The bartender shrugs and leaves us.
“Read what your boyfriend has to say.” I rub her quicker and quicker, loving the soft pants escaping her. “Now, Ash.”
She picks up the business card and flips it over. “When you’re finished with him for the night, call me. I can pay double, and you’ll enjoy fucking someone closer to your own age a helluva lot more.” She whimpers as she comes and then curses at me. “He thinks I’m a prostitute, Win.”
“My prostitute,” I say with a dark laugh.
Her body tenses at my words and guilt sluices through me, though it shouldn’t since we both know the stakes here.
“Girlfriend,” she growls back, squeezing her pussy like a fucking vise.
I pin the hot suited guy with a fuck you, kid glare as I come into my girlfriend or toy or paid whore or whatever the hell I feel like calling her. The point is, I let him know she’s mine.
He looks away, finally understanding the message.
“Ask the bartender for some napkins, beautiful girl,” I instruct, laying on the sweetness thick enough she’ll get cavities. “You need to clean up all my come inside you.”
It’s an awkward shuffle, but she manages to slide off me once she’s waved down the bartender to bring her some napkins. Her body shields anyone from seeing my dick hanging out of my pants, half-hard and dripping. Like the good girl she is, she cleans me up and puts me back to rights.
“What now?” she asks, her voice shaky.
I pull out my phone and send her seventy grand. Then, I take a picture of the guy’s business card and send it to Deborah with a text telling her to find out everything she can about the guy.
“Ready, pumpkin?” I taunt, using the stupidest pet name I can come up with.
“For anything, Daddy.”
The bad girl says it loud enough that we get several interested stares. I’ve definitely met my match with her.
I give her ass a squeeze as we leave, making sure to stare down hot suited, and soon-to-be financially ruined, guy on the way out. That’ll teach that fucker to insinuate this girl is a whore—one he’d actually have access to.
Only one man gets to call her those filthy names.
Winston fucking Constantine.
10
Ash
“Don’t forget to tell him he’s a good bird,” I say, glancing over at Win in the passenger seat of the Escalade. “I’m serious.”
He looks up from his phone to scoff at me. “I’m not talking to that bird.”
“He’ll think you don’t like him.”
“I don’t like him.”
“Liar.”
“He’s loud and smells.”
“He does not smell,” I growl. “Take it back.”
“Maybe you should take him back home where he belongs.”
I tense as I think about Scout getting his evil claws back on my bird. Hell no. He’d most certainly hurt Shrimp now to hurt me. I’m lucky I safely got him out of that hellhole. If only I could get myself out too.
The triplets aren’t the only side of the wicked coin that’s bothering me. There’s the whole Morelli situation that looms over me like a dark, menacing cloud. With each day that passes without incident, I worry about when Leo will show his face again and demand answers—answers I not only don’t have but refuse to give.
“Fine, I’ll tell the loud-ass bird he’s precious and beautiful and the best damn bird to ever exist,” he drawls out, sarcasm thick in his tone. “Happy?”
“Yep. Shrimp doesn’t know they’re fake words like I do.” I let out a heavy sigh. “For the record, I’m not looking forward to going home.”
I wince at my admission I didn’t mean to slip out.
He stiffens. “You said your dad and Manda would be there.”
I’d texted Dad earlier today to check in. And while he said they’d both be home, I wasn’t exactly eager to get back to the place where the Terror Triplets could so easily get to me if they wanted. But I wasn’t about to ask Winston to stay at his place. Despite the fun we have, in his eyes, this really is just a job he pays me for. I’m not deluded into thinking he’s falling for me or anything crazy like that, though I desperately wish for it to be. One day, he’ll grow tired of the games we play and move onto another willing subject, or maybe, finally settle down and marry. If I force him to house me and entertain me all hours of every day, I’ll only insure he’ll get bored and pretty quickly too.
The thought of him moving on to another woman sours my stomach.
“If you don’t feel safe—” he starts, but I cut him off with a shake of my head.
“It’s fine. Dad may be up Manda’s butt, but he loves me and wouldn’t let them hurt me.”
He frowns at me as though he doesn’t believe me, but it’s the truth. If I was smart, I would confess to Dad what those monsters did to me. Truth is, though, I would die if he took Manda’s side for some reason. That would be a rejection I couldn’t come back from.