NERO: Chapter 36

“The last two,” I snap at Abdul, opening my car door.

His brows shoot up. “Both of them?”

“That’s what I said.”

Before he can ask more questions, I climb into the driver’s seat and slam the door.

I’m not mad at him, per se, I’m just pissed that these site visits took so long.

A glance at the clock tells me that it’s already after six p.m.

“Fuck!” I stomp on the gas as I pull out of the parking lot.

My fingers twitch to call Payton’s phone, to make sure that she’s staying put tonight. But I don’t.

Mostly because I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t answer. And a small part of me is actually hoping for her disobedience. Or rather, the consequences of those actions.

Swerving through traffic, a sweet fruity scent finally permeates my senses. The tart.

Using my knee to hold the steering wheel steady, I pick up the small white bag and carefully slide the tart into my palm.

My nostrils expand as I bring the pastry to my nose and inhale.

If I think on it, really hard, I imagine that I can smell Payton’s rose warmth, from where her hand was wrapped around the paper.

Opening wide, I shove half the tart into my mouth and bite down.

Flavor bursts across my tongue. Sweetness mixed with the tang of the cherries.

My lids lower and I need to remind myself that I’m driving so I don’t close my eyes all the way.

It’s so good.

It tastes like her.

I lick across the surface of the cherries on the uneaten half, noticing that my dick is now completely hard.

“Jesus.”

Still steering with my knee, I press my other hand down on my length.

My gaze darts back and forth between the baked good in my hand and the road ahead of me, and for more than a moment, I consider the logistics of jerking off while I fill my mouth with the rest of Payton’s cherries.

I press down harder on my cock as it throbs. And before I can do something truly ridiculous, I shove the rest of the tart into my mouth, groaning as I chew, leaving my dick in my pants.

When I finally make it to Payton’s neighborhood, I slow, stopping against the curb at the end of her block.

I hate this shit. I want to drive right up to her front door.

Well, what I really want to do is drag her out of that building by her hair and move her in with me. My big empty house has felt even emptier than ever since that night I first laid eyes on her. And the reasons for staying away from her are getting harder and harder to listen to.

I am Nero.

Feared by the underworld.

Yet here I am, sneaking around outside my girlfriend’s house like a teenage boy breaking curfew.

Girlfriend?

Jesus Christ. I’ve completely lost it.

I haven’t had a girlfriend since… Tipping my head back against the headrest, I think. Have I ever? Maybe that one girl in high school? And then there was that chick I fucked for the better part of a year in my twenties…

Doesn’t matter. It’s irrelevant. Because Payton isn’t my fucking girlfriend.

My fingers reach out and turn off the ignition.

It’s hard to tell at this angle and distance, but Payton’s patio door looks closed. Not a surprise, considering the death glare she was trying to perfect on me earlier at the café. A light shining out from her windows catches my attention. She must be home.

I’m half tempted to break back into that empty apartment across the street from hers, so I can watch and take in her attitude. But there’s a chance she’ll try to go to that fucking concert tonight.

Gripping my door handle tighter than necessary, I wrench it open.

The nerve of that fucking guy. Asking for her number right in front of me. And her giving it to him.

Bad Payton.

Just as I swing a foot out onto the street, a car flies past my open door, with inches to spare, and for the second time today I’m tempted to pull my gun.

When the car’s brake lights illuminate the street, I notice it has one of those glowing neon lights on the dashboard signifying it as a rideshare vehicle. And something inside of me pauses.

While I stand there, half-in and half-out of my vehicle, the door to Payton’s building swings open; and the woman herself darts down the concrete steps, and across the sidewalk, before she practically dives into the back seat of the car.

The back seat of a car driven by a stranger.

By a motherfucking stranger.

I’m back inside my own car, turning it on, and shoving the shifter into drive before Payton’s car even starts to move.

My foot twitches toward the gas, but before I can roll forward more than a foot, I hit the brake.

I can’t just ram the car off the road and kidnap Payton.

I mean, I’d like to.

I want to.

But I won’t.

Easing out into the street, I keep a few car lengths between us.

Being that it’s a weeknight, there’s enough traffic heading downtown to hide myself in. The dark making me one of many headlights in their rearview mirror. But as we pull away from the main streets and move toward the edge of town, next to the quiet baseball stadium, I realize the error in my plan. And sure enough, the car ahead of me takes one more turn, then slows as it approaches a venue I’m not familiar with.

A venue with a line out the door and down the block. And nowhere to fucking park.

The car Payton’s in stops, and the second she stretches a leg out of the back seat, a jealous and possessive anger squeezes my ribs.

She’s in a fucking dress. Or a skirt. Whatever it is, is short enough that her skirt rides up when she bends to climb out, showing a flash of pale skin above thigh-high stockings.

Thigh. High. Stockings.

My cock is rock hard as I slowly roll past her.

I want to put an end to this bullshit right now. Jump out of my car, snatch her off the sidewalk, and throw her in my trunk. But I can see four cops outside the building helping with security and I’m pretty sure my actions wouldn’t go unnoticed.

Even though I’m sure I’d get away with it, it’s the exact sort of attention I’m trying to avoid with Payton.

Gripping the steering wheel so tight it creaks, I circle around the next block until I find a parking spot.

My anger grows when I jog up to the building and find that Payton’s already made it through the line. Then I eye up the nearly hundred people and decide there’s no way. Which means that little prick got her some sort of side entrance ticket.

Seething, I go to the back of the line and wait like the rest of these fucking mouth breathers. This is one of those times I wish regular people knew who I was, so I could intimidate them into letting me through.

Should’ve canceled on Abdul the second Payton agreed to share her number.

But I’ve already been absent enough because of this little siren. I’m delegating more. Which has people talking. Of course the assumption everyone is making is it’s a woman. And in this case, they’re right. Only, instead of spending my nights in her bed, I spend them across the street from her, waiting for glimpses, like a goddamn creep.

It’s fully dark and the temperature has plummeted by the time I finally make it up to security.

“Belt, sir.” The deep voice of a bouncer stops me before I walk through the metal detectors, and I’m glad I decided to disarm in the car.

Gritting my teeth as I take my belt off and pull my phone and wallet out of my pocket, setting it all in a little tray.

My patience is wearing extremely thin and being corralled through here like fucking cattle is getting real old, real quick.

“You’re good,” the bouncer nods at me to collect my items.

I pick up the belt. Then quickly realize it’s not my belt. It’s black, non-leather and covered in square silver studs. Setting it down I grab my belt, also black but real leather, and no tacky studs. While I slide it through my pants’ loops, I take notice of the crowd around me. Lots of black. Lots of leather. Lots of long hair. On everyone.

What the hell sort of concert is this?

I shuffle ahead, my suit and loafers standing out in this sea of… what even is this?

“Phone?” a woman asks me. She’s about Payton’s age, hair cut short, and wearing a red polo signaling that she works here. When I don’t answer quick enough, she holds up a handheld scanner. “You got your ticket?”

Fuck. Me.

My jaw tics. “I don’t.”

She lifts a brow, then gives me a once over, as if to say you lost? Her weight shifts, one hip jutting out. “You here for the show? Or for that new owner’s thing?”

“The show,” I answer before I can think better of it. I don’t know who the owner is, but I should’ve winged it.

“Alright.” Her tone says she doesn’t believe me, but she points off to the side. “Head over there and get yourself a ticket, then come back to me and I won’t make you go through the line again.”

“Thanks.” My voice is gruffer than she deserves, but I’m one delay away from losing my shit.

The line to buy tickets is thankfully short and I’m sliding my credit card through the opening below the glass before the guy can even greet me. “One ticket.”

He picks up my card. “Regular or balcony?”

I wasn’t expecting options. “What’s the difference?”

“General will get you anywhere on the main floor. Balcony gets you access to the upper levels too.”

“Balcony,” I tell him. I don’t know where Payton’s going to be, and I’m not taking any chances.

Since it’s apparently 1994, the guy hands me a paper ticket and I turn around to stride back to the woman at the entrance.

“Nice.” She makes an impressed face when she reads the ticket. “Give me your left hand.”

“Why?”

The woman rolls her eyes at me. In public. At me.

What is happening to my life?

She picks up a neon green wristband. “So people know you can go upstairs.”

“Can’t they just look at my ticket?”

It’s a reasonable question, but the woman just blinks at me.

With an audible exhale, I hold my left arm up and I swear it’s on purpose when she catches one of my arm hairs in the adhesive.

“Enjoy the show!” she calls after me as I stride away.

Finally entering the building, I move through a plain entryway before stepping into a decent-sized concert space. The main floor is standing room only and it’s packed with bodies. And like the ticket guy said, there’s a balcony circling the back half of the venue, giving the spectators up there unobstructed views.

An emcee is announcing that the main act is about to start, meaning I spent the entire time the opening band was playing stuck in line.

Still trying to figure out what we’ll be listening to, I look past the sea of people to the large banner strung up behind the band.

Söta Kakor.

What the fuck is a Söta Kakor?

Then the lights drop and the heavy metal starts.