Wicked Envy Read online

  Discovering who you are?

  Liking what you find out?

  I stare long and hard at Dane as he watches Andrew for his reaction to his pitch. I don’t know if Andrew was moved by those words, but I sure as shit was. Over the last three days, the only thing I’ve been able to determine with any certainty is that I don’t know who I am. I mean, I know certain things. I’m intelligent and a savvy businesswoman. I adore my career. I care about those close to me. I have a good life.

  But past that, I’m not sure what else there is that makes up Avril Carrigan. Just three days ago, I was head over heels in love with someone.

  Today… I question every single emotion and feeling I had for Jamie. I know there is something I missed, and I have to figure out what it is about me that didn’t let me see the truth. It would certainly take a psychologist to peel away the layers of Jamie Priest so I can figure a lot of these questions out. But since the breakdown in our relationship came from him having sex with another woman, I’m thinking there may be another way to figure things out.

  At the very least, if The Wicked Horse is as liberating as Dane makes it out to be, I should come out of there with my self-worth rebuilt. While Jamie didn’t destroy it, he sure as shit took a sledgehammer to it and left some pretty big dents.

  “I’ll go with you,” I say as I sit up straighter in my chair.

  Dane’s head snaps so hard to the left to look at me, I swear I hear his bones pop. His eyebrows draw inward deeply. “You are absolutely not coming with me.”

  “Yeah, that’s not a good idea, Avril,” Andrew chimes in.

  I look to Andrew, and then back to Dane. Keeping my voice calm and level, I say, “I hope you two realize how misogynistic and sexist you are being right now.”

  Dane’s expression only turns harder but to Andrew’s credit, his gaze lowers away from mine in shame.

  “We’re being protective, not sexist,” Dane says authoritatively.

  I lean back in my chair and cross my arms over my chest, giving Dane my most sarcastic glare. “Oh, really? You want to protect me in a place that is all about liberation, freedom, and self-discovery? Sounds very dangerous.”

  “Come on, Avril,” Andrew says quietly, and I turn to find him leveling a direct look my way. “It’s not a place you need to go. You’re vulnerable right now. That’s all Dane means by protecting you.”

  I’m not sure why this infuriates me, but I know that gender bias plays a significant part. I can’t recall another time that the fact I am a woman kept me from doing the same things my best friends are able to do.

  Sure, Andrew and Dane are very different when it comes to our friendships. Andrew is the guy I can talk to about personal stuff. Not that I wouldn’t talk to Dane about personal stuff and have done so when all three of us were together, it’s just that over the years, Andrew has been the one who has become my personal confidant.

  On the other hand, Dane is the one who pushes me to be my best. He’s always been the one to affirm and validate my abilities, praising me right when it was needed and gently correcting my course if I was sailing in the wrong direction. Dane was my own personal ego booster.

  Despite these differences in our friendship, not once have I ever felt excluded until now.

  I stand up from my chair and look down at Dane before angling my body so I can include Andrew in my line of sight. My gaze sweeps back and forth between the two men as I tell them exactly how it’s going to be. “Not once in the history of our seventeen-year friendship has either of you made me feel less than equal to you. This was especially so, Dane, when you invited me to join Caterva with you. You handed me a high-powered executive position, and you did it without an ounce of hesitation over the fact that I’m a woman.”

  Dane is one of the most brilliant men I know, and I can see by the look on his face he knows where I’m going. He tries to derail me with a bored roll of his eyes. “You surely can’t compare your place in the board room to a sex club.”

  “I most certainly can,” I snarl. “The mere fact that you seem to think I’m worthy of one but not the other makes me ashamed of you. It’s completely sexist.”

  The asshole—who is also still my best friend regardless—doesn’t even look slightly abashed.

  Andrew stands from his chair and walks around his desk. Without hesitation, his hands go gently to my shoulders and he gives me a reassuring squeeze. “Avril… it would just be weird.”

  I give Andrew a brilliant smile and a tiny poke on the chest. “Bingo. It would absolutely be weird. If that’s the reason why you don’t want me to go, that’s legit. I’m not relishing looking at your man bits or have you staring at my woman bits.”

  Dane’s voice is droll when he says, “I take offense to you referencing my dick as merely ‘man bits’.”

  I turn to give Dane a very pointed look. “I’ve actually seen your dick, Dane. Senior year I walked into our apartment to see you fucking some bimbo on the couch. Trust me, there’s no mystery there.”

  With a smirk, Dane replies, “Then you’ll have no problem admitting that I deserve to be referenced to as more than just ‘man bits’.”

  I don’t bother responding to Dane as he does not need me to fuel his ego. He’s the most confident person I’ve ever met in my life. I do know he’s well hung, and he has the proof between his legs.

  I turn back to Andrew, because he’s the one I can share personal stuff with. “Come on, Drew. Let’s go take a look at this place and see what it’s all about. You and I don’t even have to do anything. We can just stand around and be embarrassed. It will be fun. We can have a good laugh about it later.”

  I can tell I have Andrew hooked by the nature of the smile he bestows upon me before lowering his face and shaking his head in amusement.

  Turning to Dane, I merely raise my eyebrows at him in question.

  His return look is flat and nowhere near amused the way Andrew’s is. He regards me silently for a moment before standing out of his chair.

  “I’m going to take a pass,” Dane says as he turns toward the door.

  I’m stunned and more than a little put out by how much me going to a sex club seems to bother Dane. He’s willing to take Andrew but not me, and that’s just not fair. I can do nothing other than chalk it up to Dane refusing to acknowledge that the services of The Wicked Horse should be equally available to me as they are to him and Andrew. For the first time in our very long friendship, I have a small kernel of doubt within me that Dane Hawthorne may not be as high up on a pedestal as I have put him.

  “If you change your mind,” I call out to him. “You know where to find us.”

  Dane throws a hand up to at least acknowledge my last statement, and then he disappears out the door.

  CHAPTER 3

  Andrew

  “We’re seriously doing this?” I ask Avril as I tip the pint bottle of vodka back and take a healthy slug. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and pass the bottle to her.

  “We’re seriously doing this,” she says confidently as she takes the liquor from me. She’s leaning back against the trunk of her car as she’d swung by to pick me up from my condo. We’re now hanging out in a parking garage beneath Onyx Casino, getting fortified by vodka.

  “Looks like we’re Ubering back to my place tonight,” I say to make small talk. “You get the couch.”

  “I always get the couch when I stay with you,” she replies.

  Which is true. Avril has stayed with me on various occasions, particularly when we worked super late and she didn’t feel like making the trip home. Or sometimes when Jamie was out of town at a seminar and she didn’t want to be alone. I have a one-bedroom condo and even though I always offered her the master bedroom, she’d never take it.

  But that’s just Avril. She’s not prissy or demanding. Not an entitled bone in her body. She’s a woman who’s fine sleeping on the couch with just a blanket and a pillow without a need for more.

  It’s why I’m still infuriated over w
hat Jamie did to her. She’s putting on a brave face for sure, but if I know Avril—and I do—she’s both hurt and seething mad. I’d even bet that she’s probably more mad than hurt, and I have to assume that’s driving a lot of the reasoning why we’re both standing here tonight, on the verge of entering a sex club.

  Avril passes the bottle back to me, and I shake my head. She shrugs and puts the cap on before pushing away from the car. She tosses the mostly empty liquor bottle into the backseat, and then locks her car. Turning to me, she squares her shoulders and says, “Let’s do this.”

  “Let’s do this,” I say in agreement, and we start walking to the elevator that will take us up to the forty-sixth floor, which houses The Wicked Horse, Vegas’ premiere private sex club. I can’t believe we’re fucking doing this.

  “Wait,” I say as something occurs to me, and I come to a dead halt. Avril stops and turns to face me, her head tilted in question. She’s wearing a very un-Avril like dress of blood red that fits her body like a second glove, and I have to admit it looks fucking fantastic on her. “If one of us decides to hook up with someone, the other can’t watch, okay?”

  “Deal,” she says with a grin, and then wrinkles her nose. “Because… ewwww.”

  I let out a sigh of relief, and I have to note I’m not sure why this was bothering me. Sure, Avril’s my best friend, but I don’t think of her as a sister. I don’t get grossed out when I think of her naked, and I’d be lying if I said there haven’t been times over the years I may have had a wickedly dirty dream about her.

  I think I’m mostly feeling awkward because I know deep in my heart there is nothing that would ever prevent Avril and me from crossing that line. We already know each other so well. We’ve shared so many things with each other that there is no mystery as to who exactly the other person is. Both of us respect the shit out of each other.

  We love each other the way best friends can.

  But I don’t look at her like she’s a sibling, and despite her declaration of “ewwww” just now, I don’t really think she feels that way about me.

  Which makes tonight actually dangerous in a place like this. I don’t want to watch Avril because I’m afraid of what I might want, and it always brings up the age-old question… If friends cross that line, will it ruin the friendship?

  Not willing to take that chance.

  “Okay, let’s go,” I say and turn toward the elevator. Avril starts walking alongside me, the click of her high heels echoing in the garage. She crosses her arms almost protectively across her chest while holding a tiny black clutch purse in one hand, and I know her so well I know that move has nothing to do with nervousness. She’s just cold.

  Without a word, I put my arm around her shoulder and pull her into me, my hand curving around one of her bare arms to help warm her up. She snuggles in, and we walk in perfect cadence with each other to the elevator.

  I push the button, and it takes a few minutes for the car to arrive. Before we step in, Avril pulls slightly away from me so she can look up to catch my eyes. “No matter what happens in here tonight, it doesn’t change how we look at each other tomorrow, right?”

  “Right,” I tell her confidently, because I don’t care if she’s here to get her rocks off. Good for her, I say. She’s been hurt and she’s pissed, and if she can spend just an hour or so tonight getting lost in good feelings, that would make me happy. I didn’t have the satisfaction that Dane had of landing a solid upper cut into Jamie’s stomach on Wednesday when he came by to pick up his stuff. I wasn’t surprised Dane had lurked on Avril’s porch waiting for Jamie to show up, and not surprised he punched the douche.

  Avril, of course, knows nothing of the justice Dane dispensed. Just as she doesn’t know the extent of the damage Dane did to Jordan Massie’s face our junior year at Berkley. That’s just the way Dane handles things.

  We all have our roles. While I’m the one that will ward off the chill when Avril’s cold, Dane is going to be the one to exact vengeance on her behalf, and she’ll never even know it happened.

  The three of us through thick and thin.

  When Dane came up with a venture idea his senior year in college to create a machine that analyzed a pinprick’s worth of blood for hundreds of diseases, no one thought he was crazy. Not me. Not Avril. And not any of the professors he ran the idea by.

  By the time he graduated, he was well on his way to raising capital to begin research and development. He offered Avril and me immediate positions with his company he’d named Caterva BioTech, selling his own patch patent he’d already developed to fund positions for us.

  But we weren’t quite ready to take active seats. Dane wanted Avril to get her MBA, and he wanted me to go further in my molecular-biology education. Avril officially joined Caterva as the chief operations officer the day she graduated with her MBA, and I joined two years later after I finished my Ph.D. in molecular biology as Caterva’s chief scientist. My designation didn’t mean I knew the most about blood analyzation, but it did mean I oversaw the research and design of the machine we were trying to create. Fast forward five years, and we had a product being beta tested on the market and Caterva was a Fortune 50 Company. Dane offered us tremendous stock options, which made us insanely wealthy and increased our personal stake in the company.

  I mull over our history together as we take the long elevator ride up to The Wicked Horse. In all the things we’ve been through together, I never imagined I’d be coming to a sex club with Avril so we could both get our rocks off.

  But Dane was right. I’ve been in a fucking dry spell, and I work so damn hard it’s impossible to meet women. Besides, I’ve been burned enough times by “love” that I just don’t have it in me to try for something that requires work. My experience has been it’s all for naught, or at least that’s how I started to view things after Claudia and I broke up after almost four years together through college.

  When the elevator doors open, I’m not surprised by what I see. We step out into what looks like an upscale bar with dozens of beautifully dressed people mingling around with drinks in their hands. It’s exactly what I expected when Dane told me that this place was high end. The five-hundred-dollar per night entrance fee if you didn’t have a yearly membership ensured that the people within this club probably shit gold bricks.

  We step up to a podium where a woman as beautiful as a cover model greets us. “Good evening. Do you have reservations?”

  “We do,” I say, and I pull my phone out. The Wicked Horse has become so modernized, evening passes are purchased online with a bar code to show at the door. The woman behind the podium scans my phone, which shows two passes I’d purchased today after Dane walked out of my office. Avril and I decided to just get online and buy the damn things so we wouldn’t puss out. I paid for them, which Avril didn’t raise a stink about, but she’ll most likely leave a check on my desk on Monday to reimburse me.

  The woman takes a few moments to explain the club and the rooms that are available, as well as the policies. Much of it I already knew because Dane has never held back from sharing his exploits here. If there’s one thing Avril was right about today in the office was that she is treated differently because she’s a woman. Dane would never share that shit with her, and I suspect it’s why he bailed on us tonight.

  We’re offered a guided tour, but we decline, figuring we are really coming tonight just to gawk and have a good laugh. Avril buys us vodkas on the rocks. With our highball glasses in hand, we start to head toward the double doors on the far end of the room that will lead us to the various rooms that people can have sex in.

  ♦

  My cock is aching, and I’m so fucking horny that I want to just whip it out right here and rub one off. But that would be stupid when there’s such an abundant supply of pussy for the taking. I got over being embarrassed by my hard-on over half an hour ago when Avril leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Andrew… I’m not sure if it makes me a slut or what, but I’m definitely getting laid tonigh
t.”

  I had to laugh at her, but I was also relieved. Watching so many sex acts going on as we walked the various rooms had a profound effect on me. I’m stirred beyond lust, and all I can think about now is fucking.

  I walk into The Orgy Room, my eyes scanning the dim interior. There are recessed lights in the ceiling that shine down on the various pieces of furniture that are in use, holding writhing naked bodies as they fuck. I don’t see Avril, which is a relief because we promised each other we wouldn’t watch the other. My eyes do land on a blonde I had talked to earlier. We flirted, she overtly invited Avril and me to a threesome with her, but I declined because… well, hell no to a threesome with Avril there.

  Just no way.

  But Avril and I decided to part ways out on The Deck, both determined we were going to make good use of the money that was spent to get us in these doors.

  I make my way over to the blonde, and she’s smiling at me in a way that says she still wants to spread her legs for just me alone.

  “You came back,” she says huskily when I reach her. “And you’re alone.”

  “That way I can focus just on you,” I tell her. She likes that answer, and I know she does because her hand comes down to palm my erection.

  CHAPTER 4

  Dane

  If I’d known how torturous this would be, I would have stayed home tonight.

  But the thought of Avril and Andrew walking around The Wicked Horse on their own had me worrying.

  Okay, let’s be honest. The thought of Avril at The Wicked Horse is what worries me. Andrew can hold his own, and besides… if it was just Andrew, I’d be right down there alongside him right now as he got his dick sucked by a curvaceous blonde.