Page 19 of Haunted Love

I’m on the fucking edge. I need to get a grip.

Putting the plate down, I grab the next, furiously drying it as though it personally offended me.

Austin lets out a heavy sigh. “You were there last night, right?” he questions. “Didn’t you see her? You always check the logs. You must have seen her name.”

I shake my head. “Trust me, if I fucking saw her, I would have marched her ass right out of there,” I tell him, knowing damn well I’m lying. Morbid curiosity would have had me watching every fucking second, watching how she moved, how she liked it, and the way her face scrunched up when she came . . . and then, I probably would have jerked off in the bathroom like a fucking horny teenager. But Austin doesn’t need to know that. Just because physical lines have firmly been drawn doesn’t mean my mind hasn’t wandered once or twice. “Besides, I was only there for a few hours before heading to Scandal, and for those few hours that I was there . . . I wasn’t exactly catching up on my paperwork.”

“FUCK!”

Austin drops the plate back into the sink before clutching the side of the counter and glaring daggers at his sister outside. “I want her scrubbed off all of the security footage and banned from the guest list. If she shows up again, she’s to be turned away.”

“Already made a note to do it.”

“It’s gotta be you,” he says. “I don’t want your security team looking up that footage and watching her like that.”

Fuck. As curious as I am to see her like that, I know I shouldn’t, but my back is against the wall. He’s right, I’ll be dead and buried before I allow anyone else to see that footage of her. But there’s no denying it, seeing it for myself is going to cross boundaries I won’t be able to come back from. I won’t be able to look at her without remembering what I saw, and if I like it . . . well, fuck.

“Alright,” I finally agree.

Letting out a heavy breath, I glance back out the window, watching as Aspen makes her way across the pool and settles at the far side, hooking her arms over the waterfall edge and gazing out at the afternoon view as she sips her cocktail.

“You’ve gotta ask her about it,” Austin says after a moment.

“What?” I demand, my eyes going wide, horror filling my chest. “I’m not asking your fucking sister about what she did at my club.”

“No, not . . . I don’t want to know that shit,” he says in disgust. “I just need to know what she knows. Like if she knew where she was going or if that friend of hers sprung it on her and dragged her in before she got a chance to figure out what she was getting into.”

“Either way, you know my hostesses vet everyone who walks through the door. Whether it was her first time or not, she would have known exactly what she was walking into before entering the main club.”

He takes a shaky breath, looking as though he’s ready to fucking burst. “Just fucking ask her, okay?”

“Why me? She’s your sister. I don’t want to be asking her that shit.”

“And you think I do?” he throws back at me, gripping another plate in a chokehold. “But like you said, she’s my sister, and there are just some things a brother can’t talk to his little sister about, and her participation at an underground sex club is one of them. So, man the fuck up, Izaac. You’re taking point on this one.”

“Damn it,” I groan, hating how right he is. It has to be me.

I blow my cheeks out, not having the faintest idea how I’m supposed to broach this topic with Aspen. I make a point not to talk to her about anything real, specifically to avoid emotion entering the conversation. But now this? Asking about her sex life? That’s diving right into the deep end of a pool I know I’ll drown in.

I’m not ready for it, but the truth of the matter is, if she’s fucking around at my club, I need to know, and there are certain things she’ll need to know in order to feel comfortable there. I’m sure if she knew I owned Vixen, it would have been the last place she would have gone. But having said that, if participating at sex clubs is what she’s down for, then I’d prefer she spend her time at Vixen because I can personally guarantee her safety. All of our members and employees have background checks, and on top of that, they go through regular health screens to make sure no diseases are spread throughout my club. As for the other clubs scattered around the city, they don’t offer the same high standards.

I find myself watching her again as I silently dry the dishes, making a nice stack of clean plates beside me. We’re halfway through when the question that’s been bugging me all day slips out of my mouth. “Do you think something’s up with her?” I ask, the curiosity far too obvious in my tone, but thankfully for Austin’s sour mood, he doesn’t pick up on it.

“I haven’t noticed shit,” he says. “What are you talking about?”

I shrug my shoulders. “Don’t know. She’s just acting differently. You think maybe she’s seeing someone?”

“Right,” he scoffs. “Because she clearly loves telling me all her dirty little secrets.”

There’s a note in his tone, and as I glance toward him, I realize he’s hurt, and while I’m sure he was blindsided about finding that stamp on her wrist, she’s usually an open book, with him at least. They’ve always been close, but the idea of her seeing someone and not talking to him about it doesn’t sit well with him. Though, I can’t exactly blame her. Austin isn’t known for taking that kind of news very well. Perhaps she’s learned from previous experiences, or perhaps she just doesn’t care to splash her business all over the world for everyone to see.

I take the plate out of his hand. “Alright, if I talk to her about all of this shit, would you promise to chill out? It’s your mom’s birthday, and I don’t want you fucking it up for her.”

“Yeah, whatever,” he mutters under his breath before motioning toward all the ingredients Aspen left on the counter for her cocktail. “You wanna get her talking, then make her another one of those, and make it strong.”

Once all the dishes are washed and put away and Austin is sulking in his childhood bedroom, I take a shaky breath, feeling like a fucking pervert as I stride toward the pool with two cocktails in my hands.

What kind of asshole asks his best friend’s little sister about her experience at a sex club?

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