CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
JORDAN
I awoke groggy the next morning, completely disoriented. I’d emerged from the deepest slumber of my life—no surprise, since Seven and I had fucked our brains out until three a.m. He wasn’t in bed when I came to, and I looked around the room for a moment, struggling to place myself in the world. What day was it? What time was it? I looked at the bedside clock—almost eleven.
I yawned, collapsing back onto my pillow. I’d gotten my morning shift at the coffee shop covered, since I had a few more doubles on the schedule this week and even I had limits. One extra shift at the club more than made up for missing my coffeeshop shift, as long as I got it covered and didn’t leave my coworkers high and dry.
At this point, you might not even need to keep working at the coffee shop.
The thought cycled uncomfortably through my body, reminding me of the reason why: Eli. He’d texted me immediately after our VIP session yesterday, as promised. And I’d responded, as promised, just to let him know it was a real number.
I unlocked my phone. Notifications were piled up on each other. All text messages from Eli.
Fuuuuuck.
I swallowed a bad taste in my mouth, shoving the phone back onto the nightstand. I didn’t want to deal with him right now. I didn’t want to deal with him ever again, actually.
I rolled out of bed, rubbing the sleep from my eyes on my way to the bathroom. Once I’d peed and washed my face and felt marginally more prepared for the day, I wandered into the living room. Seven was on the couch, carving wood. I couldn’t stop the huge grin that broke out. I never thought it could bring me so much joy to see a man fondling wood.
But this man knew how to carve. And it just made him even more irresistible.
“Morning.” I sauntered over to him, leaning over the back of the couch to give him a kiss. He smiled up at me as one kiss turned into two and then three.
“Good to see you finally woke up from your sex slumber,” he said.
“Well, when someone fucks you into next week, you need a morning to recover.”
“I couldn’t sleep in. But then again, I wasn’t the one walking on eight-inch heels for seven hours last night.”
I grinned, wandering to the kitchen. “It’s exhausting, that’s for sure. Especially when I have to restrain myself from using said heel as a weapon for part of the night.”
I could hear the thwick thwick thhhhwick of Seven’s carving tool as I got things together for coffee.
“I assume that’s in reference to Eli?”
“Mostly him. But you know how it goes. Most men are creeps.”
He laughed. “Where can I apply for an exclusion?”
“You were automatically excluded on day three,” I told him, filling the coffeemaker with water.
“Not even day one or two?”
“No, because that’s when you were following me around like a creep,” I reminded him with a laugh. I filled the coffee filter with grounds and hit the start button. “But when you broke into my apartment and didn’t have your way with me, I started to think I could trust you.”
“Ironic, considering how many times I’ve had my way with you since then,” he added.
“Yeah, true. Good move, then, I guess. Do you use that one on all your female clients?” I teased.
He pinned me with a serious look. “You’re the first. And the last.”
Seven busied himself with his carving, and my mind wandered back to Eli. I needed to see what he’d been sending. I fetched my phone and returned to the kitchen.
Sixteen text messages, all with varying degrees of fawning, obsessing over my looks, and requests to come to his place. He’d started sending them around one a.m., and the most recent one was from nine. He had to have been up all night. Or was he just a night owl? My stomach churned uncomfortably.
A new text message came in, thankfully not from Eli.
AXEL: Hey baby sis! You got some time for your big bros? We wanna host a dinner to celebrate some exciting news
JORDAN: Oooh, what’s the news? You know I’m down for one of your feasts. Gaston and I have a weird bat relationship going now and I gotta keep that alive.
AXEL: That is so fucking weird and I love it.
AXEL: Gaston, on the other hand…not sure. Gonna have to learn French to find out what he thinks.
AXEL: Anyway, Cora’s divorce was finalized 2 days ago and we wanna host a Fuck You Feast dedicated to her ex tonight. You in?
I stared at the text for an abnormally long time. The uncomfortable churn from earlier had now turned into a dangerous storm. Cora wanted to celebrate being done with Eli forever, while I’d just given him access to me for ten grand.
Maybe it wouldn’t pan out. But what if he did know something? If I’d driven him away, I’d never find out what it was.
I was just going to give him a little bit of what he wanted. The bare minimum. To see where it led. That was all.
JORDAN: I’d love to! Should I tell Seven to come?
AXEL: Of course. It’s not a family affair without our big, muscled bodyguard.
I smiled at his text. My entire life was feeling more and more like a family affair. I’d never even remotely seen this as a possibility for myself…yet here I was. Living it. Kaylee hadn’t struck me dead yet. And I was…happy.
Holy shit, I was happy.
“You must be reading an article about how rice noodles are made if you’re smiling like that.” Seven’s voice jostled me out of my thoughts. I almost wanted to hide my screen, as if it held something salacious, but no. It was just my own sense of weirdness. It took a while to adjust to normalcy. Warmth. Family.
“Try again. I already know how they’re made, anyway. But thinking about them does make me smile.” I jerked my chin toward what he toyed with in his hands. “What did you make?”
He held up his newest creation, a three-pronged fork. “I’m about out of my starter wood. I’ll have to go find some more soon.”
“Can’t you set up a real woodworking station in here?” I gestured to his vast living room, which was mostly empty, save the couches, TV, and his workout equipment.
“So it’ll become a gym, a strip club, and a woodworking shop.”
“Nothing wrong with that. One-stop hobby shop.”
He grinned at me just as the coffee maker bleated that it was ready. My phone buzzed while I prepped my coffee, signaling an incoming text. As soon as I glanced toward my phone on the island, I saw Seven’s gaze land on my phone screen.
“Probably Axel,” I said, stirring creamer into my coffee. “He said they’re planning a divorce celebration for Cora tonight. A fuck-you feast, he called it.”
Seven said nothing. I blew gently on the top of my coffee as I crossed back to the island. I touched my phone to light up the notifications. Eli’s name sat at the top of the list. My stomach sank.
ELI: Are you ever gonna write back?
My stomach twisted. When I looked up, I found Seven’s studious gaze on me, concern wrought into his features.
“Who was that?” he asked quietly. “Definitely wasn’t Axel, and there aren’t too many people that make your face look like that when they text,” he went on.
My shoulders sagged as I set my coffee gently on the countertop. “Eli.”
The way Seven’s brows shot upward made my stomach twist. “Cora’s ex.” He said it less as a question and more like a statement. Like he couldn’t believe the words. “The one your brother wants to celebrate her divorce from.”
“He asked me for my number. I told him no, because I never give out my number—”
“Then how the fuck is he texting you now?”
I winced—his words came out so sharp they nearly broke skin. “I gave Eli our communal throwaway number, the one we all give out to guys who won’t stop pressing us. But he called me out on it. After he made that comment that sounded like it could be about my brothers, I decided to give him a different number that I access via an app on my phone. It’s not my real number. I can delete it or get rid of it at any time.”
“I told you to stay away from him,” Seven said. His anger showed itself at the edges: the flare of his nostrils, the harsh hiss of his words.
“I am. When he comes into my workplace, we’ll engage. But giving him this number will let me probe a little.”
He shook his head. “I’m not buying it.”
I scoffed. “Well when I’m making fifteen grand a day, I can afford to buy it.”
“Don’t be fucking sassy,” he warned.
“I’m not being sassy. What’s the downside here? Either I learn something that might help my brothers, or I make a shit ton of money that helps me.”
Seven watched me for a moment, his nostrils flared. “He’s a drunk, rich asshole who will say anything he can to impress the woman he wants to fuck. That’s what I think.”
I groaned. “Fine. Agree to disagree. But emptying Eli’s pockets is the best way I can think of to help even the scales between him and my brothers. And he doesn’t even fucking know it. It’s like…secret alimony or something.”
Seven seemed thoroughly unmoved by that.
“And you know what else? At the end of the day, I need to make money,” I reminded him. “I need to get back on my own two feet. Remember? You told me this was a temporary place for me. So I need to find an apartment, start paying rent again. Move into a place on my own that doesn’t have a door that lets some random guy just walk into my apartment while I’m working.”
Seven said nothing, just studied the countertop while his jaw flexed and flexed.
And maybe reminding him was helpful to remind me as well.
No matter how sexy and fun this stay had been, it wasn’t my home. It wasn’t for me to stay in permanently. Seven had made that abundantly clear at the beginning, and I intended to make good on the arrangement.
“Don’t you have anything to say?” I asked, when the silence became heavy.
“It doesn’t matter what I say.” He stood straight, his face a frighteningly neutral mask. “You’ve already made up your mind. You gave him access to you outside the walls of the club when you promised you wouldn’t. It’s done. There’s nothing I can do except clean up the mess.”
He started toward the bedroom, calling over his shoulder, “I’m gonna head out for a little bit. I’ll be back in time for dinner.”
He disappeared into the bedroom. Everything felt bloated and tense, and I had a sneaking suspicion his departure was directly related to me.
I frowned down at my coffee, stirring even though it was already perfectly mixed.
A moment later, he strode back through the apartment, his laptop bag slung over his shoulder. He grabbed his jacket on his way out.
“Text if you need anything,” he said curtly.
And then he was gone.
I stood indignantly for a few moments, looking around the empty apartment, watching Ranger wander by. So Seven was mad—okay. Understandable. He needed some time to process. Also fine.
But now he’d ruined my day by walking out on me and putting up the brick wall again. I expected more from him; after so much intimacy and openness, his shutting down felt alien and cold.
I drained my coffee while roaming the apartment like a lost fruit fly. When I couldn’t settle, I finally addressed Eli’s texts.
ELI: I’m hosting a party tomorrow night. I NEED you there.
ELI: Come on gorgeous. Tell me you’ll come.
JORDAN: I’m open. But I need to make one thing clear.
ELI: What is it?
JORDAN: I’m not your girlfriend, and I’m not a prostitute. I expect you’ll want me to dance and entertain your friends. That’s work for me. So I’m expecting to be compensated. And everyone keeps their hands to themselves.
ELI: Compensation is my middle name. Along with Perfect Gentleman. So you in?
JORDAN: One more thing.
ELI: Jesus.
JORDAN: My bodyguard comes with.
ELI: You don’t trust me?
JORDAN: It’s not that. He comes with me everywhere. This ass needs extra eyes…don’t you agree? kissy face>
ELI: I’m sure he doesn’t hate his job. He can come too. Just promise me I’ll get some alone time with you. I need you there.
My eyes fluttered shut. My entire body felt heavy. Seven was going to fucking hate this. And possibly hate me. But something deep inside, way past the trepidation, told me this was something I needed to see through.
JORDAN: Promise. See you tomorrow.