“Say it.” Max’s smirk flattens. “Say, I consent to you doing disrespectful things to me.”
Her voice is breathy. “I consent to you doing disrespectful things to me, Max.”
I swear I want to strangle this guy.
“Good girl.” He grins at me, slinging his arm around her. She takes the weight hard, like a log landing on her small shoulders. “I am a fucking consent king. Night, Slater.” He winks at my girl. “Blesk. Blesk. Blesk.”
Max: One.
Konnor: Zero.
My body shakes with rage, thanks to the bourbon and the fact I’m a psycho. I watch his back until the crowd swallows him and the redhead.
“How do you know him?” I turn to Blesk.
She catches my expression and softens her own, which does nothing for my blood pressure. “Konnor?—”
“How?”
“Nothing happened between us. We kissed once, a long, long time ago at a party. Max is just trying to wind you up, and it’s working.” She smiles as she says it, and I hate the way her lips form his name.
I rub her arm once, then head outside with all the grace of a man moments from face-planting the sticky hall floor.
The bourbon waves in my glass as I shove through the crowd without looking back. Max kissed her. Before him, someone else. Before that, another. Erik. All these hands, these mouths, claiming what is mine during a time I believed she was dead.
I drain my glass.
Then bum a cigarette off a stranger. I slump against a pillar and light up. The smoke tastes as terrible as always, so I chase it with the last slug of bourbon and stare into the void. I know what I am. A drunk. A sex addict. Barely responsible. Hugely temperamental. Just—not the A-class guy I want to be, maybe I’m no better than fucking Max Butcher…
“Hi.”
I tilt my head towards the soft voice, my back sliding against the pillar. Not who I wanted to see.
Faith.
See? I remember names.
Konnor: One.
Max: One.
Faith’s hair swirls in the cold breeze as she strides towards me. Her hips swing like a pendulum, her silhouette lit by the hall lights—a tad overstimulating for a guy who hasn’t had a fuck in over a week. I swear there are three of her, and all three look… incredible.
“Faith, right?”
“What are you doing outsideall alone?”
“Getting drunk. You?”
She bats her long lashes and coos, “Looking for someone to get drunkwith.”
I’m so drunk.
I’m so horny.
But… Blesk.
I straighten, say nothing, and head back inside. The music crashes into my ears, the lights are fucking blinding, but I swear they weren’t before. Someone grabs my elbow, but I don’t slow down.