before a man who managed to remain one step ahead while laughing to watch them fall.
You see, that’s what happens when you make a deal with evil. Everything goes fine until the day comes when he calls in his debt. Tanner doesn’t mess around with interest rates or repayable loans. No. If he does something for you, you can bet he’ll extract his pound of flesh in the most creative of endeavors.
We are all pawns to be played in Tanner’s world. Man or woman, it doesn’t matter.
I didn’t know what would happen when he waltzed back into my life after running from him in law school. But what I did know is that, where Tanner is involved, yours is a story that can never end well.
. . .
Luca
“Go with the white booty shorts, Luca. You have the ass for them. Mine’s a little too flat.”
A sigh burst over my lips as I dug through my roommate, Everly’s, closet. Standing in here was like searching through a fashionable slut’s dream, everything way too short, dangerously tight, and designed specifically to highlight a woman’s curves.
Her style was opposite to mine. Never one to cater to what men wanted, I preferred casual clothes, my comfort taking precedent over what most would consider sexy.
The deep bass of some popular rap song pounded behind me, Everly’s shoulders bouncing in my peripheral vision as she sat at a makeup table to apply what had to have been a third layer of foundation.
“I don’t know about this, Evy. Maybe you should go alone tonight. I have some homework to catch up. It’s probably best I spend the next few hours in the library.”
“Shut your hole, Luca. You’re coming with me. This party is all everybody has been talking about on campus and there’s no way in hell I’m letting you miss out all because you’re scared of being social.”
Grabbing the white shorts she’d suggested, I pulled them from the hanger and held them up to my hips. These were more suited to be a bathing suit for how tight and short they were.
My head spun to look at her just as she turned to glance at me. “Plus, Clayton will be there. And I know you have the hots for him.”
She had me there.
Clayton Hughes was a big man on campus. Not as big as the Inferno boys, but he ran with them all the same.
Normally, just his association with the Inferno would have put me off and sent me running the opposite direction, but we worked together on a mock trial and had gotten to know each other better.
He was the son of a Senator and had money coming out his ears. Not to mention he was hot as fuck…and intelligent, which was a bonus in my book.
After working together, we’d hit it off and had been texting back and forth for the past week.
But that didn’t mean I had to go to this party just to see him.
“I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if I didn’t go. I’ll see him in class on Monday.”
“Shut. It.” Everly spoke in time with the music’s beat.
“I have a hot night planned with Jase, and you, my bookworm friend, are going to be my wingwoman.”
Rolling my eyes, I sat in a chair just outside her closet to tug off my jeans.
“If you already have a hot night planned, then you don’t need a wingwoman.”
Shaking my head, I couldn’t believe she was stupid enough to get involved with any of the nine men who lived in the Inferno house.
All of them were bad news, each one a known manwhore that couldn’t keep it in their pants long enough to carry on a week long relationship with one woman.
Evy had been sleeping with Jase for a full week, however, and it made me wonder how in the hell she’d pulled it off. I suspected she wasn’t the only ass he was getting.
As if reading my thoughts, she answered, “He might have some stupid bitch all up on him when we get there. You know how he is.”
“I’m surprised you put up with that,” I commented under my breath. She heard it regardless, her lips kicking up into a grin.
“He’s Jase Fucking Kesson. Are you kidding me right now?”
Laughter poured over her lips.
“I’m determined to tame that man, even when everybody else assumes he can’t be.”
Yeah, except Jase Kesson, also known as Lust in the Inferno circuit, was just one of the nine guys who practically ran the school.