Chapter 9
NOVA
Wes was the first to break contact. He swallowed and removed his touch, leaving my skin cold in its absence.
“I won’t, not unless you’re certain it’s what you want,” he repeated. “And a please wouldn’t hurt.”
I snickered. “Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” I said, echoing his words from before.
He straightened, his breathing still elevated as one of his hands fisted at his side.
Was Wes flustered? The sight of it—and the knowledge I had something to do with the reaction—was so unexpected, it was intoxicating.
He refocused on me with a wry smile. “Yes, Nova, I would.” He inhaled deeply, his shoulders relaxing. “Manners are a lost art.”
And now, I was imagining Wes doing what he said he would never do again—telling me how to speak, how to dress, how to behave.
I blinked the thought away. “I would need to trust you first. Or, at least, trust you more than I do now.”
“Reasonable.”
“Which, unfortunately, means I will need to get to know you better.”
Wes laughed softly. “That’s a really tough spot to be in. I’m the worst.”
“That’s what I suspected, but I need to be sure.”
Maybe it was the aftereffects of the anxiety spike, but a smile formed against my will.
It fell when I remembered where we were and what we were expected to do.
“I guess we should get back in there,” I said.
“Do you want to go back in there?”
“No,” I admitted. “But the night has only just started, and I need to—”
“You don’t need to do shit. Let’s bail.”
I studied him. He made following his own desires look so easy and uncomplicated, when, for me, it felt anything but.
“Don’t you have naked nuns to top?” I asked.
Wes snorted. “I’m good.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s not real, Nova,” he said, exasperated. “None of this is real. They’re seducing us. They want my money and your—well, they want you.”
Though the hall was empty, laughter and voices floated from the main room. I could also hear pulsing techno music from below us.
Still processing, I whispered, “Is that why I’m the only one being humiliated and probed?”
“You’re the entertainment, not the bank.”
My stomach dropped. Wes saw it too: the darkness bleeding through the cracks in Jayne’s beautiful words, the sinister underpinnings of all the opulence and glamor. None of this was normal.
I was in danger, and Lorelei was in even more danger.
“Let’s go,” I said before I could second-guess myself.
Wes led the way; I wouldn’t have been able to retrace our steps if my life depended on it. Back in the nave, a giggle drew my attention to the front of the room. In the sanctuary, below the stained-glass windows and behind the pulpit, sat a cage.
Inside the cage was a nun, enthusiastically taking Kingston’s cock into her throat through the bars. She was still clothed in her robes, but her white veil was slightly askew. Kingston’s body was tall and rigid, and he thrust into her mouth violently as he whispered words I couldn’t make out.
I halted, my cheeks reddening as if I’d intruded on something, though they’d clearly positioned themselves for anyone to see. My feet betrayed me, unwilling to move as my body came alive against my will. A rush of desire moved up and down my spine, gathering in a pool at my core.
The nun gagged. Wes turned, and I feared I’d be set aflame on the spot.
He smirked, his gaze sweeping from the cock-sucking to me, several feet behind him. “We can stay and watch if you—”
“No,” I said, high-pitched and startled. I couldn’t watch, especially not with Wes.
I heard deep laughter from the sanctuary. When I took one last glance at the cage, Kingston winked at me.
Like frightened prey, I closed the distance between me and Wes with quick strides.
Wes didn’t immediately move, so I took the lead and beelined for the tall double doors.
Before I could pull one open, a hand shot out, beating me to it.
My heart thumped hard in my chest, my skin still warm and flushed.
Wes opened the door for me and let me scurry into the lobby, where my enemy waited behind a laptop.
She looked between the two of us with vague interest. “Leaving so soon?”
Wes only nodded.
“The first course was amazing,” I said, because for some reason, I couldn’t stop being polite even if it was entirely unnecessary.
Her smile was cold, devoid of interest in my pleasantries. “Let me get your phone.”
While I waited for her to return from a small room to our left, Wes did that horrible thing he did.
Watched me.
The ghost of a smirk remained, but his eyes were darker, moodier. They roamed over my features like they were desperately searching for something. I held my breath, hoping he never found it.
“Here you are,” the woman said, breaking her spell by handing me my phone. “Have a lovely rest of your evening, Wes and Nova.”
“You as well,” Wes said.
The large man who’d first greeted us watched us leave silently from a chair in the corner of the room.
Outside, the air had cooled to a nearly pleasant temperature.
There was something special about the city on a summer night.
It made me feel like anything could happen, and I could be anyone I wanted to be.
“I’m not a prude,” I blurted once we were on the sidewalk in front of the church.
Wes slowly turned his head and lifted a brow. “Oh?”
“I’m just not used to all of that, okay?” I was grateful we were walking. It was easier for me to be vulnerable while moving and when Wes wasn’t doing the staring thing. “And the thought of obeying a man? In this sociopolitical climate?” I shook my head. “That’s crazy.”
I knew I was deflecting from the truth with humor and macrolevel cultural observations, but I was comfortable with that. I didn’t even know Wes. I didn’t owe him the truth.
Wes grinned. “Uh-huh. So your denial is political?”
“My denial?” I scoffed, glaring at him. “You don’t know me.”
“I’d like to.”
My heart fluttered, and I told her to cut it out. At the diner, he made it clear he intended on parting ways as friends. That was all this was—a bizarre friendship with potential hypnosis to ascend the ranks of a sex cult.
I was pleased Wes kept up with my pace just how I liked it—stupidly fast. “Wait, where are we going?”
“You always need a plan, don’t you, Nova?”
I opened my mouth to say no, but I remembered I’d been ordered not to lie to him. And for whatever reason, I obeyed.
“Consider it a trust-building exercise,” Wes said.
If this is how I die, I’ll be so pissed.
We were heading west, deeper into Chelsea. The streets were lively, the energy electric. At nearly ten, most people’s Friday nights were just getting started.
At some point, I realized Wes had slowed down my breakneck pace, and I’d let him. He glanced over at me, that familiar humor dancing in his eyes again. I preferred this version of him to the quiet, broodier Wes from The Circle.
Though both versions had an exceedingly undesirable effect on me.
“Your folks chose an interesting name for a Southern Belle.”
My stomach dropped, and I focused on the wedding party pouring out of a bar in front of us. The equally gorgeous bridesmaids were wearing matching blush satin, and the men orbited them with lazy, tipsy smiles.
“My parents didn’t choose Nova. I did,” I said.
“I see,” Wes answered, subtly guiding me through the un-self-aware bubble of celebrants with a hand on the small of my back.
The weight of his hand sent a wave of pleasurable tingles down my spine. The touch was gone in the next blink.
I waited for him to pry, but he didn’t. My shoulders relaxed. “Are you going to tell me why you’re involved in a group you see straight through?”
Wes paused, seeming to choose his words carefully. “Someone from my past—someone in the scene—tipped me off about the group. Their information set off alarm bells, and I don’t want anyone getting hurt. I need to gather more information.”
Wes and his knuckle tattoos were clearly not law enforcement, so I didn’t quite understand his role here.
Nor did his explanation clarify why he cared so much as to waste both time and money on a potentially dangerous cult.
Unless, of course, he had a pathological white knight complex and control issues.
I eyed him carefully. “What are you going to do if people are getting hurt?”
Wes paused, homing in on a bodega across the street. “It’s an evolving plan.”
Okay, so Wes had no plan. Unlike me, whose plan was elaborate and foolproof: find Lorelei, tell her to knock it off and consider entering a rehab facility, and wait patiently for the part of her program when she apologizes for all the pain she’s caused me and recognizes my longstanding devotion to her and our friendship.
I graciously forgive her, and we both leave The Circle, never to return, happily ever after.
No loose ends. Neat little bow. No potential issues in sight.
I truly couldn’t have written it better myself.
Wes guided me toward the crosswalk. “Have you ever had an egg cream?”
I stammered. “Excuse me?”
Wes made a low whistle. “And you call yourself a New Yorker.” He shook his head.
Okay, so an egg cream was clearly a dessert and not a sex act. Could I really be blamed after a night of orgasming prophets and deep-throating nuns?
We crossed the street at Wes’s forced glacial pace. “Three ingredients: seltzer, chocolate syrup, and milk.”
I tried not to make a face, as this was clearly a passion of Wes’s. “So… carbonated chocolate milk?”
He nodded. “The best one was at this tiny bodega in the East Village, but it’s closed now.”
“R.I.P.”
Wes sighed. “Indeed. This one’s good, definitely one of the better ones. Nothing’s worse than an improperly layered and mixed egg cream.”
“Right… so how often are you drinking these, buddy?”
Wes held the door open for me, his lips curved up. “A few a year, but not for the taste. For the experience. The history. The reminder of belonging to a particular place and time.”
Now, it was my turn to stare. “You are so…” I searched my mind for the word I wanted to use, but I was interrupted before I could find it.