Page 29 of A Distraction of Lies

“No, we don’t drink on the floor. It’s virginal. About the only thing that is in here.”

“What’s your name?”

“Why?”

“Excuse me?”

“Why do you want to know my name?”

“I …” I don’t know how to answer that. Because it’s polite conversation?

I laugh lightly and tip my gaze away from her again, unsure how to even speak in here now she’s questioned me. My eyes blink, vision changing. Things seem blurred, indistinct, but then sharper the moment I focus on any one particular situation. A tall man laughs from across the room, his head tipping back as a women grinds on his leg. I can hear the sound of his laughter over the din in here, the rattle in his throat. My feet move of their own accord, fingers falling from the table they were resting on absently, but a sharp hand lands on my wrist.

I twist to look back at the woman, a harsh glare directed at her for touching me.

“Take your time, little thing. You have a lot to learn while you’re here,” she says to me, fiddling with the gold chain on my wrist she’s holding. “Call him if you need him. No one else will care.” The words out of her mouth seem muffled to me, almost incoherent, but the sound of the man’s laughter still booms loud and clear behind me.

I pull my wrist from her and move again, cutting through the crowd to get to him. Dirty blonde hair, most of it ruffled on his head as if countless women have run their hands through it. Shirtless, tattoos spread across his frame. Everything about him draws me closer without any thought as to why. I’m just pulled, towed by something other than sense.

My skin heats the closer I get, thighs clamping and aches forming within me that I can’t explain. And then I’m there, standing three feet away and watching him move and grab a woman closer to him. Their lips meet, his tongue licking across the wet seam she’s offering. Everything’s so loud from him, so resonating. I can’t even hear the music or the other people anymore. It’s just him and the sound of his breathing, his laughter. Even his heartbeat means something to me, as if it’s drowning out everything.

He turns his head away from her mouth and looks sharply at me, hooded eyes raking their stare across my face. I smile, a slight curve of my mouth conveying curiosity in him alone. Nothing else matters now. Just him and the sounds he makes. I can feel them reverberating around me like I felt the music when we walked in here. Enough so that I can almost feel his rippled muscles moving on my skin. They’re not. Not yet. But they will be because I want them.

I want them like I’ve never wanted anything before them.

Chapter 16

Gray

An arm rests on the table near me.

It’s elegant, attractive. Long, slender. Sapphires decorate her wrist, large diamonds on her fingers, but she’s wearing blue. I sneer and set my gaze over the floor below instead, watching Hannah. She looks good down there, already in control of what she wants and where she’s heading for the night. I chuckle and drink some more water, interested in her response to the drugs inside her and her choice of partner.

“Dillon? And you’re going to let her?” I smirk at the sound of his voice behind me and keep watching Hannah.

“It’s what I brought her here for.”

He rests on the balcony beside me, his exposed tanned forearm inches from mine, and chortles to himself about something. I glance at the bracelets around his wrist, wondering if any new straps of leather have been added. Three more in the last year. Two red. One black plait.

“Those must have hurt,” I state.

“They did, but she’s my bitch and she gets what she wants.”

I chuckle and tip my face to his, watching as he does the same. His eyes crease around his smile, almost black orbs dancing under this blue light casting around. “It’s good to see you.”

“You’re the one that stays away, Gray. You’re always welcome,” he replies.

I nod and look back at the floor again, eyes trained on my entertainment. The other woman’s gone now, and Hannah’s waiting for Dillon to move to her. Some would say her look was coy under her slightly threatening outlook, but to me it’s more intrigued.

I chuckle again at that, noting the way she seems superior down there, irrespective of her size and innocence amongst the masses. Doesn’t mean she is, though. She’s just questioning all the things she doesn’t understand yet, analysing them. What should she do? Who makes the first move? Dillon will, when he’s finished looking her over and wondering what he’s going to do to her.

“Who is she to you?”

“Just a grieving widow.”

“Looks like it,” he says, sarcasm heavy in his tone as he stands upright. “Why have you brought her here?”

I stand with him and take a good look at his features. Still handsome as hell. Dark everything, casually arrogant in his home, regardless of the wealth around him. “Sun tan?”

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