Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 77287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
A moment later my phone buzzes.
Niko: We are talking later.
It’s nothing, Niko.
You’re fucking someone in Onyx, you told Kieran before me, and you expect me *not* to grill you about it?
It’s not whatever you think it is.
Then what is it?
It was a couple of meaningless hookups with someone. That’s it.
I tap out the last text feeling like a goddamn liar.
But what am I supposed to do, tell him the truth?
I’m somehow fucking addicted to Weston Knox’s dick, and he doesn’t want you to know?
It’s somehow the most intimate I’ve ever been with another person?
I tried so hard to hate him but I just don’t anymore, and I’m supposed to be spying on him or getting stupid information about Onyx but instead, I’m learning more things I like about him?
I lock my phone and slide it back in my pocket.
“Come on,” Kieran tells me as he walks back over from grabbing another drink from a tray. “Let’s nab that table by Roman. I’m not letting these guys get away with anything fucking secretive this year.”
I follow him over to Roman’s area.
We sit at a nearby table, and as we’re getting settled, Kieran watches Noah sitting down next to Roman.
Weston is there a minute later.
My chest clenches as I drink him in, looking him up and down.
Wes manages to look better and better every fucking time I see him. It’s like some dark form of magic, and I don’t know if Knox struck some sort of deal with the gods, but he looks more like a Greek statue every moment.
He must have gone for a quick haircut earlier today. It’s still on the longer end, but it falls around his face now in shorter waves that twist into soft golden curls on the ends.
He sits on the other side of Roman, and he leans to whisper in Roman’s ear.
“Bingo,” Kieran says. “They’re doing something shady.”
Kier reaches in his pocket and pulls out a little canister, shaking two stimulant pills out and popping them.
“The fuck?” I ask. “You said you quit.”
“Tonight’s important,” he says. “Lay off me. Since when are you the Sheriff?”
I grab another mojito as soon as another caterer walks by with a tray.
I tell Kieran to wait a second, and I swiftly get up and take my cocktail glass over to Noah.
He breaks off from a hushed conversation with Roman and looks up at me. “Oh. Need a little more special sauce, Sev?”
His flask is out a moment later and he pours into my glass.
As Noah pours, I venture a glance at Weston.
Seeing Wes up close only makes him look better. He’s styled like he’s ready for a national goddamn awards show.
We’re all in suits, but he has a shirt beneath his that looks like buttery silk, cream white and with a couple of buttons left open at the top. His blazer is the same color, tailored perfectly to his body, with just the slightest amount of sheen in its material. He’s wearing a silver necklace, and I’ve never seen Wes wear jewelry but it highlights his throat far too fucking well.
I want to reach out and touch that necklace.
I want his skin on mine again.
Already.
Every moment, now, apparently.
And as he leans to one side, I see that he’s also wearing my grandfather’s watch again.
As Noah finishes pouring my drink, I let my hand graze over Weston’s upper back, subtle enough that no one else catches it.
Wes glances up at me, and I feel like a whole universe is contained in his eyes.
I catch a scrap of their conversation as I’m walking off again.
“We know they’re going to do it,” Roman is telling Wes. “And if they don’t… my family will take action.”
The words pass through me like a ripple of fire.
No.
I know they must be discussing whatever I saw in Noah’s planner. And it sounds just as serious as everything Kieran has been afraid of.
Kieran can’t be right. I desperately want him to be proven wrong, proven crazy for thinking that the Onyx guys would ever be involved in bribery.
And I feel like I’m hearing too much.
“It will be far, far better than last year,” Noah’s saying to Roman as I slowly walk off.
“We aren’t going to need your family to be involved any more than we already have,” Wes says.
My heart is twisting in a tight grip.
Just ignore it. You don’t know what they’re talking about.
But everything goes from bad to fucking catastrophic when I get back to the table I’m at with Kieran.
There’s a person sitting next to Kier.
A person I don’t recognize at first.
But when I look at him again, it hits me like a bullet to the face.
“Weston,” I say, immediately looping back around to the Onyx guys’ table.
“Everything okay?” Wes asks, glancing up with doe eyes like he already assumes he’s done something wrong.
“I need you,” I tell him, conveying every bit of urgency in my voice.