Page 8 of Let Me
My breath catches in my throat.
It’s dark, neon lights in the background, but it’s Adam.
Adam.
He’s got his head buried in someone’s neck, a girl wearing little more than a bra, her panties down to her knees. There are people crowded around them, watching, drinks in hand.
My heart thuds in my chest.
Adam.
I haven’t seen him yet, because I didn’t want to tell him. About Rolland, and the party. I wanted to surprise him, truth be told, tomorrow morning.
Long-distance rarely works, and for us, it hadn’t been working well, but this…we were supposed to talk about it. If it wasn’t working, we were supposed to say so.
I check the number again.416, a Toronto number. There are three dots and then whoever it is sends another message. An address. As if I wouldn’t know. There’s only one clublike thatin the city.
I don’t reply. Instead, I pound my fist against the glass, hard enough to hurt. I toss my phone on the black leather couch, pull off my black blouse, black pants, and pull on a tight, black dress that Rolland keeps in the closet here. My skin crawls thinking about that, so I don’t. I pull on short black boots, grab my phone, and leave.
I’ve wanted to disconnect from this city for so long.
Adam was just one more thing tying me here.
As I walk to the club, I feel my chest tighten. Not at the confrontation. I’ve never been bad at those, except where Caden is concerned. No, it’s at what it means that Adam won’t be mine anymore.
Or rather, that I won’t beAdam’sanymore. I fell into his arms three years ago, during the summer between losing Jack and moving to the States, to start university. We had gone to school together, and he was justthere.I never loved him.
But breaking up with him…it means that Rolland might not keep his distance anymore. It means that he’ll be able to do whatever he wants without any sort of worry. Or fear. It means I’ll feel eighteen again, when he was the biggest man in the world and there was no one who could stop him and when he threatened me, afterward, I believed every bit of it. I did as he asked. I still do as he asks. As he demands. Because if anyone found out…well, if Caden thinks he hates me now, he would probably kill me then.
But I remind myself I don’t have to tell Rolland about Adam. I remind myself I’m going home in three days and sure, Rolland can take a flight whenever he wants, but he wants me to finish school, so he usually makes me come to him. A trip every few months; good for me to reconnect with Adam, to keep Rolland off my back, but to let him see me. It’s too bad all the money in the world hasn’t bought him the psychiatric help he needs.
I walk into Viper after handing over my ID, breathless from the walk here. Rolland might pay for my flights and my food when he summons me, but he would never pay for a cab ride to a club without him.
For a moment, I’m stunned. I’ve never been here before, and the scent of sex and too much perfume and the sound of music overtop of people moaning and screaming freezes me. I never really liked clubs. I feel claustrophobic inside of them, and Viper is no different.
Except when I round the corner at the end of the hall and come face-to-face with the noise, theaction, the breasts and bare ass and a woman with her fingers inside herself as two men watch with eager eyes.
Fucking Adam.
This place is huge, and there’s a stairwell with a sign that indicates there are private rooms upstairs. But the picture the anonymous do-gooder sent me didn’t seem to suggest Adam and the girl were in a private room. So, I force myself to steel my spin and walk among the bodies gyrating around me, and even though I try not to look, it’s nearly impossible not to.
And even though I don’t want to like it, I feel my nipples harden beneath my dress and I bite my lip and some guy’s eyes meet mine and he grins. I look away, quickly, before he gets the wrong idea. Even though, in a place like this, maybe it’s the right idea.
Then I see him.
And his head isn’t buried in the girl’s neck anymore.
He’s between her legs, and the woman’s back is arched, her breasts bouncing as she pushes herself up and down in his mouth. He’s shirtless, and his hands are roaming over her tits and the crowd around them is bigger now. I watch from a distance as a naked woman with waist-length hair comes up behind Adam and runs her hands through his hair and then reaches around to undo his zipper and he moans into the woman’s pussy he’s currently eating.
Heat rushes to my face.
That was me beneath him, just a few weeks ago. In his condo, that wasme.
Then I notice someone is at my back. Ifeelthem there.
I stiffen, tear my eyes away from the scene in front of me. I have to stifle a gasp as I see Caden, a smirk on his face as he stares down at me, his blue eyes cold.
And then behind him, a girl on his lap but his dark eyes trained on me, is Benji.
