Page 91 of The Monster of Hotel No. 7
Cosmo’s lips are at my ear. “Come home with me and I’ll leave him alone. You’ve always had a soft heart beneath that bitchy princess facade.” He runs his mouth over my lobe. “Come home and we’ll make sure he’s never found.”
Sullen doesn’t blink as he stares at me. The white bandana around his throat draws my eye, and I think for a moment of the words in his skin.
If Stein gets his hands on him again…
As the thought strikes through me so sharply I flinch, Maude lifts her arm and cups the side of Sullen’s jaw with her fingertips.
I don’t breathe.
Her thumb is close to his mouth. Full and soft and hiding his beautiful smile; but he isn’t smiling now.
“See?” Cosmo whispers against me. “Let her touch him. Let her kiss him. It’s only fair he should get all this attention. He never got out much, did he, Karia?” His teeth prick my ear. “Let him feel good.”
Sullen’s eyes narrow. Maude’s finger sweeps over his bottom lip. She isn’t laughing anymore, staring up at him as if she’s going to touch him everywhere.
Cosmo bites my ear again, tugging gently on my lobe.
Sullen grabs Maude’s wrist then, his eyes flashing as he looks at me and slowly brings Maude’s arm forcibly down to the table with a soft thud.
She winces, and he releases her, but he still doesn’t say anything. To her, to me, to Alivia. It’s almost as if he is trapped inside himself.
“You two good over there?” At the sound of Fleet’s voice, I flinch, turning my head to see him squatting down between the two red velvet chairs Elliot and I are currently occupying. He’s holding something out to me, white paper rolled around marijuana, the end lit, a soft smile on his face.
He’s cute. Not hot like Sullen, but cute.
Fleet glances under the table, at Cosmo’s hand on my thigh. “Here,” he says softly, gesturing with the joint as he slowly rakes his gaze over my body and meets my eye again. “This will help you relax. You seem tense.”
I don’t think about it as Cosmo laughs softly and Elliot says, “Oh, boy.” I reach for the joint, bring it to my lips, and inhale.
The cherry flares bright and the smoke fills my lungs. I’ve smoked many times before and I don’t take too much, only coughing a little as I pass the joint back to a smiling Fleet and exhale through my mouth.
My head feels lighter already. Cosmo is still touching me, Fleet is staring at me like he wants to fuck me, and even Elliot’s presence is soothing.
Then I hear Maude giggle.
I clench my teeth and cut my eyes to her and Sullen and Alivia. Everything feels a little hazy, including my vision, but they are definitely closer than they were, all three of them pressed together, Sullen in the middle.
He’s watching me with a scowl, and I see Maude reach for him again, not having learned her lesson the first time. Her fingers drop down to the bandana around his throat and he visibly tenses, his eyes widening.
And he finally speaks. Just one word.
Just my name.
“Karia.”
It sounds broken and rough but angry, too, and I watch as he cuts his gaze to Fleet, then Cosmo, all while Maude toys with the bandana at his throat.
I stand then.
I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I feel as if he’s paralyzed for some reason, like he doesn’t know how to navigate this, tell people to fuck right off and stop touching him. Or maybe that’s whatIwant to say.
I don’t, though.
I stay quiet, but I turn and wind my way past Fleet, whose fingers graze my calf over my black pants, and I can feel his eyes on my ass as I saunter around the table. I brush past Alivia, who watches me with a small smile, then I step in the sliver of space between Maude’s chair and Sullen’s, forcing her to stop touching his bandana, my back to her.
He slowly looks up at me from beneath his dark lashes, then he shifts his chair back a few inches.
And I straddle him, my head floating from the punch, the wine, the weed.
