by Nyla K
I just watch him in awe, marveling at his beauty while still bewildered that he’s inside my apartment. I never thought I’d see the day.
Drinking my water slowly, I kick off my shoes before pushing past him toward my bedroom. A few minutes later he appears in the doorway as I’m brushing my hair and getting ready to crash. I had a long day, and despite the nap, I’m still pretty wiped.
My eyes stay with him, how tall and broad he is, taking up the entire doorway. A deep longing sets in my chest, stifling and uncomfortable enough that I want to pop a Xanax to get rid of this feeling. I desire him, badly, like every inch of my skin is itching with need.
“Are you going to stay the night?” My voice is small, squeaking at him from across the room. I hate how young I sound to my own ear.
I’m prepared for him to scoff at me like I’m insane, but he doesn’t. Instead, he swallows visibly and looks at the floor, shaking his head slowly.
“You know I can’t do that.” His strong hands grip the wood of the doorframe.
“But you want to…” I whisper and he looks up, wide eyes giving away the war that he’s waging inside.
“Traci, this can’t happen. You know that.” He sighs and rests his head on the frame. “Whatever has been going on… It was a mistake on my part. I’m so much older than you. I should know better.”
“You’re not that much older than me, Lazarus,” I argue, though I know he has a point.
I don’t feel like our age difference is a problem, but I suppose in the eyes of society it could be seen as inappropriate. Or even slightly criminal, based on those inconvenient black and white laws. It’s a technicality, if anything. I think we all know I’m fully consenting.
“You’re seventeen,” he says, as if my age is a terminal disease. “I’m almost forty. It’s not right. It’s… illegal.” He practically chokes on the word, which twists my gut.
“I’m eighteen,” my words fight against his, grasping at straws to prove to him it’s not as bad as he thinks it is. “In nine days.”
His lips twitch, but then he purses them definitively. “But you’re Damien’s daughter. And that, right there, is the permanent end to this discussion.”
Yet despite his conclusive words, there’s an apology in his gray eyes that I know he’d never voice. Because saying sorry for what we can’t be means admitting that he wants the same thing I do. For us to explore whatever this chemistry is between us.
After the incident on his wedding night, I convinced myself I was so desperate for affection from Lazarus that I backed him into a corner, and forced a sexual encounter out of him. I wanted to believe he was into it as much as I was, but I couldn’t fool myself, especially after watching him ignore me and bone all sorts of women for months.
I left Bayshore thinking the mysterious charge between Lazarus and me was one-sided; a product of years of pining over the older man I can’t have.
But tonight feels different. Tonight he’s not drunk, or grieving over being left at the altar. I may have initiated it again, but he made no moves to stop, and call me crazy, but when he kissed me in that dark room, I felt him reacting to me. Not as powerfully as I react to him, because to me Lazarus is a chemical explosion in my neurosystem. Like LSD, bringing color and light and blasts of dopamine rushing through my body.
And yet whatever he was feeling during the minutes upon minutes of ravening kisses was more than just appeasing the hot young girl throwing herself at him once more. It felt like a discovery. As if a door had opened, and despite knowing it was wrong, he couldn’t help but peek inside.
The look on his face right now, in this moment, confirms my suspicions.
Lazarus Weston wants me, too.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Lazarus
I can’t believe I’m doing this.
I really, truly can’t. I don’t understand where this is all coming from, but I can barely comprehend the things I’ve been thinking and doing lately.
Like now, for example. Sitting across from my best friend, in his office at our company that we own together, I’m listening to him talk about different clients and strategies for investment portfolios, all the while knowing how happy - and angry - I could potentially make him.
I have information he wants. I know where his daughter is.
And yet for reasons unbeknownst to me, I haven’t said anything. And it’s been two days since I left Traci at her tiny, crack-den-resembling apartment. Two full days of time, during which the right thing to do would have been to tell Damien I know where his baby girl is, and that she’s okay. For the most part. It’s debatable.
I think we all know the real reason I’m not telling him. Why I’m still just nodding along to his words, which all sound like cadence at this point, fake-sipping my latte and grinding my jaw in severe angst, rather than giving up the knowledge I have.
Because telling Damien one drop of truth would open up the sea of guilt I’m currently drowning in over what I’ve done with his daughter. His baby girl.
So many things… Jesus. So many dirty, abhorrent things I should never do with my best friend’s daughter, I’ve done with Tracien. Most of them in my imagination, but some of them in real life.
I’m a terrible friend, and I deserve to be punched, super hard, right in the face.
Letting his daughter grind her tiny, warm little pussy all over my erection through my jeans in the back-room of a strip club where she happens to work. And then there was the kissing. Lots more kissing.
Add all this kissing to the kissing from months ago, on my wedding day. Plus, the dirt-bag moves I made that night… I’m accumulating a nice solid list of horribly inappropriate actions with Traci. Things that, if Damien knew, would most certainly prompt him to slit my throat with a jagged knife.
I swallow hard as my fingers graze my throat absentmindedly. God, what was I thinking?? Letting her touch me like that, kissing her and holding her while she came in my arms. It was a revelation. Like a rapturous awakening; a veil being pulled from my eyes.
My brain can’t seem to rationalize where all the lusting for Traci Wright is coming from. Even with all the logic in the world, it just doesn’t make sense. At first I thought it was because she kept pushing herself into me. I’m only so strong, after all.
Well, that and she’s the most stunning girl I’ve ever seen in my life.
Now. Now she is. So what changed? When did she go from just being Damien’s daughter, to being a girl I’m interested in? A girl - or woman - who looks at me like I’m everything she’s ever wanted; like I’m the cure to her every ailment.
And a woman who looks, to me, like the most delicious thing I can never taste. It’s like being deathly allergic to something, but knowing it would taste so damn good to sink your teeth in, even though it might kill you. Just one, teeny tiny bite…
I refuse to believe that I’ve always been harboring these feelings. I never looked at her before, when she was younger, because I’m not a fucking pervert. Truthfully, she wasn’t on my radar until recently.
Until my wedding day. That must have been it… right? The day she comforted me, and kissed me, clinging that small body of soft supple curves to me when I was feeling lost. That must have brought her into a new light. And ever since, I haven’t been able to get her out of my brain. She’s like a tumor, growing and growing in my head, taking over everything I do.
I didn’t want to leave her in that apartment the other night. I told myself after, when I spent hours obsessing over what had gone down, pacing my bedroom until well into Saturday afternoon, that it was just because I couldn’t stand knowing she was living in such an impoverished area, surrounded by giant degenerates, drug dealers and gun-toting criminals.
But I think deep down I know it was more than that. Watching her sitting on her bed, looking all small and sweet, gazing up at me with those twinkly blue eyes, smooth legs crossed, cheeks flushed and so fully beautiful it hurt my heart to look at her all of a sudden.
I
wanted to stay. I wanted to just be near her. But why?
That’s the million-dollar question.
“Right?”
Damien’s voice has stopped, and his brows are raised at me, meaning he’s asking me something. And I have absolutely no idea what it is.
Fuck. I nod slowly. “Yea, sure. If you think it’s a good idea.”
I cringe. Totally took a shot with that one.
A slow smile spreads on Damien’s mouth, and I know that look from a mile away. He’s not buying it. Shit.
“Are you alright?” He leans back, folding his hands on his lap. “You seem distracted.”
“What would make you think that?” I’m sweating a little under my button-down.
I’m not good at lying to Damien. I’m actually fucking terrible at it. Always have been.
I could pass a polygraph being given by a nun with flying colors, but when it comes to my best friend, I can’t hide shit from him and he can always sense when there’s something more going on with me. Just like he used to sense it the next day after my drunk foster father would get a little too handsy. I never had to say a word to Damien, but he always knew.
Actually, in the early days of our friendship, I would actively stress to him that there was nothing wrong at all, and tell him to kindly fuck off and leave me alone. And he would do the opposite. He’d pry, and prod me until I would inevitably cave and tell him everything, at which point he would invite me to stay at his house for weeks at a time, deliberately disregarding his parents’ opposition to it.
Damien saved my life in many ways. I don’t doubt I would have always been able to take care of myself, nor do I doubt that I would have fought my way to the top, even without his connections and support. But he gave me something I’d never gotten from anyone else prior to meeting him in that hallway all those years ago.
He loved me. Still does.
And how do I repay him? By lying. And kissing his teenage daughter.
I place my cup down on his desk, because I’m suddenly so nauseous I might throw up everywhere and the scent of coffee is making it worse.
Damien takes a deep breath. “Because I just asked you if you think we should sell Westright to Mark Zuckerberg and move to the moon.” He grins, that damn cocky, straight-white-toothed, All-American boy next door thing. He’s fucking forty, and he still looks like he did in high school, only with eyes that have seen enough harsh reality for three lifetimes. “And you said, Yea, sure. If you think it’s a good idea.”
He immediately bursts out into a cackle while I go full-scowl to cover up my smile. “I stand by it.”
“I think I know what’s going on here,” he sighs through his chuckles.
My entire body stiffens in unease. “Do you?”
“Yea. Haskill’s boys said you had it out with some stripper at the club you guys wound up at on Friday night.” My stomach leaps into my throat so hard I almost cough. “Said you were in the Champagne Room for hours…”
My head shakes a little, but I can’t seem to find my voice, or any words to speak.
“Some black-haired little thing,” he smirks, lifting a brow.
Relief floods my chest and I blink slowly, trying to be discreet with the huff of breath that leaves my lungs. Traci’s new hair saved us. Wow, that was lucky.
“A total hottie, according to them,” Day goes on and I want to make a face at how gross it is that he’s unwittingly talking about his own daughter. God, this is so fucked. “They said you were arguing with her or something and the bouncer had to come break it up. Real nice, man.”
“I know it looks bad, but I’m telling you, Haskill’s boys were completely shit-fucked, and I really wasn’t thinking -”
“Dude, I don’t care about those assholes,” he cuts me off. “I’m just a little offended you wouldn’t tell me about something like that. I thought we told each other everything.”
My blinking becomes rapid as I watch his face. He looks mildly hurt, which is tearing my heart to shreds. He has no idea how much I’m hiding and I feel like the biggest asshole who’s ever existed.
“So who is she?” He crosses his arms over his chest.
“She’s no one.” The words fly out of my mouth before I can even think about what to say.
His brow cocks again. “Laz. Come on.”
“Okay, fine, she’s someone,” I mutter, rubbing my eyes while I take a moment to come up with something. “She’s just this girl I slept with before. A while ago.”
“Really? You’ve never been one to sleep with strippers,” he says, failing to hide his amusement.
“Well, she wasn’t a stripper when I slept with her,” I lie, fabricating some fiction for him. “Which is why I spazzed out when I saw her working there. She’s sort of… younger.” I gulp back my self-hatred. “I was pissed to find her there, throwing her life away, so I lost it a little.”
“Bro, just because she takes her clothes off for money, it doesn’t mean she’s throwing her life away,” he admonishes me in that Damien way, fully constructive and not at all criticizing. “She made a choice, like we all do. I’m sure she has her reasons, and the last thing she probably needs, especially if she’s going through something, is your crazy ass barking on her.” His chuckles are familiar as he shakes his head in my direction.
All I can do is gape at him, because he has no clue who he’s talking about and it’s throwing me for a loop.
“You’re right,” I croak, flinching in anticipation of the lightning bolt that’s about to strike me down any minute for being a piece of pure evil.
“No but seriously, I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” he rubs his jaw. “I shouldn’t be making you do that stuff by yourself. I know how much you hate the fake, ass-kissing game.”
I’m really going to need my voice back.
“I’ve been putting a ton of pressure on you to hold up all this shit on your own, and it’s not right,” he continues, as the guilt seeps into my bloodstream, stronger and stronger until my limbs grow stiff and my vision blurs. “I was just so fucked up over Traci leaving, I couldn’t… I don’t know. But I can’t do this to you, not again. I don’t want it to be Lia’s death all over again, you know?”
“I don’t see it like that, Day. You know that,” I blurt out. “We’re in this together. I step in when you can’t, and you step in when I can’t. That was the deal, remember?”
“Yea, but you never can’t, Laz,” he blinks over wide green eyes. “I can’t always be the one falling apart.”
“Stop that shit now,” I demand, needing to get my point across. “The reasons why you’ve needed time are serious, man. You’re not just fucking around. You went through some of the hardest shit someone can go through.”
“Yea,” he nods. “But so did you.”
We have a staring contest for a moment, and I’m shaking a little because I’m afraid of where he’s going.
“You lost her, too,” he whispers and my throat constricts.
“It’s not the same,” I grunt, breathless.
He gives me a look and I squeeze my eyes shut tight, pushing it all away. I’m not doing this right now. We’re not.
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry I wasn’t there on Friday,” he finally speaks again after minutes of silence. “I should have been.”
No, you absolutely shouldn’t have, Damien.
My hands fist over and over, baffled at how it all worked out. If Damien had come with me on Friday night, or if he had taken Haskill’s asshole friends around town, he would have been the one to find Traci. And then who knows what would have happened.
But instead, I found her. What does it mean?
My brain, which has always been more logical than emotional, forces me to ignore the tightness in my gut telling me there was a reason for all of it. Something bigger that had me at that club, instead of Day.
But why??
I still have no answers, but I’m thinking this web is nowhere near done being spun.
And if I’m not c
areful, I’ll be the one devoured by the goddamned black widow.
Tonight I can’t sleep whatsoever.
My brain is going crazy, running through the lies, the deception, the sudden unleashed lust, like a rabid dog who’s broken free from his chains, ready to attack.
I can’t stop thinking about Traci. I can’t stop picturing her in that disgusting strip club, and it’s making me sick.
I need to make sure she’s safe. She seems to have no clue how dangerous that neighborhood she’s living in is, and regardless of how smart she is, she’s acting like a total dumbass. I want to understand her need to be out there, finding herself and setting herself free, but I also can’t stand the thought of something bad happening to her. I feel a sense of responsibility for the girl. I am her godfather, after all.
It’s these thoughts that have me jumping into my car at quarter-past three in the morning and driving to the outskirts of Miami.
I arrive at The Boom Boom Room by three-thirty on the dot, and I pull up along the curb at the side of the sketchy building, watching the front door like a hawk to see if she comes out. Sure enough, five minutes later, there she is, walking outside by herself, waving at the bouncer as she strolls carelessly in the direction of her apartment.
My nostrils flare and I grip the steering wheel with white knuckles. Uber my ass. I knew she was lying.
Shifting into drive, I pull away fast, swerving right in front of her, so close she has to jump to avoid falling onto the hood of my Maserati. She looks up, pissed off, like she’s about to curse out whatever asshole just tried to hit her, but when she recognizes my car, her face quickly sweeps into one of guilt and fear.
I roll my window down. “Are you Traci Wright? I’m your Uber driver.” I seethe through the window, and she has the nerve to smile, which sends the most bizarre little tickle to my lower stomach. I tell it to fuck off and growl, “Get in.”
She darts to the passenger side of my vehicle and climbs in, nestling into the expensive leather and buckling her seatbelt.
As I drive toward her place, she turns to face me. “What are you doing here, Lazarus?”