Page 74 of Speak

Friday nights after ten at Inferno are always a little crazier. Without the mask, I’d be completely recognizable. But I’m thankful for its privacy. If you want to be known, go for it. If you want to do be a dirty secret, you’re also allowed.

Just pay your dues, leave your phone at home and all your fantasies can come true.

It’s utter chaos around me, everyone is either too enthralled with themselves, their partners, snorting, dancing, or drinking. A throuple to my left are entangled, someone I recognize from the track team is snorting blow with a hundred-dollar bill off a blonde waitress’s tit while sliding another few bills into the waistband of her garter belt. The lights are flashing above, dancers in costumes are in their cages, lowered at half-mast, the music is thrumming through me but I don’t hear any of it as I see a half-masked Tyler, now in black slacks and a red button-down step up on the last stair.

He could never mask that blonde hair, icy blue eyes, jawline, or those lean shoulders.

I watch as he searches for me, a frown on his Hollywood face and when our eyes crash, I send him a smirk, taking a drag from the cigar, blowing out the smoke. I watch his chest rise and fall, his bottom lip quivers as he inhales a sharp breath. He takes a thumb and neatly glides it over that same bottom lip. Do I make Tyler Prescott nervous? Or is the thought of him meeting a man in public after his scandal making him nervous? The music changes, I know this because the vibrations reverberating throughout my body has changed. I still can’t hear any of it.

I stand when he reaches me. “There you are.”

Eyes like chilled aquamarines go to my lips and then meet mine.

“Here I am,” He smirks as I hand him the drink – the third I’ve ordered and spiked waiting for him.

He looks around me. “Your friend?”

I lift my shoulder and let it drop. “Never showed.”

“Lucky me,” he says, taking a small sip.

“Lucky you.” I repeat, moving to a more secluded corner, where there’s somewhat less debauchery. I hold my finger up to the corseted waitress who comes back heartbeats later with my drink. We hold our drinks between us, and I let my eyes roam over his face, letting his face transform into my little goddess’s.

He steps a little closer, leaning so close I can smell his cologne, my stomach recoils. But he smells all wrong. There’s no jasmine or berries or pomegranate shampoo. It’s all bergamot, cardamom, and scotch. His breath is on the shell of my ear, warm. I want to push him off me so badly. I have to fight my instincts.

“I never thought you swung for the other team.”

I clench the tumbler in my hand, fist shaking, then smirk when he leans away and before taking a sip I say, “I bat for one and occasionally bat for the other,” as casually as I can.

He takes an almost too-large sip of his drink, unblinking while licking his lips and slowly shakes his head. He places his glass on a table beside us. I almost grin when I realize it’s empty. His empty hand comes up to my face, his thumb rolls over the bottom of my lower lip, the other comes up to my waist and I feel myself tremble. Thoughts of Raven’s scars, the pictures of how badly she was beaten probably bythishand, the one touching me, makes the bile rise in my throat. “Prove it.”

My hand trembles as I place my glass beside his, the condensation of mine leaving a ring around it, conjoining with his. The urge to strangle him in front of all these people, ricochets in my brain, all of my thoughts merge, seeing him at my mercy, choking, gasping under my grasp, begging for his life like my goddess probably begged for hers is too strong. There would be no mercy.

I lift my hands letting them crawl over his forearms and settle them on his biceps, swallowing the bile down that I want to spew across his face like acid, when a pair of strong hands go around my torso pulling me away from Tyler and my back hits a strong chest. Lips go to the shell of my ear and chills run down my spine.

“There you arebaby. I’ve been looking everywhere for you. I thought you decided not to come.”

Confused, angry,hurthe didn’t trust me enough to pull this off, I turn my head to face Damon who’s using an exceptionally good French accent and when I do, his lips crush against mine. I fight the need to push him off, but let myself sink into his firm, warm kiss, but not before I see that his eyes are open. Silver eyes like a sharp butcher’s knife stare not at me, but over at Tyler. My eyes close, letting myself relax into Damon’s animalistic kiss. It’s all tongue, and lips. It’s primal and unrelenting. I realize he’s claiming me in front of Tyler. Selling this particular public display of affection to the one I’m supposed to prove it to so that I don’t exactly have to.

I can see why she loves him.

To take control in this situation, where I was ready to say ‘fuck the rules, fuck the plans, murder him in cold blood. In public.Let them watch me fuck him up. Let them take me away. He deserves it…’

Damon Archer is giving me an out. And I am…grateful.

I turn to face him completely and wrap my arms around his shoulders. His hands fall to my hips all too easily as if we’ve done this a million times, as if we’re lovers, not two men with a sick agenda, two men that are willing to say, “fuck it” and burn the world for the same woman.

“What are you doing here,amour?” I ask in a gruff voice.

“I see you’re making friends without me.” He replies with a sly grin that French accent thick and believable. “Did you tell him about ourpetitdéesse?”

Tyler’s eyebrows hike up to his forehead, baby blues bouncing between Archer and I when a blush crawls and settles atop my cheeks. I shake my head. “Hadn’t gotten there yet,” I reply a little annoyed.

“Your little goddess?” Tyler asks.

I clear my throat. “I bat for the other team as long as our girlfriend can watch.”

“Your girlfriend?Bothof yours?”

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