Grind (One Night Book 2) Read online

  She closes her mouth, pressing the generous curve of it into a thin, hard line. “Very well.” She turns, just enough to let me off the elevator. “Follow me… and don’t make eye contact unless you plan on following through.”

  Before I can ask her what that’s supposed to mean, she latches her hand around my wrist and leads me down a short hallway that opens up onto an enormous room, full of what can only be described as sin.

  Lots and lots of sin.

  A large, raised stage. At least a dozen smaller ones scattered throughout the room. Nude bodies of all shapes and sizes. Touching each other. Touching themselves. Patrons watching. Doing the same thing—to themselves and each other. In my tight black mini-dress and four-inch heels, I am decidedly overdressed.

  Halfway across the room, I feel a hand close around my free wrist and tug. “You bring me something new, O?”

  Something new?

  I look up, mouth open to start screaming, hand rapidly closing itself into a fist, both aimed and ready at a man lounging in a deep, plush chair. He looks bored. Like the fact that I’m two seconds away from taking a swing at him is the most excitement he’s had in a long time.

  Before I can, Ophelia lays her fingers across the back of the man’s hand. “This something belongs to Mr. Carver.”

  He turns my wrist over in his hand and looks down to run his thumb across the inside of it, the corner of his mouth lifting just a bit, like the drumming pulse he feels there is amusing to him somehow.

  Then he looks up and Ophelia and cocks his head. “Not yet she doesn’t.”

  “I can fetch Mr. Carver if you’d like,” she offers, her deferent tone laced with just enough steel to tighten his grip on my wrist. “I’m sure he’d be more than happy to explain the situation to you.”

  He lets go of me immediately.

  “Too bad. I like natural blondes.” He gives me a long look before turning away, dismissing me completely.

  “Prick.” Ophelia mutters it under her breath before she tightens her hand around my arm and pulls me closer. “I told you no eye contact.”

  I didn’t make eye contact with anything except the toes of my shoes but I don’t tell her that. “What was that about?” I say, moving my feet twice as fast to keep up with her. “Who was that guy?”

  She cuts me a quick look over her shoulder while weaving us between tables and might have been conversational areas if not for the fact that not much talking was going on. “Someone you want to stay away from.”

  She doesn’t say anything else until we’re on the other side of the room and standing in front of a door, marked with the number 3.

  “You’re probably not going to like what you see on the other side of it,” she says to me. “And there’s a good chance Keats will fire me for bringing you here.”

  That gives me pause.

  Scares me a little.

  “What is it?”

  “The truth.”

  Before I can talk myself out of it, I’m reaching for the doorknob and it’s turning in my hand.

  Fifteen

  Keaton

  I shouldn’t be here.

  Not being here allows me the luxury of ignorance. Even though, logically, I know what Kyle is doing here, why he demanded a private room on the third-floor, ignoring that fact makes it possible to keep my shit together.

  It doesn’t help that Briana is here. That all I can think about is that she’s marrying my little brother and it’s my fault. That I practically pushed her at him.

  Yup. Your little brother is a cheating pile of shit and you’ve got your goddamned head buried in the sand, just waiting for the woman you love to say I do to him.

  Because he wanted her. And what Kyle wants, I give him.

  The problem is that even though Briana isn’t the first thing I’ve had in my life that Kyle wanted for himself, she was the first thing I considered fighting to keep.

  The first thing I wanted for myself.

  That’s a wrong way of thinkin’, chief. You don’t get to keep anything for yourself. You have a debt to pay. You punched a hole in your brother’s life and it’s your job to fill it, so find your fucking shovel and get to work.

  “Head to the second-floor and check on Briana,” I tell O. We’re walking the third-floor, so I can show my face. O is fantastic at her job but we both know things run smoother when people know I’m in-house. So, I let them see me. Say hello. Feel important when I remember their names. Some of the skills, held over from my previous life, have proved useful as a club owner. “Make sure she has everything she needs and tell her I got tied up.”

  O laughs like I made some sort of joke and I stop long enough to glare at her. “What are you, twelve?”

  “Not even when I was twelve.” She says it to her clipboard, but the reminder is still a kick in the gut. There’s rough and then there’s the kind of life O was subjected to when she was a kid. She credits me with pulling her out of it. Thinks she owes me her life. She’s wrong. She doesn’t owe me anything. Try telling her that though. Blind loyalty doesn’t even begin to describe her.

  She looks up at me when I don’t answer her and gives me a bland, professional smile. “Is there anything else, Mr. Carver.”

  I know she’s calling me Mr. Carver for the benefit of any patron who might be listening, but it also has the added benefit of bugging the shit out of me. Blind loyalty and an endless source of irritation are just a few things O brings to the table.

  “No, Ophelia.” I tug on the cuffs of my tailored shirt and give her the same bland smile in return. “That’s all for now.” I watch long enough to see her turn on her heel and make her way toward the elevators before heading to the private room she put Kyle in at my request.

  Like I said before—I shouldn’t be here. Until now, what I’ve suspected about Kyle has been nothing but speculation. Rumors. Opening the door will confirm all of it and I won’t be able to go back to pretending ignorance.

  I’ll have to tell her.

  And isn’t that why you’re here?

  So you can tell her.

  Take her back.

  I don’t knock and none of these rooms have locks, so I walk right in, shutting the door behind me.

  And am immediately sick to my stomach.

  It’s not the fact that I walked in on my little brother and his buddies running a train on a very vocal, very willing woman that has me feeling sick. It’s the fact that for a split second, I think about her.

  Briana.

  What it would do to her if she could see him.

  What she would think of me if she knew I’d kept something like this from her.

  Whoever the woman is, she’s isn’t one of mine, which is a good thing because if she were, I’d have fired her on the spot. There’s only one thing my people can’t do and that’s fuck my members. If they’re caught doing it, they’re finished.

  Mine or not, she backs off when she looks up and sees me standing in the open doorway. She knows who I am. That this is my club. That I can make her life very uncomfortable if I choose to.

  I’ve done it before. Most of the rumors floating around about me are true.

  “Don’t stop on his account,” Kyle says, tightening the grip he has on the woman’s hair, trying to pull her back. “He’s just here to—”

  “What the fuck is wrong with you, Kyle?” I cast a quick look around the room. His buddies, some participating. Some just watching. Not one of them willing to look me in the eye. “You’re getting—”

  Married.

  I say the word but the sound of it gets lost under a sharp intake of breath behind me.

  Shit.

  I turn around to find the door open behind me, Ophelia a few feet away.

  Briana is standing right next to her.

  Sixteen

  Keaton

  2015

  It’s been a long month of taking the stairs and hanging out in the neighborhood coffee shop until I’m sure Briana isn’t coming or going from the building. I had
her schedule pretty much nailed in the first few weeks after I moved in so staying away from her the way she asked has been pretty simple.

  It’s also been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life.

  I went back to having my laundry washed by a service. I pay the guy at the front desk to lump my packages up to the door.

  The building’s gym is easy because she’s never used it, but the pool has been tricky.

  She’s usually there on Tuesdays and Thursdays, when she doesn’t have class, so I do my laps at night, after my workouts.

  But never on Tuesdays.

  On Tuesdays, I pretty much hunker down in my apartment like I’m waiting out some sort of natural disaster.

  It’s Tuesday.

  That box of laundry detergent has been sitting on my kitchen counter for a month now.

  Mocking me.

  Every Tuesday, I contemplate taking it and a load of clothes and marching myself into that laundry room. I live here, same as she does. I can wash my goddamned clothes whenever the fuc—

  The knock on my door cuts off my tirade and I’m so worked up I pull it open without checking to see who it is. I don’t get visitors. I don’t have friends who just drop by.

  I don’t have friends, period.

  But I answer the door without thinking twice because I’m pissed, and truth be told, I can’t stop thinking about her.

  Been thinking about her and nothing else for weeks now and the thinking has made me kinda crazy and a little bit reckless.

  Maybe that’s why I think I see her standing on my doorstep, smoky blue eyes widened at the sight of me. Fist raised in mid-knock.

  It’s definitely why I reach for her and drag her inside my apartment. Why I slam the door behind her and lock us both in. Advancing, I close the space between us and she retreats until she has nowhere to go. Until the heels of her sneakers bang against the door behind her. I slap my palms against it, on either side of her head, to cage her in. “What’re you doin’ here, sugar?”

  “I—” She looks up at me. Whatever she’s seeing stops the words in her throat and she licks her lips like her mouth has gone dry. “I came to apologize.”

  “For what?” Goddamn, she looks good. Blonde hair piled up, all messy, on top of her head. Not a stitch of make-up. The same cut-offs and tank she wears every Tuesday. Smells good enough to eat, like vanilla and coconut, and just the thought has me locking a groan in my throat.

  I honestly have no idea what she’s talking about and her brow furrows slightly while she shakes her head at my tone. “For the things I said to you, the other night… I behaved horribly and I—”

  “Still want me to make you come?” I don’t want to listen to her apologize because it’s just a reminder that everything she said about me was right. That everything she thinks is true and I’m pretty sure the only thing that’s going to make me forget that sad fact is getting my mouth on her.

  Hearing her scream my name.

  Still, for a second, I think she’s going to say no. That she’s not interested in me like that. Not anymore.

  But then, her lips parted slightly like being this close to me makes it hard for her to breathe. “Yes.” She nods her head slowly, her smoky blue gaze lowering itself until it’s trained on my mouth. “Yes, please.”

  Seventeen

  Briana

  Yes, please.

  No sooner do I get the words out before his hands are on me, pulling me away from the door. Pulling me against him, he pops my hips away from the door and slips an arm under my ass and lifts while nudging my thighs apart with his knee, so he can wedge his hips into the space between them.

  He’s hard.

  And mostly naked. He answered the door in a pair of loose basketball shorts and from what I can tell, not much else.

  I feel the fingers of his free hand brush against the hem of my tank before slipping past it to coast their way upward to stroke my bare breast.

  His lids slip to half mast, the gaze beneath them goes dull. “No bra.”

  It’s not a question but I shake my head anyway. “I was writing a paper on—”

  “I don’t care if you were building a time machine, sugar.” He jerks my tank over my head and tosses it aside before palming my breast again. “All I know is if I don’t get my mouth on you and fast...” He lifts my breast to his lips , tracing his tongue around my nipple. “I’m gonna lose it.” He closes his mouth over me, sucking and licking at my nipple until it’s hard and throbbing against his tongue. Stroking me with the hard length of his cock through our clothes. “You’re gonna taste so goddamned good,” he says against my breast, teeth grazing my nipple. “Better than—”

  “Keaton—”

  He goes still and lifts his head. “Unless the words about to come out of your mouth are I changed my mind or flat-out no, I don’t want to hear it.” He narrows his bright blue eyes on my face. “That it?” His gaze dips to my mouth. “It’s alright, sugar. You changed your mind, all you have to do is say so.”

  Something wells up inside me. Fear mixed with arousal. As usual, Amelia is right. It’s not his tattoos or his rough hands that make Keaton not my type. It’s the fact that I can’t control him. The fact that if I continue down this road, I’ll be relinquishing something I’ve never given before.

  Control.

  I’ve always had it. Always been the one in charge. Said when. Said how.

  Said when it was over.

  The fact that I’m willing to give it so freely to someone I barely know is terrifying.

  Terrifying and arousing.

  “Briana…” He says my name softly, the knot in his throat bobbing and scraping against it. “It’s okay. We don’t—”

  He said my name.

  Lifting my arms, I wind them around his neck. Wrap my legs around his hips to pull him closer. “Make me come, Keaton.” I whisper it, a thrill shooting through me when I watch his gaze go dark. Feel the hard jerk of his cock against my swollen slit. “Make me come for you.”

  A wicked smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Yes, ma’am.”

  He lowers his mouth to mine, his tongue sweeping into my mouth, teasing and licking mine. Find and setting a rhythm with his hips. Rocking them against me until I’m shaking and moaning. Until I can feel the tingling heat of an orgasm snake its way down my spine. My aching pussy clenching in response.

  He knows exactly where I am because he stops moving and breaks the kiss, lifting his head just enough to give me another wicked grin. “Not so fast, sugar.” He lowers his head again, scraping his teeth along the taut line of my throat, licking and nipping his way to my ear. “You’re not getting off that easy.”

  Oh god.

  Before I can ask him what he means, he tightens the arm under my ass and turns. Walking us into his apartment, I get the impression of space. Lots of it. Minimal furniture. Zero clutter.

  Spartan.

  That’s what Claire would call it.

  I’d call it a prison.

  “Where are we going?” I barely get the words out because every step he takes bumps his cock against my clit and I’m on the verge of swallowing my own tongue.

  “Bed.” He growls the word against my throat. “No more questions.” He nips me with his teeth, the stinging bite of them against my neck sending a rush of warmth down my spine to pool between my legs, seconds before he dumps me on to it. “You do what I tell you.” He stands over me at the edge of the bed, bright blue eyes eating up the sight of me. I’m naked, save for my pair of laundry day cut-offs and the thought makes it hard to lay still. Makes me feel exposed. Out of my depth. Like he can read my mind, Keaton shakes his head at me. “You don’t have to worry, sugar,” he says softly. “I’m gonna take care of you.”

  And I believe him.

  As insane as it is, I know he’s telling me the truth. Whatever happens next, Keaton will take care of me. Keep control so I won’t have to.

  “I know.” I reach for the button on my shorts and pull them ope
n. “I trust you.” Lifting my hips off the bed, I ease them off. Down my legs as far as I can. He takes over, pulling the rest of the way down before dropping them on the floor.

  “No panties.” Again, not a question.

  “It’s Tuesday.” I shake my head, reaching between my legs to skim my fingertip along the seam of my pussy. I’m soaked. So wet it’s almost embarrassing. Almost. “Laundry day, remember?”

  “Jesus.” He groans it, low in his throat, his blue eyes so dark they’re nearly black with hunger. So much of it, I’m convinced he’s going to do nothing more than jerk his own shorts down and stretch out on top of me, so he can thrust into me, deep and hard.

  That’s not what he does.

  He drops to his knees at the edge of the bed and reaches for me, clamping his hands around my inner thighs so he can open them, even as he’s using his grip to drag me closer. Until I can feel his warm, ragged breath against the center of me. “Lift your hips for me, sugar.”

  I do what he says and seconds later, I feel a pillow being wedged between me and bed, elevating my hips, bringing me even closer to his mouth. The hands on either thigh press, opening me wider, exposing me.

  “Do you know how good you’re gonna taste?” He traces his thumb up the seam of my pussy until he reaches the top of my cleft, so he can grind the pad of it against my clit. “I’ve been thinking about it for weeks… getting my mouth you.” I feel the wide plank of his shoulders press between my knees. The tip of his tongue draws a line against the place where my leg meets my hip. Licking its way closer to the center of me. “Fucking you with my tongue.”

  Oh god.

  “I’ve never done this before.” The confession comes tumbling out of me before I have a chance to stop it. I’ve had sex before, lots of times, but never this. Guys have tried, and I’ve always refused. It’s too always felt like it was too much. Too close. Made me too vulnerable.

  But that was before.

  Before Keaton.

  The thumb he’s stroking me with goes still. The hard press of his shoulders easing up just enough to let me know he’s second-guessing his next course of action.