Page 40

Claire
They’re having the time of their lives. Drinking and laughing. Hanging out of the moon-roof. Flashing pedestrians (now I understand why Bri insisted on strapless dresses). Horns are honking. People are yelling and howling at them from passing cars. I’m almost certain we’re going to get pulled over.
“Claire.”
Jaxon’s voice over the intercom barely held above a whisper.
“Answer me, Claire.” It irritates me, the way he thinks he can tell me what to do. Almost as much as it turns me on. What irritates me the most is that after five years, he still has that kind of power over me.
I jab the call button with my finger. “What?”
“I need to talk to you. I—”
Just then, Helena drops down onto the seat they’re all standing on. “Hey, Driver,” she says loudly, jerking her top up over her exposed breasts.
I can practically hear Jaxon sigh. “Yes, ma’am?”
She grins at me and winks. “We want to go to Nina’s.”
As soon as she says it, I feel my face catch fire. Nina’s is a sex shop downtown. Half urban legend, half rite of passage, it’s the place every kid in Chicago talked about being old enough to get into. When you turned twenty-one, you went drinking. When you turned eighteen, you went to Nina’s.
I’ve never been.
“I’m sorry, but it’s not on the itinerary,” Jaxon says, his tone making his polite refusal sound like fuck no.
“Don’t be that way,” Helena shoots me a sly, watch me work kind of smile. “We want to put on a lingerie show for you.”
She winks at me, and I think about jamming my thumb in her eye socket. The only thing that stops me is the fact that she’d probably look sexy with an eye-patch.
“An unscheduled stop is against the rules...” Jaxon’s tone purrs over the speakers. “But I suppose we can make an exception.”