of my hands moves to her lovely tits.
My eyes remain on my friend. “Come on, Hawk. If my sister’s dry cunt is the only one you’re gonna fuck for the rest of your life, you deserve this before you tie the knot.”
He’s stiff as a post, wrestling with all things moral and right and good, no doubt. But Sebastian sucks her clit, so Olivia moans again, and Hawk stands, a fucking tent in his pants.
I got him.