Page 23 of Bully

“What are you going to do?” I chuckled, taking another swig. “Kick me out? Black List me? Stick a poster on your door that says I’m not allowed to come back? Fuck off.”

“Call the police.” He stage whispered to someone, and that was the final straw.

“Ah yes!” I turned to him, raising my voice again. “Call the police to escort the trash that is already leaving, out. How fucking efficient of you.” Flying the bird at him and turning back toward the exit, I made awkward eye contact with a man that fucked a girl at the Den every single week across the restaurant.

Well, when I say fucked, I mean he hired a girl to meet him in a bedroom, tie him down and fuck his ass with a strap on the size of an elephant’s dick. The woman he was dining with sneered my way as I neared their table and I—saw red. “Your husband hires prostitutes at The Vixen’s Den to fuck him like a little bitch.” I sneered on my way, drawing a choking gasp from the man. I pointed out another John across the way and yelled out for everyone else to hear now that the entire restaurant was silent from my first outburst. “This man hires prostitutes young enough to be his granddaughter and makes them cry when he sleeps with them.” Gasps echoed out around the space while I turned and pointed one last one out, “And he likes to be whipped while he wears high heels.” I stopped at the entrance to the foyer and took a dramatic bow, holding my purse and my bottle of wine up in the air. “Have a wonderful evening!”

The man-child server waited by the door for me and shakily handed me my card back as I blew past him. “Do you—” He stammered, following me out onto the street, “Do you work at Vixen’s?” He asked in a hushed tone.

Rolling my eyes, I turned sharply on him. “I work at Prism.” With a sharp crack of disdain, I rocked the bottle to my lips, the liquid’s bitter taste a fleeting comfort. “And someday I’m going to fucking own it.”

“Wow.” He breathed, “Would it be okay if I—”

I cut him off and turned away toward the busy street where my hired car was no longer parked, obviously. “Don’t you dare show up there and request me.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Fuck this place and everyone in it!” I yelled, raising both fists into the air as I walked down the dark sidewalk in the chilly evening air.

And fuck Tamen Bryce for being a weak man who needed to make me feel small, to make himself feel bigger. I’d show him just how pathetically small he really was.

Chapter 11 – Tamen

“That’smygirl.”Igave her mocking praise, earning a sloppy, wet kiss. Normally I’d cringe at the sensation, but for her, I endured. She was the only one who got away with making a mess of me. “Who’s your favorite man in the whole world?”

“Don’t even fucking try it.” Maddox glared at me over the top of his beer bottle as I swayed with his daughter in my arms. “I mean it.”

I rolled my eyes at him and turned us away from his angry glare. The man couldn’t take a fucking joke to save his life.

Rory squealed in my arms and babbled obnoxiously as I walked around the hippy restaurant we were at, some place Liv and Peyton picked out to celebrate Maddox’s birthday. I wasn’t even going to show up, even though Peyton had threatened violence against me if I didn’t come to the place in the city for dinner. It wasn’t very often that everyone came into the city anymore, and it was expected since I lived in the city now that I would make an appearance.

Which was exactly why I hadn’t planned to show up. Simply out of spite.

But then Sloane had gotten into my head and fucked around in there enough to leave me needing a distraction, and Rory’s big goofy toddler personality was exactly where I’d find that.

Her little brother, Asher, was asleep in Liv’s arms, completely oblivious to the noise and chaos of the trendy place going on around him. I had little hope for him ever liking me, like Rory did. The kid came out looking exactly like Maddox, and I was guessing his personality would match his grumpy old dad’s.

“So,” Peyton interrupted, drawing me back into the group where they all sat around a low informal dinner table as we waited for our meals, “How’s Prism coming along?”

I squinted my eyes at her, as everyone else seized the opportunity to have an interest in the topic and stared at me expectantly. It was a trap, because Liv and Peyton hated that I was opening a sex club, a fact they made known every single time I came around. Which was why I didn’t come around much anymore.

“Yeah,” Dane leaned back, crossing one ankle over his knee as he put his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “I’ve heard you have a grand opening scheduled for two weeks from now.”

“It’s fine.” I shifted Rory in my arms.

“That’s all we get?” Peyton huffed.

“Why would I tell you more than that? You’ll just yell and nag at me about it.” I scoffed.

She huffed a breath, and I rolled my eyes.

Rory leaned over my shoulder to look back out the big window, looking out over the street behind me, and threw her arms into the air excitedly as she wiggled to get down. I lowered her to the ground, completely sure that she’d throw herself to the floor to get whatever she wanted outside and, as expected, she tottered around me and slapped her little palms against the window.

“Bow!” Rory cheered, “Rainbow!”

Liv blushed embarrassedly, “Oh god, she likes that woman’s rainbow hair. Go get her before she breaks through the glass.”

My blood ran cold as I turned around and found a pair of molten lava eyes aimed directly at me from the other side of the window.

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