My body screamed at me to answer, but I did not know. I had never played here before, only in my head, only with my fingers.
“I’ve never?” I stalled. A jagged pant formed the words when my hips rolled against him, causing the tips of his fingers to dig deep.
“Okay, Pretty Girl. One being normal sex and ten being total obliteration, where do you want to land?”
Oh fuck. Oh fuck.
My eyes spun, slumping into the hand I wanted to absolve me.
What if I said the wrong number, and suddenly I became dirty and strange?
What if I settled for less and left here hating myself for not taking what I want?
What if I could finally satiate this ache that had been pounding its fist against my insides? Could this man really take me there?
“Eight,” I confessed, bright and true, only to freeze when an image of Thay burned into me like a horror show of lightning.
I was about to do something I had never done before. Give pieces of myself to someone other than him.
“Hey?” The older version of Wolfe snapped into focus, cutting clean through the haze. I was back at the party, with the sound of the Violent Femmes pulsing through the speakers. “Are you okay?”
I blinked. My eyes were hungry under the memories that went swirling; the heat of the club tightened around my stomach.
Must have been all the damn pot. Or that Threx was getting circle-fucked by grimy crime groupies.
“Daphne?” Wolfe said again, reading me word for word while I tugged at my neck, trying to ground myself.
“Sorry, Wolfe.” I gave a broken smirk. “I was looking for Jace,” I admitted, pulling at my dress that suddenly felt too short and too tight.
Wolfe clocked the maneuver, biting hard down on his perfect lips before letting a smile win them over.
“Why? Are you hurt? Did something happen?”
“No,” I sighed, shaking my head. “But Molly is downstairs, pregnant, naked, and about ten seconds away from renal failure.”
Wolfe arched a brow, loving how I threw medical terms around as if they meant something.
“Where the hell is Rinley?” he asked.
“Where do you think?” Our eyes met in a heated kiss, the way they always did, messy and wild. “Wolfe,” I stepped in front of him before he could move. “She hasn’t been attending any prenatal appointments, and we both know why. You have to protect the wives, too.”
Wolfe made a sound and shook his head. “There is only so much I can do, Daphne.”
“I think she was planning on having this baby on the goddamn toilet,” I growled, ignoring the sweat forming along my palms. “And she’s at a sex party, seven months pregnant, while her man is upstairs humping some faceless girl because he what?” I scoffed. “Earned it?”
“Daphne. Molly knew the life before she married into it, and whether it morally aligns with all your pretty virtues,” he thumbed my chest. “Isn’t going to change a goddamn thing. And you know it.”
These words always came out the same… like a fucking excuse wrapped in a leather mask.
I narrowed my eyes, swallowing all sorts of thoughts that were too big to choke down.
“Because she had so many other choices,” I snarled, breaking for her over and over again. Rinley was an asshole, but he was better than the alternative: no family, the streets, poverty, nothingness.
“I don’t know, Daphne.You did. And you seem to have made them just fine.”
The words cut deep.
None of them would ever say it, but there was a heavy silence the day I walked out of the Clubhouse that sounded a hell of a lot like abandonment.