Page 63 of Mind Maze

He scoffs. “First of all, asshole, I didn’t know she was taken. And her body is bangin’, so I couldn’t tell she was pregnant.”

“What did you say to her?”

“Furthermore,” he says, voice rising, because apparently he loves to talk. “If she were my woman, I’d never leave her side. She’s fucking hot.”

It takes everything in me not to clock this dickhead in the jaw.

“I asked if she was an actress,” he replies slowly like I’m dumb as fuck. “She looks like one. Then I asked her if she wanted to have a quickie in the bathroom. I was mostly joking.”

He’s lucky we’re surrounded by an obnoxious amount of security. If I were anywhere else, I’d let my tightly controlled temper loose and fuck up his pretty face for the fun of it.

This guy is clearly not S.

He’s just another wolf prowling around my girl.

Back to square one.

Romy

Aman with familiar blue eyes walks over to me wearing a practiced smile. There’s something about him I think I’ve seen before. Is he another actor? I can’t believe James freaking Clayton just hit on me. The blush on my cheeks still burns hot.

“My,” the new man says, eyes twinkling, “you are quite popular around here.”

“People always want what they can’t have,” I say with a polite smile. “My boyfriend’s around here. I think they can sense it.”

He laughs. “Any chance I can take his place? Tell me that was a smoother pickup line than vampire boy’s.”

I can’t help but burst out laughing at his summation of James Clayton. He was the lead in a seven-season show on HBO calledBlood Boys of Boston. When he started, he played a high school athlete who has a run-in with a vampire, gets turned by said vampire, and then goes on to be the school’s star player with his new abilities. He gets this bright idea to turn his entire team into vampires, but he was the original vampire boy. It was a steamy, bloody, addictive show and I wasn’t the only girl with a crush on him. Half of the world, based on his TikTok following, was in love with him. Probably still is.

“I’ll admit,” I say with a real grin. “Your conversation skills are already leaps and bounds above his. I’m Romy.”

He shakes my hand. “Doc Junior.”

“Doc Junior? That’s not really your name.”

“Not legally, no,” he says with a wicked grin, “but it’s what I answer to.”

Another man comes to stand beside Doc Junior and playfully tries to mess up his friend’s golden, gelled hair. “I can confirm everyone at the facility calls him that. He’s a real doctor too, not just some actor on TV.”

“This guy,” Doc Junior says, “is Dr. Portman.”

Dr. Portman is about the same age, height, and build of Doc Junior. That’s where the similarities end. Dr. Portman has auburn hair and a bit of a scruffy beard that hides what must be an uncountable amount of freckles.

“Doctors. How respectable.”

Doc Junior elbows his friend. “Hear that? We’rerespectable.”

“Since when?” Dr. Portman tosses back with a laugh.

Both men stiffen and their amusement fades. When a shadow looms over me from behind, I know who it is without needing to see him. His delicious scent always gives him away. Caius hooks an arm around my waist and pulls me to him in an obvious show of possession. A thrill of heat shoots through me. I may not have wanted to run off to the bathroom with vampire boy, but I wouldn’t think twice about taking that trip with the frosty man behind me.

“You look familiar,” Caius says to Doc Junior. “Why?”

If Doc Junior is annoyed, he doesn’t let on. “Oh, come on. Don’t play coy, man.”

Caius is as serious as they come. He’s certainly not playing with this guy.

“Wow. Maybe brush up with Google next time you go to an event.” Doc Junior gestures over the crowd in a direction we haven’t ventured yet. “Prez is my dad.”

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