Page 103 of Lamb

“Shut up and finish your ice cream,” I growled, cupping my bowl in my arm, and turning my back to him, hiding the hot red blush rushing over my face. I enjoyed my butterscotch ice creambut knew the taste on my lips would linger long after we left the parlour. The taste he had left behind.

There was being proactive, and then there was being stupid.

The current swing of the party, the half-naked women, alcohol in every person’s hand, and the broadcasted foreplay on the centre couch was the latter. I knew the club was liberal, but when you had a kingpin resting the barrel of his gun right in your face, waiting to shoot at any moment, this type of party would have been the last thing I had expected.

I struggled to pick apart the partygoers. I could not distinguish whether they were club members, affiliates, or strangers as more piled in through the doors, the room tightened and the air thinned.

Lamb pressed his hand to the small of my back, tucking me into his side as people brushed past us, bottles, glasses, and cans held aloft my head.

“Lamb,” an older man greeted with a head nod. His gaze slid down to me, and I pressed closer into Lamb’s side, the warmth of his cedar body soap and sweat from the warm room smothering my nose.

Lamb nodded his head at the man in acknowledgement.

He offered no greeting to me before he moved along in the crowd. It was a great deal more than I had been expecting to receive. Not having someone spit in my face or threaten to kill me with their eyes was a good day considering my rocky relationship with the club.

“Are you sure we should be here?” I pushed onto my toes, my mouth pressed into Lamb’s ear.

His cheek rested against mine. “No better place than out in the open,” Lamb responded, his voice thrumming louder than the blaring bass music rippling through the floor. “No one will think we’re hiding an illegal convict with an open-door party.”

“But these strangers …” I let my eyes roam around. With a new pair of glasses, my vision had been given some clarity and distance. It was not a perfect fix and did not solve half my vision problems, but they did allow me to have some sense of normalcy. Or, in this case, paranoia. Even tucked into the corner of the room, a great vantage point over the whole party, I hated how it made my skin crawl. Any of these people could be lurking spies for my father, or worse—an assassin.

“I said open doors, not open gates.” Lamb shook his head, his hair brushing against my skin. He had been styling it less and less and had donned more of his heavy denim jeans and dark shirts, akin to his biker side than his fancier alter ego. Although his aura had more edge this way, his face looked younger and softer with his hair dropping gently around his temples.

“And the difference is …?”

“Open doors are for everyone club-related—old ladies, families, affiliates, and friends. But unless we recognise your face, you aren’t getting through the gate.”

“So,notstrangers.”

“Not to me.” Lamb smirked, and his cheeks tightened against mine. Hearing him talk and feeling his expressions against my skin felt a thousand times more intimate. “But you won’t recognise a lot of them.”

It was expected that he was familiar with many people as the vice president, though I was sure it was not all business-related. He attracted every eye in the room, and though people knew him well enough to be weary with their words, their bodies were a different matter entirely.

I wonder how many he has slept with here.

I scanned around the room, leaning a little further away from him before my eyes landed on the corner couches that had already become a sex dungeon by the sheer amount of skin on display. There were tattoos, glitter, and … I stared hard at the girl who sat reverse cowgirl on a brother’s lap, watching the small blurry blobs of colour shake and shimmer. “Are those tassels?”

“Are you interested?” Lamb purred, his head now cocked away enough to see the sour expression simmering behind the frames of my glasses. “I’m sure I can get my hands on some.”

“No,” I snapped, whipping my head away from them fast, trying to erase the burned image of the swaying tassels from my irises. Surely those hurt? Perhaps it was part of the lure. “Do you like that type of thing?”

“I like whatever you like,” Lamb dodged the question neatly, and if it had been any other man, I would assume he was saying it to make me feel better. But Lamb was enough of an oddball that it was likely an honest answer. It was as sincere as someone with little preference for anything could get.

“And what do I like?” I purred, pressing my head back into the side of his neck, letting my teeth brush along his skin the way he often did mine. My glasses bumped at the edge of his neck, and I was beginning to think that maybe they were not worth it.

Lamb pressed his hand now firmly against my back, pinning me up against his washboard abs and the firm denim of his jeans grinding against the thin black leggings I wore. They offered me far fewer layers of insulation, and as his crotch ground against mine, I could feel him against my clit.

“I can think of a few things,” Lamb growled, twisting his head to playfully run his tongue along the top of my ear. I melted at his touch, tingling at the vibrations of his throat against my lips. His pulse quickened and the thrum of it against my skin had my own joining the race.

The room felt hot, and I desired to strip my thin layers.

“Want to show them to me?” I challenged, pulling back my head to investigate the face of the man I had every intention of climbing if he did not pick me up in the next two seconds.

Until I saw his face.

Lamb’s attention had shifted, his gaze no longer lingered at my level but shot far into the distance.

I turned, followed his gaze, and through the myriad of people, I struggled to see what he was looking at until, for a moment, the room so happened to clear just enough for me to make out the unmistakably massive figure at the bar.

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