Chapter 20
Ophelia grabbed her hood with one hand before the wind could rip it from her head. The other was in Sam’s as he led her through the crowded sidewalk toward the club that Logan’s phone indicated he was at.
She had changed into a short black dress and a pair of tall boots.
The lace mesh tights beneath her dress did precious little to conserve her body heat.
Her face was bare of makeup, and her hair was probably a snarl, but she’d been in a hurry to catch Logan in the act before he moved on to Tiffany’s apartment.
She was like a woman possessed. She couldn’t explain why she needed to see him cheating on her with her own eyes, but something in her would never rest unless she did.
They got in line with the others waiting behind a velvet rope for entry to Neon Veil. The others were dressed for blacklights—stark whites and blazing neons that would glow once they made it inside. She felt underdressed, as per usual.
Unfortunately for her, the bouncer agreed.
“Not tonight, sorry,” he said, his unrepentant tone at odds with the apology.
She opened her mouth to argue, but Sam squeezed her hand. He gave the bouncer a dejected look, hanging his head, but he nodded complacently. She frowned at him. Where was the android who had lied his way past her father’s stringent security?
He pulled her aside as the next couple in line sidled forward, dragging her to the far side of the doors.
“Stay here,” he murmured in her ear. “Be ready to run.”
She cast him an astonished look, but he pulled away before she could grill him. He lingered in the shadows of the building for a while, watching people come and go, until he apparently saw what he was waiting for.
An outrageously drunk man staggered out of the club with a big black ‘X’ on his hand, hemmed in on both sides by exasperated-looking friends. He argued in slurred speech with his girlfriend as she paced a few steps ahead of him.
Sam slipped out of the shadows, tapping one of the guys on the shoulder and pointing at the doors. The man huffed, retreating into the club, and the other was distracted by the drunk man’s girlfriend.
Sam leaned into the drunk man and said something into his ear that made him perk up, his expression thunderous. Sam nodded, pointing with his chin toward the bouncer who’d refused them entry.
The drunk shoved his friend away, sending the man to his knees with the element of surprise. Then he was barreling toward the bouncer with a battle cry as his girlfriend shrieked for him to stop.
Ophelia didn’t see what happened next. Sam returned to grab her by the arm, and he dragged her inside as the other bouncers leaped to the aid of their comrade.
They were plunged into a dark cave filled with deafeningly loud house music, the bass so powerful that it rattled her lungs with every beat. She cringed, bringing her hands up over her ears.
Sam grinned at her, and his white teeth glowed beneath the blacklight.
The lights did something strange to his normally dark eyes, making them shine with an animal gleam from within.
For an instant, he looked more like a wolf than a man.
Unsettled, she looked away from him, taking in the press of bodies on the dance floor.
There were several private alcoves, so dark within that she couldn’t make out much more than writhing movement, but they didn’t look like normal booths.
She hedged along the dancefloor until she realized each alcove had couches in lieu of tables.
Her eyes widened as she realized the people within were fucking each other in plain view of anyone who wanted to come and stand at the entrance of the alcove.
Her eyes were glued to the scene like a trainwreck she couldn’t turn away from.
A hand slid over her shoulder, dipping beneath the lapel of her coat to curl around her throat.
“There are a few empty alcoves,” Sam rumbled in her ear.
She shivered, knocking his hand away. “We’re not here for that.”
“We could be.”
She turned to glare at him, but as usual, he seemed unaffected by her ire.
His eyes raked over her hungrily. She was concealed to mid-thigh by her coat, but he was looking at her as though he could see right through it.
Maybe he could; she had no idea what this android was capable of.
So far, he’d lied, rejected orders, hacked into a device, and now instigated violence. X-ray vision didn’t seem too out there.
She searched the crowd for Logan. Would she recognize him?
Even the men here were wearing heavy makeup.
People ground against each other to the beat of the music, flashing in and out of focus as the lights pulsed in time to the song.
It was so guttural, part of her felt called to move to it.
She resisted, trailing the perimeter of the dancing bodies as she scanned for any sign of her cheating fiancé.
She’d made a full loop without any sign of him or his stupid colleagues, and she was beginning to despair when Sam tugged on her coat.
His face was grim when she turned to face him, and he beckoned with one finger.
She followed him to one of the alcoves, her stomach bottoming out as she realized what she was looking at.
Tiffany’s sequin skirt was rucked up around her waist as she bounced over Logan’s lap, her arms twined above her head.
Her bare breasts bounced with every movement, and her face was a mask of ecstasy that Ophelia thought, from personal experience, was overselling Logan’s contribution.
Logan’s expression was just as rapturous—and a little stupefied, suggesting he was high.
Brandon was sitting on a couch perpendicular to the one they were defiling, a beer sweating in one hand while he used his phone to record them with the other. He absently adjusted the tent in his pants, slack-jawed. Even in the darkness, she could see how huge his pupils were.
They were a portrait of perfect debauchery, all of them clearly comfortable with this arrangement.
Her heart twinged as she stood there in the shadows, unable to move away.
How long? How fucking long had this been going on? How long had she been covering his bills and helping him ‘catch up’ on his student loans while he had been fucking his coworker?
“Do you want me to kill him?” Sam’s voice was a deep rumble in her ear.
She shook her head, distantly wondering if the offer was sincere. Could Sam kill someone? The look on his face suggested that he could, and that he might even enjoy it.
She shuddered, looking back at Logan, whose hands had begun to roam over Tiffany as she writhed.
No wonder he’d been bored in bed with her.
This was what he was used to. Cuckoldry and voyeurism, and god only knew what else.
If it had been anyone else, she wouldn’t have judged—but this was Logan, who had looked her in the eyes and lied for so long.
Logan, who had used his kinks to make her feel like she wasn’t enough after using her all that time.
A cold rage iced over her veins, taking the sting out of the betrayal. She took out her own phone, holding it up to take a photo.
The flash lit up the alcove in stark relief as the shutter went off. Shit! How could she forget to turn that off?
All three of them jumped, whirling toward her, but Sam was already dragging her away.
“Hey!” Brandon shouted, staggering out of the alcove. “What the fuck!”
Had he seen her? He couldn’t have; he wasn’t calling for her by name as he trailed them through the club.
“You’re deleting that fucking photo!” he shouted, hardly louder than a gnat under the oppressive thrum of the music.
Sam pulled them through the crowd, forcing Brandon to slow his pursuit. She didn’t look back as Sam elbowed his way through the revelers. When they reached the far side of the dance floor, he tugged her in front of him and ushered her to the back door with a hand on the small of her back.
They burst into a dark, grimy alley. The heavy door slammed shut behind them, cutting off the pulse of club music, leaving them with the sound of her panting breath and the muted noise of the city at night.
For a moment, they stood there, staring at the exit.
Would Brandon track them all the way there? After a long moment, she let out the breath she was holding.
Safe. At least for now.
Sam turned to her, his expression inscrutable. A lock of his hair had fallen in his eyes, which were no longer glowing in that inhuman way.
She took him in, allowing herself to linger on him without shame for the first time. His broad shoulders. The way his pecs strained against Logan’s too-tight shirt. The flat plane of his stomach and his narrow hips. His powerful, inhuman hands, so big and somehow still strangely elegant.
“Did you see what you needed to see?” he asked with that smoky voice, carefully calibrated for seduction.
She stared at him, drinking in all the dramatic planes of his face until he frowned in confusion.
“Ophelia? Are you—”
A grunt cut off the question as she threw herself at him, yanking him down until she could crash her lips against his.