Chapter 43

Xander

I was nursing a beer and pretending to pay attention to the conversation at the table when Harley smacked me in the back of the head.

“Hey!” I protested. “What the hell was that for?”

“Could you pretend you’re paying attention?” she asked.

With a sigh, I nodded. I was pretending, just not very well. “Sorry. I’ve got a lot on my mind.” I also didn’t give a rat’s ass about discussing the new security measures or getting to know the members joining the team. Only two of them were at The Project—Jared and Samantha. Both came with impressive resumes, and Madi highly recommended them. Since neither seemed like assholes, I didn’t have a problem.

The conversation continued around me as I scanned the room until my eyes landed on Cami. She wasn’t alone; Austin’s cousin was by her side, and the dickhead had his hand on her lower back as he guided her to the table.

As for Cami, she was laughing at something the dickhead had just said. Remi owned The Project, and he’d recently purchased another club named Euphoria. I didn’t usually think of him as a dickhead, but he’d never had his hands on Cami before. She wasn’t dressed for the club, having just come from work. Still, she looked hot as fuck in her gauzy teal skirt and black blouse.

“Hey, Austin!” Remi’s hand remained on Cami’s lower back. “This beautiful woman says she’s supposed to be up here.”

Much like Austin, Remi was wealthy, but you’d never know it to look at him. He wore jeans and the same black t-shirt the rest of his staff had on. When we’d entered the club, he’d been working at the bar near the entrance. I didn’t know him well, but I’d heard he had no trouble finding female companionship. He was a couple of inches over six feet tall and in good shape. He had neatly-trimmed, dark brown hair and a short beard. His deep blue eyes kept drifting to Cami.

I was just about to tell the asshole to get his hands off her when she pulled away from him and rolled her eyes. “It’s nice to know how forgettable I am.” She moved toward me. I stood and gestured to my chair as I grabbed another to bring to the table.

Remi grinned. “I must be off my game tonight. I usually remember all the pretty ladies I meet.”

“She’s not your type, Tiberius.” Austin’s use of the first name Remi hated made him cringe. Remi was short for Tiberius Maurice Remington III.

“I don’t have a type,” Remi argued.

“Sure, you do,” Cami replied with a sweet smile. “You prefer them gullible.”

My hand reached around the back of Cami’s chair to play with her hair. She gave me a quick sidelong glance before returning her attention to Remi. She’d noticed I was staking my claim, and I couldn’t wait to hear what she had to say about it later.

Remi chuckled. “Not gullible, but I do like women who are available. Do you guys need anything else? Is my staff taking good care of you up here?”

“Everything’s great,” Austin told him. “We won’t be here too much longer, at least, I won’t.”

Remi’s smile faded, and he nodded. “How’s Piper doing?” Piper handled bookkeeping for both of Remi’s clubs.

“She’s doing fine now,” Austin assured him.

“Tell her she can take as much time off as she needs,” Remi added. “I’d better get back to the bar. We’re short tonight.”

On those words, the dickhead walked off. Fine, he wasn’t a dickhead, but I still didn’t like him flirting with Cami.

“You can stop with the possessive act now,” Cami told me.

There were two ways to play our situation. Either I could pretend I didn’t know what she was talking about, or I could own that shit. I went with the second option. “Nah, I kind of like the possessive crap. It feels good.”

“So,” Bentley began as she looked between Cami and me. “Was there something you wanted to tell us?”

“I took your advice,” Cami replied for us.

“What advice?” Gage asked, looking at Bentley for an answer.

“It’s nothing,” she replied. “Just some girl talk I had with Cami.”

“Are you two fucking?” Austin’s question prompted Harley to smack him in the back of the head. “Ow!”

Samantha laughed, and Jared just shook his head.

“It’s going to be fun working with you guys,” Samantha told us.

“You must be new security team members,” Cami said in a blatant attempt to shift attention away from us.

“I’m Sam, and this is Jared,” Samantha said by way of introduction.

“I’m Cami.” She shook hands with both. “I’m stalking Reckless Release, so you’ll probably see me around a lot.”

“It looks more like Xan is stalking you,” Harley remarked casually. “How’s your head, Cami?”

“Much better,” she replied.

“Any word from the police on who put the oil on the stairs?” Gage asked.

She shook her head. “Nothing yet.”

“I’m still not convinced it wasn’t Glitch,” I told them.

“Mitch hasn’t contacted me again, so either he took the hint that I don’t want to talk to him, or the police convinced him he should stop,” Cami added.

“No more emails?” I asked.

“Not a one,” she replied.

“Does this mean we can expect a big public break-up soon?” Austin asked.

Bentley coughed to cover her laugh. When I looked over at her, she flashed me a quick smile before standing. “I’m going to get a drink. Does anyone want anything?”

“I’ll go with you,” Samantha replied. “I could use another ginger ale.”

While it was technically a meet and greet with the new security, both were on duty, so they weren’t drinking. Harley, Gage, Austin, and Jared ended up joining them, leaving me alone with Cami.

“Do you think they left to give us privacy?” Cami asked.

Looking over at the bar, I saw the others trying to discreetly look at what we were doing. Harley wasn’t trying to be discreet. “They want to see what we’ll do. Bentley might have been trying to give us privacy. The others picked up on the new vibe and want to see where it goes.”

“It would have been hard for them to miss this vibe with you are acting jealous of Remi,” she pointed out.

“I wasn’t acting jealous,” I argued.

“Really?” she asked with raised eyebrows. “Possessive? Should I be worried that you’ve forgotten our rules?”

“Nope,” I replied. “The rules are that each of us has exclusive use of the other’s body. Did I forget something?”

“You know what I was asking, but I’ll forgive you for pretending you don’t since I like your answer.”

“What’s the plan here?” I leaned closer to brush her hair away from her ear. “Are we going to tease them with what’s going on? Play it off like there’s nothing to see? How do you see this playing out?”

I wasn’t sure how she’d respond, but I wasn’t expecting her to stand up and crook a finger at me to follow her before walking toward the restroom area. My eyes were locked on her perfect ass as it swayed back and forth with each step.

“Fuck me, that is hot,” I uttered before I stood and hurried after her.