Virgin Mojitos
Flynn
Hope’s calligraphic handwriting flows across the page. In the back of my mind, she huffs in annoyance.
You know most people would feel guilty reading their sister’s diary.
“Most people aren’t sociopaths,” I mutter.
Guilt is one of those social emotions with which I have a somewhat long-distance relationship.
So far though, the diary has failed to give me any information on Claren.
The only person mentioned with any regularity is a guy she was dating but she never gives his name. Naturally, I’ve been calling him Dick.
Speaking of dicks, the door to my basement hideaway pushes inward and Lachlan strides in. He drops a file on my desk next to where my feet are resting.
I sit up, my toes hitting the black rug. “You know it’s polite to knock.”
“I found something.”
I put down Hope’s diary, reach for the file, and flip it open. “Are you going to share or just stare at me while I read?”
“Ana Zhang.”
I scan the file, recognizing the young woman staring out at me as one of the women from the Project Zeus folder in Claren’s office. “You think she and the others were like Hope?”
“They all went to Washington State. So, yes. It took a lot of digging, but that in there is a Non-Disclosure Agreement.” Lachlan nods at the file in my hands.
I scan over the document but it’s pretty much all redacted. “Claren paid her for her silence.”
“The question is, why? Hope was blackmailed, not paid off, which makes me think Ana has something on Claren.”
I study the thumbnail photo at the top of the file. She looks about thirty, with straight bangs and fierce eyes. A survivor’s eyes. “We need to talk to her.”
Lachlan crosses his arms, looking every bit the lawyer in his suit jacket. “And how exactly do you plan on that when I practically have my own police escort, and your face is plastered across every news platform in the state?”
“Shh,” I wave him off. “Let me cook.”
Lach shakes his head as he heads to the door. “Like living with a teenager,” he mutters.
“Hey, uh, Lach,” I call after him. “Can I ask you something?”
“No,” he says, but stops and turns back around. “What?”
“There’s this girl.”
“I know. Would you listen if I told you to not get her involved?”
“She’s already involved. Her ex was connected to the Kings.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah.” I tracked down Hazel’s ex this morning.
As far as I can tell he never made it into the society.
He’s a deadbeat, a low-level drug dealer who can’t hold down a job.
He shouldn’t be a problem, but I still don’t like how close Hazel was to those people.
That’s not what I wanted to talk to Lach about though.
I run my tongue around my cheek. “Say I wanted to… spend the night with her…”
Lachlan rubs his hand over his mouth in a poor attempt to hide his smirk. “Are you asking me how to have sex, Flynn?”
I cut my gaze to him. “Good sex, so granted you might not know.”
Lach scowls at me. “Wait here.” He disappears up the stairs and I tip back in the desk chair, blowing out a breath that catches my curls.
I’m not used to feeling out of my depth but tormenting Hazel with her vibrator the other night hit the edges of my experience and I want more.
I want to taste her, to slide my fingers into her slick heat.
I want her gripping my cock with my hand around her throat.
But she deserves so much more than I know how to give her. Yet.
Maybe I should have fucked around more but honestly, until Hazel, I’ve never had any desire to touch a woman the way I want to touch her.
I already know I could spend hours exploring her body, learning what strokes make her toes curl, what touches take her to the edge, what whispered words have her gasping that breathy sound that goes straight to my dick.
I groan, my cock hardening. I should be focusing on getting vengeance for Hope, not fantasizing about how I want to bend Hazel over her kitchen table and take her from behind so I have the perfect view of that round ass. An ass I want to mark as mine.
No. I should be staying far away from her, but the thing is, I don’t want to and I’ve never been good at doing things I don’t want to do.
Lachlan is taking a while to reappear, so I check Hazel’s location on my phone. It’s her day off today and she’s on the move somewhere. My eyes narrow on the little green dot. She could be doing any number of perfectly innocent things, but I just get this feeling…
Flynn
Be good today, Lilac.
Lilac
I always am. You’re the one who has issues with that.
I chuckle and press to call her. She lets it ring a few times before answering.
“Hi.”
“Hello, Little Lilac.”
The sweet hitch in her breath rattles down the line.
“Where are you?” I ask.
“On the bus.”
“Going?”
Hazel hesitates. “To Wright’s house.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yep.”
She’s lying but I decide not to call her on it just yet.
“This is weird,” she says.
“What is?”
“Us, just talking on the phone.”
“Do you want to stop?”
She goes quiet, the engine of the bus humming in the background. “No.”
I smile to myself, that warm feeling in my chest growing stronger.
“What are you doing right now?” she asks.
“Thinking about you. About how your legs shook when I held the vibrator to your clit.”
“Jesus Flynn, you can’t say things like that when I’m in public.”
“Oh, but I can. I can also tell you how the next time I have you spread out before me, your wrists will be tied to the bedposts, and I’ll take my sweet time tasting you.”
“I’m hanging up now.”
I laugh.
“Bye Hazel. Behave.”
“Bye, Flynn.”
I lower the phone from my ear, running my thumb over the screen as I re-read our texts. Fuck, I’m obsessed.
Lachlan still isn’t back so I read some more of Hope’s diary until he strides back into the den with a tote bag from Barnes and Noble.
He dumps the bag on the desk.
“Did you just… go to the bookstore?”
Lachlan starts taking out books and stacking them on the desk. “Best advice I can give you—read romance books.” He pulls out love story after love story like the ones Hope used to read then finishes with a biology textbook and a canned drink. I turn it around to read the label.
“Virgin Mojito? Really?”
Lachlan smirks at me. “Happy reading, brother.”
“Thanks so much,” I call after him as he leaves, sarcasm heavy in my voice. I wait until the door’s closed before caving and picking up the first book.
I’m not much of a reader but the first page is pretty good, and it doesn’t take long for the spice to start. I absentmindedly check up on Hazel between pages, my thumb freezing on the screen when I see her location.
I put the book down and zoom in on the map. “What are you up to, Little Lilac?” I murmur under my breath because I recognize that address and it is most definitely not Wright’s house.