Page 70 of House of Bass

“Annie,” Stassie draws out. “Nicky says we have to leave in ten minutes.”

“We’ll be out in a second!” I bellow in response. I hear the click-clack of heels down the stairs and not once do I take my eyes off my friend who is wiping away the tears on her face but the streaks remain. No matter how much we try to hide our hurt with easy fixes the scars remain.

“Can I help fix your makeup?” I ask. An olive branch.

“Are you saying I look bad?”

✧✧✧

“...Happy birthday dear Stassie, happy birthday to you.” We all chorus together as we sit in the private room of the restaurant we booked and then my sister blows out all eighteen of her candles.

Stassie and I are only two and half years apart in age and still it feels like watching a child leave the nest growing without you.

I remember when she’d come to me on cold, loud weathered nights unable to sleep. I always assumed it was because on the day she came to us it had been a day like that, and though she was a baby, the remnants of the day were imprinted in her mind as the day she had been left behind.

Mother said I used to beg to carry her everywhere especially when she cried because it made me sad. I believe her because I think in many ways she is the glue that held me together. When things got bad all I thought was I couldn’t do that to Stassie; she’d resent me forever if I did.

I am seconds away from bursting into tears. Tonight has been an emotional one.

I feel a small tap on my arm and Arden subtly hands me his handkerchief, I whisper a short thank you.

“Since, I’m finally legal and can now do whatever I want. I’ve decided I’m going to date an older man,” Stassie declares to the room.

My tears soon dry up like a sponge. “No, the fuck you aren’t,” Daniel and I say at the same time.

She takes a bite of her cake and just grins suspiciously. I’m starting to understand why mother keeps her under lock and key. “Presents please!”

One by one they are handed to her. I had given her mine before we even got on the plane; a specially made necklace with a pendant of the eagle of the summer triangle, Aquila. I got mine at eighteen. Father would’ve been the one to give it to her himself but I told him I wanted to do it. Daniel had given her his too; the dress she was wearing was custom-made by him; a glittering silver dress that complemented her dark skin beautifully. He apparently had been working on it as a womenswear project for uni and decided to kill two birds with one stone.

I got up to go to the loo before we went clubbing, and trust me there is nothing better than clubbing in Spain. While washing my hands, the door opens and I turn to see the face of the man I have been wanting to kiss all day.

“We have to stop meeting like this, Thorne. What would people say?” I smirk.

“I’d tell them to mind their fucking business.” He grins and lifts me with his right arm resting on my thighs, the other on my waist, as I wrap my legs around him. We give each other rapid pecks and slow it down, I inhale his ambery-wooden scent and feel right at home.

“You were sad earlier, back at the house. Why?” he asks me, he is too perceptive to have not discerned it. I quickly relay what transpired between Devon and I, and he listens. “Did you know she felt that way?”

“I had an inkling,” he says. This did nothing but worsen my insides, Arden raises my head and forces me to look at him. “Don’t dwell on it, just move forward and be a better friend.”

I nod, burying my emotions under the water that I was currently drowning in. He kisses me, “Let me briefly take your mind off it.”

“Sex?” I perked up right away.

“Not sex, you fiend.” He taps my nose. “I meant it when I said not until I can get you into my bed without prying eyes but that doesn’t mean I can’t continue to help you in other ways,” he says, peppering kisses all the way down. He lifts my skirt up and slides my underwear down, a finger presses on my bed and I immediately arch. He gets on his knees and begins to eat me out while working me with a finger, a moan trembles out of me so loudly he has to lift his head back up briefly. “Bite my arm, Saint. We’d hate for anyone to come in here thinking you were being murdered.”

He smirks at the deadpan expression on my face, so I do in fact take his arm and bite into it deeper than intended as a joke but honestly I am instantly turned on by the act, as he resumes what he is doing. My hips buck up when his tongue goes deeper. As a result, I have to hold his arm and underneath the basin in order to sit upright when I come.

He lifts his head up again and the look of pride on him is forever seared into my memory. I brush his dishevelled hair aside, I look at his wet lips and want nothing more than to kiss them. “I’ve been wanting to do that for years.”

“Nobody is stopping you,” I reply. He is standing upright, my finger glides down his chest and stops when I reach his trouser buckles.

“If you do that we will never leave this place.”

“What if I don’t want to?” I whisper. My post-orgasm brain is a dangerous entity that wants to be reckless in a way I would’ve objected to a mere hour ago. I start to unbuckle his trousers but his hand catches mine and the other lifts my chin to face him.

“As adorable as the horniness in your eyes is at present, we will have our chance some other time when there is time,” Arden tells me. Now, he wants to be reasonable.

“Ugh, don’t come near me again. I can’t think straight around you,” I whine and start to get myself properly dressed. “Get that smug look off your face, Richard.”