Page 57 of Tops
This woman wore a cream-colored dress accented in delicate black lace. She didn’t know about the nipple color trick for lipstick because there was no way her breasts were the same color as a firetruck. I pondered the image for a moment, deciding I liked the idea of her body with such an abnormality because she was perfect in every other way.
Her blonde hair fell in soft, gentle waves that defied gravity and humidity. It even looked soft to the touch when she moved a strand behind her ear while laughing at something one of the suits said. She didn’t have a hand on anyone, but I noticed she wore black gloves that came to her wrists.
I turned back to my drink, having decided I had gotten away with enough for now, and I didn’t need to press my luck any further. Slowly, melting blocks of ice clinked together, but all the swamp water was missing. I looked to Colten, hoping he could verify that I had drunk the entire thing.
“Ready to see the fun part of these parties?” He didn’t try to keep his voice quiet, but he wasn’t commanding me either.
I smiled and nodded in agreement. Hopefully, we would be able to find a desolate hallway so I would be able to speak gibberish just to get some words out. I didn’t think biting my tongue would be this challenging.
Colten got up from his seat, leaving his cup on the table. My hand slid off his thigh as he moved, and I temporarily felt exposed with our lack of contact. A room full of sharks had been an accurate description of where I was.
I hopped off my high seat before wincing as I thought through how unsophisticated I came across. Colten came over to me an instant later, extending the crook of his arm for me to wrap around. He led us away from the chatter of the pockets and into the foyer and its grand staircase.
Miniaturized marble pillars that matched the large ones of the pocket room served as vertical spindles, and a smooth flat piece of black stone ran across the top. The risers were made of the same black stone as the railing, with white steps. Something seemed to beckon me up the stairs, but it wasn’t Colten. He continued moving past the staircase, urging me to move my feet and keep up with him. I couldn’t help but turn my neck back as we passed by, looking into the shadows of the floor above. There wasn’t anything there, but it felt like I had accidentally locked gazes with something more powerful than a shark.
I pulled closer to Colten, looking at the floor rather than in the shadows of a stranger’s house. I better not be developing a curious streak and my newfound appetite for sex. Thinking about that reminded me of my underwear situation. I wondered if Tanner would be opposed to more fooling around on the way home.
Colten took me through a few hallways and then down a set of stairs. The lower we went, the darker it became. I started to hear the low thudding of bass before the air thickened and the smell of cigar smoke hit my nose.
The landing took us to a scene that reminded me of Tops. If Tops were located inside a private mansion of a guy that likes his women silent and docile. Lights played off the floating swirls of smoke while entirely naked women danced on stages all over the room. Large leather chairs were arranged on the sides of the stages, close enough to allow the men to reach out and touch whatever pleased them.
As I scanned the room, my eyes landed on Tanner, relaxing back in the middle of a large black sofa. His arms were extended wide across the top of it, discouraging anyone from sitting next to him. It didn’t seem to work on the two women sharing his lap. Both with their lips glued to his neck and their naked bodies, each straddling a thigh.
I felt as delicate as the preserved butterfly, while that same part of me shattered into a million pieces. They were the ones to declare exclusivity. If they had not promised it before taking it away from me, the sight of Tanner with two naked women grinding on top of him might not have crushed me. Our gazes locked, but this time I was the one who trapped him.
I really didn’t need this shit tonight.
A mixture of whole-body exhaustion and anger overcame me. Turning back to Colten, I didn’t care if I had permission to talk or not. He could fuck off for a while, too. He was the one that brought me here, likely knowing what I would see.
“Where’s the bathroom?” My hand rested on my hip while my clutch hung from my wrist. Rolling my eyes would have crossed the petty line, but I managed to hold it back. I could be a real bitch when I was cornered, the moment my opossum instinct turned into a desperate panic to live.
Colten looked like he really didn’t want to give me the answer to my question, but others were starting to notice. The women spoke more freely in this part of the mansion, but they certainly didn’t order the men around or cock an attitude.
Everyone in this room failed to understand; I was too pissed to care.
I looked back to Tanner; he hadn’t moved an inch since I arrived. The women were running their hands all over his clothed body. I watched a hand with red fingernails trail between his legs and squeeze.
“Yeah, fuck this,” I said, not even bothering to look to Colten for an excuse. I was worth more than any lawyered-up answer I might be lucky to receive. Holding the front of my dress, I hurried up the steps, trusting my feet to carry me out of this nightmare.
My chest physically ached in a way it hadn’t since my father died. Those stupid fucking boys. I was fine with the idea of not exclusive casual sex, but Tanner had been the one to insist. If this was some form of sick punishment for not allowing him to fuck me in the car, then we were not on the same page.
The cool night air hit me in the face as I somehow managed to make it out the front door without getting lost. There was no one else outside with me, and I took in a few deep breaths before looking around to calculate my options. My phone was in my backpack, which was in the car’s trunk, and my underwear. I was trying not to get sniped in the back of my head now that I told my security guards to fuck off.
I refused to die without at least some underwear on.
Heading in the direction of where the car was parked, my mind imagined Nik capitalizing on the situation and bringing the class out to investigate my murder. They wouldn’t bother removing my body from the scene because my killer couldn’t be brought to justice. I attracted a bunch of twisted lying assholes and a hitman that probably drank shots of whiskey with death himself.
Maybe dating wasn’t for me. This hadn’t even been dating, and it still lasted about as long as a Hollywood wedding. My feet had gotten as close as they could manage, and I looked up to see a sea of expensive cars. I knew that I was looking for a black car with tinted windows.
I turned in circles, hoping something would jump out as being familiar, but operating under only the moonlight made it difficult for anything to stand out. A flash of light caught my attention, and I stared in the direction, frozen in place like a deer caught in a headlight. My heart pounded in my head loudly against the otherwise silent night. The noise inside the mansion didn’t even make it past the front door, meaning that no one inside would be able to hear me either.
A small red dot was glowing back at me from the patch of darkness that had flickered in light moments before. All the hairs on my arms stood on end. The sensation of being watched filled me, making me want to look over my shoulder. But the danger wasn’t behind me; it was looking directly at me with one burning eye from hell. My mind only took a moment to shuffle my options and decide Tanner and I needed to sit down and talk seriously after he got me out of here and safely back in Bottoms.
I turned my back on the danger while the instinct to flee appeared. People usually considered themselves fight-or-flight people, but we all cycled through them depending on the situation. My anxiety disorder made me far more intimate with the sensations because I lived in a revolving door of heightened awareness.
I crashed into a hard body and didn’t even have time to scream before strong arms wrapped around me, stifling my words, and I yelled into the hard planes of a man’s chest. His hands fumbled to keep me pressed tight enough to muffle my sounds while fingers blindly searched for my mouth. My teeth sunk into salty flesh as my captor misjudged where his hand needed to be. He ripped free from my mouth and smacked my cheek with a sharp crack.
I could smell sour milk as he pressed his palm over my mouth and secured an arm across my back. My legs kicked out wildly, but I kept getting tangled in the floating fabric of my dress. My struggle failed to faze him, and he easily lifted me off the ground. He started to walk with me like I was nothing more than a wiggly rabbit.
