16. Remi
sixteen
Remi
Ihad two ideas on how to handle this situation. I could grab Lucy and go, pretend I never saw him, and spend the rest of the night somewhere he wasn’t. Or I could make him regret following me here.
It wasn’t even a hard decision.
He wanted to follow me here? Fine. He wanted to stand there looking at me like he owned something? Fine. I just wasn’t going to run or go to him. What I will do though, is make him fucking watch.
I turned away from him and scanned the room.
There was a guy a few feet away, dark hair, decent face, and already looking at me like he’d been working up the nerve to approach me.
I didn’t overthink it, just walked straight up to him, leaned in close enough that he could hear me over the music and said, “Dance with me.”
He blinked, a little surprised, then grinned. “Yeah?”
“Absolutely.”
I grabbed his hand and pulled him onto the dance floor, and I could feel Rio’s eyes on my back the entire time. Good, I’m glad.
I turned around and pressed my back against the guy’s chest, letting him put his hands on my hips and he didn’t hesitate. His grip tightened and I started moving, swaying my hips from side to side. I could hear him making sounds in my ear but wasn’t performing for him.
I was performing for Rio.
The guy’s hands slid lower, fingers digging into my hips as I continued to grind against him. I tipped my head back, let my hair fall over my shoulder, and I knew Rio could see every second of it.
Yeah, this was petty. I was fully aware of how petty this was. But I just didn’t care because it was the only power I had right now and I was using every bit of it.
The guy leaned down, his mouth close to my ear. “You’re fucking gorgeous.”
I didn’t respond because this wasn’t about him, so I just kept moving, letting him touch me, and I kept my eyes anywhere but on Rio.
Except I could feel him even across the room and through the crowd.
The guy’s hands moved up my sides, over my ribs, and I let him because why the hell not.
His mouth found my neck, and I tilted my head to the side to give him better access to let him kiss my neck.
His hands were everywhere now, my waist, my hips, sliding up toward my ribs, and I was about to pull back when a hand closed around my arm.
I didn’t even have time to process it before I was being pulled away.
“Hey,” the guy started, but Rio didn’t even acknowledge him, just moved through the crowd with me in tow like he had the right.
“Let go of me,” I said, trying to yank my arm back.
He didn’t let go or say anything, just kept weaving through bodies and pulling me behind him like I weighed nothing. I was too shocked in those first two seconds to fight it.
Then we were moving down a hallway, away from the music, and he was opening a door and pulling me inside.
Of fucking course it’s a bathroom.
The door closed behind us and the party dropped to muffled noise. He stood between me and the door, and I was backed against the sink with nowhere to go.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” My voice came out shaking but not from fear. “You followed me here? You actually followed me to this party like some kind of–”
“I did follow you here.” His voice was calm, almost conversational. “You snuck out at eleven and I even gave you a ten-minute head start before I left.”
“You’re out of your goddamn mind.”
“Maybe.” He leaned against the door, arms crossed. “But you already knew that when you let me fuck you Saturday night.”
“The fuck I did. I didn’t even know who you were,” I couldn’t even finish the sentence because my body was shaking. “You don’t get to drag me away from someone like you have some kind of claim on me.”
“I don’t have a claim on you?”
“No. You don’t.”
“Interesting.” He tilted his head, studying me. “Because Saturday night when I had my hand around your throat and you were begging me not to stop, it felt a lot like I did.”
Heat flooded my face. “That was different.”
“How?”
“Because I didn’t know you were my fucking stepbrother. I didn’t know you’d been watching me for weeks and I didn’t know you’d seen,” I stopped myself, but it was too late.
“Seen what?” His voice dropped lower. “The videos? Yeah, Remi. I’ve seen all of them. That pink lingerie set you wore, the one where you’re on your knees and you do that thing with your tongue right before you look up at the camera. I’ve watched that one maybe fifteen times.”
“Stop.”
“Or the shower video where you’re touching yourself and you think you’re being quiet but you’re not.
You make this sound right before you come, this little gasp like you’re surprised by it every time.
” He pushed off the door and took one step closer.
“I know that sound. I heard it Saturday night when my face was between your legs.”
“Stop fucking talking.”
“You asked me how long I’ve known.” Another step.
“I’ve known every time I queued into your lobbies as ColdSaint and watched you get frustrated because you couldn’t figure out why I kept finding you.
I’ve known every single time you went live, and I was there in your chat, watching you play, and listening to you talk to people who have no idea what you look like when you’re falling apart. ”
I shoved him with both hands against his chest, hard enough that he had to take a step back.
“You’re sick. You know that? You’re fucking sick.”
He didn’t react, get angry, and didn’t raise his voice. All he did was look at me with that stupid calm face.
“You’re right. I probably am.” He straightened his shirt. “But you didn’t seem to mind that I knew exactly how to make you come on my face.”
My hand was moving before I even had time to think about it. The slap landed hard across his face and the sound of it sharp, even over the muffled bass from the party.
His head turned with the impact and for a second, he just stood there, jaw tight, with a red mark already blooming across his cheek.
Then he looked back at me. “Feel better?”
My palm was stinging and my heart was trying to break through my ribs, and he was just standing there like I’d done exactly what he wanted me to do.
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.” He touched his cheek where I’d hit him. “You hate that I’m right. You hate that you liked it and you hate that some part of you wanted me to follow you to this party and drag you into this bathroom because at least then you don’t have to make the choice yourself.”
I shoved past him, my shoulder slamming into his chest hard enough that he had to move and he let me go, stepping aside so I could open the door.
I pushed through it and back into the hallway, back into the noise, the heat, and the bodies pressing in from every direction.
Someone bumped into me and I barely felt it.
I shoved through the crowd, past people dancing and laughing and talking like nothing had happened around them and hit the front door hard enough that it flew open.
Lucy’s car was right there at the curb.
My palm was still stinging, and his words were still burning through me.
I couldn’t tell which one was worse.