Nero (Alliance #1)

The hurt coiled through my body starts to vibrate with anger, and I have to focus on the letters as I type out my reply.

Me: We don’t know each other.

I shove my phone back into my pocket.

You know what, this is good. I’d much rather be mad than sad.

My phone vibrates once more. And I manage to ignore it for a whole ten seconds before I take it out again.

Unknown: I know what your virgin blood tastes like when it’s painted across my cock. We know each other.

Heat flares across my cheeks and I shove the phone back into my pocket.

I cannot believe he just said that.

And I refuse to admit that my thighs clenched when I read it.

Good news––I didn’t make it all up in my head, Nero is a real man, and we really did have sex.

Bad news––he’s a dick.

The front door opens again, giving me a distraction.

“Hey, Pay!” Carlton lifts one wiry arm as he walks the short distance to the register.

My heart does a quick succession of double beats. This feels bad.

“Hi, Carlton.” I try to greet him as normally as possible, even though my smile feels fake.

I don’t know why having him in the same room as Nero fills me with this sense of anxiety, but it does. It’s like watching one of those nature videos where the unsuspecting gazelle stands grazing in the field, unaware of the lion prowling in the grass behind him.

Carlton isn’t even a gazelle with super speed on his side though, he’s just a nice guy. The type of nice guy that would get chewed up and spit out by a man like Nero.

Unbidden, my mind conjures up an image of what it would’ve been like to give my virginity to Carlton.

It would’ve been sweet. And slow. A night probably filled with flowers and maybe a nice dinner. Probably wouldn’t have been messy and hard.

He wouldn’t have sat in the dark corner of my room while I slept.

He wouldn’t havetastedme like Nero did.

It would’ve been so different. And not at all what I wanted.

“Everything okay?” Carlton asks, breaking my daydream.

I nod. “Yeah, it’s just, uh, been a day.”

“I hear that. But…” He pauses, raising his brows conspiratorially. “I have something that might make your day better.”

“Oh yeah?” I try to stay focused on Carlton. Trying so hard not to look past his shoulder, but my eyes are drawn over, to see if Nero notices that someone is talking to me.

Nero definitely notices, because he’s glaring at the back of Carlton’s head.

“Yeah!” Carlton replies. “Because…” He uses his two pointer fingers to do a little drumroll on the countertop. “We got a gig opening for a band tonight! Like a real band! In a real venue!”

My mouth pulls into the first genuine smile of the day. “Really? That’s so cool!”

“Right!?” Carlton pulls his phone out of his back pocket. “So I need your number, then I can send you a ticket.”