Filthy Claim

Chapter 1

Jasmine

I know Camden is about to come because Sienna Dacre looks over his shoulder, finds me in the open doorway, and smiles.

She is bent across the black lacquer desk in an unused booking room off the club manager's corridor, one long leg hooked around Camden's hip and the other planted on the carpet. Her silver dress has been shoved above her waist. Nothing covers her from there down, not underwear, not one honey-blond hair against the flawless bronze of her body. Camden's white shirt hangs open across his back, already dark between the shoulder blades, while his trousers grip his thighs and leave his bare ass in full view.

I can see where they join.

His cock drives into her wet pussy, bare all the way to the base, each hard stroke moving her against a stack of reservation folders that slides farther across the desk. Sienna’s coconut perfume hangs in the cramped room, stronger here than it ever was across a dinner table. Bass pounds through the wall with enough force to stir the ice in two abandoned glasses, yet every slick impact reaches me through it.

Sienna's heavy breasts spill from the top of her dress. A fine shine covers the sculpted lines of her stomach, and her pale pink nails press into Camden's back as she watches me watch him fuck her.

The sight heats me before the horror can stop it. My nipples draw tight beneath red lace. A hard pulse begins between my thighs, physical and obscene, while the taste of bile creeps over the back of my tongue.

I've imagined catching him. For the last three months, every upside-down phone and unexplained shower has given me a fresh version. In none of them do I stand silent while another woman takes him with her eyes open and enjoys my humiliation as much as his cock.

Sienna winks.

Then she pulls Camden deeper with both legs.

His shoulders lock. The muscles in his back bunch beneath his open shirt, his blond head drops beside hers, and his hips press flush while he comes inside her. He stays buried through every jerk. Sienna's lips part on a low moan that could have come from one of her subscriber videos, breathy and polished for an audience, except this performance is mine alone.

I watch all of it.

Camden gives her one last thrust and slumps over her. Sienna strokes his sweat-damp hair away from his forehead, still looking at me, then lets her knees fall wider as he pulls out. His come begins slipping from her, bright against her skin under the red light.

My body answers that too.

I may have to set my entire nervous system on fire.

"Are you planning to charge me for the show," I ask, "or is this included with bottle service?"

Camden whips around. His face empties before panic floods it, leaving his expensive tan blotched under the cheekbones. The movement tangles his trousers around one knee. He catches himself on the desk, sending a glass to the floor.

"Jasmine. Jesus Christ."

Glass breaks near my shoe, and a cold splash of melted ice hits my ankle. The shock gives my legs permission to move. I step into the room, careful of the glittering shards, while Camden fights with his clothes.

"How long were you standing there?" he asks.

Of all the available questions, he chooses the one with the answer most likely to improve his self-esteem.

"I confirmed your stamina remains disappointing."

"I fucked up." Camden yanks his trousers over his hips without bothering with his underwear. "I was high. She followed me up here, and I made a stupid decision. Let me get dressed. I'll take you home, and we'll talk through everything."

Sienna rolls onto her back across the desk, lazily arranging her dress over her waist without covering herself. Even after being pounded under club lighting, she looks airbrushed. Her golden hair spills past the folders. Her stomach is flat, her thighs are hard, and his come is still running between them.

I hate that she's hot as fuck.

"You finished inside her."

Camden grabs his belt from the carpet. "I know what I did."

"Do you? You look confused. You found a private room, went past the staff-only sign, took off your clothes, and fucked her raw. You made the decision all the way through it."

"I was out of my head. You know what the pills do."

"Your cock managed to stay focused."

His gaze darts toward the open door. The corridor beyond is empty, but anybody could pass it. Privacy matters to him now. A minute ago, my dignity didn't.

"Keep your voice down," he says. "We'll handle this at the apartment."

The apartment. His apartment, leased through one of the companies his family uses to hold beachfront property without making the tax bill cry. The black card in my purse carries my name in silver, but the account is his. Ibiza had been his. Aspen had been his. The degree I abandoned when my parents cut off tuition last month was mine, though losing the money to finish it had reduced that ownership to a box of chemistry textbooks gathering dust in Camden's second bedroom.

I had called this freedom because admitting I had changed sponsors would have ruined the parties.

Sienna gives a soft laugh. "She can fuck off or join in. I'm fine with either."

Camden turns on her. "Shut up."

"Don't get shy now. She already watched the good part."

I cross the remaining distance and slap Camden.

My palm cracks across his face. Pain flashes through my fingers, sharp and satisfying, and his head snaps aside. The gold chain at his throat swings against his chest.

Sienna comes off the desk before he can recover.

Her hand buries in my hair from behind and tears my head backward. Pins rip loose from one space bun. My scalp burns. I drive an elbow behind me, connect with the rigid plane of her stomach, and hear her breath burst out beside my ear.

"You psycho bitch," she gasps.

"You attacked me."

"You hit him."

I bare my teeth. "Then kiss it better. You've already had your mouth all over him."

She jerks my hair again. I stamp a heel down, miss her foot, and bury the narrow point in the soft leather of Camden's loafer.

He shouts. I experience a small spiritual renewal.

Sienna claws my shoulder. I twist free at the cost of several strands of hair, grab the first handful of silver fabric I can reach, and haul. Her dress tears down one side with a sound like heavy paper ripping. One of her breasts drops free. She lunges, catches me across the hips, and drives both of us into a velvet chair.

The chair tips. My bare knee strikes carpet, and her perfume fills my nose as we roll against the overturned seat, all hard limbs, expensive fabric, and vicious female fury. She gets a hand near my face. I trap her wrist, shove her away, then reach for the glossy sheet of hair every wellness article insists has never seen an extension.

A pair of thick arms hooks beneath mine and lifts me clean off the floor.

The club guard carries me backward while another man blocks Sienna. My heel kicks uselessly above the carpet. Camden stands between the desk and the broken glass, one side of his face red, his shirt open, his cock still shining.

He looks ridiculous.

That hurts more than if he looked cruel.

"Put me down," I tell the guard.

He does, though he keeps one hand near my elbow. The room has filled with people. Two bottle girls hover outside the door. A bartender stares at the floor. Three men in dark club shirts have appeared without bringing a single useful idea among them.

Camden takes one step toward me. "Baby, please."

My scratched shoulder stings beneath the torn lace strap of my top. One space bun is collapsing over my ear, and smoky mascara has begun watering into the corner of my left eye. Sienna's dress hangs open from ribs to thigh. She stands with her chin raised, breathing hard, still naked below the waist.

Somehow, she wears disaster better.

"Enjoy the infection," I tell Camden.

He reaches for me. The guard shifts between us, saving Camden from a second slap and saving me from the indignity of staying another second.

I walk out.

Nobody follows until I reach the stairs.

Camden calls my name from the upper corridor, but the music swallows the rest. The main room is packed shoulder to shoulder beneath red beams of light. Women dance on raised platforms in scraps of black vinyl. Men hold bottles over their heads while sparks spit from silver toppers. The air smells like perfume heated on skin, spilled vodka, and the faint electrical bite from the lighting rig.

I move through all of it with one heel slipping slightly under my left foot. Someone shouts hello. A woman from a yacht weekend catches my wrist, sees my face, then releases me before concern can require effort.

By the time I reach the lobby, my phone is vibrating inside my purse.

Camden.

I reject the call. He rings again before the screen goes dark. A line of messages begins stacking beneath his name, but I refuse to read apologies written while his dick is still wet.

Outside, warm night air pours over me. The velvet rope runs past a crowd waiting beneath the club's black awning, every face turned toward the door in the hope that somebody important will recognize it. Camera flashes burst near the curb. A valet jogs between idling cars, and another opens the door of a white coupe for a woman whose waist is narrower than my thigh.

Camden's Rolls waits where he left it.

The black Cullinan sits beyond the valet stand with its engine running, its windows dark, its tall body polished until the club lights move across it in red streaks. Camden changes watches, wraps, and women too often, yet the car is impossible to mistake. He made me choose the cream leather because he claimed I was the one who would be photographed climbing out of it.

Cream, black, whatever. I don't care.

The driver must have stepped away. The door is unlocked.

I get in.

The cabin smells faintly like tobacco, cedar, and leather rather than Camden's ocean-scented cologne. Black leather covers the seats instead of cream, and the driver's side is pushed so far back my heels barely find the pedals. A dark coat lies across the rear bench, barely visible through the darkness behind me, while the dashboard glows with restrained white light.

Camden has changed the interior without telling me.

Fine. I'm changing his night without telling him.

I drag the seat forward, throw my purse onto the passenger side, and pull away from the curb while the valet is still turning toward me. His mouth opens. Whatever he yells vanishes behind the heavy glass.

My hands shake on the wheel.

At the first light, I can still feel Sienna's nails against my shoulder and Camden's wet, naked body filling the doorway of my memory. The signal turns green. I stamp the accelerator, and the force pins my back to the seat.

The Cullinan moves with obscene ease. It weighs more than some houses and still surges down Sunset as though the city owes it space. Tires hiss over dirty pavement. Neon smears across the hood. My pulse races in my throat, and the bitter taste behind my tongue grows stronger every time Camden's final expression returns.

Fear had finally reached him, aimed at losing me rather than at the pain on my face.

My phone keeps vibrating. Camden can keep the apartment, the card, the parties, and every friend currently asking him whether I've always been unstable. I'll sell the jewelry he gave me, sleep in a hotel until the money runs out, then call my mother from a number she doesn't know and enjoy the thin pause before she says she warned me.

Later.

Tonight I want distance. I want wind in my ruined hair and the picture of Camden emptying himself inside Sienna scraped out of my head. I want five minutes in which nobody can take anything else.

Red and blue light erupts across the rear window.

"Oh, fuck you."

The police SUV stays behind me as I change lanes. Its siren gives one sharp burst.

Camden must have reported the car stolen already. That speed of betrayal would almost impress me.

I pull onto a quieter side street and stop beneath the blank windows of a furniture showroom. The police vehicle angles in behind me, washing the Cullinan's cabin in alternating color. My fingers have gone damp around the wheel. I wipe one palm on my leather skirt, taste copper where I've bitten the inside of my cheek, then lower the window.

The officer approaching my door is broad through the middle, with silver threaded through his close-cut hair. One hand rests near the weapon at his hip. His flashlight enters first, sweeping over my face, my torn strap, the open purse on the passenger seat. "License and registration."

"My license is in my purse. The car belongs to my boyfriend."

"Take out the license slowly."

I use two fingers to pull my wallet free. The officer examines the card, then looks back at me for several quiet seconds. "Jasmine Carrington?"

"That is what it says."

His mouth flattens. "Who owns the vehicle?"

"Camden Rothwell. He may be experiencing separation anxiety."

The officer angles his flashlight toward the windshield. "The plate doesn't come back to Camden Rothwell."

"His family hides everything inside companies. Cars, houses, probably their souls."

The officer steps away with my license. In the side mirror, his partner moves along the passenger side, flashlight tracing the windows. The beam pauses at the back.

I lean toward my mirror. "Is there a problem?"

The first officer ignores me. He speaks into the radio at his shoulder, too low for the words to carry through the glass.

His partner tries the rear door.

It opens.

The interior light comes on, soft and gold. For one suspended second, I see the black coat folded across the seat and a man's polished shoe beneath it.

Then the officer pulls the coat away.

A body lies twisted across the rear floor and bench, dressed in a dark suit soaked nearly black at one shoulder. One arm has been tucked beneath him. The other drops toward the pavement when the door opens, fingers pale and curled. Blood has dried from his hairline across half his face. One eye stares toward the ceiling. His neck bends too far to the side.

The officer jumps back and reaches for his gun.

Cold sweeps from my scalp to my ankles. My hearing narrows until the engine sounds distant, while the man's open eye becomes the only fixed point in the car. The smell reaches me now that the rear door is open, copper and shit beneath cedar leather.

I open my mouth. Nothing comes out.

The officer at my window draws his weapon. "Show me your hands."

I lift them from the wheel. My fingers shake beneath the alternating red and blue light. "I didn't know he was there."

"Keep your hands where I can see them. Step out of the vehicle."

"This isn't my car."

"Get out now."

I reach for the door handle.

Both officers shout.

I freeze, arm extended, every nerve firing without agreement. The first officer yanks the door open and orders me out again. My heel catches on the sill. He grips my upper arm, turns me against the Cullinan, and presses my palms onto the warm black paint.

The dead man's hand hangs from the open rear door three feet away.

"I stole the wrong car," I say, and even I can hear how insane it sounds.

The officer pulls my right wrist behind my back.

The cuff clicks shut.