I already know about his sponsorship deals from TikTok. But when he said, “Pay me for being beautiful,” another idea popped into my head.
“Do you have an OnlyFans?” I blurt out.
He looks startled, and then he grins. “I did, for a while. I wore a mask, though.”
“Oh,” I breathe. “What did you… What sort of content did you offer?”
His dark lashes shade his blue eyes, and his tongue traces over his lower lip. “I did everything.”
Oh hell.
I draw in a shaky breath. “I can understand wearing a mask for anaccount like that. But I still wonder about your other socials, about people figuring out that you never age.”
“Lots of celebrities don’t seem to age nowadays. It’s not a problem. If someone finds a really old photo of me, I brush it off as a relative, an ancestor who shared the same name, an accidental resemblance—some shit like that. Over the years, I’ve acquired enough hacking skills to find the source of any digital images and destroy them. I prefer to let Sibyl manage most of my online presence, but certain things I handle myself to avoid uncomfortable questions. If the evidence can’t be destroyed for one reason or another, I ignore the person or pay them off. And if they still won’t shut up… Well, there are other options.”
A cold spike of dread jabs through my chest. As I open my mouth to ask if he has actually had people killed, Vane staggers up the steps to the booth and drapes himself against Dorian’s shoulder. “It’s so dead here, Dorian,” he moans. “Let’s go home.”
“One more dance,” Dorian says. “Then we’ll go.”
We all pile out of the booth and return to the dance floor, where Sibyl and Dorian catch Lloyd’s hands and laughingly draw him into the churning crowd. Noel and Cherith reappear, with Vane in tow, orbiting the sun that is Dorian Gray. With the end of the evening in sight, I relax even more, letting my arms and body undulate with graceful moves, allowing my head and neck to tilt and roll. It’s a witchy, goth style of dancing I learned from my college bestie Marsha and her girlfriends. A natural ebb and flow of energy, reflected in the dances of a hundred different cultures…a universal, instinctual response to music.
Maybe the sway and weave of my body puts me more in sync with the energy of the people around me, or maybe I’m more attuned to Dorian himself than I thought. A dissonance tweaks my enjoymentof the dance, and I look around for its source.
There’s a bearded man in a shiny silver shirt, half-hidden by the crowd, dancing with automated stiffness while he stares at Dorian. That in itself isn’t strange. Half the room is watching Dorian, because he’s fucking magical. But this guy stares with a look of horrified surprise mingled with raw malevolence. Like he wants to take Dorian by the throat and choke the life out of him.
I suppose someone like Dorian must have made enemies throughout his long life. But this is a little weird. By all accounts, he hasn’t been in Charleston long. He came here looking for me. Looking for the artist who might be able to save his life.
The angry-looking man in the silver shirt has turned around. He’s pushing through the crowd, working his way toward the exit. If he had any plans to confront Dorian about something, he has clearly thought better of it.
When the song ends, Dorian slides his palm across my back. “I like the way you dance,” he murmurs in my ear. “Primal and beautiful.”
“Well, you know what they say about the way a person dances,” I reply, breathless. And then I want to bite my own tongue right off, because I basically just asked him to imagine me having sex.
“I do know what they say.” His hand slides to my waist, fingers pressing more firmly, and I remember what he confessed last night.
I want you. Badly.
Not just for the portrait. He wants my body. And even though I know he wants a lot of different bodies, it’s still flattering.
Vane jostles between us, breaking Dorian’s hold on me and draping an arm across each of our shoulders. A sharp whiff of his acrid sweat, mingled with pine-scented deodorant and wine-soured breath, breaches my nostrils.
“Let’s roll,” he drawls.
God. Jealous much?
I let myself be herded along anyway. Once we’re outside, I turn my face away from Vane, inhaling the cooler night air. He lets his right arm slip from my shoulders but keeps his left arm around Dorian—a slightly awkward feat since Dorian is so tall.
“We should go for a swim in the rooftop pool once we get back,” Vane croons. “Doesn’t that sound divine, Dorian?”
“Sounds nice,” Dorian admits. “Want to join us for a swim, Baz?”
“She probably needs to get home to her cat,” Vane says.
“Actually, I left him with plenty of food and water and a clean litter box this morning.” I’m glad I took the extra minutes to do that—totally worth it, not just for Screwtape’s sake but because I get to see Vane’s face fall when I say, “Sure, I’ll come along for a swim. I can try out the new Burberry bikini.”
“Perfect.” Dorian shoots me a grin.
Noel and Cherith decline the invitation; they’re heading to another party. We part ways, and our group turns the corner of Ann Street and heads down the wide concrete alley leading into the parking garage. The passage is empty at the moment, an expanse of pale concrete and shadow, with the beetle-like gleam of parked cars far ahead.
