Page 6 of Sunrise (Monarch Club #3)

Vault

I need sleep, but more importantly, I need answers.

Dropping into my chair, I pop the top on an energy drink and guzzle the whole thing, then get to work. Clipping the video feed from last night, I go over it again and again, looking for anything that might tell me why Sophie was set off by that couple.

The man keeps his distance the entire time.

Sitting in a chair with a mask on, he barely moves, except to snap his fingers.

The woman looks nervous at first, but Sophie warms her up fast. This entire interaction barely lasts five minutes.

Sophie looks up at the camera a couple times, which sends heat spreading through my chest. She knows I watch.

I never not watch. Not only is it for her safety, it’s for my own purposes.

The only one I haven’t seen her with is Knox, for several reasons. Mostly because I haven’t been ready for what it’ll do to the demon that lives inside me.

But I love seeing this woman pleasure someone else.

She prefers women over men at the Monarch and when she does take on dominating a man, their pleasure is derived through heavy degradation and bondage.

Whips, leashes, being walked like a dog or stepped on, those kinks are easy for her to satisfy.

She loves it, I can tell, and I love that she’s happy.

She heals a part of me that’s remained damaged for a long fucking time.

There’s an art to Sophie’s machinations in the bedroom. It’s calculating and thoughtful, which I appreciate. When I asked her to be my partner, it came with a laundry list of hurdles I needed her to help me get over. She didn’t hesitate to say yes.

Sophie is an angel sent by the same god who hates me.

I’ll protect her, worship her, at all costs.

The clip plays on repeat, and never gives me a hint as to what happened last night.

Her scrambling for the panic button kills me.

Whenever she’s had trouble with a challenging sub, she looks at the camera and gives a signal so Dmitri or I can come running, because we’re the ones who monitor the most. I don’t know the last time she hit the panic button. Honestly, this might be the first time.

“What the fuck happened?” Rubbing my chin, I play the video again.

I’m at a loss here. Running through earlier footage, I follow this couple through the club from their initial registration and orientation, all the way to when Dmitri and one of our security staff barrels into the room and escorts them out.

The woman looks scared the whole time. The man?

He keeps his head down until he’s masked up at the beginning of orientation, and even when he’s booted out of the club.

I don’t like that, but the behavior isn’t necessarily a red flag.

We cater to the elite, and sometimes those rich fucks need practice to balls-up around here.

The masks offer anonymity to anyone, for any reason that is within the club rules.

He’s broken none of those rules. Rifling through the stack of membership applications, it takes me a while to find his. Ethan McGregor.

Oh yeah. I did his background check prior to the open house. Everything checked out with him just fine. Same for his partner, Meridith Ricci.

“Find anything?”

Knox’s voice startles me. “No.”

He calmly walks around my desk and places his hand on it while leaning in from behind me to stare at the monitors. Without being asked, I hit play and let him study the footage three times.

“I don’t get it.” Cracking the top to another energy drink, I take a heavy swig. My fucking eyes burn. And Knox smells good.

My head’s all over the goddamn place.

“Sometimes a trigger is tiny, Alex.” He straightens up and looks down at me. “She’s got demons too, you know.”

No. I don’t think I do. Does she tell him more than she tells me? Why am I jealous of that? Shaking my head to get those ridiculous thoughts out of it, I drink more of my liquid electricity.

“That shit’s going to kill you.” He pulls the can from my hand and sets it on the desk.

“We all gotta go sometime.” I take it back, but don’t drink it. I’ve got a pounding headache and feel sick as it is. “Why are you here?”

“We need to talk.”

“About?”

“Us.” He raises his eyebrow and glowers at me …

Knox sits next to me at my kitchen island while I frown at his algebra test. “Well, at least you got the bonus question right.”

“The teacher said I could try to fix my problems, and she’ll give me half points for any I get right.”

“Okay, we can work with that.” I slide the paper over to him and tap the first red marked question. “Remember what I told you about cosigns?”

“I don’t give a shit about cosigns.”

Great. He’s in a mood. I don’t have time for him to act like a little bitch. My mountain of homework is waiting for me, thanks to being transferred to a private school so I could be “challenged more”.

“What do you give a shit about, then?” Because he needs to pass this class.

“Us.”

I feel his gaze burning into the side of my head. Clicking the lead out of my mechanical pencil, I work on the first test question, keeping my numbers all neat and perfectly aligned because I’m basically a robot. I feel like one, most times. No emotion, only logic.

Except when it comes to Knox, Dmitri, and Ryker.

Solving for x, the answer is five. Filling out the equation and circling the final answer, I bump my knee with his and start on the next problem he got wrong.

“Are we going to talk about my birthday?”

“What about it?” I keep my leg up against his.

On purpose.

I push against him.

On purpose.

Knox arches his slitted eyebrow. “I kissed you.”

“I kissed you back.” I solve for x and y. X is 3. Y is z-2. I circle both. When I look up at him afterwards, I’m dizzy as if I just chugged another bottle of Wild Turkey.

“I can’t stop thinking about it.” He cringes. “Are you mad?”

“Why would I be mad?”

“Because I kissed you.”

“And… I kissed you back.” There’s no inflection in my tone, but I’m not a robot right now. I’m me. Scramble headed, heart pounding, sweaty palms me. The kid that’s had a crush on my best friend for way longer than I’ll say. The asshole that is willing to risk anything to have another kiss from him.

And I don’t think I want to stop there.

“You pushed me back.”

“I needed to breathe.” Not a lie. The fucker took my breath away when he pressed his mouth to mine.

Knox whispers, “What if I want to do it again?”

I drop back into my head and solve the next equation. X equals 7. My breathing turns rapid, and my cheeks burn. I keep my leg pressed against his. Then I balls-up and reach over to touch his thigh.

Hit my hand away.

Stop me before I ruin our friendship.

Knox grabs my hand and by the way his palm is damp like mine, I know he’s nervous too. Chest heaving as he tries to level out his breathing, there’s no denying that he’s turned on. His basketball shorts hide nothing. Neither do the khakis of my school uniform.

I lick my lips.

He watches.

We slowly move in and kiss. The instant we do, a fire consumes me that has my ass off the stool and on him in a blink. He grips the back of my head and shoves his tongue in my mouth. I’m floating. Flying. Exploding. Racing my hands up his back makes him kiss me harder.

Jesus, he groans.

I must be doing it right then, huh? It fucking feels good. His grip on my hair tightens, and I stroke his dick through his thin shorts next. He’s hard like me. Kissing like me. Why didn’t I do this sooner?

Oh my god . Fear slams into me and I pull back. “My parents are going to be home any minute.”

“Okay.” He smashes his mouth to mine again and reaches for my dick this time.

“Fuck, Vault.”

The front door suddenly opens, and I jump away, barely sitting on the stool while Knox staggers backwards, nearly tipping his over.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Hi, honey!” She carries in groceries. “How was school?”

“Good,” we both say together.

“Alex, do you mind grabbing the rest of the bags for me?”

“Yeah. Sure.” I hop down and hurry outside for fresh air, fixing myself while I’m out of sight. In a rush, I hook every stupid bag left in the trunk onto my arms and get back inside to Knox.

“I should probably get going,” he says, collecting his half-completed test.

Mom smiles at him. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay for dinner? We’re having chicken parm.”

“I’d love to, but I gotta help my pops with something tonight.”

I drop all the bags onto the counter and will him with my clusterfucked mind to stay. We can go into my room. Shut the door. I… I don’t want him to go.

“Well, be careful going home, sweetheart.”

“I will.” He flashes a smile I can’t read. “Bye.”

No, no, no, no! Don’t leave. Fuck!

The screen door slams shut behind him.

“Knox!” I yell out, shoving the door open with one foot already outside .

He halts in my driveway, his black bookbag slung over his shoulder, and he turns around. “Yeah?”

Now what? Shit. Ummm… “Wanna go on a midnight run tonight?”

The smile on his face goes a mile fucking wide. “Yeah. Definitely. ”

“What about us?” My hand trembles when I raise the can to my mouth and fake drink it. My heart’s beating so fast, it’s going to break through my ribs.

“I dropped Sophie off at her place.”

“Okay.” I’m failing to get the message he’s delivering.

“She’s taking a shower and running errands.”

I set my drink back down and he grabs my wrist, covering it with his big hand.

We both stare at each other and my mouth runs dry.

“I’m meeting her here tonight,” he says cautiously. “At nine.”

My throat tightens a little. “Okay.”

His bottom lip is fatter than the top. The urge to stand up and pull it between my teeth is strong.

“She wants you to be here.”

My brain cells fire off in quick succession as I calculate what that means. “ Here? ”

Knox leans over and balances one hand on my desk, by my hand, the other grips the back of my chair. Then he gets so close to me I can smell his toothpaste. “Right. Here .”

With that, he straightens up and leaves.