“So why are you then?”
“Good question,” he breathes so light I’m not even sure I heard him correctly.
Behind all the dark, lust-fueled temptation is a tormented anger. Henry is attracted to me and he loathes himself for it. He’s disgusted by it. It’s the same look I saw in his eyes three years ago, and I simply can’t do it again.
“Why are you here?” I continue, attempting to pull away but his grip in my hair tightens. “Let me go. I’m done dancing with you.”
“You’ve become a magnet for my eyes,” he tells me, his voice harsh as if he hates this beyond measure. “You hide behind a stupid plant; I see you instantly. You dance as one of hundreds in a dark crowded club; I zero in on you. Not once, but twice. Explain that to me, because it makes no sense.”
I shake my head, not understanding him.
He shakes his in return, frustrated.
“I didn’t ask you to come dance with me, Henry.”
“No. You didn’t. And I stood about ten feet away watching you for who knows how long before I even came over.”
“Then go back to your cave of seclusion. If I wanted company, I would have it.”
His expression grows menacing as he presses himself closer.
“Not on my watch, Eden.”
“So that’s why you stepped in? Didn’t like watching all the men in here coming up to me. Touching me. Trying to dry hump against me as they felt me up. Such a fucking hypocrite. I don’t need you to cockblock for me. I’m more than capable of doing that myself.”
“Saving yourself for someone in particular? I thought you broke up with the boyfriend. What happened between you and him anyway?”
The boyfriend? I smirk tauntingly. “None of your business.” Because if I tell him what happened and Keith finds out, he’ll kill Chad. And while I don’t care so much about Chad on that end of things, I do on Keith’s.
“Must still be your juvenile obsession with me making you turn all the boys away then. If you’re over the boyfriend the way you’re playing.”
“Considering the sight of you now makes me want to reach back in time and smack that silly besotted little girl upside the head, I’d go with no.”
“You’re a liar. A damn poor one at that. You’re all over me, Dragonfly.” He tugs my hair, yanking me into his hard chest. He speaks against my mouth, his sweet tequila-tinted breath mixing with my own. “Always have been.”
“This must be so hard for you.” I grind into him, proving my point. His eyes flare. “You can’t fuck me—though we both know you want to—and you can’t stop me from fucking someone else.” I make a show of looking around. “Hmmm… maybe you’re right. Maybe a rebound after the boyfriend is exactly what I need tonight. I should find someone. Take them home and fu—”
He grasps my chin, forcing me back to him. “You’re not taking anyone home tonight, and you sure as hell aren’t fucking any of them either. I’ll cockblock you all night, sweetheart.”
I shove against him. “Go away, Henry. I don’t like you on a good night, and since you showed up, it’s turning into a bad one.”
“How about you come with me instead.”
I don’t even get the chance to argue before he releases my hair and grabs my hand instead. My head flies over my shoulder to Jess who is watching me with a strange look I can’t read until it turns into a smile and a wave. My eyes narrow at her and she laughs. Traitor. What happened to best friends and man-free zones?
I twist back to Henry, smacking at his shoulder as he shoves me into a waiting elevator.
He backs me up into the corner, hitting the button for five. The private floor. The members only floor. It dawns on me that despite his solo appearance downstairs, he didn’t come to this club alone.
He never does.
I grin up at him, licking my licks seductively. I reach down and cup his hard cock through the thick fabric of his pants. He grunts and I take a little too much enjoyment in that sound. “Better get this under control before your best friend sees it and knows all the dirty thoughts you’re having about his little sister.”
His face dips in, skirting along my cheek until he reaches my ear. He breathes against me and I shudder involuntarily. “Doesn’t matter, Dragonfly. He knows I’d never knowingly act on them.”
Jerk!
He takes a deep inhale of my skin, nips at my earlobe, and steps away from me, smirking like a devil as he does in fact adjust himself to hide the large bulge. The elevator doors part, and he gives me a wink. “Time to face your brother.”
I suck in a deep inhale. Shit.
Five
HENRY
Once upon a time, things were worse than they are now. Day was night. Night was a million times worse than day. And despair mixed with longing turned to resentment, turned to hate before my very eyes.
I was young when it started. But that didn’t mean I was immune to its effects. If anything, it was worse because of that. I learned the reality of what love is truly capable of. The power it can wield. The devastation it can reap. The lives it can ruin without breaking a sweat.
How cruel indifference can be.
What a hateful monster jealousy is.
It changed me. I like to think for the better.
Like a blow to the head or a badge of honor. Call it what you want, survival and pleasure became my only game. Pain and love my nemesis. And I was good with that. It felt right and safe and just. It held me together when some days, I wasn’t sure anything could.
When I was twelve years old, I made a promise to myself that I would never be them. That I would never fall in love. That I would never—and I mean fucking ever—let a woman get her hands on my heart or my soul.
Then I saw her dancing in a club one night.
A woman I can never have. A woman I do not deserve to touch. Hell, a woman I simply do not deserve. So even though hurting her felt like the worst thing ever, I persevered where others would have succumbed.
Pretend was my fortress. Denial my battlefield. Acceptance a place I never found sanctuary in.
That last one was my downfall.
Let it be known this very instant.
My inability to hold firm on this despite my rhetoric is what ultimately acts as my handicap. Only this is no golf game where no one gives a shit. This is learning, knowing, owning boundaries and sticking to them because that’s the kind of guy you are, and you discovered long ago nothing else matters but that.
Lust is simply a weapon. Terms for manipulation.
That’s all this is, I remind myself. Lust.
I step back and allow Eden to exit first. I’m not being a gentleman. A gentleman wouldn’t be as hard for her as I am. No, I’m a piece of shit deviant who needs a second to get his dick under control before he delivers his best friend’s little sister to him.
Still, that threat has yet to stop me from acting where she’s concerned.
It’s no joke that Keith is an overprotective bastard when it comes to his sisters. He’s pointblank warned me off Eden in the past when I’ve tested the waters by joking with him about me and her. So what the fuck am I doing waiting for her at her car? Grinding with her in a dark club and allowing her to touch my cock like they’re about to get intimately reacquainted?