Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 131330 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131330 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
“What do you think she was doing there?” I throw back at him. “It’s a sex club, Austin. You’ve been there plenty of times. You know the drill. She was obviously—”
“STOP!” he grits through his teeth, almost breaking one of his mother’s fancy plates. “Don’t even think about finishing that fucking sentence.”
I roll my eyes. Is he that delusional that he doesn’t think his sister is having sex? Hell, she’s a senior in college, she’s probably fucking more than Austin is. He lost his virginity at fourteen to some cheerleader who ended up breaking his fragile little heart, and as for Aspen, she’s twenty-two now. I can guarantee that ship sailed a long time ago, but that’s not exactly something I should remind him of right now. Actually, ever. Not unless I want to spend the rest of the weekend nursing a concussion.
I watch Aspen take her long chestnut hair and curl it up into a bun before reaching for her cocktail glass. She takes a sip, every movement done so slowly as if knowing she has my full attention.
I’m on the fucking edge. I need to get a grip.
Putting the plate down, I grab the next, furiously drying it as though it personally offended me.
Austin lets out a heavy sigh. “You were there last night, right?” he questions. “Didn’t you see her? You always check the logs. You must have seen her name.”
I shake my head. “Trust me, if I fucking saw her, I would have marched her ass right out of there,” I tell him, knowing damn well I’m lying. Morbid curiosity would have had me watching every fucking second, watching how she moved, how she liked it, and the way her face scrunched up when she came . . . and then, I probably would have jerked off in the bathroom like a fucking horny teenager. But Austin doesn’t need to know that. Just because physical lines have firmly been drawn doesn’t mean my mind hasn’t wandered once or twice. “Besides, I was only there for a few hours before heading to Scandal, and for those few hours that I was there . . . I wasn’t exactly catching up on my paperwork.”
“FUCK!”
Austin drops the plate back into the sink before clutching the side of the counter and glaring daggers at his sister outside. “I want her scrubbed off all of the security footage and banned from the guest list. If she shows up again, she’s to be turned away.”
“Already made a note to do it.”
“It’s gotta be you,” he says. “I don’t want your security team looking up that footage and watching her like that.”
Fuck. As curious as I am to see her like that, I know I shouldn’t, but my back is against the wall. He’s right, I’ll be dead and buried before I allow anyone else to see that footage of her. But there’s no denying it, seeing it for myself is going to cross boundaries I won’t be able to come back from. I won’t be able to look at her without remembering what I saw, and if I like it . . . well, fuck.
“Alright,” I finally agree.
Letting out a heavy breath, I glance back out the window, watching as Aspen makes her way across the pool and settles at the far side, hooking her arms over the waterfall edge and gazing out at the afternoon view as she sips her cocktail.
“You’ve gotta ask her about it,” Austin says after a moment.
“What?” I demand, my eyes going wide, horror filling my chest. “I’m not asking your fucking sister about what she did at my club.”
“No, not . . . I don’t want to know that shit,” he says in disgust. “I just need to know what she knows. Like if she knew where she was going or if that friend of hers sprung it on her and dragged her in before she got a chance to figure out what she was getting into.”
“Either way, you know my hostesses vet everyone who walks through the door. Whether it was her first time or not, she would have known exactly what she was walking into before entering the main club.”
He takes a shaky breath, looking as though he’s ready to fucking burst. “Just fucking ask her, okay?”
“Why me? She’s your sister. I don’t want to be asking her that shit.”
“And you think I do?” he throws back at me, gripping another plate in a chokehold. “But like you said, she’s my sister, and there are just some things a brother can’t talk to his little sister about, and her participation at an underground sex club is one of them. So, man the fuck up, Izaac. You’re taking point on this one.”
“Damn it,” I groan, hating how right he is. It has to be me.
I blow my cheeks out, not having the faintest idea how I’m supposed to broach this topic with Aspen. I make a point not to talk to her about anything real, specifically to avoid emotion entering the conversation. But now this? Asking about her sex life? That’s diving right into the deep end of a pool I know I’ll drown in.