Page 22 of Crave: A Reverse Harem Romance

I walked into the security room, mostly out of boredom. I didn’t like to spend a lot of time up here. Unlike Ryker, I would much rather be down in the club having a good time than hanging around and just watching people have fun.

But it was still early in the night and there weren’t a lot of people here yet, so I figured I’d check in with Ryker and my brother, see what they were up to.

“How are things?” I asked, nonchalantly. Both of them were sitting down in front of the camera, so I wasn’t expecting much of an answer.

“I was hoping you’d be here tonight.” Ryker turned to look at me seriously. “There was a pretty bad incident last night.”

“Really?” I asked. We didn’t have many incidents—certainly not ones that had Ryker looking so bothered the next day. “What happened?”

“A young woman was nearly drugged by another patron,” he said in his matter-of-fact way.

My eyes nearly bulged out of my head. “What? Is she okay? Did you guys get her help? Jesus, what happened?”

Dammit.

I hated hearing things like that. It was exactly those kinds of incidents that gave our kind of clubs shitty reputations. Not Crave in particular, because we were very high security and we cared deeply about not letting that kind of thing happen.

But apparently creepers will always find a fucking way.

“She was fine, she wasn’t actually drugged. I had been watching her pretty intently on the security cameras and as soon as I saw it, I alerted the security team and went down to stop her from drinking it. Thankfully, I got to her in time.”

Relief washed over me. “Damn, that was lucky.” I nodded. “Good thing you had your eyes on the camera.”

My brother, Axel, snorted. It was the first time he made a noise since I’d walked in. “Yeah, very lucky you were watching her.” He gave Ryker a knowing look.

I wasn’t following, and if Ryker knew what the hell he was alluding to, he didn’t say.

“What do you mean?” I asked my twin. “What’re you getting at?”

Axel shrugged. “It’s just I can see why Ryker had his eyes on her so closely. She wasn’t bad to look at, that’s all I’m saying.”

I laughed. “Yeah, like Ryker gives a shit about that.” Ryker never fucked around with any of the club girls. “You were here for this, too?”

“Not really.” Axel said, shaking his head. “But I saw her in Ryker’s office while he was down with the police and she explained everything to me. She was really shook up, so I took her home.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Oh, God. She was cool with that? Totally comfortable?”

“Yeah, absolutely. I told her to hold onto my ID and phone until we got to her house. She didn’t have a car of her own, and she just really wanted to get home. Trust me, she was comfortable.”

“Good,” I said. “I’m not letting my club get a bad reputation.”

I was the majority owner at Crave, so it really was my club. Though I gave Ryker and Axel a lot of say in what happened at the club, at the end of the day it was really on my shoulders.

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” Axel gave me a hard look. “I wanted her to be comfortable, trust me. She was really nice, and I just wanted her to get home safe.”

“And the fact that she was smoking hot had nothing to do with it?” I teased him. “Nothing at all?”

“Oh, no shit,” One of our mutual friends, Roger, walked into the room from behind me. He was one of the few people who was allowed up here despite not really being an employee. “Are you all talking about that chick that came in last night with the redhead?” he asked.

“Yeah, were you here?” Axel asked.

“I actually hooked up with the redhead.” He grinned triumphantly. “She thought her friend had ditched her.”

“Well, what did she look like?” I asked.

“She had this long-ass brown hair that just kinda, y’know, bounces everywhere she walks. A tight little butt. Kind of gives you that nerdy-girl vibe, but in like a sexy way.”

Well, Roger hadn't ever been the most articulate person, but I got the picture.

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