Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 299

A younger man with shaggy brown hair sat in the chair across the coffee table, talking to him animatedly. He wore a simple pair of shorts and a t-shirt, but I didn’t pay much more attention to him as I was immediately drawn to the several lines of white powder spread across the glass surface of the coffee table. A few straws were strewn around a few empty plates of bones, remnants of chicken wings, ribs, and a half-eaten burger.

I noticed another bikini top draped over the back of the couch and found a couple near a hallway. The man had a girl pressed against the wall with his tongue in her mouth; her bare tits were rubbing against his chest as she had her fingers tucked into the back of his pants, clearly kneading his ass. Five guys on the other side of the room were sitting around a table; two appeared to be in a deep discussion over something as they held cards in their hands. Two of Chloe’s men were standing in the room, taking in everything with mild interest.

“What is all this?” I asked, staring around the room.

“A party,” Chloe said.

“Eyyyyyy!” the bald man with the woman in his lap shouted, drawing my attention. He pointed and called out to me again, “You’re the guy!”

He seemed a little off, so I glanced around the room to make sure there was no one else he could have possibly been talking about and then said, “You talking to me?”

“Yeah! You! You’re the new… guy! Man… you’ve been all over the TV!” He looked back at the man he’d been talking to from across the table and said, “Yo! This guy’s the new guy! Fuck. What’s his name!?”

The shaggy-haired man glanced at me and gave me a brief once-over before leaning away from us and whistling. “Shit… I could’ve told you if you hadn’t asked me. That’s… uh… shit! I can’t remember. That’s T’s brother, right?”

“Yeah! That’s right! Yo! New guy!” Baldy said, leaning forward as he placed a hand on one of the breasts of the girl passed out on his couch. She immediately began to stir and moan. “You want some?” He waved his hand over the table where the drugs were laid out. “Bring some of those fine honnies, too!”

I was reminded of the last time I’d seen white powder like that and looked at Bobbi. She held her bottom lip between her teeth as she stared longingly at the lines of coke running across the table’s glass surface. Her fingers were interlocked with each other in front of her, and she was fidgeting with them. Despite having not had access to the stuff for the last few weeks, it only took one look at the drugs to stir the monstrous cravings within her.

“Helen,” I said. “Why don’t you take Bobbi somewhere else?”

“Come on, pet. We both could use a bathroom,” Helen murmured, not hesitating to slip her arm around Bobbi and guide her little submissive down the nearby hallway, trailed by one of my security guards. Bobbi didn’t fight against Helen, but she did stare over her shoulder at the drugs openly displayed for the world to see. That look of desire in her eyes was palpable, and I knew that if given half the chance, she would indulge in some of her old habits, and I didn’t want that for her.

“Aw… why’d you make ’em leave?” Baldy asked as he and Shaggy both leaned over the coffee table. The movement disturbed the tall girl, and she pulled her head off the lap she’d been resting in, slowly sitting up and stretching as she looked around the room at the newcomers. Her dark blue eyes focused on me as much as they could.

“Who’s that?” she asked.

As she dropped her arms from her stretch, one of the straps of her bikini slid down her shoulder, and the small strip of fabric slipped, exposing tiny pale pink nipples surrounded by small areola. My eyes immediately tracked to the exposed flesh, and I unconsciously licked my lips. Bobbi had her drug, and I had mine. Fortunately, I had a little more self-control than my submissive—barely.

“He’s the one all over the news,” Shaggy said. “It’s—”

“Oh! That’s his brother!” she said, suddenly going from mildly interested to very interested. Unaware that she was partially exposed, she stood up to her full height. She had to be over six feet, which made her taller than even Emily… possibly equal in height to me. Her pale legs were long and coltish as she sidled up to me, so close that I could smell the old chlorine and something slightly medicinal on her. She gave me a smile meant to be seductive but was a little off, thanks to whatever she was on. I had to admit, though… she was cute as hell.

“Hi,” she said. “I’m Wendy.”

“Hi, Wendy,” I said, cataloging that away. I might have been very interested in getting to know her in another setting, but I couldn’t afford the distraction right now. Besides, she didn’t look like she was all there right now. “I’m Marcus,” I said, my tone a little flirty despite my decision.

“Seriously?” Emily said, looking at me.

“Yeah… she looks like she needs a doctor more than some dick,” Erin muttered.

“Don’t shame Marcus,” Natashya said. “She’s lovely… even when she is that color.”

Her eyes seemed to take on a bit more life, and she started to open her mouth to say something… Then, her complexion took on a light shade of green. She clamped her mouth shut, and the attempt at seduction vanished, replaced by a look of extreme discomfort.

“‘Scuse me,” she muttered and bolted down the hall where the two were making out.

“Poor thing,” Natashya said, watching the tall, slender girl make her escape.

The two on the couch cracked up laughing, and Baldy hunched over the coffee table to do another line. “Don’t worry about her. She just doesn’t know how to hold her drugs yet.” He leaned into the back of his couch and inhaled deeply, his eyes closed. “Want a bump?”

“Thanks,” I said as I approached the coffee table, eyeing the white powder. “I appreciate the invite, but I’ll pass this time.”

“Cool,” Baldy said. “More for us,” he said with a wide smile.

“Knock yourselves out,” I said as I noticed a man rounding the corner of the door leading to the outdoor patio. He had a plate piled high with various ***********ions of meat, stood about 5’9” tall, with lean muscle and angular features, and was good-looking enough to be an actor. His nose was sharp and hawkish; he had a bold chin, high cheekbones, and damp hair slicked back with strands falling just above his eyes. He spotted me and immediately broke out into a grin.

“You’ve got to be him. Marcus, right?” He asked, approaching us.

“Yeah,” I said cautiously. “Quentin?”

His eyes never leaving me, he set the plate down on the coffee table, then rounded it and approached me, extending his hand in greeting. “I hear we’re brothers.”

I stared down at his hand, a little thrown off by this whole scenario—the drugs, music, and the presence of people I didn’t know ingesting God knew how many different inebriants. Thanks to movies and my experience with Bobbi’s dealer, Candice, I expected people who were emaciated, with bad teeth and other health problems to attack us or get aggressive about taking drugs.

What I hadn’t expected was for the people to be relatively good-looking and the place to be so clean. Yeah, there was some trash on the floor, the table was covered in drugs, and the smell of marijuana hung in the air, but other than that, the place appeared to be intact. All the people here were clean-cut, looked like they went to the gym several times a week, and would have fit perfectly in any high-end office job in the city. I guess drugs didn’t take as much of a toll on a person when they could afford to stave off the consequences.

I shook it, realizing I’d gone too long without taking Quentin’s hand, and it probably seemed rude. His grip was firm but not to the point where it hurt; he seemed to know just how much strength to apply without coming off as a total jerk, and I matched his firmness. “Marcus,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “I know who you are. You’ve been all over the news. Just this morning, someone caught you outside Helena’s having brunch.”

I felt the blood drain from my face as I realized that meant someone caught me and Danni out and about. I hadn’t thought much about it. The rabid photographers had started to die down a bit, and my security team was pretty good at keeping my location from becoming common knowledge. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean some random with a cell phone still couldn’t get a decent picture of me and sell it for a quick buck. Hopefully, Danni hadn’t seen it yet.

I glanced at Erin. “Don’t worry,” she said. “She’s seen it, and we’re handling it.”

Fuck.

“Yeah. Keeping a low profile’s been a bitch,” I said, turning my attention back to my brother. Was he my older brother? And Chandler had mentioned twins. “How old—”

“Fucktard!” one of the guys at the small table shouted and kicked it so hard that pieces flew through the air and rained on the hardwood floors. Chloe whipped around, her hand disappearing under the light jacket she wore as she eyed the man who had kicked the table. “You told me you didn’t have sheep when I asked!”

“Why the fuck did you do that!?” one of the other men shouted, standing up to look his friend in the eye. “You fucked up the board!”

“I don’t give a fuck!” the angry man shouted back. “You always do this! You—”

“Hey!” Quentin called out, glaring at the two. “It’s a fucking game! Go cool off.”

The angry man looked torn and pointed at the rest of his friends. “T—”

“I said cool off. There’s some green out by the pool. Take a few hits and go sit in the tub.”

The five men sitting around the table slowly got to their feet, grumbling at each other as they made their way toward the door. The guy on the couch cupped his mouth and said, “Little bitch booooys!”

“Denny!” Quentin snapped. “Shut your shithole!” Then he looked back at me. “Fucking Catan… hate that stupid game.”

“Yeah,” I said noncommittally, not caring about the little exchange. Was it normal for rich people to get high and play Settlers of Catan? “Is there a place we can go that might be a little quieter?”

“Well,” Quentin said with a smirk, “There’s some rooms down here, but they might be occupied, you know? Might be better off finding a bedroom upstairs or something.”

“What about a study?” I asked, hoping to check that box off my list. “Did Colin have some kind of home office here?”

“Yeah,” Colin said, eyeing me a little suspiciously. “But that’s not gonna work. Gramps always kept his study locked tighter than… well… tight.”

I glanced at Erin, and she reached into her bag to produce a small ring of keys and jingle them as she held one between her index finger and thumb. “Got the office key right here.”

Looking back at Quentin, I caught him checking out Erin, his gaze traveling up her body before settling on the keys she held. I couldn’t blame him for that either—Erin was a goddess in a 5’2” package.