Page 71 of Bully

Do you want me to repeat it all for you, or did you hear enough?

Pack your shit, we’re going to Vegas.

Romance? Who is she? Not with Tamen. He was all whiplash and windburn from his mood swings.

Throwing my legs over the side of the bed so I wouldn’t be tempted to fall back asleep before my Pilates class across town, I replied.

I don’t take orders, asshole. I give them. Try again.

Unblocking Tamen had been a necessity to run Prism in tandem, but I sometimes missed making him work for access to me. His reply came back too fast to build up the fun of the game.

Sloane, you get on my last bloody nerve sometimes.

I replied and got out of bed, heading into my closet.

The feeling is mutual Bully, now say please.

As much as he tried to pretend he was a big boring pain in the ass, Tamen actually enjoyed sparring with me like this. In a way, I think it made him feel like he could be nicer to me in person if he was a jerk digitally.

I stumbled through my clothing options, trying to decide on my outfit when my phone went off again, this time signaling a different notification. This time, it was an e-payment made by my very terrible, bully of a boss.

I’ll pick you up at ten. + $1000.00

His text reply came in right after that.

See you in an hour, Rainbow.

Well shit, since he asked me so nicely. Truth be told, I didn’t want to go to Pilates, anyway. And I was always down to go to Vegas, it was the only place on earth that made me feel slightly normal compared to the others in the crowd. Sin City was the place that the weirdos and the outcasts went to feel a sense of acceptance.

And the dry heat was my personal favorite.

Abandoning workout clothes, I did what any sane person did when their insane fuck buddy offered a trans-continental trip up on a random Tuesday morning.

I exfoliated, duh.

It was Vegas, after all, with Tamen. I wasn’t planning on staying clothed for much of the trip if I could help it.

“Explain to me exactly what we’re doing. You didn’t even tell me how long we’re going for.” I chatted as we soared through the sky, somewhere over the Midwest.

“We’re taking a trip.” Tamen replied, barely glancing up from his phone. “I don’t have our return flight booked yet, but a few days.”

I glared at him, which he didn’t see, because of the attention whore his phone was being at the moment, and pursed my lips, looking back out the window to my right. We were flying in a private jet, and while it was not my first time on a luxurious flight like this, it was my first time as an actual client.

Usually, I was the entertainment for the flight, or at the very least, for wherever we were flying to.

The flight attendant came back to our seats, handing me another strawberry mojito and topping off Tamen’s club soda. She was efficient and didn’t seem bothered by the fact that she was being actively ignored by Tamen for going on the fourth hour straight.

Well, that made one of us, I was over it, however.

“Do you think she ever goes the extra mile to make her clients happy?” I asked, staring at the way her tight waist almost sat on top of her flared hips as she walked away. She’d look divine in a white garter belt set that accentuated the stark difference between the two parts of her body.

“I’m sure she’s excellent at her job.” Tamen replied absently. Again.

“So, if I asked her to help me join the mile high club, she’d do it?” I didn’t look at him on purpose, but I watched his head snap up from his screen, finally, out of my peripheral. We were facing each other, though it was probably the first time he had looked at me all flight.

“Excuse me?” He cautioned, with a low baritone in his voice.

“You know,” I shrugged, still staring at where she disappeared into the galley between the cabin and the cockpit. “Do you think she’d let me kill some time until we land?” Finally, I glanced at him briefly, “Or maybe one of the captains could step away. Does it really take two people to fly the jet? That’s just an in case of emergency kind of thing, isn’t it?”