12. Nolan
12
NOLAN
M y gaze bores into the back of the man striding out of the Dionysus Lounge. He moves with almost military-like precision, head on a swivel, scanning the room as he leaves. Whatever or who ever he is, I know one thing for sure. He’s not to be trusted.
Lex and Gio take their seats on the other side of the lounge, effectively caging in our prey. Now that they’re no longer standing, the tension in the club leeches away and the chatter of conversation roars back to life.
I lift my head and catch sight of Ma-Ri’s petite form standing in the mouth of the back hallway, her cigarette holder in one hand and the other propped on her hip. I don’t know how long she’s been watching or if she’s upset by the scene we’ve caused, but I dip my head towards her in deference, a silent apology in my eyes. She shakes her head and turns, disappearing into the back of the club once more.
My attention turns back to the woman at my side. “Why aren’t you waitressing?” I demand.
“Why is that any of your business?” she snaps back, leaning forward and snatching the man’s glass up from where he’d left it on the edge of the glass table. She drains it in one gulp and then grimaces.
The bottle sitting next to the wad of cash he deposited there reads Widow Jane Black Opal. An expensive liquor. I arch an eyebrow and turn back to her. “Are you supposed to be drinking on the job?”
“All of the other hosts do it.”
“None of the other hosts are under twenty-one,” I point out.
Her upper lip curls in a sneer, and she slaps the glass down on the table with a loud clack . “Why are you here, Nolan?”
“To check on you, Princess,” I say.
She laughs, but the sound is rough and caustic. “Why?” Blue hair slides over bare shoulders as she tilts her head. Her gaze slides from me to Lex to Gio and back to me again. “Can’t have one of your pets running off on her own?”
“Baby.” Lex leans forward and she stiffens, her body going rigid as he puts his hand on her leg. Her very fucking bare leg as the cut of her dress shifts up even higher. I’d never noticed before, but do all hosts wear such revealing clothing? Casting a look to the booth and table across from us, I notice that several of the guys stationed there are ignoring their own host in favor of watching Juliet.
I catch their eyes and bare my teeth, forcing the lot of them to turn back to the chick whose time they’re actually paying for. The only one that doesn’t turn away is the single man who doesn’t look at all intrigued by the woman next to me. Savino, Darrio Vargas’ right-hand man, scowls as he glares at Juliet and then his glare switches to me. My previously hostile expression shifts into one of flat apathy. Older and graying at the temples, Savino is far from Darrio’s usual men. He’s skinny and sallow-looking, and we both know that if we were to get into it—I’d win, hands down. Darrio keeps the fucker around for his brains, not his brawns.
“Don’t ‘Baby’ me,” Juliet scoffs, reaching down and lifting Lex’s hand away from her leg and recapturing my attention. I turn away from Savino’s annoyed gaze. “What I do with my time is none of your business. I’m working, and if you’re done chasing off my guests, then it’s time for you to go.”
“Hell no—” Gio barks out the words, but before he can finish, I hold up a hand, stopping him.
I lean forward, and Juliet inhales sharply as I draw closer and closer until the scent of her unfamiliar perfume invades my nostrils. My nose twitches. I don’t like it. I prefer her stripped down to just her natural scent—cool breeze and clean shampoo. To her credit, Juliet doesn’t lean away. She remains still and stiff as she eyes me.
“We’re your new guests, Princess,” I tell her. “So, go ahead … work for us. I want to see what was so damn important about hosting that asshole earlier.”
“For starters,” she sneers. “He wasn’t you.”
Her taunt draws a laugh from me, and I grin widely, moving over until she’s closed in on the couch between Lex and me. I don’t grab her leg or touch her. She’s already proven she won’t respond well to that route. Instead, I let my side warm her. My leg brushing her outer thigh as I reach for the bottle of liquor and pour another glassful.
“You’re underage too,” she points out.
I arch an eyebrow as I lift the same glass she’d used to my mouth. I lick the rim, right where she’d put her lips, before I down a mouthful in a fiery gulp. The burn is light, the kind that comes with quality alcohol.
“Play a game with me, Princess,” I press, keeping her eyes pinned with mine. I’m aware of Gio and Lex’s anxious presence, lingering right there despite the fact that it feels as if the whole club is falling away. The music is muted. The conversation of the other hosts and their guests disappears. It’s just her and me here.
“A game…” Is it just me or does she sound breathless?
“Yes.” My lips curve into a grin as a wicked sensation crawls up my chest. “I hear you and Gio have played before too. It’s my turn, don’t you think?”
She blinks and the spell fractures. Turning her head, her blue eyes cut a dark glare at Gio, as if she’s annoyed that he told us about his night with her. As if their game of Truth or Dare was meant to be a private intimacy between them. I’ll allow her that, but she should know by now that we don’t keep secrets from each other.
With a sigh, Juliet leans back and shakes her head. “No, I don’t want to play with you, Nolan. I think I’ve had enough Scorpion King interference in my life.”
“Jules.” Gio practically jumps forward, leaning over Lex to get her attention, and I have to hand it to him, one look at the bruises still healing on his face seems to ease the tension and anger radiating off her in waves. “Can we just talk? Please? I haven’t seen you, not really, since I got out of the hospital, and I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry about what happened with your dad—about not taking you.”
Gio, for all of his fuckery and loose cannon persona, is good at this part. Good enough that I know when to tag out. “Lex.” I bark Lex’s name and jerk my chin up. “Let’s go get a drink.”
Juliet holds up a hand, stopping us from making our retreat to let the two of them talk—to hopefully let Gio get under her skin and leave an opening for the rest of us. She frowns at me as if she senses the directions of my thoughts. “Oh no,” she snaps. “You’re not doing this. Not here.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Lie . I watch her carefully, though, to see if she knows it.
Her eyes narrow and she stands up from the cushioned lounge. She bends to grab the bottle and glass, and my gaze immediately goes to the rounded curve of her ass, accentuated by the tight material of the dress she’s wearing. Fuck . That was a bad idea . My cock practically throbs in my pants, remembering what it was like to have her underneath me, in my arms, in my fucking bed.
Instead of saying anything in response to me, though, Juliet merely shoves against my chest when I stand, pushing me back and out of her way as she storms past. Several heads turn, male gazes seeking out the sway of her hips, and a low growl erupts from my chest before I can bring it back. Their gazes fall away, and I motion for Gio and Lex to follow—not that they need the prompting.
“Juliet.” I call after her as I trail her out of the main portion of the host club and to one of the bars running along the sides. The bartender, a thin blonde, eyes us as we approach, her nervous gaze jumping from the three of us to Juliet and back again.
“Sorry, Denise,” Juliet murmurs, dropping off the nearly full bottle of alcohol along with the glass. “My client didn’t stay to finish this, can you still use it?”
“Um…” She shakes her head, but takes the bottle anyway. “D-did he still pay?”
“Ignoring us?” I ask. “Really, Juliet? What are we? Twelve?”
“Maybe you are,” Juliet snaps back, her spine rigid as she refuses to look back at me. “ I am trying to do my job, and you’re not my client, so you can leave.”
Denise’s eyes widen and she takes a healthy step back, and I know without glancing in his direction that Lex’s expression has turned thunderous. A moment later, he steps past me, sidling up to Juliet’s back until he has her front pressed into the bar with no room between them. Juliet is pissed at us, she’s distrusting, and I have to remember that it says more about her right now than it does about who we are.
“ Lex .” I reach out and put a hand on his shoulder before he can say something that’s bound to anger her further.
Unfortunately, he doesn’t heed my warning and instead shakes me off as he plants his palms on either side of her hips, gripping her tightly as he bends his head towards hers.
I don’t know what he says—the words are so low that even as close as I’m standing I can’t make them out. Whatever they are, though, they have the exact effect that I expected because in the next instant, she rears back and slams her elbow into his abdomen. Lex doesn’t react. He doesn’t even grunt. Merely nuzzles the side of her face before slowly releasing her.
Both Gio and I eye him as she slowly turns to face him, her expression a mixture of outrage and … arousal?
Shocked, I snap my gaze to Lex, whose mouth is tipped up in a sign of smugness. Surely, I can’t be right, though? I look back at her and upon my second perusal, I see that it’s true. Her cheeks are flushed beneath the makeup. Her lips part as she swipes a tongue over the lower one and I remember what I promised her during our night together.
Tit for tat. An oath I never pressed her for, but one I want to call in now. The sight of her plump, pink mouth and the light blush that has nothing to do with the overuse of powder makes me picture her with those lips of hers wrapped around the root of my cock, taking me deep. Licking up the underside of my shaft and swirling around the head as I offer her all I have.
“If you think that I would ever let you?—”
“We both know what you'd let me do, baby,” Lex says, cutting her off as she heaves breath after breath, glaring daggers at his face.
She vibrates, from her arms to her shoulders, her whole body pulled taut like a bow and ready to snap. “ Fuck you .” Despite how low and hissed the words are, this time, I can hear them clearly.
She’s used to people giving her a reason not to trust them, and we merely proved to her what she already knew—that no one can be trusted.
“Prep Girl…” Gio grimaces when her cool blue eyes switch to him.
“ Don’t .” That one word holds a whole breadth of meaning in its warning. “Just…” She sucks in a breath and slowly releases it, forcing her shoulders to drop back down to their normal level. She turns her head back and forth, the soft strands of azure swiping over her shoulders and lower, barely just grazing above her breasts. “You need to let this go.” Her eyes slide over mine once more. “You need to let me go.”
Tilting my head to the side, I stare back at her. She wants us to let her go? No. Slowly, I shake my head, denying her request. I step closer, reaching out before she can slip free and snagging her wrist in my grip.
“Nolan.” Ignoring the hint of simmering caution in her tone, I turn and pull her behind me. She resists because she’s Juliet—she wouldn’t be our sweet obsession if she didn’t fight against me a little bit. And that’s the truth, I realize. She is no longer just Lex’s obsession—she’s all of ours.
She’s in danger and she doesn’t even realize it. We haven’t told her about Gio’s attackers, what they’d said. Knowing that there’s someone out there makes sense—after all, all of Silverwood hates her family. They can’t go after her father or her mother. She’s the only target left. It doesn’t matter that she had nothing to do with the Donovans’ betrayal of the people of Silverwood. In their eyes, she’s guilty by association.
Maybe that had held us slightly back before. Maybe that was why I’d been so resistant to Lex’s demands and insistence to haul her into our circle, but now … it’s too late. Whether she meant to or not, Juliet Donovan wormed her way into our hearts, into our very souls, and I would split my own chest open before ever letting her go.
The second we’re out of both earshot and eyeshot of the rest of the club as we enter the back hallway, I drag her forward and spin her towards the wall. The second I release her, I slam a hand against the wall just over her shoulder and cage her in.
Any other woman might shrink under the scrutiny or the wide berth of my body pinning her in, but not our girl. Not her. With a snarl that’s all bite and violence, she slaps both of her palms against my chest.
“What the fuck is your problem!”
I lean in. “I get that you’re pissed at us right now,” I say, stepping even closer, forcing my hips to trap hers as she tries to squirm out of my grip. “But don’t for a second think that you can get away from us.”
Her mouth opens, and I cup a hand over it to stop whatever tirade of anger I expect to spew from lips I have far better uses for. Teeth sink into the fleshy skin of my palm, and my cock leaps against my zipper, a low groan choking in my throat. I close my eyes as the sharp pain of her attack slides through me. Bending my head, I breathe in and out, counting backwards from ten.
She doesn’t let go, though. Instead, she bites down harder until wetness oozes against my fingers. A second later, she yelps and releases me. I jerk my head up to find Lex at my side, his fingers locked into her hair as he grips the strands tight in his fist.
“Be nice, baby,” he warns her.
“Fuck you!” she snarls at him.
“I’d love to,” I tell her honestly, and she whips her head—or tries to—in my direction. “But I don’t think you want that right now. I think you might take a little action right now and use it as proof that we’re not what you need.”
“I don’t?—”
“Finish that fucking sentence,” Lex’s voice cuts through her words, dark and dangerous. “I fucking dare you.”
Lashes lower against high cheekbones, but my gaze goes to the spot of red on her lip. It’s blood. My blood.
I’m going to have the outline of my zipper permanently tattooed to the shaft of my cock if we drag this on much longer.
“Prep Girl, we just want you to understand that you can trust us,” Gio insists, stepping up on my other side.
She refuses to look at him—no doubt because the sight of his bruises and still healing features soften her.
“We’ll leave you for now,” I say, using my bleeding palm to capture her chin and force her to meet my gaze. “But remember this—” I lean forward until my lips brush against her earlobe. The grin that graces my lips at her responding shiver is full of self-satisfaction. “Everything you have now—this freedom you have to run from us—is because we allow it. We’ll give you time, Jules, but eventually you will come back to us. I promise you that.”