CHAPTER EIGHT
Daisy
“I don’t know, y’all. I’m not looking for the ‘hit it and quit it’ kind of relationship that Jack Lanscaster’s known for.”
I was sitting around with my roommates talking and eating snacks. It was a rare weekday afternoon where we were all together. No one was at work; no one was studying. It was just all of us together for once and it was nice.
I had a lot of roommates, and they were all unbelievably gorgeous. Whenever we ordered pizza, which wasn’t often considering the revealing uniforms we had to wear at Sugar, the pizza delivery guys would stare at us like they’d just hit the jackpot.
Besides Jelly, there’s Nora, a super quiet, super sexy woman with gorgeous long, dark hair that reached her waist and big blue eyes. Our roommate Madeline, who looked like Barbie had come to life, said Nora was what Snow White would look like in a porno version of the fairy tale.
I’m not sure Nora really loved that comparison.
She was a bartender at Sugar, and, occasionally, Cayenne—the sex club we weren’t allowed to go to.
Nico and Carmen thought the men there would ignore their female patrons to try to get with one of us.
We’d all asked Nora what it was like, but she’d just shrugged and gave a close-lipped smile. She wasn’t into gossiping.
Then there was Abbi. She was a really sweet girl who was a stripper at Sugar and tended to hang out with Nora.
The two of them had the best hair in the house, and that was saying something because we all had good hair.
Abbi’s hair was super long like Nora’s, but it was honey blonde.
At least that was the predominant color.
She had brown, red, and platinum blonde highlights throughout, and it was natural.
She didn’t get it done professionally, even though it looked like she did. It was beautiful.
Besides Madeline, who had the biggest boobs out of all of us, Abbi was one of the most popular strippers. She’d taken dance for years, and it was hard to decide if the men were staring at her body, her naturally graceful dance moves, or her hair.
Let’s be real; it was probably her body.
Then there was Gloriana, who went by Glory.
She was a gorgeous, sexy Latina with a curvy body.
She was the most requested of all the hostesses at Sugar.
I knew I was probably second, but no one could touch Glory.
She was great at flirting, knew just how much to let the guys get away with, and was excellent at her job.
She seemed to have a sixth sense for when people needed something, so she was usually at their table with refills before they’d even lifted a hand.
In the house, she was pretty standoffish.
She was never rude or anything, she just didn’t share much about herself.
She hadn’t bonded with any of us in particular, either.
Whereas everyone else had a particular friend they tended to be closest to, Glory didn’t.
She also didn’t seem very concerned about money, which made me wonder why she was eventually going to do the auction.
She was something of a mystery.
Then there was Bethany. She was arguably the best looking out of all of us.
She had a great body, long red hair, skin that tanned, and big brown eyes.
She stripped at Sugar and also entertained men in the VIP room.
Of all of us, only Bethany and Madeline worked the VIP rooms. I wasn’t exactly sure what they did in there, but I did know that they did more than just give private dances.
I also knew it hadn’t been something I’d been willing to sign up for, but I didn’t blame them for doing it.
The money was good, but they used it for wildly different things.
Madeline shopped. She had a cute little car, all the best designer clothing, and always looked impeccable.
Like Glory, I wasn’t really sure why she had signed up for the auction.
She didn’t seem to have anything pressing that she needed money for.
She also had a boyfriend she was secretive about, so I didn’t ask questions.
Bethany used her money for graduate school.
She was in veterinary school and was absolutely brilliant, though I’d be willing to bet none of the guys at the club were aware of that.
Or would care. She was also a favorite of the Salazar brothers.
They were always requesting her for the VIP rooms, and I was almost positive she went to Cayenne with them from time to time.
Even though that was supposed to be forbidden.
She spent a lot of time with the twins, Leo and Joaquin, who owned several restaurants in town.
I knew she’d also been with Nico, but I wasn’t sure if she’d been with Javier or Enzo, the two oldest Salazar siblings.
Enzo was the oldest, and, in my opinion, the hottest of all the Salazar brothers. And so, so out of my league.
I looked around the large room at each of the roommates I’d become friends with over the past months and wondered when things would change.
Because change was inevitable at Cinnamon House.
That was just how it worked. All of us had signed an agreement with Carmen that we’d participate in the private auction—that’s how we got to live in such an incredible home rent free.
Some of us would be leaving over the next couple of months, and new girls would be moving in.
It made me a little sad, but I knew the reality was that Carmen wasn’t running a charity.
Nadine had already come and gone, as well as several girls who I’d never gotten very close to. I’d been in Nadine’s wedding, though, when she recently married West Bay’s mayor. It was a little scandalous, considering he’d won her in a sex auction and she’d been his cinnamon girl.
The rest of us had been here longer than most, so maybe that’s why I was having trouble with thinking about changes splitting us up. And, of course, I was planning to ask Carmen to put me in the next auction myself.
I could be the next one to move out.
“What do you mean ‘relationship’?” Bethany asked, eyes wide.
“Oh, um… I’m just not sure I want to go out with him after all.”
Jelly grinned while my other five roommates stared at me with their mouths open.
“Daisy.” Madeline looked at me with her big blue eyes. “Are you telling me you have a date with Jack Lancaster?”
I nodded. “But I’m thinking of canceling.”
“Don’t you dare,” she said, horrified. “You are not going to cancel a date with a young, Greek god of a billionaire because he might not want to go out with you again. You will go out with him!” She came over, grabbed me by the shoulders, and shook me a little.
“So what if he fucks you then forgets you? You’d have such a great story to tell.
Jack Lancaster? He’s rich, famous, and fucking nuclear he’s so hot. ”
“And experienced,” Bethany practically purred.
“I bet he knows exactly what to do with that big, muscular body of his.” She was draped over one of the couches, laying on her stomach as she adjusted her glasses to read from a huge scientific textbook.
“Girl, just go have fun. You deserve it.” She narrowed her eyes at me.
“How long has it been since you’ve fucked anyone? ”
I clammed up. I didn’t want to admit it. Everyone except Madeline and Bethany were quiet about their sex lives. We lived vicariously through those two.
Bethany sat up. “Tell me you’ve been with someone since Myers.”
All of my roommates knew about what had happened between Myers and me. Hell, the whole campus seemed to know.
“She hasn’t,” Jelly offered as she popped a cherry tomato in her mouth.
“What the hell, Jelly?” I hissed.
She gave half a shoulder shrug. “I needed backup. I’ve been telling you this shit for months, but you wouldn’t listen to just me.”
Madeline was staring at me, a baby carrot halfway to her mouth. “Are you for real right now? You haven’t gotten laid in like,” she thought about it, “years?”
She said it as if I’d just told her I had decided to be a nun. “There wasn’t anyone I was interested in…”
“Bullshit,” Bethany said. “We see hot as hell rich guys every single night at Sugar. And those Salazar men?” She shivered. “They are spectacular at fucking. You should let Nico or the twins take you to one of the VIP rooms…”
“She thinks Enzo is the hottest,” Jelly helpfully supplied while I shot her daggers with my eyes.
“Oooh. Enzo,” Bethany said dreamily. “He’s gorgeous and so… scary. But he’s in love with someone.”
I frowned. “You think he’s scarier than Nico?”
All the girls nodded emphatically. “He’s the most like Carlos,” Nora spoke up.
Carlos Salazar was the head of the family and there were many people who believed he still had close ties with his mafia-esque family back in Spain. He was a rich, handsome, middle-aged man, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d broken several laws to get where he was today.
“Definitely. Enzo will rule that family one day. He’s nice to all of us, but word is he’s a cold, calculating bastard when it comes to business dealings,” Madeline supplied.
“So, you don’t think he fucks around?” Jelly asked Bethany.
“Oh no, I didn’t mean that. He’s in Cayenne most nights. I just think he has an arrangement with a couple of different women. I don’t think he hooks up with a different woman every night, that’s all.”
I nodded. I wondered who he was in love with.
Madeline got a grin on her face. “Y’all are wrong, though, if you think Carlos or Enzo is the scariest Salazar.”
“You think it’s Nico?” I asked.
“It’s Gloria.”
We all got quiet and nodded. Gloria Salazar was a former debutante and pageant queen who’d defied her parents to marry Carlos, a young Spanish immigrant with hardly a penny to his name. But they’d created an empire together and ruled the city’s social scene.
Gloria was the unofficial queen of West Bay, and she knew it.