I sported pink-tipped hair, as did Neil and Les. It was the best we could do without wearing pink clothing, which wouldn’t have worked with any of our costumes.
“You mean Officer Areola? Maybe she has a thing for nerds.”
Luke edged his way through the crowd, holding a two-way radio against his ear. He was dressed as a zombie, which was one of the most popular choices this year thanks to The Walking Dead. “The crowd outside is growing restless,” he told Collette. “How do you feel about letting them in early?”
Collette glanced around the room of VIPs who had paid a premium to party in private before the doors opened to the general public. She checked her watch and chewed the inside of her cheek, contemplating the decision. “Eh, what the hell. Go ahead. I doubt anyone will care.”
Luke nodded and lifted the radio to his mouth. “I need all greeters up at the entrance to collect money and hand out wristbands,” he said. “We’re pushing the timeline up, so please get in position now.”
“Are you sure there isn’t something I can do to help?” Collette asked him. “I feel useless just standing around.”
He and I exchanged a look. “You weren’t standing around the last hour and a half while collecting donations,” I pointed out. “Relax, get something to eat and drink, and let Luke and the others do their jobs.”
“John McClane is right,” Luke said.
“Thank you.” I smiled, not only because he agreed about Collette, but because he recognized who I was supposed to be.
“Ohhh, now I understand,” Molly said, her finger swooping between Les and me. “You’re the guy he’s supposed to save. The one who becomes the leader of the resistance against the machines like us.”
“No, you’re thinking of John Connor, baby.” Les slid an arm around her waist. “John McClane was the cop in the Die Hard movies who thwarted terrorist plots. Come on, let’s go get you another Witches Brew.”
“I want to try one of those,” Collette murmured, referring to the neon green apple-flavored drinks served in wide-mouth, oversized goblets. They were poured over dry ice, which made white vapor trickle over the sides to resemble a boiling cauldron. Kind of cool, even if it was a fruity girlie drink.
We followed Les and Molly to the bar, where a warty bartender in full witch garb prepared two cocktails for the ladies and uncapped two beers for the men. I nudged Collette’s shoulder and jerked my chin at Neil and his new friend, who stood a few yards away, their heads almost touching as they carried on an intimate conversation.
“There’s an odd couple if I ever saw one.” Collette sipped her drink and murmured in appreciation as we moved over to the edge of the dance floor, chewing the gummy eyeball candy stuck to the tip of the swizzle stick. Her head slowly turned from side to side as she surveyed the gothic-style ballroom. Windows with pointed tops, a soaring ceiling, and dark accents on the crown molding made it feel as though we were in Dracula’s castle instead of one of Chicago’s oldest hotels. “Is it too early to call this bash a success?”
“It was a success the moment you came up with the idea. Plenty of adults love Halloween, even more so when they have the opportunity to dress up. The fact that it’s for a good cause makes it all the better.” I plucked a plastic spider ring from an almost empty bowl and slid it on her finger, then grabbed a piece of black licorice for myself. “Putting candy and little trinkets out is pure genius.”
The deejay’s voice boomed through the sound system, welcoming everyone and reminding them to toss whatever money they could spare into the pink buckets scattered around the room. A few people yelled excitedly as the opening notes of “Thriller” rang out and all the zombies headed for the dance floor, dragging their feet and clawing the air.
“Oh, my Gaaawd! Eddie, we should hire this guy for our anniversary party,” a familiar voice drawled. “Man, I want to go out there and get my groove on, but one of those undead might try to eat my brain.”
The look on Collette’s face was a mixture of disgust and horror because she knew who had spoken. She sighed and turned around. “You need to actually have a brain in your head for them to attack.”
Tammy Jo curled a hand around her ear. “Sorry, you’ll have to say that again. I couldn’t hear you over the music.”
“Never mind, it wasn’t important,” Collette yelled, pressing her lips together to keep from laughing.
Tammy Jo was a naughty Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. The iconic blue-and-white gingham dress might as well have been painted on her body. Glittery red stripper heels were Whorothy’s ruby slippers. I wondered if she would disappear after clicking them together three times. One could only hope it would be that easy to get rid of her.
Edgar was The Tin Man in head-to-toe silver clothes and metallic face paint, with a shiny funnel for a hat. A string of drool dangled from his mouth as he dozed in his wheelchair.
Precious let out a howl from her perch on his shoulder, smacking the wings attached to her bellhop jacket. She was one of the flying monkeys, and seemingly unhappy about it. Her spindly fingers clawed at the elastic band holding her cap in place.
“It is so good to see you lovebirds again! This is like a reunion!” Tammy Jo shouted, eyeing a muscular Captain America heading for the bar. “I’m gonna grab myself a tall, cold drink. We’ll have to catch up later, ya hear?” She trotted after the superhero, hiking her already indecent hemline up another inch.
Collette raised her empty goblet. “I need another. And I’ll be damned if she expects me to act like she isn’t going to shine his shield in the bathroom.” She scanned the room and shouted, “Luke! Over here!”
I laughed as Luke stopped in his tracks and stared at the crazed monkey. “Oh Jesus, no!” he said, flipping a dial on his radio. “I need someone from security to meet me at the rear doors.” He grabbed the handles of Edgar’s wheelchair and yelled, “Coming through! Watch your feet!”
I turned to Collette as Luke hustled away. “Whatever you pay him isn’t enough.”
“Word.” Collette held the cold glass against a flushed cheek. “I’ll give him a bonus on his next paycheck.”
I took it from her and kissed the soft spot under her ear lobe. “Be back in a minute.”
Les tapped me on the shoulder as I waited for a fresh beverage. “I’d hurry up if I were you.”
I followed his gaze to where a guy in full pimp gear–obnoxious plaid polyester suit, fur coat, two-toned lizard skin shoes, and walking stick–chatted up my girlfriend. His eyes lingered on her breasts, which were plumped up from her arms crossed beneath them. Her closed-off stance and rigid posture should have sent him a crystal-clear message to back off, but he was too dense to get it.
Drinks forgotten, I pushed through a group of revelers and reached her side just as the sleazebag said, “Name your price, baby. I’ll pay any amount it takes to raid your tomb for an hour.”
My hands fisted, and my vision went red around the edges. Collette didn’t deserve his lewd behavior and crass comments. And she sure as hell didn’t need his money. Guys who thought it was acceptable to treat women this way needed a swift kick in the nuts.
Pimpboy was a cocky idiot who thought he was funny when everyone else thought he was vulgar. He reminded me a lot of Brandon, my first roommate during freshman year of college. Every Thursday night he’d go to the campus watering hole and try to pick up girls by pretending his dick was a divining rod. Brandon had strolled up to his victim with his pelvis thrust out and told her his cock was drawn to water sources. A few seconds later, he’d been wet after getting a beer thrown in his face. He’d laugh it off and set his sights on someone else minutes later. I couldn’t stand him and switched rooms after the first semester.
“The fuck?” Les sputtered over my shoulder, cracking his knuckles. “Screw security, I’ll throw this asshole out myself.”
Collette held out a hand, a silent plea for both of us to stand down. “As I said before, all donations go in the pink buckets.”
The guy gave me the
once-over, his eyes narrowing as he studied me. “Who the hell are you supposed to be?” He nodded at Les, oblivious to his pent-up rage. “Wassup, Schwarzenegger?”
Neil abandoned his new friend to join us. “What’s going on?” he asked Collette, his gaze flicking from her face to mine, and then to Les’s
“Great costume, man. Who ya gonna call?” The pimp grinned, revealing a gold grill with a dollar sign on it over his front teeth. “I was just trying to put a donation in this honey’s pink bucket if you know what I–”
My fist met his jaw, bone crunching against bone as I landed a solid right hook. The guy dropped like a lead weight, his walking stick rolling across the dance floor.
“Yippie-ki-yay, motherfucker. Someone just popped your tags, you Macklemore wannabe assclown,” Neil crowed, clapping me on the back. “Well done, Ryan. Well fucking done.”
Collette gaped at me, her eyes wide with shock.
“Aw, shit.” Les ran a hand through his hair, shaking his head.
“What’s wrong?” Neil asked him.
“I wanted to punch the bastard, damn it.” He turned to the two bouncers who had rushed over. “Get this piece of shit out of here.” Then he jerked a thumb at the bar. “Come on, let’s get those drinks and a bag of ice for your hand.”
“In a minute.” I slid an arm around Collette and guided her away from the others. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, her brown eyes fixed on the man still sprawled on the floor. “I’m fine.” Her fingers closed around my right wrist, lifting my hand so she could examine the broken skin around my knuckles. “Does it hurt?”
“A little,” I lied, trying to ignore the pain radiating all the way up to my elbow. It was a small price to pay for shutting that fuckwad down before he finished making another disgusting innuendo. “It will be okay once I ice it.”
“This is the second time you’ve punched a guy since we started dating. I’m beginning to wonder if this will be an ongoing trend.”
I slowly straightened my fingers, wincing as the swollen joints flexed. “The first time shouldn’t count. I barely grazed Neil, and he didn’t go down like a sack of potatoes.”
“You know,” her dark eyes glittered from the lights flashing over the dance floor, “the way you defended my honor was kind of sexy. I was already turned-on from the way you look in this outfit,” she gestured at my dirt-streaked wifebeater and dark trousers, running her hands over my biceps, “and then you KO’d a guy for messing with me.”
“Oh, really? I’ve been half-hard all night because of you.”
We hadn’t had sex since the evening before the mugging. Three days felt like three weeks, given how often we usually got it on. Which was almost every night, sometimes more than once. I hadn’t tried to put the moves on her in case she was still shaken up from the attack. But if she gave me a sign, I’d gladly make up for lost time.
“Maybe we should get a room,” she whispered, her soft lips peppering kisses on my jawline.
Excellent idea. I could stick my hand in an ice bucket between rounds. And we could be as loud as we wanted, something we couldn’t do at her house because of Neil.
My cock throbbed, excited at the prospect of making Collette scream my name. “Are you sure?” I asked, ignoring the ache in my balls. Maybe still implied a degree of uncertainty, and I didn’t want her to feel as though she needed to do this for my benefit. I wanted her to want it, too.
Her hands slid down my chest, over my stomach, and came to a stop over my groin. One traced the outline of my erection. The other cupped my balls. “Positive.”
And there’s my sign.
20
Ryan
The elevator had a mirrored ceiling.
Any other day, I’d have given it a cursory glance–if I even noticed it at all–without a second thought. But on Halloween, my sex-addled mind transformed the small box suspended by a cable into a carnival fun house. For the first time in my life, I was thankful for a snail’s-pace ride. It gave me the opportunity to fulfill part of a long-standing fantasy as we slowly ascended to the thirtieth floor.
I wound Collette’s braid around my good hand like boxer’s tape. Her chin lifted until our gazes met in the glass above our heads. “See what you’ve done to me? I’m hanging on by a thread after the way you groped me. It could snap at any given moment.”
“What would happen if it did?” Her chest rose and fell rapidly, hard nipples on full display under the thin fabric of her top.
“Keep baiting me and you’ll find out.”
“I like you this way. Rough and growly Ryan really gets my blood pumping.”
Her words turned the lust burning inside me into a five-alarm inferno. The last thread of civility didn’t just snap; it went up in a cloud of smoke. My upper brain signed off, and the lower one stepped in to take control. If rough and growly were what she liked, what she wanted right now, it would be my pleasure to comply.
Two small steps were all it took to back her up against a sidewall. I tightened my grip on her hair, exposing more of her neck. “Look at that fucking blush. You’re all worked up. I bet your panties are soaked.”
“Why don’t you end the speculation and find out for sure?” she challenged, her voice husky and breathless.
Dirty girl. Don’t mind if I do.
I slid her along the wooden panels, turning her to face into a corner. Using my own body as a shield, I stood behind her and snaked an arm around her hip. My hand slipped under the waistband of her pants and glided down, down, down over smooth skin until my fingers slid between her soft folds. Forget wet, she was drenched.
And not wearing panties, which both shocked and thrilled me.
“It’s typically trick or treat on Halloween, not both,” I groaned, rubbing my throbbing erection up and down the center of her ass. The friction marginally alleviated the ache, giving me a fighting chance of making it to the room before becoming completely unhinged.
Collette moaned, flattening her palms against the polished wood. “Is this what you want to do to me, Ryan? Take me hard and fast from behind?”
Pure gibberish fell out of my mouth. Every obscenity known to mankind and some new ones made up on the fly followed as I ground against her like a wild animal in heat. “Against the door or over the closest piece of furniture?” I grated out.
Her eyes glittered, lips curving into a wicked smile. “Surprise me.”
I lightly pinched her clit, massaging the hard little nub between two fingers. “What’s your record for orgasms in one night?”
“Th-three,” she stuttered out.
“Who caused them? Who made tears of ecstasy run down your gorgeous face after the third?”
“Y-you.”
“That was one of the best nights of my life. I have a feeling tonight will make it nothing but a fond and distant memory.”
A garbled sound rumbled in her throat. I knew what it meant when she grew incoherent. She was close, right on the precipice of release. Nothing excited me more than bringing her to this point. And nothing was more beautiful than watching her let go and surrender to her body’s primal needs.
I released her hair and let the long braid slither down the middle of her back. Her head immediately turned to the side, her dark eyes hooded as she writhed against my hand. Those full pink lips parted on a gasp as I inserted a finger into her tight channel. My mouth landed on hers, swallowing her cries as she came on my fingers.
This was the fastest I’d ever gotten her off. My ego swelled a bit. So did my dick, which refused to be outdone.
“That was one,” I whispered in her ear, removing my hand from her pants as we passed the twenty-seventh floor. “The night is young, so there should be no problem with getting three more out of you.”
Her feet dragged across the floor as I positioned her in front of me seconds before the doors slid open. She looked shell-shocked, with rosy cheeks and dewy skin. Pride filled me for giving her such a gorgeous afterglow. Her breaths came in short bursts,
and her eyes were the widest I’d ever seen them.
The older couple waiting for a ride down to the lobby grinned as I walked us out of the car, keeping Collette in front of me to hide my raging hard-on. They were dressed as Gomez and Morticia Addams. “Please don’t tell me the party’s already over,” Morticia said, taking baby steps to board the elevator due to the mermaid-like long skirt constricting her knees.
“Nope, it’s still in full swing. Probably will be for hours,” I called over my shoulder while reading the signs on the wall. Ice machine to the left, our room to the right. And for once, it was wasn’t at the end of the hallway.
Not even a minute later, I tossed the key card on a console. Collette’s eyes had returned to normal. Her hand grazed my dick as she brushed past me. Spying the minibar, she bent over at the waist to open it and peruse its exorbitantly priced contents.
“Tease.” Her perky ass was a homing beacon for my hand. I gave it a light smack and pulled her up, kicking the door shut with my foot.
“Hey!” she exclaimed. “I wasn’t done.”
“Oh, come on. You couldn’t care less about what’s in there. I see your ruse for what it really is; an excuse to shake your ass and get me all riled up again. Not complaining, by the way.”
“For your information, I’m parched and wanted to see what was available to quench my thirst. Plus, I’m hungry and could use a snack.” She made a show of licking her lips, sinking her teeth into the plump lower one.
Oh, this girl was in one hell of a naughty, playful mood tonight. I loved it. Taking her hands in one of mine, I raised them over her head while lifting the hem of her shirt. It hit the floor with a soft thud a moment later. “Remember when you told me about your fantasies?” I asked, rolling her nipples between my fingers through the satin of her bra cups.
“Yes,” Collette breathed, her eyes growing dark.
“You just rewrote one of mine. I thought sex in an elevator would be fun, but making you come in one was so much better. Seems only fair to cross one of yours off the list.”
More than Money (Found in Chicago Book 1) Page 16