Page 50 of Gilded Fake

Is that what Mom thought, before she swallowed another, and another, and another? Did she take them one by one, or just toss the whole handful in her mouth and swallow them in one go? I know she was crying when she lay down to die. There were still mascara tracks on her slack, colorless face when they loaded her into the ambulance and took her away, the same way they did Destiny that night. But Destiny left in a black bag. Destiny didn’t leave her family with the grief of death and the husk of a human in her place.

I sit up and start the truck, turning away and leaving the lot. I can’t think of anything but the need now. It crawls over my skin like ants, stinging and biting and clawing its tiny feet into me; it thunders like Jack’s giant as it lumbers clumsily around, banging and breaking anything it touches; it consumes every other thought and emotion like fire racing over a handwritten suicide note left beside a bed with the empty bottles pinning it in place.

By evening, I know I won’t make it if I don’t find a distraction. And there’s one distraction that’s been tempting me as much as the drug for the past week, that can take my mind off the need for a few hours. I can’t quit them both at once. It’s too hard. I can already feel her soft skin under my palms, her silky hair against my cheek, her weight on my lap.

I pull into the parking lot and shut off the engine, anticipation buzzing through me for the first time all day. Maybe I don’t have to go back years and search an empty football field to feel alive, to find the excitement I crave. It’s here, just upstairs.

I hurry across the lot, through the diner, and up the stairs. The green door calls to me, drawing me along like a relentless current.

She told me not to come back, but I have to tell her, to explain. I have to show her how much she means to me, even despite the stupid decision I made when I was blacked out. It’s not safe at school, but here, I have her alone. I can say anything to her, can tell her that I didn’t mean to take her words the way I guess I did. I didn’t want to commit to Dixie. I wanted to break up with her, to choose someone else, someone who makes my chest thunder and my blood rage like a storm-tossed sea.

By the time the hour is up, the hour that’s already been reserved for someone else, I barely remember the pills. My knee is bouncing a million miles an hour, and my new addiction has taken hold of my mind. I practically rush the guys coming out of the room, finding my place at the edge of the stage and pouring a drink with shaking hands. The bouncers leave us, though I know they’ll be standing outside, waiting for a word from her—a word that will never come.

She’s all mine.

I glory in the fact as I sip my drink, watching her. She stays on the pole for an entire set, like she’s punishing me by driving me out of my fucking mind. I’d order her to come to me, but the truth is, I like the tease. I like the illusion of not being able to have her. This is a craving I want, one as satisfying as the fulfillment of it.

When she finally walks down the steps, her soft curves illuminated by the ambient, warm lighting in the denlike room, I reach for her greedily, pulling her into my lap.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, an expression on her face that I don’t want to read.

“Envying that pole, at the moment,” I say, running my hands up her thighs hungrily. I drop my head back and swallow a moan of relief. She’s in my hands again, and I want to jealously lay claim to every inch of her body with my palms, my fingers. To bury them in her hair, her mouth, her cunt. Make her quake and quiver and come undone the way she does me. It’s so much more than just lust, though. I’m not even hard, but I might as well have just had the world’s best orgasm for all the relief I feel at being with her again after a week of staying away.

I know I shouldn’t have come back now, that I’m putting her in danger. Dixie threatened to call in Royal, and though Gloria seemed to think that would put me in danger, I know better. After what he did when I punched Duke, I know I’m on solid ground with the Dolces. I can’t say the same for Lo. Being here, being anywhere near her, puts her in danger. But I couldn’t hold back any longer. I had to see her.

“You’re engaged,” she says flatly, drawing me back to reality. “You’re going to be fucking married, Colt.”

“Do you ask all the men who come in here if they’re married? Or just me?”

“I can’t do this,” she says, swallowing and looking up at a corner of the room, like she can’t even stand to look at me. I don’t blame her. She basically spelled it out for me, told me to win her over, and instead, I fucking asked another girl to marry me.

“Well, you’re just going to have to,” I say, my voice hardening, deepening my self-loathing. “I rented the room for the rest of the night, so you’re mine until you get off.”

Her eyes snap to mine, and she blinks at me without comprehension. “All night?”

“I told you I didn’t like other men having you like this. Now they can’t.”

“You had no right,” she grits out. “Not when you’re fucking engaged to someone else.”

“Take it up with the club,” I say. “It’s their rule. The room was open. I booked it. There wasn’t a time limit, as long as I was good for it, and you know I am.”

“What are you going to do, buy out the club every night so no other guy can see me take off my clothes?” she asks, rolling her eyes.

“Not the club,” I say. “Just this room.”

“You’re unbelievable,” she mutters. “Other men aren’t allowed to even look at me, but you can go home and fuck your fiancée every night?”

“I didn’t think it was your job to judge your clients,” I taunt.

“You’re right,” she says, lifting my hands from her hips and placing them on the chair beside me. “It’s my job to make them want what they can’t have.”

“But I can have you,” I challenge. “Can’t I?”

“For the next three hours, you can have my body and my time,” she agrees, rolling her hips in a sensuous rhythm that makes my cock stiffen. “Because you bought it. Thanks for reminding me what this is. I’m a sex worker, and you’re a client. And that’s all.”

“Keep pretending if that makes it easier, Butterfly,” I say with a smirk. “We both know that’s not all this is.”

She smirks back at me, draping an arm over the back of the chair so she can rise, letting her hair tumble down my chest and her tits come to within inches of my face. “You think I’m going to keep giving you my heart after you gave someone else your ring?”

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