Kingmakers, Graduation

4. Adrik

4

ADRIK

I need to adjust my calculations with this woman.

I keep looking for boundaries … I don’t think she has any.

Which means the possibilities are limitless.

I grin to myself, glad to know this little excursion won’t be a waste. Sabrina is just what I hoped.

She’s clever and tricky, with balls of steel. There’s not a man in Moscow who would steal a pen from me, let alone my fucking bike.

But she’s no good to me dead.

Sabrina seems determined to ride the divide between wild and utterly insane. One push, and she could plummet into the abyss. I don’t know if I can hold her steady.

Whether I can or not, one thing is certain: I’ve got her number now, she won’t surprise me again .

I walk over to her bike, not hurrying, because I’ll catch her easily, even on this piece of shit Kawasaki.

The way she fishtailed out of here, there’s no way she even made it out of that first turn.

I’m gonna have to ride down there and scrape her up off the pavement, if she’s not already over the cliff.

I swing my leg over the Ninja’s seat, planning to reignite the engine hotwired by that little kleptomaniac.

When I flick the switch, nothing happens.

I yank the wires out of the ignition. They’re no longer spliced but cut off short.

She cut the wires the moment she got here.

She was planning to steal my bike the whole damn dinner.

All the time we were laughing and talking, drinking that cotton candy wine and eating those $80 steaks, she was fantasizing about flying down the mountain on my Ducati.

I’ve never been fooled by a woman—Sabrina Gallo has done it to me three times in one night.

I don’t know whether to congratulate her or tie her up and throw her in my trunk.

Twenty-two minutes later, I roll up next to Sabrina at the red light at the bottom of Srd Hill .

Her arms are shaking, sweat streaming down her face, her hair in ropes, and her tattered schoolgirl uniform more gray than any of its former colors.

Her body looks like it was made for that bike. Her expression tells me the bike was made for her.

Eyes shining like silver, her chest rises and falls with hectic happiness.

“I’m never giving it back,” she pants.

Steam rises off my shoulders in the cold night air. Taking a man’s bike is one thing—stealing his jacket along with it is pure evil.

“I ought to put you over my knee and whip your fucking ass,” I tell her.

She grins, utterly unrepentant—twisting her wrist, revving the engine of the bike as a deliberate provocation. “You’ll have to catch me first.”

The rickety Honda I’m riding coughs and sputters next to the low purr of the Ducati.

Sabrina eyes my bike, unable to contain her glee.

“Where’d you get that thing?”

Barely reining in my urge to throttle her, I hiss, “I had to fucking buy it.”

Her lips split into a smile so irresistible that I can’t help but enjoy it, even when it’s at my expense.

“How much did you pay for it?”

“Seven thousand dollars, you fucking asshole. ”

She can’t stop laughing. “For that piece of shit?”

“I wasn’t negotiating—I was trying to catch you before you incinerated yourself.”

She shrugs, remarking, “For seven thousand dollars, I would have bought the BMW. Or at least the Yamaha.”

“It wasn’t a fucking bazaar!” I explode. “I had to take what I could get.”

Sabrina looks me up and down, eyebrow cocked. “Huh. Well if that means you only have three thousand left in your pocket, I guess we’re not gonna have the kind of night I thought we’d have.”

The. Fucking. Audacity.

I shake my head at her, letting her think what she wants to think. I’m not the kind of bitch that pulls out his bankroll.

The cross light turns yellow.

With moments until we see our green, I jerk my head at the girl still mounted proudly on my bike.

“Alright. Let’s see what you got.”

I gave her permission, but Sabrina isn’t waiting for it. She’s already crouched low over the handlebars, staring forward, a cat with its eye on the bird.

The light goes green and she pounces.

This time she’s ready for the power of the clutch. She holds it tight so it can’t pop back, turning her wrist for a smooth, steady increase in speed .

Barely, just barely, she manages to hold the back end steady as she pulls away at 70% speed, with only a tiny wobble of the back tire.

Not perfect. But pretty fucking impressive. She’s a fast learner.

I hang back, so I can watch her ride.

I’m not racing anymore … just admiring.

I pull up to the Culture Club, one minute behind Sabrina. The Ducati is still blazing, almost panting as it rests on its stand, the engine giving off light ticks as slowly calms. The keys dangle from the ignition.

Sabrina has already disappeared inside, neatly hopping the line that snakes down the massive stone staircase. I pass the bouncer a folded $100 bill to do the same.

I assume she’s headed to the bathrooms to clean up. I wash my own face and hands, then dunk my head under the faucet to get all the dust out of my hair.

My hair looks almost the same wet or dry—thick and black as fur, springing up in unruly directions. I shake it out, spattering the mirror with water droplets.

It takes Sabrina longer to emerge. I wait under the stone archway leading to the dance floor, the show from the DJ booth sending patterns of shadow and light shooting across the opposi te wall, tinting the white stone violet.

Sabrina steps out of the bathroom like Venus rising from the sea: hair brushed to a glossy sheen, skin washed and glowing like amber, skin-tight dress hugging curves a surgeon couldn’t dream of creating. She’s traded her sneakers for six-inch heels and lined her eyes with smoky kohl.

Whatever she brought in that little backpack is nothing less than transformative; she looks like she flew in here on a private jet instead of riding a rocket.

I guess she cares after all.

Heads turn in her direction, men and women alike staring with their mouths open.

I have the distinct pleasure of witnessing their disappointment as Sabrina strides up to me instead.

“You ready to party?” she says.

“Who am I partying with? This can’t be the girl who just stole my bike.”

Sabrina shrugs. “Why be one thing when you can be everything?”

When you can manipulate reality, life is a game.

I know this game. I play it all the time. I’ve just never played it with anyone else.

“I can’t get used to you,” I tell her. “Every time I see you, it’s a slap in the face.”

Sabrina smiles. “You like getting slapped? ”

I bring my hand down hard on her ass, giving it a sharp smack. Her ass is full and firm beneath my palm, the impact rippling across her flesh.

“Not as much as I like doing the slapping.”

Sabrina doesn’t flinch. She looks up into my face, softly saying, “Then I guess we’ll see who hits the hardest.”

I pull her onto the dance floor.

The pounding bass bounces off stone walls so thick that the club stays cool as a refrigerator, even in the density of bodies pressing in from all sides.

Streams of light shoot off in all directions from the DJ booth, cutting across the dance floor, illuminating Sabrina in vivid bursts of violet and blue.

She raises her hands overhead, showing off her sinuous length. She writhes like a snake, a cobra under the hypnotist’s charm, swaying to the music.

I press against her, her back against my chest, our hips moving together. I run my hands down her sides, feeling those outrageous curves, feeling the heat radiating out of her body into mine.

The music pounds harder and harder. Sabrina dances faster, full of wild energy, a star that blazes bright in the sky, believing it will never burn out. She holds nothing back, saves no energy for later.

We dance until we’re sweating all over, pressed together down every inch of our frames, moving as one.

The bartenders line up a hundred shot glasses down the length of the bar, setting them ablaze with a roar of heat .

“You want a drink?” I ask Sabrina.

“I want several drinks.”

We push our way over to the bar. Sabrina takes two shot glasses. Instead of passing one to me, she tosses the first down her throat, then the second, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand.

I grab my own drink, swallowing the liquor that burns all the way down my throat as if it were still aflame.

Then I seize Sabrina, gripping a handful of her hair and yanking her toward me, kissing her ferociously, tasting the liquor in her mouth.

Her lips are full and lush beneath mine. She doesn’t shrink beneath the kiss but opens her mouth, taking my tongue all the way inside.

I love the way she leans into me. I want her, and she wants more.

When we break apart, she says, “Gimmie another shot.”

I motion to the bartender.

Sabrina is looking the opposite direction, at the two girls standing on a raised platform at the corner of the bar, dressed in chaps and fringed bras, their liquor bottles in holsters on their hips.

The taller of the two, a redhead with a nose piercing and a tattoo of a bison skull on her thigh, crooks a finger at Sabrina, motioning her closer.

She crouches down. Sabrina bends backward over the girl’s knee, the back of her neck resting against the tattoo. The girl pours the shot directly into Sabrina’s mouth, then passes a slice of lime from her lips to Sabrina’s .

Sabrina whispers something in the redhead’s ear while she slips a folded bill into the girls’ bikini top.

When Sabrina returns, she’s flushed and giddy, her lips swollen as she sucks on the lime.

“You like that?” I ask her.

“Who wouldn’t,” Sabrina casts an appreciative look back at the redhead.

“Have you been to the private rooms upstairs?”

“No.” She glances toward the back staircase, blocked by two bouncers and a velvet rope. “What’s up there?”

“The best part of the club.”

Taking her hand, I pull her toward the staircase.

I peel a thick wad of bills off my roll, passing a couple grand to the bouncer, saying, “We need a table and bottle service.”

The bouncer unhooks the rope to let us pass.

“Upstairs and to the right,” he grunts.

Sabrina follows me up, all eyes and ears, looking everywhere at once.

Turquoise light shimmers across the domed ceiling overhead, as if we’ve plunged underwater.

Up here, the private tables are surrounded by high-backed booths. Each booth faces a shower, enclosed in glass, in which dancers undulate beneath the pounding spray.

“Which table?” I say to Sabrina .

What I really mean is, which girl?

Sabrina examines her choices before pointing. “That one.”

We sit at the table facing a blonde girl in a white bikini, the straps of her bathing suit wrapped around her waist, crisscrossing her body. The girl’s hair is pulled up in a high ponytail, her sharp cheekbones and narrow green eyes giving her an almost alien appearance.

I put my arm around Sabrina’s shoulders, watching her watch the girl dance.

The pane separating us is tinted a smoky gray, the transparent box filled with steam, but the girl can see us just like we can see her. She leans against the glass wall, letting the shower pour down on her breasts, the white material of her bikini top turning translucent as it soaks through. She looks over at Sabrina, biting her lip.

Sabrina’s cheeks flush. Her hand tightens on my thigh.

“Is she your type?” I murmur in Sabrina’s ear.

“My type is hot.”

“And is that hot to you?”

Sabrina laughs. “What do you think?”

Leaning over so my lips are right against her ear, I growl, “I think I’d love to watch you peel that bikini off her body.”

Concealed by the table, I slide my hand up Sabrina’s thigh. I meet the hem of her dress and keep going, up to the heat and warmth of the furnace between her thighs. My fingertips find her pussy lips. Sabrina isn’t wearing any underwear .

She shivers when I touch her. Her eyes meet mine and she licks her lips. Then she turns back to the girl, spreading her thighs an inch wider to give me more space.

Holding Sabrina’s gaze, the blonde reaches up and unfastens the tie behind her neck. Slowly, languorously, she lowers the bikini top, revealing a pair of magnificent breasts with pale pink nipples. She shakes her tits lightly, letting them sway and then settle back into place.

Sabrina is hypnotized.

I slide my fingers up and down the cleft of her pussy lips. She’s fucking soaked.

I slip one finger inside of her. Sabrina groans, her eyes locked on the girl. The blonde presses her palms against the glass, running her tongue through the condensation in one long lick.

With my arm around Sabrina’s shoulders, my right hand hangs above her breast. I let my fingertips brush against the material of her dress. Sabrina’s nipple stiffens, her chest rising and falling as if she’s running.

I trace the outline of her nipple with my middle finger, watching as it stands upright in a hard point, straining against the tight black dress. Sabrina breathes faster and faster, almost panting.

I caress her breast, pulling and squeezing on her nipple through the dress. Sabrina arches her back, moaning softly.

The blonde dances directly against the glass, swaying her hips, watching us. She runs her hands over her breasts, lifting and dropping them, pinching her nipples in imitation of what I’m doing to Sabrina .

Sabrina can’t tear her eyes off the girl. She darts a few quick looks in my direction, cheeks burning, embarrassed that I’m seeing her in this state. She can’t hide her arousal, she knows I can see it. She knows how vulnerable it makes her.

Sure enough, she doesn’t even flinch as I yank down the front of her dress, exposing her breasts to the blonde. All she can do is let out a sigh of longing, fingers digging into my thigh.

I feel like I just uncovered a golden idol. I’m blinded by brightness.

Sabrina’s breasts are fucking spectacular. She’s all-natural, brown as the other girl is pale, her nipples dark as chocolate. I want to attack her like a wild animal, I want to lick and suck on every part of her. But I restrain myself, running my fingertips over her nipples light and teasing, flicking them into hard points without giving her the relief she craves.

Sabrina writhes against the plush seat of the booth, biting her lip, looking back and forth from me to the blonde.

“You want to fuck her?” I whisper in her ear, pushing two fingers inside of her.

“ Ughhh,” Sabrina moans, her eyes rolling back.

“Answer me.”

“Maybe,” she hisses, stubborn as ever.

“Take her home, then.”

Sabrina lifts her chin, giving me a haughty look.

“If I take that girl home, it’s to fuck her the way I want, not to put on a show for you.”

I pinch Sabrina’s nipple hard, making her gasp .

“One thing you need to learn about me … I make everything better. If you want to fuck that girl and you bring me along, you’re gonna have the best night of your life.”

I slide my thumb across her clit, up and down, with just the right pressure to bring her up to the edge, to make her clamp her thighs around my hand and press desperately against me.

Her breath comes in ragged gasps. She’s dying for more.

Still Sabrina hesitates, glancing between me and the blonde. I know she wants that girl, and I know she wants me too. But she’s torn.

“You’ve never had a threesome?” I ask her.

Sabrina narrows her eyes at me, annoyed that I guessed right.

“I never wanted to.”

“You like women?”

“Yes.”

“And you like men?”

“Occasionally.”

“Then what are you waiting for?”

Sabrina swallows, her throat tightening.

I pull her against my side, murmuring in her ear, “All I want to do is give you what you want.”

She looks up at me, our faces inches apart.

“I want it all.”

My arm tightens around her .

“Go and get it then.”

I see the decision on her face before she speaks.

“Alright. I’ll ask her.”

I laugh, watching the blonde press against the glass like a puppy at the pound.

“I think she’s already saying yes.”

An hour later, when the blonde has finished her shift in the showers and I’ve sent her a hefty tip via the bouncers, she emerges from the staff room, dressed in a pale-blue sheath and sky-high heels, her hair loose down her back, large diamond hoops dangling from her ears.

She perches herself on a stool over by the bar, crossing her legs in front of her, casting a furtive glance in our direction as she orders her drink.

“You want me to pick her up for you?” I tease Sabrina.

“The day I need a wingman is the day I throw myself off a cliff,” she snarls.

“Perfect. I’ll meet you out front with the car.”

Sabrina pauses, casting a suspicious glance back over her shoulder. “What car? We rode here on bikes.”

I shake my head. “When will you stop underestimating me? I’ve had four months to plan this date. Of course I have a car.”

A smile plays over her lips. She likes surprises .

“Alright then. See you in a minute.”

I head toward the stairs, pausing halfway down so I can watch Sabrina work.

She slides onto the stool next to the blonde, raising a finger to the bartender to order a drink of her own.

Then she leans on her elbow, frankly looking the blonde up and down, paying some compliment that makes the girl laugh, pink in her cheeks.

I’m hit with a rush of heat, watching Sabrina radiate her raw sexual energy at full blast.

Everything Sabrina does is charged—each lift of her eyebrow, each flash of her teeth, the way she sits, the way she stands, the way she crosses her legs. Everything about her is hot as hell, and that’s when she’s not even trying.

Now I’m watching her exert herself, bringing all her powers to play. It’s fucking mesmerizing.

She takes her drink from the bartender, plucking the stick of olives from her martini and sliding one in her mouth. She chews slowly, then dips the olives back into the gin before removing another with her teeth.

Sabrina has the quality certain actors possess, compelling you to watch her every move. She can sexualize even the simplest of actions.

The blonde can hardly meet her eye. She’s nervous now, with no glass wall between them. She’s pink in the cheeks, fidgeting on her stool .

Sabrina murmurs something, holding out her drink for the girl to take a sip. Obediently, the blonde bends her head and drinks from Sabrina’s glass. When a little vodka clings to her lower lip, Sabrina catches it with the ball of her thumb. Their faces are close together, their mouths inches apart.

Sabrina licks the vodka off her thumb, slowly, sensuously, holding the girl’s gaze. She lowers her hand, letting it rest on the blonde’s bare thigh.

The women mirror each other down the length of their bodies, leaning in close, eyes locked. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but from the expression on Sabrina’s face, it’s something naughty.

The blonde blushes harder than ever, giggling. She nods.

I head down the stairs, smiling to myself.