Page 61 of Revelry

I yelp and slap his hands away. “Do not talk to me.”

“Why are you so pissed at me?”

“Because you … you took advantage of me,” I say as I slam my fist against the elevator button, turning and stepping inside the first lift that opens. I hurriedly press the button for the doors to close before he can join me, but it seems even the hotel elevator is conspiring against me. Levi steps into the car and I swipe my key and hit the button for my floor, ignoring how close he’s standing.

“I never would have slept with you if I were in my right mind—”

“Uh, uh, uh,” he says, “Doing the coke was your idea, and actually, now that I think of it, so was the amazing sex.”

“Nuh uh. No fucking way.”

“Think about it, Red,” he says. I shake my head, staring at the bay of lit buttons and praying like hell the elevator will go faster. Levi moves closer, his lips brushing my shoulder with the smallest of touches. I’m so damn bone-weary, I don’t even care that he’s cornering me in an elevator. I just want to drop where I stand and sleep for a hundred years. Everything hurts, and when I say everything, I mean fucking everything.

I open my mouth and massage the muscles on my cheek, feeling as if at some point in the middle of the night I encountered a pretty severe case of lockjaw. I have some vague recollection of gagging on his huge twelve-inch cock, and I shake my head and close my eyes.

“Well how much do you remember?” I ask quietly. “I don’t remember anything, so maybe we didn’t have sex. Maybe—”

“Babe, I had you everywhere and every way a man could have you, all over that room.”

“Please tell me we didn’t do anal.”

He smirks.Fucking smug bastard. “Fine, we didn’t do anal.”

He’s lying. I know this because my arse hurts just as bad as my vagina right now, and that hurts a lot. Not in that fuck-I-really-need-to-visit-the-ER kind of way, but almost. A myriad of images assault my brain—his body on top, behind, beneath, the shower, the bed, the spa, and finally pushed against the glass of the floor-to-ceiling windows, looking out on the lights of the Vegas strip as night faded and slowly gave way to the blush of dawn. I came hard, I came slow, and I came all fucking night long, just like he’d said.

Oh my god. I bury my face in my hands. The problem wasn’t that Levi had taken advantage of me—the problem lay in the fact that I was hurt. I’d used him to escape the pain that Cooper had inflicted on me. I’d wanted Levi, and I was just as responsible for this happening as he was. And what’s more, I had loved every damn second of it.

“Oh my god,” I say out loud, because maybe if I just keep repeating that idiotic phrase this will all go away.

“That’s whatyousaid.”

“You can stop talking now.” I glare at him. The elevator comes to a halt on my floor with a musicaldingand the doors open. We’re met by a small group of girls. None of them look old enough to be roaming the hotel without adult supervision. But they all know us—or more to the point, they all know Levi.

He’s bombarded with screaming girls and I use the opportunity to slip out of the elevator unseen. Unfortunately, Levi manoeuvres the girls in a way that has them in the elevator, and him just outside of it. A savvy brunette slams her hand against the door to prevent it from closing while they all pose for a group selfie.

“I love ya, ladies,” Levi says, winking at them, “but I gotta go.”

“Is that your girlfriend?” a little blonde, who couldn’t be older than thirteen, asks.

“Why yes, yes it is,” Levi responds.

“Fuck you, Quinn,” I say and one by one the fangirls pop their little heads out of the elevator to stare at me.

“Are you wearing a blanket?” one of the teeny boppers asks.

I slide my key in the lock. “Yep. Just say no to drugs, kids.”

Fuck.

I fucked this up so royally that now I don’t know how to go back and undo it. What the hell was going through my head?

I think of Holly all the time. We have a kid together—I talk to the woman every other day. We Skype, and I see Pepper and witness how fast she’s growing.

I still carry a whole lot of hurt. I loved her, and she left me for someone else. That shit fucking hurts, no matter what way you paint it. I’d thought a part of me will always love her. But I haven’t thought about her in that way since … well, since Ali came along.

Bets aside, I couldn’t make a move with her—apart from when I’m drunk and in confined spaces, obviously.I’m an A-grade fucking arsehole. I need to go and talk to her.

I stand up, and Deb shoots me a glare from across the bus. “Where the hell are you going? It’s bad enough we have to sit here in the stinking Vegas heat waiting for Cockhead Number One, now we have to wait for you too?”

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