Chapter 17
Sophia
How do you know if a man is mad? Like a fuming type of angry? Is it the way they stare fire right into your skin, making you so hot it’s impossible to breathe?
Or maybe it’s the way they grip onto you so tightly that they would squeeze all their ferocity out in one tight fist if they could. Or maybe I can tell Dean’s the epitome of rage by the way he growls a bit when Eddie gets too close.
Listen, I thought I was a big girl and could handle all of this. I thought I didn’t need Dean by my side to gather my own intel. However, when Eddie found me tonight, like a dog in heat searching out the nearest female, I could see the horniness in his eyes. The type of man who if I don’t submit wouldn’t mind getting a little rough.
I can handle my own against a man any day of the week, but not when I’m trying to gather intel. So, I find myself in the Catch-22 of all times. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t. That’s why I was happy to see Dean staring at me from across the room earlier tonight.
It almost felt like home.
Like I was safe.
But the way he stares at me right now is like he took that home and set fire to the place and stomped all over it.
Of course, I don’t blame him. I know I left him. He had no idea where I was. I gave him my word I’d work together with him and ended up leaving him to fend for himself at this party tonight.
I should have known he wouldn’t need me to secure an invite to Humphrey Hollingsworth’s side. I sometimes feel Humphrey fancies him a bit, and it makes me giggle when I think about it.
I don’t know what to tell Dean when we talk later. He can’t be upset that I went looking for Rosa and Eddie on my own. I’m not his to command.
When we enter the room, I’m not expecting what awaits us there.
It’s like a jungle inside his room and there are cages hanging from the ceiling with women dressed as tigers in them. Sexy tigers, obviously, but still. Tigers.
I shoot a sideways glance at Dean and he looks just as shocked as I am. Naked men and women touch each other on different beds throughout the room.
Dean takes my hand and gives it a little squeeze. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
I smile. “Thank you.” It’s official, I don’t deserve a man as nice as Dean. The fact he’s still here to protect me even though I left him last night makes my chest tight.
“Everyone please sit on the bed in the center. Let me explain the rules.” Humphrey waves his hand around to the couples in the room. There’s about ten people total, plus Eddie and Humphrey as the odd men out.
“Rules?” Dean whispers so only I can hear.
I shrug, hoping the rules aren’t too hard to follow. I want to bail on this whole mission, but I’ve come too far. I can’t give up now.
“For tonight, it’s anyone’s surprise. I’m going to pair you up, and you’ll each get a bed, and you can fondle, maybe touch a little, and when the buzzer rings the woman gets up and heads to the bed on her right.”
I shoot my eyes to Dean.
“Again, you can do as little or as much as you want.” Humphrey is giggling. “I know some of us like to watch, so maybe we’ll start with the men who like to watch on the back couches.”
He takes Dean’s hand and another man’s hand and leads them both to a couch near the back of the room.
I can do this.
“Sophia, since you’re still new, I’m going to put you with Kevin here. He’s new as well.” Humphrey drags an older man to stand in front of me. His eyes are kind, and he stares back at his wife.
“I don’t know how I feel about these kinds of things yet.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. “Me too.”
“Would it be lame if we’re the only one’s talking on our bed?”
I laugh a little. “I don’t think anyone will pay attention.”
Humphrey lowers the lights and a fog machine turns on at the back of the room. There’s a small strobe light that flashes yellow light every so often.
“Welcome to the jungle,” Humphrey shouts, and music starts playing. Nothing too loud, but definitely something to make the room not so silent.
Humphrey takes a seat next to Dean. He speaks to him like they’re lifelong friends. It makes me wonder what they’re talking about.
Hopefully, Dean is working him for information.
I chit chat with Kevin for a bit on our bed off to the right-hand side of the room. He’s thirty-three, with two kids and a dog named, Yappy. His wife and him wanted to try new things, and I can tell she’s the woman on the bed with Eddie right now, because Kevin can’t keep his eyes off her.
Eddie watches me, not even touching Kevin’s wife, and I have to smile at the fact he is playing it safe with her as well. The buzzer sounds and I move to the bed on my right.
There’s a man there, close to my age, and he’s ok looking. Sandy blond hair, bright blue eyes, and a little scruff to match his hair on his chin. “Hi, I’m Brad.”
“Hi, Sophia.”
“My kink is I love massaging a woman’s feet. May I?” He points his hands toward my toes, and I kick off my heels.
“By all means.”
I let Brad massage my feet and I have to say he really knows what he’s doing. He never gets weird with the act, which I was sort of afraid of, and just massages them until the buzzer sounds.
The next bed is the bed I’ve been dreading, it’s Eddie’s. I smile as I approach.
“I’ve been waiting for this one,” he says with a smile.
“Me too,” I lie.
I sit on the bed, and chance a look over my shoulder at Dean. He’s still talking with Humphrey, but his eyes sear into me, like he wants to make sure Eddie doesn’t lay a hand on me. I blow him a kiss, letting him know I can handle myself.
I have come too far to quit.
“I’ve been thinking about touching you since I saw you walk into my bakery this morning.”
“You have?”
“Fuck, yeah.” He lays back on the bed, propped on both elbows with his knees bent. “Lay down here with me.”
I scoot closer. “My husband likes to watch, and I don’t think he’ll be able to see very well if we’re both lying down,” I tell him, hoping that’s a good enough excuse to keep ourselves from too much trouble by being flat on our backs. “Come closer, sweetheart.”
I cringe at his word choice. “Ok.”
He places his fingers under my chin and brings his lips to mine. “Just one little kiss.”
I hold my breath, repeating my mantra about coming too far to quit over and over in my mind. I nod, and he brings me closer, kissing me. His touch is a little rougher than Dean’s and not as good.
I don’t open my mouth for him, not letting any tongue action happen. Eddie notices my apprehension, and pulls back.
“How far does that slit go?” He stares at my dress, his hand running from my ankle up my leg.
“Why don’t you find out.” I glance back at Dean and notice he’s not there anymore. I scan the room, unable to find him.
Is he so repulsed by me that he can’t even stand to watch another man touch me?
I close my eyes, trying to plan my next course of action with Eddie when the bed dips.
“You won’t mind if I watch from right here, do you Ed?” Dean’s voice vibrates across the green satin sheets.
I smile and Eddie doesn’t really seem to mind.
“Just as long as I get to have my fun, too.”
I grab Eddie’s hand, not wanting to anger him or alert him anything is amiss. “Of course.” I place his hand back on my leg, and he continues his trek up my thigh.
“Her skin’s so soft, right?” Dean asks Eddie.
“Mmm,” Eddie murmurs in agreement.
Dean scoots closer to me on the bed. “She loves it when I touch her right here.” He tickles behind my knee and Eddie stops his trek up my thigh and goes back to the underside of my knee to massage it.
I moan, pretending the mere touch is turning me on.
Dean smiles, happy with himself for keeping Eddie’s hands away from anything too private.
“Mind if I touch too?” Dean asks Eddie.
“She’s yours, sure.”
Hearing Eddie call Dean mine makes my temperature rise.
Dean comes closer, trailing his hand up the side of my neck, behind my ear and then into my hair, tugging at the base of my scalp. His tongue drags along the skin of my throat, and up closer to my ear. “She really loves this.” He sucks a path from my ear to the column of my throat and back up again.
Eddie sits up, scooting closer to do the same on the other side.
“Have you ever had anything so sweet?” Dean asks Eddie.
Eddie shakes his head no. “Never.”
Dean gives him a look of disbelief. “But you’ve hung around Bishop Blackstone. I’d think he’d get tons of women.”
Eddie laughs. “Nothing as fine as her, though.”
I tense a little when Eddie mentions Bishop.
“Relax,” he says to me. “I can make you feel so good.”
I keep waiting for the buzzer to sound, but is it possible Humphrey gave up on the game? Everyone’s paired off where they’re supposed to be and it’s over? I glance around the room and see no one. “I think we’re the only ones here,” I whisper.
Dean comes close to my ear. “Let me know when you want this to end.”
“Keep going. More,” I moan, acting like I’m asking for more of the touching when what I really want more of is for Dean to keep asking Eddie questions.
“Bishop ever share a woman with you before?” Dean asks Eddie.
Eddie shakes his head. “Bishop doesn’t usually partake in his own inventory.”
“Inventory?”
“Yeah, his whores.”
I tense a little again, and Dean’s hand clamps down on my leg, knowing that I want to bail on this topic.
“His whores are nice, though?” Dean asks, and I wonder for a moment where he’s going with this line of questioning.
“Very,” Eddie says, kissing again down my neck.
Dean watches Eddie, and it turns me on. The fact Dean watches everything Eddie does, making sure I’m ok with it all, makes me hot. It almost makes me want Eddie to touch me more, harder, to make Dean a bit jealous. To get that rise out of Dean.
“Eddie,” I say, placing his hand on my breast. “Why don’t you touch me here.”
Dean growls, and it makes me hotter. “And I can touch you here.” He dips his hands under my dress, and I about lose it all.
Eddie massages my breasts, kissing my neck and bringing my dress down a bit as Dean plays his fingers against my clit, pushing my panties to the side so he can enter me.
I moan out long and hard. “Dean,” I whisper. “Don’t stop.”
“Do you like having two men hard for you?”
“Yes, Dean, yes.”
“Do you like knowing him and I are so fucking hard because of you? Because of your sweet body?”
It does turn me on, and I nod over and over. “Yes, don’t stop.”
Eddie rubs his hardness through his pants and groans.
The thought of Eddie hard makes me almost want to stop, but Dean keeps touching me, bringing my body back to life.
“I’m so fucking hard watching his lips on your tits.”
“You are?” I glance at his pants, seeing the ridge of him there. “I want it.”
He pulls his hand away from my wetness. “Have you been a good girl for me?”
I nod. “Yes.”
Eddie watches with rapt fascination, wondering if he should continue kissing me, or if he should stop.
“You’ve been good?” Dean asks again.
I blink. “I think so. Please, Dean, touch me.”
“I don’t think you have.”
I sit up a little, and Eddie watches, not sure what to do. “I haven’t?” I ask him.
Dean growls against my ear. “I just might have to punish you when we get back to my place.”
“Your place?” Eddie asks. “You don’t live together?”
The moment is completely lost and Dean stares at Eddie, mean and hard, like he could kill him for interrupting him.
Eddie holds up his hands. “Sorry man, just trying to play along.” He moves closer to me on the bed. “You’ve been a naughty girl.”
Dean grabs my arm, pulling me up from the bed and away from Eddie. “We’re going home.”
“But, wait…” my words fall away from me as I try to make sense of what just happened there. I thought we were trying to get information from Humphrey and Eddie. Why are we leaving?
“Dean, slow down,” I say as he ushers me out of the house without so much as a goodbye thrown in anyone’s direction.
“No.” He continues on his path, determined to get me back to his place as quickly as possible. And come on, I know why he wants me there. He wants to yell at me. Make me feel like I’m a centimeter tall because I left his house when I said I’d work with him to bring down Bishop.
His car waits by the front door as if this whole thing was planned, and who knows anymore. Maybe it was.
I slide into the backseat and Dean slides right on in beside me.
He doesn’t talk to me, and I’m basically waiting for him to scream and belittle me like most men like to do to women. I’m waiting for the snide remarks that I put myself in danger, but he doesn’t speak.
It’s probably because he has his driver, Leo, and his security, Zack, upfront and he doesn’t want them to overhear.
Or maybe it’s because he hates me so much he can’t bear to look at me. I sometimes wonder how he feels about having to touch me at the club, and then tonight at Humphrey’s house. I’m sure he wanted to touch anyone else but me, because he must be so angry with me for leaving him.
But is he really?
Does he even know I left?