Chapter 2
TWO
Davis
I thank my server as he sets a plate down next to my coffee, bringing me the delicious sustenance of a perfectly-cooked omelet and a heaping side of bacon.
My best friend’s voice plays in my mind, lecturing me.
‘You’re in another country, Davis, you should be indulging in the culture.
Try the food!’ He would tell me. He’d give me hell about not learning more of the language before coming, too.
Sorry, old man, I’m hungover as shit and I really just want some damn eggs.
Speak of the devil, my phone pings with a text alert as if he’s been summoned.
Colt: How goes the research?
Me: Good. I’ll CC you on an email to Logan later with some ideas.
It’s not a total lie. I have been paying attention to what people seem to like, what I like, about the clubs here. The boozing and fucking are just something I can consider perks of the job right now, I guess.
It’s like my dick’s summer bonus.
Colt: That’s what I like to hear, Davis. Get back here and we’ll work up some plans.
Am I going to tell him that I’m staying another few days? Nah. Ask for forgiveness rather than permission, right? He can decide how pissed to be at me when he sees the shit I’ve come up with.
I flip my phone over to hide the screen and block out the outside world while I shovel my breakfast into my mouth, following with my coffee, which I drain in three large gulps. I drop a handful of cash on the table, more than enough to pay for the food and tip, and I head out of the hotel.
I have a lot of hours to pass until the clubs start to come alive, and while I could technically visit a few and do some daylight-hour research, I’d rather fuck around in the city instead.
I decide to travel on foot, working my way through a line of hotels, which I jot down a few notes about in my phone, along with a reminder to talk to Colt and the boys about opening one of our own.
Maybe two. Easy way to make a shit ton of money, and we could incorporate our other businesses into it to really double – or triple – down on our already ridiculous profits.
It doesn’t take me more than a twenty minute walk to find a street market. There are dozens of rows of vendor tables, tightly packed together, most of which are brightly colored and loaded down with different trinkets and fabrics.
A lot of it looks handmade, and all of it is beautiful. I can hardly hear myself think over the noise of the crowd around me, everyone trying to talk over each other, both vendors and shoppers.
A particularly colorful table catches my eye and I step closer to look at the array of tapestries, braided jewelry and purses lining the table, which is topped with a multicolored blanket.
I reach for a teal-and-orange tapestry, just a small little woven thing that has a bunch of little tassels dangling at the bottom, but my mom would like it.
I don’t get to see her much outside of holidays anymore, so I like to send gifts every now and again to let her know I’m thinking of her.
“Uh, quando par...this thing?” I ask the vendor, holding up the tapestry. The woman behind the table looks at me like I’m a complete fucking idiot. Shit. “Quanto?” I correct myself.
She spreads out her fingers and says something to me that I don’t understand, I assume meaning that it’s five US bucks, so I reach into my wallet and pull out a couple of five hundred peso notes and hand them to her with a grateful nod.
“Gracias,” I tell her. “Buenos dios!”
“You just said ‘good god,’” A familiar voice flutters past me with a giggle.
Noelle sidles up next to me, browsing the same table I’m now desperate to get the fuck away from, because I probably insulted that woman with my butchering of the language that I know I should have learned more of before coming here.
Colt really would never let me hear the end of it. I swear to god, I tried.
Noelle looks good as fuck. Her hair is damp and has a wave to it that tells me she just came from the beach, and her neon orange bikini top is covered only by a crocheted open-weave top.
The bombshell standing next to me reaches toward the table and pulls a bag toward her – white leather, covered in a vibrant medley of hand-embroidered flowers.
“What do you think?” She asks, striking a pose, puckering her lips at me.
“I think you ought to do the talking,” I say, inclining my head toward the vendor.
Noelle laughs, but turns to the woman and effortlessly asks her how much the bag costs.
I can’t count past fucking three in Spanish, so I have no idea what number the woman says to her.
I just see Noelle reaching into her tiny little shorts for her wallet, so I block the motion with my body and pull my own wallet out instead, grabbing another bunch of bills and handing it to the woman.
She shakes her head, trying to refuse the cash.
“Tell her it’s for her,” I instruct Noelle.
“Sure,” she tells me with a smirk. Turning to the woman, she says, “Al estúpido no le faltará el dinero. Deberías tomarlo.” The vendor smiles at her as they share a laugh, and she finally takes the money from my hand.
“Thanks,” I say. “You from here?”
She laughs as we start walking together through the market. “No. Unlike you, apparently, I paid attention in Spanish class.”
Yeah, and I ditched it to get high in the bathroom.
We move through the stalls together, my goal now to find a gift for my dad, because I’d feel like an asshole only sending one to Martina.
It isn’t like they expect it of me, but now that I have the cash to spare, I always feel a little bit like I should pay them back for everything they’ve done for me.
Not everyone adopts a fucked-up little kid, then lets him fly the coop on his own at eighteen to move across the damn country and start a pipe dream project with the best friend he met on the fucking internet. After everything, I got lucky with them.
“So if you’re not from here, where are you from?” I ask.
“A magical land,” Noelle tells me, avoiding the question as she twirls around to hold a purple bottle of perfume in front of my nose. “Smell.”
I pull a whiff of the perfume into my nose and shrug at her. “I got flowers and...something else.”
“Ugh.” She rolls her eyes and sets the bottle back onto the table. I catch myself taking note of which one it was. “Men are useless with fragrance.”
“Don’t you wanna know where I’m from?” I probe. I don’t know why I care so fucking much about making small talk with a one night stand. I don’t know why I’m hanging out with a one night stand.
“You’re obviously from the south,” she snorts.
“Obviously?”
Throwing a thick, dramatized accent into her voice – more of a twang than the drawl I speak with - and batting her lashes, she says, “Well ya called me ‘Sugar,’ and your accent ain’t as faint as I think ya try to make it sound.
” Her regular tone returns and she asks, “So did I nail it? What’s my prize? ”
“Prize?” I ask with an arched brow.
“See you around, Eric,” she winks. Tossing her hair over her shoulder with a feline grin, she spins on her heel and starts walking away from me, the crease of her ass exaggerated with every step, showing just below the hem of those damn shorts.
And fuck me if I don’t love the view.
·
With hot water beating down on my back, I swirl the rum in my glass in time to the music filling the room and lift it to my lips, swallowing down the smooth liquid as I turn to face the stream of water.
I could live in this shower; like mine, it takes up half of the room.
The wall behind the showerhead made of slate tiles, and at the opposite side is a window that covers the upper two thirds of the wall, looking out over the city and into the water.
It would be criminal to leave here without fucking someone in front of it.
Stepping out of the shower, I set my glass on the counter and quickly wrap a towel around my waist. I pick up my glass, taking a sip from it and bobbing along to the music as I walk through the suite toward my suitcase.
My shit is all over the place, most of it piled on top of the suitcase sitting on the floor near a couch at the center of the suite. I didn’t really expect to be here this long, but it’s working out fucking fantastically for me.
I dig through the pile of clean clothes and pull out a plain old black t-shirt and a pair of jeans.
Throwing them on, I grab my cologne and give myself a few generous spritzes with it before tossing it back into the pile.
Colt would lose his shit if he knew I brought a two thousand dollar cologne with me, but I’d tell him what I always tell him: it’s just money, I can’t take it with me when I go, so why not enjoy the shit while I can?
That’s the whole damn point of having it.
Since Bill and Martina brought me home, I’ve never had to worry about money.
I was always comfortable. I never went without anything I needed in their house.
Now I’ve got so much goddamn money, I don’t even know what to do with it.
So if I like something, I don’t give a shit about the price tag.
It keeps coming in faster than I can get rid of it, so who cares how I choose to spend it?
·
The subject of tonight’s ‘research’ is fucking massive. The building itself has to be fifty, sixty feet high. The crowd is packed tighter than a can of sardines, grinding in unison to the music blasting over the speakers underneath neon spotlights that flash in shades of green and orange.
Several dancers hang from the ceiling, putting on a fucking sexy display in plexiglass boxes, lined on the bottoms with neon lights in varying colors. I gotta log that shit away in my mind, whether for our club or for my own personal use.
It takes some effort, but I make my way to the bar to order a tequila, using my hands to gesture to the bartender that I want it on the rocks rather than as a shot.
When the guy comes back with my drink, I gesture toward the bottle on the shelf and back toward myself, trying to tell him I just want to buy the whole damn thing.
It took too fucking long to get over here to be coming back all night for refills.
He looks at me funny for a second, but I reach for my wallet and hand him my card, gesturing with it one more time toward the bottle, until he takes the card and swipes it, bringing the bottle over to me.
“Thanks, man!” I shout at him over the music.
I turn to make my way back through the crowd, moving my hips to the music, stopping occasionally to give a little grind to a nice ass if I pass one, putting feelers out for the end of the night.
I pass a group of women dressed in nothing more than string bikinis, a couple of which are hanging on for dear life to the bodies they’re tied to, and I try to remember if I’ve ever done four at once. I know I’ve done three a couple of times…
No, I don’t think I have. Huh. That might be a new goal to set for myself.
It’s hard to see more than a couple of feet in front of me in here; I want our club to be packed every night, but not like this. Not to the point that it’s hard for our guests to move or enjoy themselves.
I feel hands on either side of my hips, grabbing onto my belt, and turn around to find their source. I’m met with dark, pin-straight hair and those fucking green eyes, a wicked smile playing at the full lips that sit below them.
“Hey stranger!” Noelle shouts, lifting herself onto her toes to try and reach my ear.
The arm holding the bottle of tequila finds its way around her waist, pulling her close to me, and I bend down to her level. “You followin’ me, Sugar?”
“Call it fate!” She yells back.
I’ll call it something, alright.
She plucks the plastic cup from my hand and takes a sip, wincing as she swallows down the tequila inside, and a sideways grin crosses my face watching her.
I take her free hand with mine, holding the two over her head, and she turns so that her back is facing me, bringing her ass to meet my lap while she moves her hips to the music. Her little sequin top is only barely held together by a thin string tied at her back, showing off her deep tan lines.
Bringing our hands back down over front of her, I snake them around her waist and angle down to bite her neck. She smells like vanilla and something else I can’t quite place; I’ve never been good with smells. I just know she smells damn near as good as she tastes.
My hand trails from her waist up toward her throat, wrapping firmly around it.
I may not be able to hear it, but I can feel her moan at the contact, and fire pours down my spine.
I force her head backward and look down at her, our eyes locked on each other while I bring the bottle of tequila above her head and pour it into her mouth.
She swallows it down, this time keeping a relatively straight face, and she opens her mouth again, waiting for another shot. I pull the bottle to my own mouth with a smirk, pouring the liquor inside, then angle my head over Noelle’s.
I give her a quick wink before letting the liquid pour from my own mouth into hers, spitting the shit down her throat.
As she happily drinks it down, she turns to me, lifting herself up on her toes again, and I bend down to listen to her.
“Catch me if you can, giant!” She yells into my ear, slapping her palm against my cheek.
And then she fucking bolts.