Page 40 of Beastly Armory
“I’m gonna order room service.” Derichs buzzes with excitement. “Do you think they deliver alcohol?”
A small chuckle escapes my mouth as I hit the button for our floor. “I’m sure they do. Get what you want. My contact is covering it all.” Shit. I could buy the hotel with cash tonight just to see his satisfied grin as he leans against the back wall of the metal cage and crosses his arms and legs. Next to a very grumpy looking Max.
I like Derichs. If he wants a buffet of overpriced food brought to his hotel room, I am happy to pay for it. Being from East Side, or, hell, Gnarled Pine Hollow in general, he’s probably never been in a place like this, and I want totreat him. It’s not often our citizens get to make it out of the hellhole.
Max stoically stands with the bags over his shoulders, watching the numbers on the lighted panel escalate. Once we reach our floor, we find our adjoined suites. Max unlocks and enters his door without a glance at me. Derichs meets my eyes with his serious rich brown ones, then shrugs and walks in behind him. Part of me had been worried Max would try to put up a fight about staying in my room, so I let my shoulders hang before going into the room next door to the boys. It’s not disappointment I’m feeling.
It's not.
Opening my door, I take two grands jetés and flop onto the king bed, then sit up to take off my sweaty boots and socks. Stretching out over the cozy comforter, my body relaxes. Maybe I’ll also order room service and get some wine.
A tapping sound through the connector door interrupts my peace. Easing off the bed, I glide over to it and slide open the lock. Max’s beefy shoulder leans against the door frame as his fingers dangle my bag in front of him, swinging enticingly. “Mind if I come in?” With his other hand, he jiggles a little bottle of whiskey at me, as if that’s enough to seduce me.
Grabbing my bag, I throw it onto the bed. “You stay over there, mister. I’m not catching cubs from you tonight.”
Max huffs a laugh and unscrews the bottle, then downs it in one pull. He tosses it into the small trash cannear the dresser, then curls a hand above the door frame as if he can’t go past the line to my room. His lips glisten from his drink. While scouring me with his espresso eyes, his tongue escapes his mouth to slowly lick them clean. “What do you mean, foxy?”
“You know what I mean.”
His face falls, his brow scrunching with sudden seriousness. Derichs is loudly ordering room service in the other room. Max peeks at him for a moment, then turns back to me and lowers his voice. “You mean… you’re not on birth control?” Instead of horror or fear there, he seems like he’s found a thrilling challenge, like my womb is the location of his next cage match. A sparkle hits the whites of his eyes while the corners of his lips dance upward.
“What? That’s—that’s none of your business!” I snap my fingers at him as he crosses the threshold. “Get back to your corner, lion.”
He ignores me. Three long strides and he’s on me, snatching me around the waist with a taut arm and holding me firm against him with a flex of his generous bicep. My clit pulses as he squeezes the air from my lungs with his tight embrace. His breath reeks of weak malt rye, but his body smells of sweat and fortitude. “Is that why you wouldn’t let me put it in you today?”
Looking into his eyes, I melt like butter. Any thoughts I had flatline. My lips tingle as he exhales so close to my skin, I have to suppress a shiver. Trying to muster some sort of coherence, I ring out, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Like the dark villain of a horror movie, a smirk rides up his face, the thick black stubble gleaming in the lamplight of the room. His bottom lip is bigger than his top, which has a firm Cupid’s bow. A wild mess of hair tops his head from today’s long journey. Once he’s ten years older, there’ll probably be a permanent crease between his eyebrows from the amount of furrowing.
“Oh? You didn’t just hump my cock like a rabid coyote in the women’s bathroom?”
I shake my head slightly, the only thing I can control of my body at this moment. Involuntarily, I’m sweating, and my pussy is dying to do more than just hump it. His deep voice makes my belly vibrate with each word. My gaze catches on the slow bob of his Adam’s apple.
“It’s cool if you’re not on birth control. This lion needs a cub before I die.” Lowering his face beside my ear, his voice drops another octave. “If you’re up for being my lioness.” Max’s waist thrusts into my belly, and his hardness rubs through his jeans. Placing his lips at the juncture of my neck and shoulder, I feel the muscles pull into a wide grin as he toys with me. I shove hard against his chest and slide from his hold.
“What do you want, Von Dovish?” Derichs calls from the other room, shaking my daze of arousal.
“Uh… rare steak and potato. With a bottle of red. Cabernet. Best one they got.” Dropping to a murmur across the rooms, Derichs continues his order.
“You should have told me. I got a rare steak right here, extra juicy.” Max grabs his crotch, jerking twice, and Iroll my eyes, though the vision of him playing with himself entices me more than it should.
Placing my hands on my hips, I tilt my head up. “I’m eating my dinner. Drinking my wine. Enjoying a bath—” His eyebrows raise. “Alone. And then going to bed early.Also,alone.”
“It’s on its way, Miss Von Dovish!” Derichs yells.
I squeeze past Max, who has his mouth open, obviously still trying to come up with some witty reason to stay in my room. “Thanks, Derichs. Call me Livia, please.”
Derichs already has some mini-fridge items spread across his double bed. “Okay! Thanks, Livia. I’m gonna call my girl and tell her about this place.”
My heart aches, saddened that he and others like him haven’t experienced something as mundane as room service. Now that I think about it, it’s not just West Side that’s been affected by everything. It never occurred to me, but East Side, Freidenberg territory, is the most derelict from years of neglect.
The people who either survived the Day of the Raging Bull or ones who moved into the territory have been destitute ever since. And not poor like Jim in front of the computer store. Jim has his own place. He begs because he receives a lot from panhandling all day. More money than a job would pay. He has food and friends. The people on the east side, people like Adal Derichs, they have nothing. Their homes are made from the remains of fallen structures and technology is primitive. People grow their own food on small plots of grass thathave sprouted between the cement, and I’ve seen the little makeshift stores people throw up to sell their homemade wares to each other. It’s like a different world in that part of town.
Before he can call his “girl,” I stop him. “Derichs. Did you also order dessert?”
His jaw drops, but then he grins widely. “No, but I can. What do you want?”
“Tell them to send one of everything.”