Sicko(36)
He takes one step inside, and then another. “Have a good time tonight, Jade?”
My throat is dry, my mouth parched, so I run my tongue over my lips. “I—”
“Jade…” he says, his eyes flashing with coldness that drips down my spine and lands at my lower back. “I told you that you were free to roam tonight.”
He releases the tie around his neck, tossing it onto the ground. It’s the first time I get a good look at the room and the current state of my dress. There are tears at the ends, my hair is a knotted nest around my shoulders, and my hands have blood on them. I wince when I touch the inside of my thigh. I feel like a kid in a candy store, finding sex for the first time. I’ve never known it to be this way. Pleasurable. Enjoyable. J’s eyes roam up and down my body. The thought of him being on top of me so soon after having sex with two strangers constricts my throat and I have to force myself not to dry retch. Don’t fucking touch me.
The room is a dark shade of blue, the walls bleeding into an ombre of gray. There’s a king-size bed in the corner with four posters holding it up. On the other side of the bed, there’s a Victorian-style sofa with buttons sewn into the cushions, and on the other side of the wall, there is a range of ornaments and utensils hanging. Obviously more on the BDSM side.
“This room is one of the L’artisaniant four.” James takes a seat on a single sofa with high backs that reach up to the ceiling while the sides curve around his body. I don’t know what he’s doing or playing at, but James didn’t get his name for nothing. “This is run by four men, some say they’re four of the most powerful men in America, and others say that they’re mere thugs that simply had more brains than money who then created this multi-billion-dollar secret society that holds the world’s most elite secrets.”
“Sex? Hardly secretive,” I whisper, flexing my fingers. I know that I shouldn’t answer back, but something over the past couple of hours has given me confidence, even if it does only exist inside of my head.
He holds my stare, resting his ankle on his knee. “Not just that.”
Finally, I yank the zipper up, covering my body. “Is there a reason why you wanted me in here? To come with you?” I ask, and the way his mouth twitches is enough to confirm it.
“Maybe.” He stands to his feet, dusting off his immaculate suit pants and putting his hand out to me. “I will take you back to your dorm.”
I falter in my step. College. My classes. Everything that I should be doing instead of being fucked seven ways to Sunday at some high-end sex club.
I take his hand as he leads me out, pushing open the doors. This time when we move through the main room, the energy is dying out, some asleep in various areas of the room. I must have been in the room for a couple hours, at least. Turning my head over my shoulder, the words Niveau un are written in the same cursive font as L’artisaniant, only illuminated in a gentle shade of blue.
Level one? That’s what level damn one entails? To be fair, I enjoyed it, and I desperately try to squash the question from spilling from my lips. “How often do they hold these… events?” It comes out anyway.
James leads us back out the front door until we’re on the wooden porch as he hands a valet our ticket. “Once a month.”
“And why do they do it?” I find myself asking, but not really wanting the answer.
He doesn’t answer anyway, and when the Maserati is back in front of me, I slide into the passenger seat with an eerie feeling that someone, or someones were watching me as I did so. We don’t remove our masks until we’re down the road.
I’ve only ever felt true fear once in my life. Jade was around five, and she fell off her bike while I tried teaching her. She tipped, fell, and skinned her knees, leaving blood smears all over our parents’ pristine white marble driveway. I remember feeling so helpless that my stomach ached with anger. I was angry at myself, but I was also angry at my dad. He bought her that bike, and in essence, he wasn’t to blame for it, but at that time, all of my wrath was aimed at him. I was irrational. I flew off the handle big fucking time and swung at him, jacked him straight in the jaw. I wish I could say that I’d want to go back to that same boy. To Royce Kane. The possessive older foster brother who jacked off to the thought of his underage sister behind his closed doors, but I can’t. Never. Time hasn’t just aged us. It tore us apart too.
There’s a knock on my front door and I pick up my gun from the coffee table, shoving it into the back of my jeans.
“You gonna be this on edge for the rest of the week, or…?” Gypsy teases, nudging his head up at me from the sofa. “Fucking gangster.”
“You gonna go stay at your house this week, or…?” I snap back at him with a snarl, opening my front door wide before bringing my eyes to the person standing on the other side.
“Son,” Dad murmurs, popping the collar of his Armani suit.
I step aside, waving him into my house. The first fucking thing I bought when I left home. Situated right near the ocean, with a dock, floor to ceiling windows shaped in a diamond in the sitting room, and all log-style furnishings. I never wanted to be in the center of LA, in fact, I fucking hate LA. Near the ocean is where I need to be, and this way I get my boat, I get nature, and I get peace and fucking quiet when I don’t have Gypsy or Wicked hanging off my fucking arm. Wicked is harder to get rid of since he lives with me.