For me?
Chuckling, Maslow walked over and clasped Beck’s hand in a shake. Beck smiled, but the expression never made it past his lips as Maslow spoke to him in quiet words I couldn’t discern. After another tight smile and nod from Beck, Maslow turned toward us.
“Mister Beckett and I are going to talk shop, and you little cunts are gonna keep your shit down. Understood?”
It wasn’t the kind of question that merited a response, so none of us gave one as Maslow led Beck away.
My heart gave another ragged flutter, and I sniffed the air, wondering if I could smell Beck’s cologne from here.I had yet to wash my sheets, having decided I liked sleeping with the scent of him. I craved him in ways I couldn’t explain, and now he was back. Why?
I wasn’t sure he’d even noticed me. Compared to the scene Colt and Elliot had made, I was a background character. Whether he had or not, his focus was on Maslow now as he and the wraith ascended the iron staircase that spiraled toward Maslow’s second-floor office.
Once they were both inside, Oz let Elliot drop with a thunk onto the stage. Colt collected his displaced hat, then worked his way to standing while I stood by, wringing my hands.
The others filed out, likely going to the kitchen to scrounge up some breakfast, but my stomach was too unsettled to be tempted with food.
“Talk shop” sounded innocuous enough, and not necessarily about me.
But what if it was?
After three days apart, I foolishly, fleetingly, hoped Beck had returned to see me, but he could just as easily have come back to report me. Tell Maslow all about our dalliance in my bedroom, the one that ended with my teeth grinding against his finger bones and his blood in my mouth.
My pulse skittered as I waited, left behind while the other dancers completed a swift evacuation.
I couldn’t hear anything from the office.
No shouting. No footsteps storming back down. Just silence.
And that was worse.
My hands trembled as I wiped them on my thighs, trying not to imagine Beck’s voice, cold and clipped, saying he wanted me gone. Then trying not to envision Maslownodding like it was no big deal, just a minor correction. Return to sender.
Hell was full of incubi; I was only one of a million. And Maslow was a businessman; he could decide, or be persuaded, that I was a bad investment.
I pinched my lips together in a bid to keep the panic inside, bracing for the moment someone called my name.
Maybe it wasn’t about me.
Hopefully.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
Beck
It was never clearer that returning to the Devil’s Dollhouse was a mistake than when I walked into the club and my dick went as stiff as a dowsing rod pointing straight at the incubus.
There were plenty of others to look at. I’d entered to a pair of dancers mid-brawl, their arms and legs flailing on the stage, but my notice went directly to Cherry and I wondered—Iworried—if he was okay. And that was ten different kinds of fucked up.
Colette had wanted to come inside this time, which gave me all the reason I needed to leave her in the car. I knew her game. She wanted to meet the incubus, size him up, maybe try the same stunt Luxe had pulled in the executive suite. I didn’t need a wingwoman. And I doubted Cherry was suffering for attention.
But there he was, in a heathered purple tank top andharem pants, and I’d be damned if the billboard didn’t do him a bit of justice.
Maslow proved a welcome distraction, announcing my arrival while dismissing the dancers with casually crude language that got my hackles up. Not one of them batted an eye, which was telling. They were either unbothered by the name-calling or accustomed to it. Either way, it left a foul taste in my mouth that lingered as I climbed the steps to Maslow’s office and allowed him to close us inside.
Unlike my dusty cave of a workspace, Maslow’s office was sleek. Velvet and leather furniture matched the aesthetic downstairs, all high-end upholstery with low-end energy. Everything looked expensive, but none of it felt comfortable, like it had been bought to impress but not use.
A massive desk was the centerpiece. The ebony monolith took up entirely too much real estate for a man who mostly sat behind it, posturing. It screamed overcompensation. Probably came with a matching complex.
