CHAPTER 49

Alexander knocks on the bathroom door again and impatiently calls out, “Come on, Jas. It seriously can’t take you that long to get ready.”

I giggle and look at Alma as she glues the last feather in place. We’d commandeered his master bathroom tonight so I could recreate my outfit from the night we first met at the club, down to the last peacock feather. Alma gladly volunteered to help get me ready, and I can’t wait to see his face.

I can’t wait to get on that machine tonight at The Sinful Night Club. We’re going in sort of thinking this is our last time for a while, and then we’re going to step back from the club and just have each other. I feel it’s the right thing to do while we establish this weird relationship of ours.

Noel flew out early this morning. I miss him already, but there’s also a sense of relief that he’s gone. That I can be with Alex and be free about it at the same time. That doesn’t mean that I won’t give up hope that I can have it all; it’s just right now I’m focused on taking this one day at a time.

And today—or rather tonight—Alex is going to put me right back on that machine that started this all.

“We’ll be out in a few minutes,” I call back to him, and he groans in frustration.

Alex laughs quietly and whispers, “You’re a lucky bitch to have a man who pushes every one of your buttons in the right way, you know that, right?”

“Right,” I say with a firm nod of my head.

“You realize now, Peter was wrong about you,” she says as her fingertips smooth the feather she just placed down.

I look at her through the mirror over the vanity and shake my head slightly. “I don’t know that he was.”

“What?” she asks in surprise.

“I think I gave Peter all I had,” I tell her in a surprising moment of truth that I just now seemed to understand. “I didn’t love him enough to give myself to him so freely. He didn’t give me enough so I’d want to give him back more.”

“Whoa, shit,” Alma mutters in a whisper. “You love Alex?”

I give her a smile. “I think what I feel for him surpasses just love. Our lives are so complicated and have been entwined forever, so what I feel for him is just so much more than the way I loved Peter.”

“Girl,” Alma says as she blinks her eyes to dispel some tears that has formed. “That is some powerful shit. Making me cry and everything.”

I pat her arm and laugh. “Well, things are beyond messed up right now, but I’m hoping that my dreams will turn into reality at some point.”

“I have faith they will,” she says with a resolute nod of her head. “Now… you are stunning. Go get your man. You two go get your rocks off spectacularly while I go home and eat cookie dough.”

Standing up, I reach out and grab Alma for a hard hug. “Thank you for being the best friend imaginable. I don’t know what I’d ever do without you.”

“Aww… I love you, tootsie,” she says as she hugs me back just as hard.

***

“I can’t believe you recreated the feathers,” Alex says in wonder as we walk hand in hand through The Silo. I take in the scene, note the various people having sex, or just mingling. I smile to myself at the stocks in the room next to the dildo machine, as Alex had me in there one night.

I’ve become a complete exhibitionist, getting off now on people watching us together. It’s so fucking dirty and liberating at the same time. I’d love to go somewhere else with Alex and have public sex with him, but I’m terrified of getting arrested so that will probably never happen. I snicker at the thought.

“What’s so funny?” Alex asks as he leads me to the hallway that goes behind the glassed rooms. Alex reserved the dildo machine for eleven, so it’s ready and waiting for us. The only thing different tonight was I didn’t wear panties, and only because it was moot. They were coming off as soon as I walked in the door.

“I was just thinking I’d like to have public sex with you somewhere, but I’m afraid of getting busted,” I tell him truthfully.

He gives me a deep laugh in return and pulls my hand up to his mouth for a quick kiss. “I’ll make it happen, baby.”

“Where?” I ask suspiciously.

“Hell, there are any number of hotels here that I can get a room that looks practically into the next building over. We’ll go fuck all night up against the window. Plenty of people will see us.”

Well, damn… that makes me wet.

Alex opens the door to our room that holds Noel’s amazing invention, and I get even wetter.

“God, Alex,” I whisper to him as he drops my hand and shuts the door. “I think I can actually feel my heartbeat in my clit right now.”

He chuckles and steps into me. One hand goes to my neck as he presses his mouth to mine in a deep kiss. The other goes in between my legs as he rubs my clit for research purposes.

“Totally throbbing,” he says against my mouth and I laugh back at him. Then he’s turning me to the machine and says, “Let’s get you saddled up. I’ve got a raging hard-on, so I want to make you come a few times, fuck your ass, then I want to go back to my apartment and start season three of Sons of Anarchy.”

That makes me giggle. I’ve been introducing Alex to some of my favorite TV shows as he’s never been a guy who just likes to lay around and chill. But that’s certainly changing.

For the moment, we ignore the people outside of the glass window. I can sense them pressing in, but Alex keeps me otherwise preoccupied as he leads me up to the machine. Before he asks me to even straddle it, he brings his hands to my face and kisses me again. This time it’s soft and sweet and so contrary to what we’re getting ready to do.

“You’re amazing, Jas,” he murmurs to me. “There’s no one who could ever compare to you.”

I smile at him, my heart turning to absolute mush. “I feel the same, Alex. It’s only you.”

“Alright then,” he says softly and spins me to the machine. “Work yourself down on that cock, baby.”

It’s for total flare that I pull the stretchy material of my dress up so the curve of my ass is bared to the crowd but the mystery of my pussy stays covered. Alex wouldn’t care if I stripped completely as he has no problem with people looking… just touching.

Alex holds the dildo for me as I start to work it in. I flex and rotate my hips, taking it into my body an inch at a time. I was so wet at the thought of doing this with Alex that it slides in easily. When I’m seated to the hilt, Alex takes the remote control off a small table. I feel his hand at my back and my eyes flutter closed as he turns it on a very low vibration. It doesn’t even move up and down, just buzzes within me.

So fucking nice. I lean forward, turn my head, and rest my cheek against the padded incline bench. I open my eyes to look at people watching, and I’m paralyzed with horror as I realize Noel is standing at the back of the crowd with fury in his eyes.

“Oh, fuck,” I cry out as I scramble off the dildo.

Alex is so stunned that he grabs my hips to steady me. “What’s wrong, Jas?”

“Noel,” I say as tears form in my eyes. “I just saw him at the back of the crowd.”

“Impossible,” Alex murmurs, but he looks around The Silo, same as me. We both see him storming out the door at the same time.

I don’t hesitate. I pull my dress down and run for the door, Alex close on my heels.

I can hear the murmur of confused people as they watch us emerge from the back hallway and run for the exit.

We chase after Alex. Although I don’t see him anymore, there’s no doubt he’s on his way out of the club. Alex and I spend a tense, quiet ride down the elevator as I don’t bother trying to hold the tears back. Alex tries to reach out to me, but I shake my head furiously, too overwhelmed with embarrassment and shame that Noel saw me like that. I feel like I’m going to puke.

When the elevator hits the lobby of the hotel, Alex bursts out and shoots across the marble floor. He pushes through the doorway, me right behind him, and we come to a stop as we look left and right for my brother. We both locate him down at the end of the block, and we run that way. We come to a stop a few feet away as Noel just stands there, not moving.

Back to us, head down, shoulders slumped.

“Noel,” I say in absolute misery.

He turns on us, his face a mask of rage, then he’s swinging so hard and fast I can’t even cry out a warning. Noel’s fist connects with Alexander’s jaw, whose head rocks back and he stumbles a few feet. He stays upright, though, and doesn’t make a move to retaliate or defend himself.

“You fucking bastard,” Noel shouts at him with both fists clenched. “I knew you had something for my sister, you perverted fuck. And you dragged her into this life—”

“No, Noel,” I yell at him, but he refuses to look at me. “That’s not what happened. It was an accident—”

Noel’s head snaps my way and his words are laced with so much disgust, I flinch. “What? You just fell off that dildo and onto his dick, Jasmine? God, don’t you haven’t any shame?”

Before I know it, Alexander’s fist flies out and catches Noel in the jaw. He also rocks back, but doesn’t go down.

Beyond enraged, Noel holds his arms out. “Is this the way you want it? Want another crack at me? Take your best shot, Alex, because then I’m going to stomp your ass into the ground.”

Alex does nothing more than grit out through his teeth, “I don’t want to fight you, but I will. And if you ever talk about your sister like that again, they’ll be scraping you off the sidewalk when I’m done with you.”

“Stop it, both of you,” I yell as I walk in between them, holding my hands out. “Please… can we just go talk about this somewhere private?”

I turn to my brother in desperation. “Noel, please… this started off not how you think, and well… this isn’t what you think…”

“So I don’t think I just saw you in a fucking sex club with Alex?” he asks me acidly.

“We care about each other,” I tell him quietly.

Noel jerks his head toward Alex. “He cares about nothing but exploiting you.”

“That’s not true,” I say.

“Oh, yeah… then how come he sent me a picture of you while you were on that machine?” Noel asks, and before I can get a chance to explain that, he’s continuing to yell at me, “It wasn’t too hard to figure out. You were both acting weird at dinner. I caught the subtle little looks you gave each other. Then when I’d heard last night you’d been banging some black-haired, green-eyed girl, well… it wasn’t fucking rocket science. I followed you both from The Dignitary Discretion Hotel Casino here. And tonight, you’re wearing the same goddamn outfit from the night he sent me the photo.”

“Noel,” I plead with him. “If you will just calm down—”

“Calm down?” Noel screams at me and points at Alex. “Did you hear me? He sent me a fucking photo of my sister riding a goddamn dildo machine that I created. Do you know he sent that to me knowing I’d get worked up over the hot piece of ass on it? It fucking disgusts me knowing that was you in the photo.”

“I’m sorry,” I try to explain. “But he didn’t know it was me, and I didn’t know—”

“You’re awful quiet, Alex,” Noel says as he cuts me off and turns his wrath to Alex. “How come Jasmine’s the only one trying to plead her case?”

“Brother,” Alex says in a soothing voice, but keeping his distance so as not to be threatening. “I knew this was wrong. We both did. The last thing I wanted to do was lose you as a friend, and so yeah… we were wrong for hiding it from you.”

“I’m not your fucking, brother,” Noel practically spits at him. “You should have told me. Instead, you two played out a fucking act right in front of my face this weekend.”

“Yes, we did that—” I start to say, but I’m cut off again as he takes a threatening step toward Alex, who holds his ground.

Then Noel lowers the boom, his voice going deadly quiet with menace. “The worst, Alex, is that Jas is as close to a sister as you’ll ever have. You fucking helped me change her diapers when she was a baby. It’s goddamn sick what you’re doing to her.”

My stomach plunges and rolls, nausea making me dizzy with the accusation.

“What do you want me to do?” Alex asks softly.

For the first time, I feel a true rush of fear course through me.

Noel points at me, but looks at Alex with hateful eyes. “I want you to stay the fuck away from my sister. In fact, stay the fuck away from me, too.”

My heart cramps with an immense pain when I see Alex nod his head in silent agreement.

“No,” I start to say, but Noel grabs my arm.

“Come on, Jasmine. I’m taking you home.”

I jerk free of Noel and turn to Alex. “Please don’t do this. It’s out in the open now. We can—”

Alexander’s words pierce through me. “Go with Noel, Jasmine. It’s over.”

“No,” I say again as I move toward him. He takes a step back and holds his hands up in a silent statement that he doesn’t want me. It infuriates me so greatly, I snap. I literally fucking snap. As tears start free-falling down my face, I scream at Alex. “You can’t do this to me. Not after everything we shared. It’s not fair.”

Noel comes up behind me and puts his hands on my shoulders, but I’m so pissed at him for making Alex do this that I jerk free. I take a step toward Alex and lower myself to utter begging. “Please, Alexander… don’t push me away. Don’t do this to me.”

I can see the pain on his face, but I can also see the deference he’s giving Noel for all the sins we just got busted on. He merely whispers, “I’m sorry,” and then he walks away.