20. Nora
CHAPTER 20
NORA
The space is lit by red lights. Thick smoke rolls along our feet, and the air feels heady. I make out a few bodies dancing to the pulsing beat. Others are sitting on futons, and a couple is draped over one…
Making out lazily.
A goblet hangs from the man’s hand while his partner kisses his neck. I look at them too long and flinch when a waiter approaches us. He’s dressed in a red leather suit and has dark-rimmed kohl around his eyes. “Welcome to hell.” The tray he holds up has shots, a few drinks, and… are those pills? “Be careful down here, angel,” he tells me with a smile that encourages me to be anything but.
“Thanks.” I reach out and take one of the shots. It burns. Whiskey with some kind of spice.
West takes the empty cup from me. “You don’t know what that was.”
“Alcohol,” I say with a grimace. “And liquid courage. God, I don’t like whiskey.”
“Be careful what you drink down here.” The darkness casts shadows over his sharp cheekbones.
“You sound like there’s danger down here.”
“There is.” He takes my hand again. Fingers curve over mine, and we start walking through the party.
Like we hold hands all the time.
His palm is warm and a bit dry in mine, and it sends a shot of heat through me. I kissed him yesterday.
Kissed West Calloway.
And he let me do it, set the pace, run point.
He leads me past the bar and past another velvet couch with two women making out so vigorously that it looks like the prelude to something that should be done behind closed doors. Except that’s probably the point.
Virtues rule in paradise above.
But down here, all is lost.
And West brought me here. He didn’t avoid this, he didn’t come here alone, in some misguided attempt to protect me. He let me come.
Excitement courses through me.
This place is electric.
The air grows thicker in the next room, warm with incense. He’s clearly been here before; he knows to turn around a pillar and move down a few small steps. This place is huge… and yet there are people everywhere. In various states of undress.
His hand is warm around mine.
I can’t stop noticing it. How it feels to have him holding on to me like we’re together. I know it’s an act. But I’m not not liking it.
Another couple stops us. The man smiling widely and leans in to talk to West. I can’t hear what he says, but I can practically feel West’s irritation at being stopped.
I look around, my hand still grasped in his. People are milling about, drinking, talking. Two are making out. There are curtains hanging from the low ceiling, creating little partitions, hidden alcoves.
A woman with strawberry blonde hair stands by an opening across the room, holding a martini.
Is that…?
She turns, and her eyes find mine.
Amber.
She looks past me at where West is still talking to someone. She holds a finger to her lips.
I nod. I won’t tell him.
Amber smiles quickly and then slips out around the corner, disappearing from the room, unseen by her brother. I’m more curious now than ever. Amber’s here? Vivienne didn’t mention that, but she mentioned Rafe. And if West shouldn’t know either…
Maybe she snuck in somehow.
I have to ask her about it one day.
The music is too loud to make out West’s conversation, so I keep looking around. There’s a man leaning against the wall right beside us. He’s got dirty blond hair, and his black silk shirt hangs open, showing off his abs.
He crooks a finger, motioning for me to join him. There’s a wide smirk on his lips.
Oh.
I give a little shrug that’s neither yes nor no.
“You look parched,” he says. “Let me grab you a drink. Come play with us.”
He nods toward an alcove I hadn’t spotted before. It’s half hidden with draped fabric, and there are already two people inside. A woman is sitting between a man’s splayed legs, and his large hand is gripping one of her breasts.
They’re both looking our way.
“Um, you and your friends?” I ask.
“We have room for you too, gorgeous.”
The hand on mine tightens suddenly, and then West is beside me again. “She’s taken.”
The other man holds up his hands with a grin. “You’re welcome to come play too.”
“I don’t share,” West says darkly and pulls me along. I follow him with a small wave goodbye at the handsome blond. He was willing to have a… fivesome? I don’t even know how that would work logistically.
Maybe after four people, it stops being called a -some and becomes an orgy. I don’t know what the etiquette is. I haven’t even had sex with one person.
We walk beneath an archway, and a large room opens up. At the center is another poker table, mirroring the one above, and I realize it has to be in the same position as the one we saw upstairs.
As above, so below.
The table is full. Some players look at their cards, others at their opponents. A Black woman wears a gorgeous dress, with red feathers attached along sleeves that drape over her fingers where she grips her cards.
And they’re all quiet. The only sound comes from the spectators. Because there’s plenty of those, too, draped along the walls.
People are looking at us.
West isn’t a stranger to these games, I’m sure of it. He leads me through the stares to the only seat still free. It’s a single high-backed chair in an alcove, velvet curtains pulled back.
We pass a tray on the way.
I grab another one of the spicy shots and down it when he’s not looking. It tastes better now and burns alongside the excitement pounding through me.
“Showtime, trouble,” he says. “There’s only one chair. Think you can sit in my lap?”
The pulsing beat of the music reverberates in my breastbone. Makes my heart speed up. “Yes.” I can sense the people watching us from the back. I’m blocking their view of West… and giving them a good shot of my backless dress. “I’ll play the part if you’re prepared to get kneed again during our next lesson.”
His lips curve. “By you? Any day.”
He sits, legs spread, and puts his hands on my hips. I’ll touch you in public, he told me. I sink onto his lap. It’s more of a perch than a sprawl, and it only takes a second for West to chuckle behind me. His hand finds the curve of my waist, and he pulls me back until I’m leaning against his chest. “Relax,” he murmurs.
People are still watching us.
His hand is warm, steady. I can feel the rise and fall of his breathing behind me.
I lean my head back, resting it against his shoulder. “There are two poker games?”
“Upstairs,” West says, “they play for money. Down here, they play for far more interesting things.”
“You’ve played here before,” I say.
It takes him a while to answer. “Yes. When I was younger and dumber.”
“You can lose a lot down here,” I guess. The tension at the table is thick. Some of the players are silent. Others are drinking heavily or chatting to someone sitting behind the poker table.
“You can lose everything,” West says.
I look from the table to the futon in the corner, where the couple is going from making out to… hands between legs. I’ve never seen anything like it before.
He notices my gaze and turns his mouth to my ear. “Have you ever watched people have sex before?”
That answer is an easy one. “No. Is that common at these parties?”
“No. Not unheard of, sure. But I think everything has been heightened tonight. Especially down here.”
My eyes land on the couple in the corner again. A man has a woman clutched against him, half reclining on the velvet chaise. Her skirt is rucked up, and his hand is between her legs. I can’t make out anything clearly in the hazy red lighting, except that his hand is covering the spot between her legs perfectly. And judging from the way her head is thrown back in bliss, he’s touching her well.
A hot flush creeps up my cheeks. They don’t seem to mind the other people in the room. If anything, they like it. Being watched.
West’s fingers curve over my waist, and I can feel his breath against my ear. “Your brother will kill me when he finds out I brought you here.”