11. Dylan

CHAPTER 11

DYLAN

Lying on my bed and staring up at the ceiling, I was thankful I’d drank enough gin the night before to blur most of the memories. I remembered having drinks with Tate at Tryst. The beefy dude who’d left his fingerprints on my neck the night before was there, talking sweet to me and offering me money again. I’d had too much to drink, far too much, and then I’d been on my knees and Tate knew.

Tate knew.

Brooks knew.

Marigold knew.

Everyone knew.

In the comfort of Tate’s boyfriend’s penthouse, the confession had poured out of me, spilling down the stairs like every word was a drop of blood. Neither of them had judged me, which somehow made me feel worse. Sleep came quick for me that night, and the next morning, Brooks had made sure I found my way home safe and sound. No dicks sucked on the way to Chelsea. Tate came home after lunch and slipped me a chocolate bar beneath the door, and I’d promised him a conversation, just…later.

I’d spent the day playing guitar and trying to decide if Alex had been the catalyst that sent my life into a spiral, but even as my hungover mind tried to put the blame on him, I knew it wasn’t true. I was an adult, a spoiled one at that, and I’d made all my own decisions. Every choice had been mine, from the first time I picked up a guitar to the last time I’d told my parents no.

Sometime after the sun sank down below the skyline, there was a loud and demanding knock at my door. I definitely wasn’t expecting company and Tate had a key. Slowly, I set my guitar down on the bed and shuffled to the front door, finding Alex’s scowling face on the other side of the peephole. I fussed with the deadbolts and pulled the door open, glaring at him.

“What?” I asked, voice sounding far more tired than I would have liked.

“What,” he repeated, giving me a slow onceover from my bare feet to my tangled hair. I sighed, wondering if he could see the broken heart in my chest, the twisted knot of misery in the pit of my stomach.

“Why are you here?”

“Brooks called me last night, tracked me down today.”

I cracked my neck, staring at the brick on my entryway hall, then I stepped to the side to let him inside.

I tapped my fingers against the bruises on the base of my throat. “I told Brooks this wasn’t you.”

Alex almost growled, taking the door out of my grip and shoving it closed.

“I don’t want to talk about that,” he said.

“Then why are you here?”

“I don’t know.”

Dropping my chin to my chest, I managed half of a nod. It was weird to have him in my apartment, my space…with his clothes on and his arrogance so fucking self-righteous, sucking out all the air. There was no money between us, no skin, just us and the mess we both were.

“Do you want a beer?” I asked, heading to the living room.

“No,” he said.

I opened the fridge and his next words stopped me in my tracks. “And you don’t need one either.”

“You’re not my boss, Alex.”

I closed the fridge anyway and sat on the couch in the comfortable corner spot that Tate had long ago claimed as his own. Alex sat down without asking, turning his body so he faced me head on.

“Why did you pay me for sex the first time?” I asked.

His eyebrows lifted toward his hairline. “Because I wanted to fuck you.”

“Why, though?” I pressed. “It could have been anyone. Why me?”

“Bad idea,” he muttered.

I pushed out my lower lip and nodded, wishing I’d gotten a beer when he told me no because the thought of hauling my body up off the couch now was too much for me to even begin to entertain.

“Not many people like things the way I do,” he said after a couple of silent minutes had passed.

“People will do anything for money,” I told him, “and I’m sure there’s plenty of people at The Black Door who have the same kinks as you.”

“And what are my kinks, Dylan?”

Even if I had a hundred years, I didn’t think I’d be able to unpack Alex’s kinks. I didn’t even know what my own were, but thanks to him—or not—I had a starting place.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said.

“I’m a dominant man,” he said, words softer but tone somehow harder, more demanding.

“I know,” I whispered, tangling my fingers together in my lap. My palms had already started to sweat and I was eighty percent confident it didn’t have anything to do with my hangover.

“It’s not a kink. It’s who I am.”

“And what does that mean?” I cracked my thumbs, then my pointer fingers. “Telling people what to do makes you hard?”

“You got hard being told what to do, Dylan. Don’t sound so disgusted with it.”

I huffed, rolling my eyes. “And that’s why Brooks called you?”

“He called me because he loves Tate and wants all of Tate’s attention,” Alex answered with a half-shrug.

“And he can’t have that if Tate is worried about me.”

“Correct.”

I swallowed, managing a shaky nod. I’d spent so much time worrying about shielding Tate from the mess my life had become that I hadn’t even thought about how it would impact him if and when he found out what had been going on with me. He’d become my best friend, and I’d been beyond unfair to him. But that was one more thing for me to add to the list of shit I’d have to apologize for, one more person I owed something to.

Another exchange to make things right.

“I don’t need a keeper,” I said, pushing myself off the couch. “I need a beer.”

“No, you don’t,” Alex said, not moving, even as I went to the fridge and pulled it open. The apartment was dark, save for the fridge light that washed out in a white fan over my toes.

“You don’t know anything about me,” I told him, not looking back.

I knew I was playing with fire, and I had no idea what the outcome was going to be. Was he going to offer me more money? Was he going to walk out? Was he going to spank me again?

The thought of Alex taking me over his knee on my couch, tearing down my pants and spanking my ass raw was enough to make my tired cock twitch to life between my legs. I reached into the fridge, hooking my finger around the neck of a beer bottle. It was some crappy IPA Marigold had sent me home with the week before. I didn’t even want it. I didn’t like IPAs, I just wanted to see what would happen if I pushed Alex too far. It couldn’t be any worse than the things that I’d already brought onto myself.

I took the bottle out of the fridge and he still didn’t move.

Took the top off…nothing.

Raised the rim to my mouth, smelled the overdone hops.

Alex watched me without a word, arm casually propped on the back of my couch, mouth twitching up in the corner because he already knew I wasn’t going to drink it. I tried, willing my elbow to bend, forcing my arm to tip the bottle back. The beer washed across my upper lip and Alex still hadn’t said a word to me.

“Fuck,” I cursed, throwing the bottle into the sink. It smashed into pieces against the steel basin, contents glugging down the drain. Spinning away from him, I shoved my hands into my hair, pulling at the roots, desperate for something to ground me, to make sense of my life.

“Get on your knees, Dylan,” Alex said from the couch.

The command was soft and simple, and my body responded like I didn’t have any choice except to obey. Taking the drink out of the fridge—against his wishes—had hurt me, but my knees landing against the wood floor of my apartment felt easy as breathing. My shoulders sagged and before I could even catch a breath, I burst into tears. Covering my face with my hands, I bent forward, pressing my forehead against the edge of a rug we’d picked up off the street a year earlier, and I cried.

I cried, and cried, and Alex didn’t move from his throne on my couch. He offered me no kind words, no consolation, but I felt the weight of his stare on me sure as I would if it had been his hand against my back, pressing me down into a ball until I’d soaked the carpet with the last of my tears.

“Why did you let me pay you for sex?” he asked.

My face was covered in snot and tears, my lips wet with spit and my chin still quivering. I felt better and worse in the same breath, relieved and more scared than I’d ever been. I let go of my hair and spread my hands out on the floor in front of me, bowing my back, but keeping my face down.

“Because I needed the money.”

“Why me ?” he asked.

“You looked like you could afford it,” I said, sucking as much snot back into my nose as I could manage. “You looked sad.”

“Sad people are the dangerous ones, Dylan. They have less to lose.”

I rocked back onto my heels, using my head to toss my hair back. My hands fell open on my thighs, palms up. “Like me?”

“I think you’ve lost enough,” he said, tracing his tongue across his lower lip. Back and forth and back and forth, like a metronome.

He was hypnotic, and I wanted him to take me under.

“Why did you let me pay you for sex?” he asked again.

“My parents cut me off.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to play music and they wanted me to fall into line.” I pressed my fingers against the swollen pockets beneath my eyes, swiping the tears away.

“Is your family wealthy?”

“My father is Russell Lang,” I answered, his name well enough known in the city that I didn’t need more of an explanation than that. “Rivers was my mother’s maiden name. She never took his when they got married.”

“Surprised he allowed that.”

I shrugged. “He wanted her.”

“And you?” Alex asked.

“He wanted me to do what he told me to do,” I said.

“You do what I tell you to do.” He moved for the first time, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees, coming closer to my level down on the floor. The apartment was bigger than a shoebox, but it was nowhere near as big as Brooks’ penthouse, as Alex’s townhome.

I didn’t know how to explain the difference to him, that my father told me what to do because he liked the control and the power. He didn’t care how I felt about the things he wanted. The only thing that mattered to him was everyone around him toeing the line. The only interest he was worried about was his own. Alex, sitting there on my couch, worry knit between his brows even though he tried to hide it—he cared about much more than just himself.

“It’s different,” I finally said, because if he didn’t know the truth, I didn’t want to tell him.

Alex hummed out a curious breath, straightening his back and shifting to get more comfortable on the couch. He wasn’t going anywhere, and the sense of relief that gave me was better than any orgasm he’d ever given me or ever would.

“Music, then?” He tilted his head to the side in time with the ask.

“Guitar mostly,” I answered.

“It means a lot to you?”

No.

Maybe.

It’s cost me everything.

“Yes.” The answer would never change.

I was on my knees in the middle of an apartment I couldn’t afford, with bruises around my neck from a man who didn’t even know my name. If this wasn’t bottom, I didn’t want to know how it could get worse.

“Go get it,” he said, jerking his chin toward my bedroom. “Show me what makes this worth it for you.”

I squeezed my eyes closed, digging the heels of my hands into my eyes and propelling myself to my feet. The room spun, the gin from the night before still too fresh in my mind. I swallowed down bile, bracing myself on the edge of the kitchen counter. And Alex still didn’t move. He offered me no help.

Just like everyone else.

But for some reason… to him, I listened.

I got my guitar, sat down on the couch, and waited for whatever came next.