Despite how much my brothers and Landon annoy me.
Pooling in my gut, the whiskey’s sinking in and softening the edges of the room. The guys are loud, the music’s louder, the bar’s a crush of heat and neon. I’ve been laughing at Lan’s story about someBetagetting caught jerking off on one of the cafeteria ladies, but when I glance at my phone to check the time, my grin flickers.
She should’ve been here by now…
The thought’s there and gone—or I try to make it gone—swallowed by another round, another joke. But my eyes keep skimming the crowd, scanning faces without meaning to, before flicking to the screen held tight in my palm.
The floor pulses under the weight of a hundred bodies moving in sync with the bass. Someone bumps my shoulder, the air shifts, the door opens, letting in the fall air, and?—
There she is.
Sliding through the entry like she owns the place, gold hair catching every strobe of light. My pulse spikes in a way that the whiskey can’t touch.
Ashlyn.
Every cell in me sits up, grinning like a fool in my own head before I can stop it.
And then I see him.
Talon.
Hands on her hips. Leaning in and leading her inside like he has a right.
The warmth drains out of me in an instant, replaced by a surge of white-hot heat that floods my vision until the whole bar’s just shapes and shadows.
I see red.
twenty-one
Talon stiffens behind me.“This is aThetaevent, fancy! You didn’t tell me that!”
“Oh…I thought you knew.” I blink up at him, slow and wide-eyed. It’s bad enough that I had to break down and bring him because he asked my parents where I’d been.
But my hope is that it sets Aiden off into an absolute frenzy of jealous rage.
Heat scorches the side of my face before I even turn. Aiden stands at the center of the crowd, eyes honed on me, hot with the promise of punishment. His shoulders roll, tight with restrained violence, every breath a warning tremor.
I tug Talon forward with me, refusing to break eye contact with the man who’s already claimed me in every way but legally. Aiden doesn’t move, but the whiskey on his breath is so thick I can almost smell it from here.
“You seem mad,” I say, and his jaw clicks.
“You can’t be here with him, Ashlyn.”
“I can be here with whoever I want to be,Aiden.”
“That’s breaking our bet, and you know it. Iwonyou, andyou have to obeymyrules.” Every word is slurred. Every one filled with an ominous threat.
“You don’t own anything,” I say, but his finger laces underneath the collar still surrounding my neck.
“Oh? Then what’s this?” Voice lethal, I almost shiver from the iron-clad clench of his jawline.
His face leans into mine until the spit from his words clips into my mouth. The taste of him reminds me of everything I long for. If only the ice in his chest would melt a fraction for me.
“You showed up with more of yourgirls,” I fire back. “Figured I’d show up with mine.”Yes, I know that I called Talon a girl.
Talon tries, “Hey, man?—”
Aiden’s attention slices to him like a knife. “You really want to speak to me, Moretti? I’ve seen your dick size. Don’t embarrass yourself.”