SIX (9 page)

“Come in,” his deep baritone penetrates the door.

Wiping my sweaty palms down my jeans, I give myself an mental pep talk.

I don’t know why he makes me feel this way.

Actually, that’s a lie.

His dark, brooding, and outrageously beautiful presence is why I feel this way.

Pushing open the door, I take two steps inside and almost fall over.

Standing at the end of the hall is a very naked Six.

Turning too quickly to give him some privacy and me some sanity, my head collides with the open door behind me.

“Crap!” I yelp, bringing my hand up to rub the dent now in my forehead.

“Letting yourself into my homes is just a thing you do now?” he asks from behind me.

There’s no amusement in his tone, so I don’t know whether he’s actually asking me or making a statement.

I stay where I am and keep my head down, my cheeks on fire and tongue feeling too big for my mouth.

I just want to roll it out like one of those cartoons and lick every exposed inch of his skin.

God, now I’m one of those people who would get fired for sexual harassment—no, wait, he said ‘come in’ knowing he was nude! He’s trying to embarrass me, or turn me on—he did this on purpose.

“You told me to come in.” I turn, shaking off my awkwardness.

He now has jeans on and is staring at me with a narrowed gaze.

I walk toward him, showing all the composure I don’t feel on the inside—he doesn’t need to know what he does to my inner slut.

Standing two feet from him, I square my shoulders, my face controlled.

“I said I was coming,” he informs me, and my façade crumbles.

My eyes widen and my bottom lip parts from my top, leaving my mouth agape as heat colors my cheeks.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry!” I turn to rush back to the door, not wanting to look like a rude, over-confident liberty-taker.

Warmth spreads up my arm when his palm closes around my wrist, holding me in place.

“It’s fine. Stay now, you’re already here.” Releasing me from his grip, I look to the spot he held me and try not to act like a schoolgirl being noticed by her crush.

My eyes dart around the room, trying to look anywhere but at him, and I notice the smell and mess for the first time.

It smells like whisky and dirty sex.

Clothes are scattered over the floor and empty glasses pollute the coffee table that has been pushed up against the couch we are standing next to.

Without thinking, I reach down and pick up a long purple object from the couch shaped like a cock at both ends.

It happens so fast, I can’t stop myself or turn back time.

My eyes are now glued open, staring down at a double-ended dildo in my hand like it’s a rare stone or some shit.

Footsteps sound from the stairway and two more naked people join Six.

A female snakes her arm around Six’s waist as a male, stark naked with his cock just swinging, stops next to him.

“You didn’t tell us you had someone else joining us.

We would have waited,” the man croons, approaching me.

My feet shuffle back automatically.

Shaking my head no and swinging the stupid, rubber cock in my hand at the same time causes him to snigger and reach for it.

“That’s mine,” he tells me, taking the dildo.

The woman leaves Six’s side and slithers up to the guy in front of me, curling around him like a serpent.

“Actually, it’s ours,” she groans, biting her lower lip before taking the guys lip into her mouth, sucking and nibbling before pushing her tongue through the gap he makes for her.

My nose scrunches at their nauseating display.
She’s going to devour him if he’s not careful.

“Guys, this is Misty, she works for me. Now, get dressed and see yourselves out.

I need to deal with this and then sleep.”

Deal with this?
My insides churn at his description of me. Damn, why did he have to be home?

“Maybe next time?” the guy asks with a chin lift in my direction.

“I’m tired,” Six states, a warning in his tone.

“We tired him out—or should I say, he tired us out.” The girl smirks, taking the purple toy and stroking it before giggling and running around to collect their clothes. Looking down at the hand I used to pick that thing up, I cringe.
Gross.

I follow Six into his kitchen.

His guests left and he’s now peeling an apple with a small kitchen knife and putting slices into his mouth while studying me with a look I can’t make out.

His muscle flex and glisten with each movement and although I know he’s covered in the sweat of other people’s sex, I can’t help the way my panties dampen at the sight of him.

“Do you want to wash that?”

“Huh?” I ask, staring at a drip making its way down the side of his neck.

He points the knife, gesturing to the hand I’m holding out in front of me like it’s on fire. There’s a hint of dare in his eyes.

He thinks I’m prudish, but is it prudish to want to wash off someone else’s vagina from your hand? I decide to be forward and try to make him as uncomfortable as he makes me on these occasions.

I shrug and wipe my hand down my jeans.

“Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had vagina sweat on my hand.”
Cringe!
That sounded so much sexier and better in my head.

He nods and I blush…again.

“What about a man’s ass?”

“What?”

“The toy you picked up—she uses it on him, not the other way around.” He slips another slice of apple into his mouth and watches as my face contorts into a grimace before I dodge toward the sink.

“You want some food? I’m going to barbeque some meat.”

I can’t think about eating now—not with the juices from a man’s ass fresh on my fingers.

“I thought you were tired?” I mutter, pouring more soap into my palm.

“Tired of them. What did you want to talk about?” He throws a towel at me as I turn off the faucet.

Grabbing packs of meat from the fridge, he saunters through the house and out to the backyard.

“How do you take your meat?” he asks, firing up the grill and putting steak slabs on the rack.

Deep and hard!
, my mind screams, but I don’t have the balls to say something so crude to him.

Besides, it won’t affect him and he’ll just return it with something that will affect me.

“Bloody.” I nod instead.

He grins at me and it’s heart-stopping.

Damn, how can he be that pretty yet raw all at the same time?

“A girl after my own heart. If I had one.” He flashes those straight, white teeth again, raising and dropping both brows in jest.

I liked this side of him.

He appeared young, carefree, but I know how untrue that is.

He has chaos inside him and nightmares plague him, haunting his waking hours.

“So, threesome, huh?” I pipe up, shocking us both.

“Sex is just warm bodies and slapping skin, Misty.

It’s a carnal desire we need to sate in order to function.”

I must not be functioning right then since I’m not getting any.

“Do you not see it as a sacred act between people who love each other?”

Lines mar his forehead as his eyes pin me with a look I can’t decipher.

“Love is more than sex.” I try to hide my surprise, but my mouth drops open and my eyes grow wide.

“You look like a sex doll.”

“What?”

“Just then, when I shocked you, you looked like a sex doll.” He mimics my look and a laugh erupts out of me.

Six is well over six-foot, covered in tattoos, and thick everywhere, seeing him pull that face is the funniest thing I’ve ever witnessed.

“Can I ask you something else?” I query, already battling with myself over whether I should ask him.

It’s not really my business and may be something people shouldn’t ask their boss. He just stares at me, so I take that as a yes.

“Do you prefer men or women?” Swallowing the nerves that have now taken me hostage, I stand there as still as a statue.

I shouldn’t have asked. I’m so fired.

He dumps the slab of steak on to a plate and hands it to me, which I take with a shaky hand.

“It depends on my mood,” he grunts out.

Lifting his beer to his lips, he gestures for me to take a seat.

I slide my ass onto the cold wooden frame, regaining my stability.

“Have you ever seen a person’s soul instead of their gender or looks?”

I chew the piece of meat I shoved into my mouth as quickly and ladylike as possible before answering. “Sure, I’d like to think so.”

“Well, that’s how I like to see people—not for their gender, but their inner person. Don’t get me wrong, I like to fuck.

It fills a void, and I know that’s fucked up, but I’ve earned my fucked up title, so long as I don’t hurt anyone in the process…” he takes another swig of his drink and then tips it toward me, “unless someone asks to be hurt.” He grins and it’s sinister.

“Do you have any rice or potatoes?” I’m being forward, because my stomach aches with hunger.

I love meat, but it needs to be with something.

We look like cavemen chewing huge planks of meat without any salad at least. Pointing to the house, he smirks. “Knock yourself out.”

Rummaging through his cupboards, I’m surprised to find an array of spices, packets of pasta, rice, and risotto.

I grab the ingredients for a quick pasta salad when the hairs on the back of my neck lift as Six’s body brushes past mine.

“It’s gotten cold out, so I brought the food inside.”

My eyes flick to the clock and then him.

“It’s two a.m., maybe I should get going?” I pose it as a question, but I’m already putting down the tongs I was tossing the salad with.

His hand comes over mine. “Fuck that. Let’s eat and you can tell me what you needed to.” Removing his hand as quickly as he put it there and plonking his ass onto a kitchen stool, he picks out pieces of pepper from the salad and shoves them in his mouth.

My heart beats so fast, I can feel the pulse ticking on my temple.

I serve up some pasta and offer him a fork, which he accepts.

“So, when my dad died, he left some debt,” I say, horrified I’m sharing this information with another human being—and that I have to.

Guilt about how bad things got with Dad always ate away at me.

I tried everything to keep the books right, but with the drinking and gambling came debts too big for any kind of successful business to get over.

“You need money?” he inquires, like it’s water.

“No, I wouldn’t ask you for money,” I say, a little offended, though I don’t really have a right to be.

I was here to ask for something from him, but I didn’t expect it for free.

“When the debts got cleared, they took everything, including the house.” I lower my eyes.

“Wait, so where have you been living?” I can feel all his attention on me.

Lifting my eyes, his body is rigid, waiting for an answer.

“The motel.” I shrug my shoulders, still unable to look him in the eyes.

“You’ve been staying in a motel this whole time? Did the others know this?” By others, I’m assuming he means Parker and Lucky.

“No, and I’d appreciate your digression.”

I take a quick peek at his hands and notice he stopped eating.

“The apartment above the bar, I was hoping you would consider renting it to me?” I chirp, cheer in my tone, but not in the stiffness of my body.

I can feel his eyes on me even though I can’t actually see them.

“Take the apartment. It can be a work perk.”

“I don’t take handouts,” I quickly state.

“It’s not a hand out, it’s a work perk. I can respect you don’t want anything for free, and this won’t be.

You’ll be doing me a favor, actually.

You can be there to let the delivery men in.

I hate going to the bar that early in the morning.”

Feeling lighter, I can’t keep the smile from bursting onto my face.

“Thank you.”

“Sure. It’s late, though, and I’m done with this.”

He pushes his plate away from him.

“You can crash here if you’d like—on the sofa,” he quickly adds.

When my eyes dart through the alcove to the living room where the sex sofa is, he scrunches his nose.

“Or there are spare rooms.”

“Could I borrow a shirt to sleep in?”

He roams his eyes up and down my body as if I’m standing here naked, then jumps from the stool, strides out of the kitchen, and returns throwing a set of keys on the counter.

“Probably better if you just go back to the apartment.” Standing with his hands on his hips, seeming lost in thought, he nods his head and leaves me in his kitchen, speechless.