by Maria Luis
When the man brought that strip of leather down on her behind with a thwack! I jumped as though Nat had clapped her hands all over again. A female whimper cut through the air, and I’d be dead before I ever admitted it, but even my own ass clenched as though I’d been the one to take the licking. Heat saturating my limbs, I shifted my weight on my heels.
Nat’s hand found my back, and she gently brushed back my hair. “We like to be all-inclusive here, as it’s one of the few places in the city you can still find such performances. Whether our clients are looking for some BDSM, missionary, men on men, or threesomes, we cater to all.”
Lips dry, I wet them—and then wished I had a few ice cubes to toss down the front of my dress . . . and probably in my damn underwear, too.
“And downstairs?” I asked breathlessly as I spotted a new group off to my left. Positioned on a bed up on a circular stage, a woman and a man hovered over a second man, who was sprawled across the rumpled sheets. Through the crowd, I couldn’t see much of the second man’s face. But I saw his cock, erect and proud, and there was no mistaking it when the first man leaned down to swipe his tongue along that hard length, from base to crown.
My core tightened at the sight, and there was nothing—nothing—I could do to stop watching the scene unfold before me.
“Downstairs, cherie, there is a wait list for those who would die to ascend those steps. But they’ll have to wait to join our little club.” Bitterly, she tacked on, “We’re prone to police raids though we do our best to stay off the radar. No one enters this space who hasn’t already been checked extensively.”
Tearing my gaze from the threesome, I refocused on Nat. “You didn’t do a check on me.”
She didn’t even blink. “Ah, but you don’t truly exist, do you, Miss Washington?”
Like earlier tonight when I’d run into my stepfather, Nat’s offhand comment was like a douse of cold water over the head. My lust cooled instantaneously, my brain working overtime to think of something to say that would throw her off. Had the bouncer downstairs told her that my ID was a fake? That had to be it. Relief hit me like a sledgehammer to the chest, the built-up air filtering out as I exhaled again and again and again.
“Look how pale you are!” Pressing a hand to my forehead, Nat eclipsed my hands between hers and rubbed them together. “It was only a joke, cherie,” she said, brows wrinkled in concern. “After all these years of you helping me, you are welcome here whenever you want.” She paused, and I glanced up to meet her gaze. “I find it necessary to warn you, though, about your little crush on Lincoln Asher.”
“What about it?” I asked, more sharply than I’d intended.
“It’s nothing, nothing.” Beneath her breath she muttered something, probably in Hungarian, and then piped up again. “I just . . . you ought to be warned that he is more likely to ruin you than to love you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Feeling the need to defend myself, I bit out, “I’m not looking for love. That’s not why I’m here.”
Why are you here, then?
Tom Townsend.
Tabby.
“Nat, I need to ask you—”
She cut me off, finger to her lips in the universal move for me to keep quiet. Behind that finger, her mouth moved, her voice cutting through the moans and whimpers and cries of the activity behind us: “If it has nothing to do with love, then I would like to introduce you to someone. Or, shall I say, someones. Come along.”
Leaving me no choice but to follow, we wound our way through groups of people until we reached the very back of the second floor. In comparison to the rest of the space, it was quiet here, almost deathly so. Shadows hugged the walls, and though I was aware of other people sitting and whispering to each other, their identities remained anonymous with the light trained only on the stage.
“Sit, cherie,” she said, gently pushing on my shoulders until my knees gave up their protest and my butt landed on the velvet settee with a bounce. “They are about to begin.”
Who was about to begin?
“Nat—”
Her silk skirts skimmed my swollen feet as she turned away. “I shall send him to you. Enjoy the performance, Miss Washington. You won’t soon forget it.”
21
Lincoln
The very first time I came to Whiskey Bay, I’d had no idea that sex could be anything besides missionary or reverse cowboy. I’d watched porn like every other hot-blooded teenage boy, jerking off in the bathroom stall to the memorized visual of bouncing tits and shaved pussies and my one sexual experience in that fancy mansion.
On my fifteenth birthday, Ambideaux steered me up the flight of steps from the first floor to the Basement. He and Nat were on the verge of divorce by that point, but he had too much of a hand in the business—and keeping unwanted eyes off the business—that his estranged wife could never give him the full boot.
That night had been eye-awakening.
The next year, too.
Nat refused to let me touch any of her girls—I was way too young, she’d argued, and they were way too old.
Torture at its finest, especially to a fifteen-year-old who’d already been tasked with doing big-boy drug runs for Ambideaux. By the time I’d finally hooked up with one of Nat’s girls, I’d orgasmed in under thirty seconds—the slow burn of anticipation, I guessed, since I wasn’t a virgin by that point.
I’d never been particular good with looking and not touching, which was why I’d grown to favor the rooms along the right side of the Basement. All that was required of me was to pick a room and wait for the doorknob to twist, the door to click open, and a hot female to walk on in.
The chosen room dictated which toys were available, and no room had the same toys two nights in a row.
Russian Roulette, sex-style.
Those rooms had been my favorite, way back when, and according to my source, Zak Benson shared the preference, as well.
Unfortunately, missing the gaming tables tonight was turning out to be a major pain in the ass. With no way to know which room he’d chosen or even if he was still here at all, and with lights turned down, I was well and truly fucked.
“Harder!” a feminine voice shrilled. “Ohmigod, harder!”
Cock twitching in my pants, I crushed my empty water bottle and tossed it in the closest trash bin. All right, so I wasn’t that fucked, but still.
Tonight was a wash, that was for sure. And instead of lingering around and hoping for a lot of something when it was more likely I’d get a whole lot of nothing, it was probably for the best if I just went home.
Or you could go and see Avery.
My eyes squeezed shut. Seven days since we’d been together—seven days of telling myself that I’d been too rough on her, that I’d pushed way too hard way too fast. Christ, she’d been a virgin and I’d sank into her heat like a fucking animal, with no regard as to how she’d feel after I left and she was alone again.
A good man would have spent the night with her tucked into his body, his hands smoothing over her arms, brushing back her hair.
I wasn’t, and had never been, a good man.
My equivalent of getting romantic was making demands when she hardly knew me, and what she did know, probably wasn’t much to her liking.
If I wanted to see her again—and, God help us both, but I did—I’d need some sort of grand gesture. Fuck if I knew what that entailed. Flowers were probably a given, though Avery didn’t really seem to be a roses kinda girl. Chocolate, maybe. Although that brought in the question of white, milk, or dark.
Or maybe you should just wait to see her until this shit with Ambideaux blows over. I needed to at least try and be a decent sonofabitch who didn’t go storming over to Avery’s to take her all over again.
Dragging my palms down my face, I grimaced as my calloused right hand hit my equally calloused right cheek.
Yesterday I’d walked into a convenient store to pick up milk and a little girl had gone running for her mother, tears in her
eyes as she cried, “Scared!” over and over again while pointing at me.
Nothing said “good times” more than sending a child into a tear-ridden fit, and all before noon.
“I’ve got to go home,” I muttered.
Benson wasn’t here, and the thought of watching people hook up all over this place while I went home alone was single-handedly the reason why the world had invented the Food Network.
You couldn’t feel total rage when you were watching people make cupcakes and fight over whose frosting was better. It just wasn’t possible.
Placing a fiver on the bar as a tip, I stretched my neck, giving it a quick pop-pop, and then made my way back to the stairwell. Ambideaux would be pissed about tonight, but sometimes shit didn’t pan out the way you wanted.
During the old days, I’d been desperate to please the man who’d been like a father to me. Nothing would have stopped me from following through on his orders, not even a case of a guy like Benson not showing up when he’d been all but scheduled to do so.
Guess that was the difference a decade could make.
Plus, making Ambideaux sweat a little was just fine by me. The bastard needed to have his world shaken up some, and I wasn’t above being the guy to do the shaking. Put that shit in a blender and flip the switch—
“Lincoln.”
Nat.
I was not in the mood for another round with her tonight.
With my back to her, I drawled, “Something I can help you with? Or are you just looking for another Benjamin to warm your wallet?”
“So vulgar,” she sniffed, as though she wouldn’t nab my wallet if she had the chance . . . and we both knew she would. “And here I thought I’d be delivering some good news to you.”
Shoulders tensing, I slowly turned to face her. “The only good news I’d like to hear is that your husband is dead.”
“Ex-husband,” she spat out, all pleasantry wiped from her face. “And, trust me, I’m waiting on the same thing. But that is not the news I have for you.”
Apparently, it wasn’t my lucky day after all.
“I was on my way out, so if you’re wanting me to stick around for this, I’m going to need something more than just clues.”
Eyes blazing, her hands reached down to fist her dress. “Then I suppose I shall just tell you this: a little birdie has arrived here for you.”
Spinning on her heel, she turned to go.
My hand locked around her elbow, stalling her retreat. “What ‘little birdie’ are we talking about here?” I hissed, careful to keep my voice low.
Her eyes dropped to where my hand gripped her, and her mouth curled in a sneer. “You have always been so disrespectful.”
Was she really that surprised?
I’d been dropped off at foster care by the age of three and had entered her and Jason’s lives four years later. Most of my memorable years had been spent as her ex-husband’s right-hand man . . . the one not brought to events or mentioned in public. No, Ambideaux had made use of my many talents in other ways that were better suited to running with drug lords, dining with murderers, and sleeping with prostitutes.
And the day I’d grown the balls to walk away, he’d shot me twice and had me hand-delivered to the swamplands.
I was as fucked up as they came, and she was lucky I didn’t have a damn collar around my neck with a tag reading FERAL on it.
I tightened my grip on her elbow. “What little birdie, Nat?”
She smiled at me, then, her pearly white teeth on display. “Laurel is here.”
My teeth scraped together as I clamped my jaw shut. Ambideaux had always said his ex was insane, and as I stared down at her now, I figured that might be the one thing he’d ever told the truth about. “I’m going home.”
“Are you so sure you want to do that?”
“I don’t know a Laurel,” I bit out, releasing her. “Good night, Nat.”
“Dark hair. The prettiest hazel eyes you’ll ever see. One birthmark, just alongside her hairline. A certain lightness in her expression whenever she mentions your name.”
Back stiffening at her pointed tone, my brain went into hyperdrive.
Did she mean Avery was here?
Christ, if Avery had been nervous about sex, this place had to have her absolutely terrified. It wasn’t meant for people like her—good, innocent people who were better off believing sex was done in a bed, missionary-style, and that was that.
Guess you fucked up that already for her.
“Where is she?” I demanded, kicking my conscience to the curb.
Nat’s smile twisted into the beginnings of a smirk. “Stage one. Your old favorite.”
My lids fluttered shut.
I gave myself three seconds to breathe through the volatile hatred before I launched into motion.
I didn’t even make it to two.
I needed to find Avery—hopefully before she saw what happened on that stage.
22
Avery
It all started out normal enough.
Aside from the whole we’re-doing-this-in-front-of-everyone bit, of course.
But when no one in the settees and armchairs around me seemed to bat an eye at the man and woman stepping onto the stage, naked as the day they were born, I kicked off my offensive stilettos and sat back to enjoy the show.
Nat’s cryptic, departing message, however, made my brain spin like wheels caught in mud for the first few minutes of the performance, as did her promise to “send him over.”
Had she meant Asher?
Stupid heart of mine had not stopped beating in overtime since she’d waltzed away, and I caught myself searching the darkness every few seconds for the sight of his approach.
Fess up, you just want to see him tonight.
The truth seeped like serum into my skin, and my toes tapped the wood floor anxiously as I waited.
I would be normal.
I would be calm.
My heart gave a shocked ba-dump as I watched the man on the stage fit a ball-gag into his lady friend’s mouth, the strap going around her head. His thumb brushed over her pebbled nipple, stroking it until the woman’s hips swirled, seeking his.
I squirmed in my seat.
Glanced around to scope out everyone else’s reaction, but . . . nothing. If people were bug-eyed like me, if they were drooling with lust, it was impossible to tell. Anonymity at its finest.
A new thought lodged itself in my head: if the room was so very dark, would Asher be able to find me?
I had to imagine that Nat would tell him where I was seated . . . right? It only seemed logical, especially after she’d sat me on this exact sofa.
Swallowing my nerves, I checked out the couple again.
Oh.
The woman was flat on her back now, knees brought up to her chest, as the man lay between her legs and sucked hard on her clit. This time when I swallowed, I couldn’t get it down all the way and I choked.
“Are you okay?” a masculine voice whispered in my ear, and I almost jumped straight out of my seat. A soothing hand swept up to the back of my head, under the curtain of my hair, to touch the skin at the base of my neck. “Easy, sweetheart. Just me.”
Just me.
My lungs heaved as Asher lowered himself to the cushion next to mine. He was taller than me, though, broader, and he couldn’t extend his legs without kicking the stage. He set them wide, instead, getting all up in my space and popping my bubble.
Two hours ago, I’d been ready to cut into him and demand answers.
Seated in the dark before a naked couple like the pair on the stage, I was just . . . turned on.
Even admitting that in the privacy of my own head felt embarrassing.
Asher and I leaned into each other at the same time, our opposite cheeks grazing as we spoke:
“How did you find me?”
“Why the hell are you here?”
At the fire in his voice, and cognizant that we were far from alone, I angled my head to hiss in
his ear, “Wow, not even a nice-to-see-you? Classy, Sergeant. Seriously.”
With his nose, he nudged my face to the side and did the same to me, hissing in my ear. “I’m not wasting time with the pleasantries, Avery. This isn’t a place for someone like you.”
Someone like me?
To the backdrop of the woman moaning on stage, I cupped Asher’s scarred cheek. “I’m sorry, are you referring to my virginity, which you took?”
“I’m talking about your lifestyle—it’s only been a week and I know you haven’t forgotten what it’s like for me to own your body. You were nervous then, and I get it. I pushed, and you submitted, but if you were worried about sex with me, then this shit is going to give you nightmares. I need to get you home.”
He was . . . he was—
A head stuck between us, and then a man muttered, “Would the two of you shut the hell up? If I wanted to hear arguing, I would have stayed home with the missus.”
Like two reprimanded schoolchildren, Asher and I jumped apart, and I fixed my attention on the couple.
A second passed and then another, and then, “Fuck.”
I sent an askance glance in Asher’s direction. “What, do you disapprove or something?”
His blue eyes, however, remained locked on the couple. “We’re staying,” he muttered.
I tapped his hand, which was squeezing his thigh. “Newsflash, I had no plans on leaving.”
“Seriously,” the man in the row behind us snapped, leaning forward again, “I’m not going home to my wife so we can argue about how to organize the damn socks again. Please, take pity on me and shut the hell up!”
We shut up.
While I’d been more than prepared to watch the proceedings on the stage before Asher had appeared, now I felt only more hyperaware to every flick of a tongue or circle of a finger.
The woman’s face was a mask of pleasure, her eyes squeezed shut and her cheeks all flushed. Unlike some of the other acts which took place on beds or settees or pool tables, there was nothing but the stage here. Nothing but their two bodies as they moved in unison, the female taking, her hips moving downward to meet every thrust of the man’s tongue. Her hand latched onto his dark hair while the other gripped the rounded curve of the stage, her fingers flexing, her palm sliding, never finding purchase, when he changed angles and her body spasmed.