Chapter 14
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
I’ve never been to Hayward Executive Airport.
I didn’t even know it existed, but my phone’s map draws a smug blue line across the Bay and promises forty-five minutes of forced intimacy before we arrive.
Forty-five minutes of Secrets and Sins. Forty-five minutes with Alistair’s message impossible to ignore.
Evie says he grooms guys through mind games, conditioning them under his control. That’s all this is: a mindfuck. The price of admission for a shot at turning the tables, and it’s up to me to turn these forty-five minutes from a punishment into an opportunity to win the guys over.
A chorus erupts around me. “New guy! New guy! New guy!”
“Fine,” I say, laughing, though my voice climbs a little too high. “But my name’s Marcus, and I don’t know how to play.”
“It’s easy,” Nico Pardo says. “You just pick. Secret or Sin.”
I slam the door on anything that leads back to last night. “Secret.”
“Why are you here?”
“Boooo,” someone grumbles at the G-rated prompt.
But Nico’s eyes flick to the red camera light like it’s a god he’s trying to please, and his thumb rubs over his signet ring before he remembers to smile.
The laughter dies down as every face turns toward me, the floor between us littered with half-empty champagne flutes and crumpled napkins. There’s nowhere to look without meeting someone else’s eyes.
His question’s a setup, and I have three audiences to manage: Alistair watching, Nico performing, and the others each chasing their own heart’s desire.
“Limousines, good company, and private jets?” I try first.
A few chuckle, but it’s clearly not enough. They want what I accidentally gave them last night.
“Honestly? I’m a little out of my depth. I’m a painter, and San Francisco’s expensive.”
“So you’re here for money,” Nico says, eyeing the book in my lap.
“Sure. Money. Power. Reputation. Sex.” I lift my glass. “I’m not picky.”
“Hear, hear!” Jake smacks my shoulder and raises his flute, rallying the room. He steals a quick wink in my direction.
Nico tilts his head. “That’s not honesty. You’re here for someone, aren’t you?”
The limo tightens back around me. Eyes swivel back, and the camera light’s the predator that might already see through all my stacked covers.
“Aren’t we all here for someone?”
“Nope,” someone says, grinning. “I’m here for the cheese plate.”
“Bullshit,” Dae says. “He’s here for Jake.”
Laughter ricochets off the tinted glass, while my tongue turns to sandpaper and my cheeks burn.
Jake raises his eyebrows in mock offense. “What, just him?”
He’s making it a joke, but I’ve felt him angling toward me since last night. Dae clocked it too, and that can’t be good. Jake’s offering me a way to stay in the game. If I don’t take it, I lose his trust. Maybe worse.
Evie had warned me. You can’t hesitate.
So I kiss him.
His surprise lasts exactly one heartbeat before Jake’s hands are in my hair, firm at the back of my head, pulling me in. When his lips part mine, his mouth is warm, champagne-sweet, and my body answers before my brain can object.
Oh. I don’t recognize the sound that comes out of me.
It’s a strategy. Adrenaline. The limo. The camera. It’s one hell of a convincing lie.
Jake answers with a wicked flick of his tongue between my lips before he eases back enough to breathe against my mouth.
The other guys groan. Someone whistles. The red light above the divider keeps its eye steady.
“Okay, Jake,” Nico says, slicing through it. “Secret or Sin?”
Jake licks his lips with his eyes still on mine. “Sin,” he says. “Always sin.”
Nico knocks twice on the driver’s privacy divider, and it slides down.
“Sir?” the driver asks.
“Open the sunroof, por favor.”
Two tinted panels slide apart with a mechanical yawn, and the driver recloses his plausible deniability barrier without asking. Hot sunlight invades the limo. We’re crawling through traffic halfway across the Bay Bridge, now with the roof peeled open and the whole bridge invited to watch.
Nico points. “Dae. Jake. Stand up and strip.” His gaze catches mine. “Give us a show.”
Jake stands, his blue eyeshadow creasing as he grins. “With pleasure.” He yanks off his gray tank in one smooth flash.
His body is lean, shoulders broad and knotted, and his chest is shaved smooth.
A fine sheen clings to his skin, lit golden by the sun acting as his personal spotlight.
His abs are taut, but not showy. For someone so meticulously sculpted, he keeps radiating a model’s vibe that says this isn’t vanity, it’s how he pays the bills.
Beneath his tank top he hid a red leather harness that frames him perfectly and bites gently into his ribs.
Jake smiles, and my lips betray me, curling in return, tingling with the echo of our kiss.
“Can this at least count for mine too?” Dae asks.
“Fine.” Nico doesn’t care. He’s too busy watching me watch Jake.
Dae pushes upright and strips without any of Jake’s enthusiasm, obeying, but not hungry for the spotlight.
Nico orchestrated this the second he heard that I wanted Jake. He wants to humiliate me. Or further test me while Alistair watches. Joke’s on him, because—
And now, Jake’s naked.
Somewhere between one thought and the next, Jake has stripped out of everything but the red harness and his shit-eating grin.
Hunched under the ceiling, Jake extends a hand as an invitation to their performance. Dae hesitates before accepting, and Jake guides him up. I imagine what traffic must see as two naked men rise into view through the open roof.
“Careful,” someone whispers. “He’ll want a good angle.”
Dae slides both hands under Jake’s harness and pulls him close. Jake lets him, but his eyes cut down to me before his hips roll forward, exaggerated and shameless, a dirty little wink aimed nowhere near Dae.
Their mouths meet because that’s the dare. That’s the show. Jake kisses like he knows exactly who it’s for, and Dae follows his rhythm with the tense obedience of someone grateful not to be leading.
It’s obscene, raw, and makes my kiss feel like a bad rehearsal. I’ll need to be more convincing if I want to stay in this room. Not that I do—just long enough to get proof.
A horn blares. Jake keeps moving, unbothered, because the risk is the point. Dae clutches the harness like it’s the only thing keeping him inside the limo.
I glance up at the camera everyone keeps checking, half-expecting Alistair to bark some kind of order. I can’t decide if he’s getting off on this show Nico is orchestrating or if he’s focused on my reaction to see what I’ll do next.
The limo slows with the ebb of traffic, and they both stumble. Someone grabs their legs as they drop back into the cab. Dae’s laughter spills through the space, too bright and too shaky.
“Want the show to keep going?” Jake asks.
“No,” Nico says, flat.
Jake falls back into his seat beside me, eyes quick to find mine, and I force myself to stay locked there instead of looking…
lower. He slides on his underwear, and my exhale lands buried in my champagne.
With the spotlight off us, Jake and I become observers who are expected to do nothing beyond watch, laugh, and drink.
It’s a precious few minutes to dissect how this works.
Nico’s in control, but only by Alistair’s permission.
If I didn’t know better, I’d describe the atmosphere as festive. Everyone laughs, but no one’s drunk enough to miss what’s happening. Nico’s scared. Dae’s coiled like a spring, and Jake’s so good at pretending I’m glad he’s my ally.
“Brad,” Nico says, and the group’s alpha closes his book with a deliberate snap. “Secret or Sin?”
Brad sounds almost bored. “Sin.”
“Call your mom. Put it on speaker, and—”
The limo stills, and Nico’s grin falters.
“Come on,” he says, forcing the warmth back in. “She likes me. She worries, right? Tell her you’re safe. Just like, two seconds.”
Brad slowly folds his arms, biceps pressing against the stitched seams of his sleeves, neck flexing as he settles into a new, colder stillness.
“No. You don’t bring her into this.”
Nico gives a little laugh, like this is their bit. “She loves hearing from you. I’ll be good. I just want her to hear you say my name, so she knows you’re not alone.”
“Enough.”
I lean back, away from Nico and into Jake. The road noise fades, and Brad leans forward enough for us to watch his gaze slide from the camera to Nico.
“You’ve confused permission with power,” Brad says.
Nico’s face drains. His mouth twitches open, then shuts.
Even Jake straightens.
“Sorry,” Nico says, first to Brad, then, reflexively, to the red light. “I’m sorry.”
Brad picks his book back up, thumb already finding his place.
“Okay,” Nico says. “Next up—”
Brad’s cellphone ring cuts him off. He looks back at the camera and answers. “Yes, sir.” Then he hangs up.
That was it.
“I said I’m sorry,” Nico says.
Brad rises as far as the limo allows, one huge ripple of muscle beneath a tight shirt.
“Come on, man. It was a joke.” Nico’s full-on panicked. “You think I wanted to—”
“You’re out,” Brad says, quiet and even.
“Please.”
Brad’s eyes fix on the opaque divider above my head, and I press against Jake to create a pocket of space that Brad steps into between me and Nico.
He knocks on the glass, and the divider lowers again.
“Stop,” Brad says. The window rolls back up without a word.
“Brad, my visa,” Nico pleads, the words coming out too fast. “They’ll send me back. I can’t go to Bogotá with nothing. I’ll just do another. No big deal.”
“Boundaries are a big deal,” Brad says.
His gaze slices to me, maybe to check in or threaten me, and I press harder into Jake in case it lets me borrow his status. But his pulse is drumming right behind mine, just as fast.
The others stay frozen too, while the limo veers toward the edge of the lane and stops hard on the Bay Bridge.
“This is your stop.” Brad opens the door. “Go!” he booms, hitting with the same command Alistair wielded last night.
Nico lowers his head, and Brad shoves him out into blaring car horns. One vehicle swerves past close enough to make Nico stumble backward.
“Jesus!” I shout, but Jake squeezes me.
“He could get hit!” Dae exclaims, somehow immune to, or oblivious of, the danger Jake seems to see in speaking up.
Brad slams the door shut. “He didn’t.”
The limo rolls forward. I lose sight of Nico behind the heads crowding the windows, and the first heavy silence descends.
It’s too much, too fast. Nico’s breath might as well still be hanging in the air like smoke from a gun that just went off, and I can’t tell if “out” means shuffled off-camera or gone gone. Either way, I’m locked inside a game where the rules only appear after someone breaks them.
What happens if I don’t see my limit coming? What if that car hadn’t stopped in time? What if Alistair already knows all my secrets?
“Anyone unsure why Nico is out?” Brad asks.
“Stay in role. Stay in bounds,” Dae answers.
Brad nods. “That’s how the game is played.”
He scans the group like he’s willing to answer questions, and my fear screams at me to stay quiet. But I need to get what I came for fast or Alistair will give me whatever fucked-up test he’s no doubt already planning. If I can get Brad to give me one answer, maybe I can get him to give me another.
“How do you know the bounds?”
“You haven’t received them yet,” he says. “You will.”
I don’t risk another question. Everyone’s rattled, but no one looks surprised. This was all part of the protocol.
Brad returns to his corner and opens his book like nothing happened.
Secrets and Sins is over. The limo keeps moving, but my phone says we’re still twenty-seven minutes from the airport.