Page 54 of Riding Dirty

“First sleep.”

CHAPTER

FORTY-THREE

ELODIE

His fingertips glide up my hip, then my waist, before they stop just beneath my breast, and he repeats the motion over and over until I’m fully awake and my skin is covered in goose bumps. Lifting my arm over my head, I keep my eyes closed as my breath begins to come out heavier, almost panting in anticipation of where those fingers will go next.

“You wanted to talk,” he grunts, his voice gravelly and sexy as shit.

I actually want to do anything but talk right now. And judging by the way his fingers don’t stop their movements, shift closer and closer to my nipple with each upward glide, he doesn’t want to talk, either.

And this distraction is almost worth pretending the past few days never happened.

But they did.

The pain of what that girl said, what he didn’t deny last night, all comes back twofold. I know I need to get my head on straight so I can have this conversation before I leave for work.

Which means I'll probably be crying at work all day, and I vow to myself that he won’t see one of those tears fall, but I need to get this done because I’m not really quite sure how long I can hold off, either.

Flicking my gaze over to the clock that sits on my nightstand, I wince. This conversation needs to happen in about ten minutes, wrapped up and done, because that’s when my alarm is going to go off.

Pushing myself up to sit, I lean back against the headboard, tugging the sheet over my bare breasts. Coast lets out a grunt, but his hand is forced to fall away, his gaze flicking up to meet mine, and I watch as his lips tug into a grin.

“You ready?” he asks.

Apparently, this is comical. I don’t agree with the hilarity of the situation, and as I wake up a bit more and things start moving around in my head a bit more clearly, I get angrier with each passing second.

I’m about to ask him what the hell happened to him the other night, but before I can say a single word, he begins. I snap my lips closed as I listen to what he has to say.

Hopefully, he explains that woman, or club girl as she called herself, and the shit that she said to me—the fucking part of the conversation I’m most interested in being that Vegas policy down there and how that works.

As much as I want to interrupt him and start peppering him with questions, I decide to let him get everything out because I don’t have time to make this conversation drag on.

“Cake needed me for a family matter. That family matter needed to be rectified immediately. It was an emergency that took me and Dare to Prescott. Once we got shit handled, we came back. I dropped my shit off at the clubhouse, took a shower, and came here.”

It’s an easy and simple explanation, and as my gaze searches his, I don’t feel as if he’s deceiving me. It’s too simple and makes too much sense to be some elaborate lie. I start to ask him what the emergency was, but before I can get a word out, he sits up slightly.

The sheet is pulled up to his hips, just enough to cover his length; it’s not enough to cover the trail leading down there, and I wonder what he would do if I trailed that with my tongue after I traced his tattoos.

I shake my head from side to side a couple of times as I attempt to get my thoughts back in order.

“You couldn’t text me?” I ask. “And that doesn’t explain what that girl said when I was cleaning on Monday: ‘What happens at the clubhouse stays at the clubhouse’ and that you go there to fuck her, them, whoever.”

His eyes widen, and if I had to describe his expression, it would have to be that of… interest, mixed with annoyance. Almost as if he hadn’t thought of that, like it didn’t even cross his mind to pick up his cell phone and type a complete sentence into the text app, then press Send.

The annoyance is probably with the woman who tattled on him and their happenings down there—the boys’ club with the naked girls. It doesn’t surprise me, really, that that’s what goes on, mainly because, being born and raised in Boulder City, I’ve heard things about that clubhouse and the goings-on there. But that woman shoved it in my face, along with her bare tits, and I want to know what's really happening.

“Haze,” he says, his word coming out almost like a warning.

Oh, so I’m not supposed to ask, or maybe he wants me to play oblivious. I think I’ve done quite enough of that. Thanks, though. I don’t respond immediately to his warning. I have absolutely nothing to add because I want to know why he thought he didn’t have to text me.

I want to know what the hell he’s doing and who he’s doing it with, especially if he’s going to show up here to do things with me.

Granted, I know we aren’t in a serious relationship, but silly me, I thought we were on a fast track to that… or at least some kind of track to get there. I didn’t realize I was just something fun to do when he got bored with the women at that club. I’m not down with that, not in the slightest.

“Never had a woman before, at least not one to call my own. You’re gonna have to give me some fuckin’ grace. I didn’t even think to text you.”