Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 102578 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 513(@200wpm)___ 410(@250wpm)___ 342(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102578 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 513(@200wpm)___ 410(@250wpm)___ 342(@300wpm)
A collective “Lame!” rang out from the guys in the pool.
I turned back to Reese and scratched my eyebrow. “You don’t happen to have any information you wanna share about the boot camp event, do you?”
He furrowed his brow at me. “Boy, are you new here?”
I smashed my lips together. Dick!
Then he snorted in amusement and hollered across the whole fucking place. “Hey, Kingsley! Did you fuck the smarts outta your pet recently? He just asked if I wanted to share any information about the next Game.”
“Oh my God.” I groaned and scrubbed my hands over my face.
A handful of Tops around the patio found that so funny.
“What happened to there are no stupid questions?” I asked, exasperated.
“Ha! I would never lie to you like that.” He chuckled and returned to working on the drone.
Lee was on his way over, and I bet he was gonna be an asshole too.
“You bothering Reese with dumb questions, baby?” he asked.
I folded my arms over my chest. “I’m not gonna dignify that with a response.”
“Because we all know the answer.” He stepped up on the porch and threw an arm around my shoulders. “I thought teachers were supposed to be intelligent, but you just like to throw around big words.”
I rolled my eyes. “You know, that would stick better if you weren’t the one who used words nobody understands.”
He chuckled, confused. “I don’t do that.”
“Ehhh, I’m gonna have to side with Tate on this one,” Reese said. “The other day, you wrote obsequious in our group chat, and I still haven’t gotten around to googling it.”
Whoa. They had a group chat? “You have a group chat?”
“That’s not a fancy word,” Lee insisted.
“Okay, buddy,” Reese laughed.
I shook my head, frustrated and too curious for my own good. “If you read Dostoevsky and Tolstoy for pleasure, Master, you don’t get to have an opinion on fancy words,” I said, then pressed forward on a much more important topic. “Now, why do you have a group chat?”
“That’s none of your business,” Reese shot at me, laughing.
“Why do you have a group chat with Ivy and Shay and the other brats?” Lee countered.
“Excellent question,” Reese said.
“None of your business,” I mocked.
“Okay—good talk.” Reese turned to Lee next. “By the way, everything’s set up for your primal play. I saw you were talking to KC. River said he’d spot y’all.”
“I appreciate it.” Lee nodded with a dip of his chin.
I stared up at him. “It’s rude to discuss something I’m not allowed to ask about.”
He patted my ass. “So go get Reese and me a beer while we talk, then.”
Gah. Fucking Sadists.
Nothing wiped away the last traces of sleep from our nap like suspicious behavior. More accurately, Sadists behaving suspiciously.
Lee was very often kind and doting at home and in our everyday life; our kink lifestyle was relaxed and came and went all hours of the day, and we rarely messed around with high protocol or TPE. But we sank into more defined roles when we came out here to Mclean. I served him. He gave orders and set the pace. The proverbial leash he had me on was shorter.
And I couldn’t stress this enough—I served him. I went to get things. If he wanted a beer, I fetched one. If we were eating, I prepared the food and brought it to him. But right this second, he was leaving the pile of blankets I’d buried us under on one of the pool loungers to get us more hot dogs.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to do it?” I asked.
“Positive,” he replied, walking away. “I gotta charge my phone, so I’m just gonna grab my power bank upstairs.”
Hmm. All right.
I shook off the blankets and rose to my feet.
A lot more people had turned up as the sun had set.
“I’ll go check if we have more mustard,” I heard Lucian say before he headed inside.
That’s four.
The porch lights and tiki torches illuminated the patio, which was more crowded than usual for a regular Saturday night. I stopped counting at twenty members. But four specific Tops excusing themselves for insignificant reasons was more suspect than our high attendance. Lee had to charge his phone…? River saying he had to make a call; since when did that man announce anything? He just left. He didn’t feel the need to explain crap. Then Greer had taken it upon himself to put on music, which was playing now, but he hadn’t returned. Now Lucian was gonna look for fucking mustard.
I spotted Shay jumping off the patio deck and walking toward me.
“Listen,” he said, keeping his voice low. “I gotta tell you something. The event can’t be next weekend.”
I stiffened. “Why?”
His brat senses were tingling too, weren’t they?
“Because River and Reese will be outta town. You can’t tell anyone—they’re private about it.”
Shit.
No, something felt entirely off here.