Shatter (Club Grit Trilogy) (9 page)

I reached up and opened my eyes, looking at Lawrence, lit from behind by the club. He looked like a god descending from the heavens, the light streaming through his hair, changing like an aurora borealis on a winter’s night in some far off land, a land as cold as we were hot, a land as unfamiliar as how natural we felt together.

“Just a second –” he said, reaching his hand away.

“Please, don’t stop,” I begged.

“But your clipboard –” he said with a laugh. “It’s gonna get—”

“Broken, whatever, I don’t care.” I’d noticed it had fallen underneath me when my back had arched. I didn’t care, it was true. Having Lawrence inside of me and abandoning the identity that I’d had to wear every time I was outside of the sheer curtains separating us from the rest of the world was something I never wanted to have end, and the clipboard was just a symbol of the identity I’d taken on when I’d become somebody else in college. The last thing I wanted was for it to ruin the one thing that was making me feel like a real person, for the first time in years.

“Are you sure?” he asked again.

I pulled myself up on my elbows and started to undulate the way Lawrence was so that every time his cock entered me, it was harder than it had been the time before. The movements of his fingers on my clit became more rapid and less focused, with some strokes completely missing the place of pleasure, swipes hitting my mound on accident like fingers on a smartphone after a night of drinking as a prelude to a night of drunken texting, but I didn’t care. This was what I wanted, not the manicured, perfected, artificial lifestyle that I was hiding from in the room of shadows, in the owner’s box, in Lawrence’s arms.

“Baby, I’m so close,” he whispered into my ear before nibbling on my earlobe.

“Me too,” I said, pressing my lips against the side of his cheek, feeling his stubble and taking in his manly musk, the smell of something real, of something primal. “Make me come, baby. Make me.”

“You sure, honey?” he said slyly. “You want me to do this?” He pulled away from me, from the midriff up, and pressed me down with the hand that had been keeping my legs up, so that I had to scramble to keep myself locked onto his waist, and then, using both his hands to press me down, one on my left shoulder, the other, on my right wrist, as he pulsed and throbbed in and out of me faster and faster, rubbing the base of his cock on my clit so that with every thrust, it was like he was pleasuring me with his hand as well.

“L-Lawrence,” I cried out, but he shut me up with a kiss, and as he thrust into me faster and faster, I knew that release was inevitable, that I couldn’t hold back the pleasure that he’d given me. I would have let out a moan, but my mouth was occupied with his lips, lips that took in my utterances of desire and pleasure, so that he was eating his own name, over and over.

I lost balance and fell onto the clipboard. I heard a loud cracking sound but ignored it, and the next crack and the next until I had just drowned it out. I felt the pieces dig into my back but I didn’t care, because soon, I had my balance again, and arched up into the air to meet with Lawrence again, pressing my torso into his.

As I clenched up and my own pussy started to press against his shaft like it was giving him a secret massage, I felt his dick start to twitch and his balls tighten up and away from my perineum, a sign that he, too, was ready for his own release. His body got hotter and I knew that something was about to be released, and then, it hit me: a hot wave of pleasure that coincided with my own as we both climaxed at the same time, my pleasure adding to his and his, to mine.

Lawrence pulled out carefully, pulling off the condom as he sat on the side of the bed, and placing it discreetly in a small black plastic pouch, which he pulled a square of paper off, exposing tape, which allowed him to seal the condom away discreetly. He placed the pouch into the small trash bin on the cart and got back into bed with me.

“Put those down,” he said, taking the panties and bra from my hand and putting them down. He looked at the remains of the clipboard and frowned. “Sorry about your clipboard”. The clipboard had shattered into a bunch of pieces, and was unusable now. He lifted up the broken bits carefully and put them in the mini trash bin, passing me the papers, which I folded up.

“It’s time for me to go, isn’t it?” I said, confused.

“Are you late for something?” he asked.

“I don’t know, actually, I just assumed you wouldn’t want me around after,” I said with a laugh, and I went to grab my clutch. I opened up my phone and there was a text from Becca asking where Emma was. I texted back that Emma was with Andre, and put my phone away, along with the papers that had been on the clipboard.

Lawrence pulled me close to his chest, and, as my legs stayed wrapped around him, like a baby koala around a tree, I felt warm and cozy. I hadn’t been so comfortable with another human being in a long time. At least, until his phone rang. Lawrence ignored it at first but finally, he apologized before picking it up. He didn’t say much, until he hung up, and turned to me, shook his head, and didn’t say a word.

L
AWRENCE GOT CHANGED QUICKLY. “What’s wrong?” I asked, but he ignored me, busy just putting on pants and a shirt and shoes, leaving the rest behind but grabbing his phone before he headed out the sheer curtains. I slipped on my clothing quickly, went up to him and he shrugged me off. What had happened since we were together in the owner’s box? What had changed? I checked my phone and there were messages from Sam, and my heart sank as I realized what had happened.

The signs had all been there. I could have prevented it and I didn’t...I’d led Emma into the arms of a monster. I should have just encouraged her to stay with her bouncer boy, I should have told her that the Greek system was bullshit and that she came first, that nothing was more important than her safety.

I ran past Lawrence, heels in my hands, across the now dirtied floors of Club Grit, and out to where the limos waited for the VIP clients like Omega House, and Lawrence tried to catch up with me once he realized I knew what had happened, grabbing my arm, but this time, it was my turn to shrug him off.

I reached the limo first and Lawrence blocked the door. “Lawrence, you have no idea what happened, let me handle this,” I said, trying to get around Lawrence so that I could open the door, but he held my wrists back and I turned to face him.

Skylar came close and “Move out of the way,” he ordered.

“You can’t go in there!” I blurted out, certain that somehow, I could save the situation myself, hoping against hope there’d been some sort of misunderstanding, and my eyes flicked back, and I saw Becca with Jason, the bartender. That moment of distraction was all that the bouncer needed to move around me open the door, pulling out Emma quickly and carefully.

I looked inside and there was DeAndre, his pants down, and then I looked to Emma, her dress ruined, and I knew what had happened. I’d been too late, and it was my entire fault.

Lawrence looked around at the sorority sisters that were now coming out of the club and pointed at them at random, but including Sam. “You, you, you. You’re all banned from Club Grit. You bring people like that asshole in here? That’s not okay. You need to press charges,” Lawrence said to Emma. “And I’d suggest finding friends that don’t hook you up with known rapists. But the rest of you and your sorority are all fucking banned.” Then, he turned to me. “You’ve caused more trouble for my club than we’ve had in years, and I’m not letting the club become a haven for rapists. This club is for people to relax and have fun, but rapists? Their pleasure doesn’t fucking matter to us. Get yourselves and your scumbag friends out of here.”

Skylar took Emma, who was sobbing, into his arms and before I could say anything, Lawrence did. “What is your problem?” was all that Lawrence said as he shook me by the shoulders, and, stunned by what I’d seen in the limo, what he was saying didn’t hit me, until it did, like a ton of bricks, and I snapped.

I shoved Lawrence off of me and walked backwards a few steps, stumbling, but he didn’t try to catch me. I guess he was tired of saving me, and, seeing as I didn’t reach out for him? I was tired of him trying to save me too.

I got in the limo and, before checking if everyone was present, asked the driver to leave. In my state of shock, I forgot to do one of the few non-fucked-up duties of being VP: making sure that we left with everyone we’d come with, unless they’d texted and told us that they’d be finding their own way home.

“We forgot someone,” said a freshman quietly as we were about a block away. At least she didn’t wait any longer to speak up. Check plus.

“What?” I heard Sam ask, incredulous. She was high off her ass from her pills. Another product of Pearl’s manipulation, or Sam’s true nature revealed, the way that mine had been? Look, another question I can’t and couldn’t answer, not easily.

“We forgot Emma,” said the quiet freshman, fiddling with her clutch to the point I was half sure that the cheap sequins would all pop off.

I looked and fuck, she was right. By the time the limo headed back, she was gone, but Lawrence was still there, in his rumpled half-dressed state, still not back in his tie and socks and jacket, talking with men in blue uniforms.

The police.

I got out of the limo and Samantha didn’t wait for me to get back in: she had the driver leave. Typical, but I deserved it and more. I went up to Lawrence and grabbed his arm. “Is everything okay?”

“Do you really have to ask?” he asked me, rhetorically, and he shrugged me off.

“Sir, is this lady giving you trouble?” asked the cop.

“No, but thank you. Kim, go inside. We’ll talk there,” he ordered, and although he was talking to me like I was his girlfriend, his cold eyes betrayed his true feelings. I went into the club and one of the tall, gorgeous women that worked for Lawrence took me by the arm and practically dragged me to one of the sofas before pushing me down.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” she snarled. I had never thought that someone so calm and collected could have this other side, but, before tonight, I’d never really thought about how many sides I had myself. I didn’t even know this woman’s name.

“Huh?” I asked. “Lawrence told me to come in here.”

“That’s not what I mean. You know how many girls like you want a guy like Mr. Lamont? You know how many of them he’s dated? None. You’re the only woman that I’ve seen make him both feel so happy and so disgusted. What’s your problem, Kim?”

“How do you know my name?” I asked, confused and a little scared.

“It’s hard not to, when he’s directing and ordering me and the others to ensure that everything’s ready and in place for you, in case you just happen to show up. You know that he waited all Thursday evening to see you, from opening to closing?”

“Yeah, I know,” I admitted.

She sighed and glared at me again. “He kept Club Grit for an extra hour late just in case you might show up, and you didn’t, but he said that he’d stay in the area for as long as it took for him to get to see you again. I’ve never seen him like this, Kim, and I’m not jealous of you, but fucking angry. Mr. Lamont is my boss, and he’s one of the few men I respect. He’s changed my life for the better, in a way that most people like me can’t even imagine, and he’s never even glanced my way in the way he can’t seem to stop looking at you.”

“So, because he wants me, I have to magically become his dream girl?” I said smarmily, rolling my eyes.

“No, but regardless of whether or not Mr. Lamont is in love with you, you should at least be a decent human being,” she snarled. “You don’t get to just be a bitch because you feel like it.”

But she was wrong. I could be, and I was. “You don’t know me at all. Just because your boss is, as you claim, ‘in love’ with me, doesn’t mean you can assign me properties of some idealized woman you’ve put on a pedestal before you even met me. I’m not going to be some magical Asian lady who changes his life for the better by being adorable and quirky. I can be a total piece of shit, and as much as I’ve tried to change, there’s a part of me that likes it. How great is your life if I don’t even know your name, if Lawrence doesn’t even talk about you?” Her eyes widened and not even the smoky eye shadow and perfectly applied mascara could hide the feeling of shock that was rippling through her body as I tore her into shreds. “You’re a loser. You work for forty percent commission selling overpriced alcohol to losers, or as a glorified waitress who pours drinks for sorority girls who have their tables and limos comped out of the fact they’re not just beautiful, but accomplished and elite. You wear a tight black dress you get at American Apparel or Forever 21 and slip on a pair of bargain heels and shake your ass and tits to sell alcohol. I bet you read blogs about how your sexuality is power. I bet you joke with your friends about how ‘at least you’re not a stripper’ and that you make mean jokes about the people you serve, but in reality, we don’t think about you, at all.”

“What’s your point, Kim?” she said, trying to interrupt me angrily, but it didn’t work.

I continued in my monotone, looking straight into her eyes, and not letting myself get distracted by the employees breaking down the club. “You’re just some lady who is okay to look at because she cakes on a face and a slutty version of a waitress outfit, and you aren’t better than anyone else. At all. You’re bottom of the barrel, and you’re probably in love with one of your fellow employees, but watch, as they date other people. There’s a bouncer dating one of the sorority sisters, the one that got attacked tonight. There’s a bartender dating one of them too. And me? I’ve got Lawrence, or, as you call him, as you have to call him, ‘Mr. Lamont’. I get to use his first name, and you? You get to serve us.”

As the words flowed out of me, I saw her eyes first dim, and then, watched as silently, the shine fell down the corners of her eyes and down her cheeks, taking with it the fallout of her cheap drugstore makeup, leaving trails of black against her fake orange tanned skin. She could pretend she was better than me just because she was nicer, but nice didn’t matter in the real world. I’d learned that the hard way, and I had nothing left to lose. At least, that’s what I thought.