Page 33 of Stutter

“That’ll be four grand.”

“For the night?”

Jake laughs like I’m the funniest person alive and he shakes his head as if I’m just a silly little Billy as he takes the fake debit card the club provides to VIP members that’s linked to my personal credit card and swipes it. I’ve never used it before. VIP rooms are for VIP members; you don’t necessarily have to purchase a dancer’s time to use them.

“For anhour. She’s a favorite.” He says casually, looking at the alias I use while I’m here, running the card and handing it back to me. “Usually, herclients purchase her time the evening before. But Mr. Prescott didn’t this time. So, looks like you got lucky.”

“Yeah, looks like,” I say, taking back my card my gaze going back to Raven. “I want her for the night.” I say like I have money to spend. “Have her meet me up on the fourth floor.”

Jake smiles politely, rounding the host desk he sits behind, and I make my way up the stairs. I do a quick glance back when Jake releases Raven, and Stephen’s face turns into a scowl, furiously asking Jake questions, pointing at her. Jake shrugs, unbothered, saying something over the music and I continue upwards, smiling like the cat that caught the canary. Once I reach the fourth floor, I make sure to grab the mostly dark corner booth and I wait for her, setting my drink down to tighten the mask over my eyes that almost matches hers. I didn’t want mine to have mesh in the eyes. I wanted her to be able to see me.

I settle into the corner, spreading my thighs wide, keeping my drink in one hand, the other arm draped over the back of the booth, awaiting her arrival that can’t come soon enough. I spot her boyfriends by the bar, and the disguise I’m wearing must be working because neither of them see me. And if they do, they must not recognize me.

More lights flash and I swear it happens in slow motion. The old iron doors of the elevator the dancers take opens, Jake comes out first, Raven in tow. Through the throngs of people dancing, fucking openly, Jake finds me. He does a quick bob of his head and Raven simply follows as though tethered by an invisible leash. I’m sure Stephen’s ire reached her, too. But I’m not worried about her. As soon as she’s in front of me, I see Prescott at the top of the stairs.

Good. Pale blue eyes find mine and I send him a wink.

I stand. Taking Raven’s hand I introduce myself. I know she knows who I am but for club purposes, well, I play along. When she takes my hand I yank her to me tightly. “Hello, little moth. I’m Hades.”

God she feels so fucking good in my hands. I can feel her song again, strumming through me like vibrations, breaking whatever chains I had over my heart. She smells divine, likesweat and perfume and I want to lick the side of her throat down to her sweet cunt to taste her day in all her glory.

“Dance for me, little moth.” I practically growl as I let her go. She stumbles slightly but catches herself, standing upright. She turns, her gorgeous ass in my face as she steps up to the platform that reaches my knees as I sit back down, grabbing my tumbler, and let my head fall back on the edge of the booth so I can watch the show.

A flicker of movement to my left catches my eye but I ignore Jonas and Damon, reverting my gaze back to my siren as her body sways, hips moving in a hypnotizing trance, her body calling to me to follow her back into the black abyss we called home. That I had called home. I had once likened her to an angel that had fallen to earth just for me and now, dressed like sin, she absolutely looks the part. She jumps, hooking a leg around the pole so smoothly it looks acrobatic, and I know the difference between what she’s doing now, and what she’s done for Prescott – for him, she was almost clumsy, always trying to reach farther to be able to listen to the private conversation going on around her, but right now, for me, she’sperforming.

Her wings dip low, but she doesn’t let them touch the ground. I watch in fascination, my cock hardening as she lowers herself, spreading her thighs, the gusset of her bodysuit diving between her puffy lower lips, uncaring that the only thing stopping me from viewing her holes is that tiny, string of shimmering black fabric that could easily be identified as floss.

Taste.

Memories of tearing her red thong off her supple ass and using it to tie her hands behind her back as I took her roughly from behind against the forest floor rummage through my mind. The way she came for me as I bit into her. I never checked to see if I left my mark and that excites me even more – the thought that my teeth branded and marred her flawless-to-me skin.

Claim.

I rub my thigh, inching upwards to my hardened dick, now steel in the slacks I chose to wear. The dark, tailored navy suit, lavender tie, the mask – all a part of my disguise. If she’s notRaven, then I’m not Maverick. I wish I could see her eyes, to know if she’s watching me, too.

Feast.

It’s a singular thought that makes me salivate like a drooling dog watching its owner cook a steak. The thought of her beneath me with her mouth open, her tongue awaiting my spit to land on it and then drink it down makes the beast inside me roar to life.

“It’s okay, if you don’t love me anymore.”

Now with my sole focus on her, nothing but her, I realize that couldn’t be farther from the truth. I have tried to stay away. Have tried to grieve what could have been but Ican’tbecause just like I thought weeks ago when I tried to chase after them blindly into the cruel, cold, unrelenting rain, it’s not over.

It will never be over.

I need her more than I need water to survive.

She is the balm to my insanity and yet, every time I’ve been inside of her sweet body, I’ve been lost in throes of delirium. Madness and chaos I welcome because she’s consumed every bit of me. A silent, unmerciful storm that’s shaken and thrown my world around and I want more.

Cravemore.

Because she saw me.

Saw the sickness that resides in my mind, heart and soul – she saw, she accepted, pocketed it, andchoseto love me.

I lose it.

Whatever war was raging in my mind to not love her; to not forgive her, I lose the battle. Standing abruptly, watching those enticing hips of hers I stretch out my arms and hold onto them, wrapping my arms around her middle, the material of her wings soft as my knuckles brush lightly against them. Her hands go to my shoulders, her breasts in my face and I dare to inhale her scent that gets me harder than granite.

---