Page 37 of Inside the Maelstrom: Part One
I just didn’t know what.
Chapter20
Hendrick
Aviva was still avoiding me, but it was harder to do in a small suite than it had been in a large facility. I’d been asleep when she and Sampson had returned home again, but Otto had said she’d basically gone straight to her room. He also said that she’d looked flushed and disheveled, and I briefly wondered if Sampson had fucked her in the back of the SUV.
I was surprisingly okay with the idea. I kind of wished I’d been there to watch, but that was it.
I was almost finished dressing for dinner at Nobu, and she still hadn’t emerged. Otto was playing with his hair in the bathroom, looking fine as fuck.
“Should I go and talk to her? Maybe she wasn’t as cool with us as I thought.”
Otto looked at me in the reflection of the mirror. “I don’t think that was it. She’s probably just embarrassed.”
I screwed up my face. “Why? It wasn’t her that got caught with their dick in their hand.”
He shrugged, and went back to making his hair look like he just ran his fingers through it rather than styled it for twenty minutes. It was an artform, apparently.
I knew I should just leave it alone, but leaving it alone wasn’t really my style. I liked to poke at things until they bled.
I didn’t knock on her door, just entered, kinda hoping she’d be naked. Instead, she was applying her makeup in the bathroom.
“Ever heard of knocking, Hendrick?” she snarked as she attempted to apply her mascara.
“Why? Whatever you’ve got, I’ve seen a hundred times over.”
She speared me with a look. “I don’t want to hear about your body count.”
I snorted. “As if my body count is a hundred.” It was more like twice that. I’d lost count after a while. Her expression said she definitely didn’t think it was lower.
I cleared my throat. “Should I apologize for what you saw this afternoon?”
“Not to me. Maybe to Sampson though.”
I frowned again. Had Sampson said something? “I don’t think Sam minds. He’s seen it before. Sometimes when we all fuck one girl, he watches me fuck Otto. Or vice versa.”
“Fuck.” There was a loud clatter as she dropped the mascara wand, her left eye all scrunched up. “Fucking hell, Hendrick. You can’t say that shit while I’m waving something that close to my goddamn eyeball. Jesus. Dammit, that stings.”
I walked further into the bathroom, grabbing a cotton pad from the vanity. Pouring some makeup remover over it, I held it up to her eye, batting away her fingers. I stroked away her carefully applied eye makeup, and she sighed.
“Now I have to start again.”
I grabbed the makeup remover, pouring some on another cotton pad. “You don’t need it anyway.” I carefully wiped off the eye makeup on the other side, stroking off the foundation until she was barefaced again.
“Maybe I like to wear it. Men always think we wear makeup for them. Maybe I just enjoy using my face as a canvas?”
I met her pretty blue eyes. “Do you like it?”
She shrugged. “I just don’t want to look like I haven’t made an effort.”
I looked down at the pretty silk shirt and tight black jeans she was wearing. Everything hugged her tightly, and her hair was tamed into soft ringlets today.
“You look beautiful.”
She shoved at my shoulder. “Stop being sweet, butthead.” But I noticed the pink on her cheeks. “You take makeup off like a pro. Are you a drag queen in your spare time?”
I gave her a shit-eating grin. “Worried about me wearing your pretty lace panties?”
