“All the members got a lock or a key when they joined and paid their membership dues. The men all have a lock, one that is either open or one that is closed. If the lock is open, it means the gentleman is attached, married, has a partner, but is still up for anything and everything. The closed lock signifies that that particular man is off-limits and must engage with another member on his or her own terms.”
She lifted an eyebrow at me. “And the keys?”
I shrugged. “The women have the keys, to the locks and to the men’s hearts. Don’t they always?”
She moved a little closer and our knees brushed together, and I felt it in my balls. I sucked in a quick breath as the mere touch made my dick throb.
“So the women can just go around unlocking and locking men up all night long? They have no rules?”
“Women make all the rules when it comes to sex, Key. You should know this better than anyone.” I wanted to reach out and pull her off the edge of the desk so that she was sitting in my lap. “They have the key but they don’t have to use it, and if a member with a closed lock doesn’t want them to set them free, then that’s it. There is no pressure. There is no persuasion. It should all be mutual and it is all facilitated by men and women that want to be here. I’m paying a small fortune for the people that know this industry inside and out. I built a grown-up amusement park where nothing is off-limits. People love their kink. People love their sex.”
She blew out a breath and I wanted to lean forward and capture it with my own mouth.
“What about you? Do you love your sex and kink, Nassir?”
I smirked at her. “Sex is a part of life; it’s necessary and here in the Point it is currency. Kink I can give or take depending on the person on the other end of it. I’ve seen too much torture and degradation in my lifetime for the extreme and dark side of sex to be appealing.”
I saw the questions my quietly spoken words fired to life in her eyes, but instead of asking them, she was the one that decided to change the subject.
“Tell me about this business proposition you had in mind when you came to Denver. You want me to dress in latex and spank people? You want me to get on my back and spread my legs for a line of guys while people watch? What’s your game plan?”
I frowned at her and couldn’t stop myself from moving closer to her as she spit the harsh words out at me.
“You think I want to watch you have sex with other people, Key? You think it’s been fun for me to watch you burn your way through every available and not-so-available boy in the Point because you weren’t ready for me?” I narrowed my eyes at her. “Now, which one of us needs to have some accountability?”
She flushed pink and leaned closer to me. She might be scared of me and the way I wanted her, but she never backed down, and that made my desire for her burn in a way that would never be extinguished.
“What did you have in mind, Nassir?”
I reached out with the very tip of my finger and brushed it along the raised-up surface of her scar. She flinched away from me and I could still see her on the filthy floor of the strip club, her crimson life force covering my hands as her eyes fluttered closed. I refused to let her die just like I refused to let her leave. I was not a man to be denied the things he wanted most.
“I want you to buy in and be a partner just like Race did. You are what sex is about in the Point, Key. Your face. Your body. Your heart. Your attitude. The legacy you left. Everything about you is what men dream about in this place. I want you to lure them in, empty their pocketbooks, and then send them on their way with a smile.”
She reared back and then burst out laughing. She cackled so hard her eyes started to water. “You want me to be a mascot.”
I furrowed my eyebrows because I had no idea what she was talking about. She must have seen my confusion because she stopped laughing long enough to fill me in.
“Like a dancing chicken or a singing taco. Like the big stuffed furry critters that dance around for the crowd at halftime during a football game. You want me to be a mascot for a sex club.”
I was lost. “I don’t watch football.”
“Well, trust me; that’s exactly what you’re asking me to do, and I have to pass. I need more out of my life than flaunting my boobs and getting groped for a dollar.” She flicked that bloodred hair out of her eyes and stared me down.
I blinked at her slowly and lifted a hand to rub my thumb across my lower lip. I liked the way her eyes tracked the movement. She was as affected by me as I was by her; she just hid it better. She always had.
“The amount of money that this place has already generated without the doors being open is double what the Pit cleared in a month. Lock & Key is poised to be the unofficial bank of the Point, Key. Being a partial owner entitles you to a portion of all of the revenue the club is going to generate. It’s enough money to allow you to do whatever you want, buy anything you ever wanted, and all you have to do is be here. You make the place tick. You give it life.” Just like she gave life to me.
“It’s all dirty money, Nassir. What happens when the club gets shut down? What happens when someone burns this place to the ground like the last one? You want me to put all my eggs in one basket. A basket you are holding in your hands and can drop the second you feel like it.”
She didn’t trust me.
She was smart.
I stood up, which made her gasp and had her leaning back so that she was almost lying flat on my desk. Her legs parted involuntarily to let me between them and her hands went to the center of my chest as I hovered over her with my hands next to her hips on the glass. The cuts burned but I didn’t want her to see them. Now wasn’t the time to show weakness.
“You buy in and you own it, Keelyn. You get a say in how things are run, what happens, and the role you play in it. Your buying in means you are part of the business whether it prospers or fails. We are on equal footing and the only person holding the basket is you. I’ll manage the profits and the power . . . you manage the people.” I didn’t have it in me to pretend that the basest human behaviors were interesting or important, but she did.
Her fingers curled into the fabric of my shirt and my cock ached as it pulsed against the inside of her leg. We had never touched this intimately and this was the closest I had ever been to her. I could feel my body humming in reaction and my blood whispering at me to take her, to claim her, to make her mine after being denied for so long.
“I buy in and I have to stay?” Her voice shook.
I nodded, and some of my hair fell forward and brushed against her cheek. I felt her shiver and it made me want to trace those faint tremors with my hands.
“You have to stay.” She had to stay if she bought into the club or not, and eventually she was going to realize that.
“I can do what I want, suggest changes, use the money I make however I want even if it goes against everything that makes sense to you?” She gulped as she asked the questions and her clutching hands went flat and pressed into my chest where my heart was trying to reach out for her hands. “What about us, Nassir?”
“What about us?” Even though there had always been an “us,” there never really had been an us. I wasn’t sure what she was asking me, or what kind of plans she had for the sizable profits she would make if she agreed to buy in.
“We get all tangled up in business and pleasure and then one or the other goes bad, and where does that leave us? You can destroy me without even trying. You’ve been doing it for years.”
I could destroy her, but she was the only thing in the world that made me weak, so she could end me without a thought just as easily. I wanted her to be mine. I wanted her to let me have her in every conceivable way, but more than that, I needed her here. I needed a life with her in it, so if that meant I had to make a choice, I chose keeping her around over having her under me panting my name in erotic satisfaction hour after hour and day after day.
I pushed off the desk and threw myself back into the chair. I pushed it ba
ck on its wheels so there was some breathing room between us and so I had space to think.
“You buy in, I’m taking that as your agreement to stay for the long haul. No more running, no pretending that the grass is greener somewhere else, and I’ll agree to keep my hands off of you. We’ll be business partners and nothing else.”
I could see my offer shocked her. Her mouth moved like she was trying to make words, but none would come out. I understood the way her tricky mind worked, so I lifted both of my eyebrows up and told her, “You are not going to fuck me and forget about me like you think you can do, Key. We are so much a part of one another that separately we are almost unrecognizable. You are so deep down inside of me I feel like I’m missing pieces of myself when you aren’t around. If keeping you here where I can see you, where I can smell you, where I can breathe the same air as you means that I know you’re safe, happy, and whole, I will keep my hands and my cock to myself.” It might kill me but I had endured worse torture and torment in my time.
Key blinked those stormy eyes at me as the words sank in and she must have read the resolve on my face. She wasn’t going to take me to bed and try to burn me out like she did with all those other boys in her past. I wanted all of her, and once I had her, I was keeping her forever, but for that to happen she needed to give herself to me for safekeeping. She didn’t have to trust me, but she did have to love me.
“No sex?”
“Oh, there will be sex. Tons and tons of sex, but none of it will be between us if that’s what it takes to get you to agree.”
She harrumphed and slid off the desk so she was towering over me in those killer heels. I was glad she was back in her right skin.
“Business only?”
I nodded solemnly and ran a tired hand over my face. It was a deal with the devil, but we both knew she was going to make it anyway.
“Very lucrative and profitable business only, and if for some reason the cops shut me down, I’ll return your investment plus fifty percent of my own.”
“How much did you sink into this place? And how much do you expect me to buy in for?”
I shrugged. “I spent enough to make it what I wanted and you can pay in the same Race did. Two hundred K. I’m the primary backer, so my word is law, but if you see something not working or a way I missed to bring more money in, we can have a discussion.” Race had actually put in double that amount, but I wasn’t about to tell her that, and no one had ever accused me of being honest.
She whistled. “That’s a lot of money.”
“You have it.” She would hate to know that I knew exactly what her bank balance was. It paid to have a computer hacker on the payroll. There wasn’t much about her I didn’t know, both inside and out.
“I do have it. I just don’t know if I want to give it to you.” It sounded like she was talking about a lot more than money.
“We open this weekend, so you don’t have much time to decide.”
“I feel like I never had a choice. The second you showed up in Denver, this was all bound to happen because you always get your way.”
I shook my head slightly. “Not always.” We both knew that.
Her eyes sparked with charcoal flecks and she took a step closer so that she could bend down and put her hands on the arms of my chair. She leaned closer and closer until her mouth was hovering a mere millimeter away from mine. When she spoke, the words danced across my lips and tasted like victory and fate.
“No, not always.” Her lips pressed into mine and I had to curl my hands around the arms of the chair to keep from grabbing at her.
She teased the clamped seam of my lips with her tongue and lightly scraped her teeth across my bottom lip. I wanted to toss her backward on the desk and bury myself inside her with no finesse, just pure, animalistic lust. She brushed her lips back and forth and laughed lightly as I bit down on my already injured tongue to keep from reacting. If I mauled her now, it would undo any progress I might have made with her.
She pulled back and reached out to run her finger over each of the high arches of my eyebrows. It was the softest, gentlest touch I had ever felt from another human being and it made me focus on her pulse even more heavily than the one in my veins.
“Fine. I’m in. I’ll write you a check.”
I couldn’t speak, and if I tried, all I would be able to say to her was that she needed to get naked so I could taste her. She was going to kill me if she didn’t surrender soon. I was going to get up and move away from all the temptation she emanated when she moved her hand so that it was cupping my cheek.
“Oh, and one more thing . . .” The smile she gave me had my hard-on dying and me gulping in legitimate fear at the degree of mischief and trouble I saw in it. “I don’t have a place to stay since I left Denver in such a hurry. You don’t mind me coming to stay with you until I get situated, do you? If not, I can always call up one of my old friends, or one of my old customers from the club.”
She practically purred the last words, and I felt my resolve to keep things professional turn into a cement block in my gut. Shit. What was I supposed to do with that? Avoiding touching her, breathing her in, dreaming about her naked at work was one thing. Trying to keep my desire in my pants while she was in my private space, my retreat away from this world, would be impossible. But she had me backed into a corner and she knew it.
“You can stay with me for as long as you need to, Key.”
Both her eyebrows shot up and she licked her bottom lip. She was already launching her first salvos at me. She was a fighter just like me . . . she just used different weapons. Hers were infinitely more effective.
“Shouldn’t be a problem if we’re just going to be business associates, right?”
I groaned and muttered every dirty word I could think of in a language I knew she wouldn’t understand.
“Right.”
She gave me a fake smile that showed all her teeth and the challenge shone in her eyes. She was always fierce and ready to fight me. It shouldn’t be the kind of turn-on that it was.
“It’s good to be home. I have plans, Nassir, big plans.”
I sighed. “It’s good to have you home, Keelyn.”
She flicked her wild hair and pushed off the chair as she sauntered toward the door. “Let’s see how long you think that.”
The elevator swallowed her up as she left the office and I didn’t exhale until she was out of sight. She was going to torture me. She was going to taunt me. She was going to try to break me. I should’ve warned her that I was forged in fire and that the flames of torment felt like nothing more than rays of sunshine to me. I was going to let her burn herself out and then scoop up the ashes.
Then she would be mine.
Chapter 5
Keelyn
I wasn’t sure what to do with myself after I walked out of Nassir’s office. I was shaking, both from being so close to him and from the gauntlet I’d boldly thrown down. Every single time I thought I had the upper hand with him, he twisted things in a different direction that left me reeling. Business partners, my ass. I was going to make him regret even suggesting he could keep his hands off of me after all this time. There wasn’t much I excelled at in this life, but making men stupid and weak with lust was sure as shit at the top of the list.
I don’t know what kind of insanity had prompted me to ask him to let me stay at his place until I was settled. Walking into the devil’s lair willingly wasn’t the brightest plan I had ever concocted and I loathed that everything inside of me went molten and liquid when I saw the regret and anger in his eyes as his gaze landed on the healing cut on my forehead. He should feel bad—it was his fault—but there was something about the way remorse looked on such a powerful and commanding man that tugged at places deep down inside of me. And good Lord, the healing bruises high and dark on both his chiseled cheekbones made me want to grab his face in my hands and kiss each injury better. I hadn’t even been back home for a day and already the man was making my mind and body go crazy.<
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I went where I always went when I was lost in the Point. Back to the place that had been my home and my sanctuary for so long. Plus, it was within walking distance from Nassir’s new club, so I didn’t have to call a cab or ask Chuck for a ride. I pushed open the doors to the newly remodeled Spanky’s, the club newly christened as the Empire, and almost stumbled over my own feet.
The place looked completely different from the inside out. There was no longer eye-burning pink splashed across every surface. The dingy carpet on the floor was no longer stained with blood, and God only knew what else, on it. All the chairs had been replaced by sleek, black leather booths, and the garish neon lighting had been pulled out and replaced with a soft, vintage glow that made both the girls onstage and the customers look better. It was still very much a strip club. There was no escaping the multitude of boobs and scantily clad women that filled the place wall to wall. There was no mistaking the familiar lustful ambience and overly eager throb of the crowd who were avidly watching the talent. However, now it was a classy strip club and it looked and felt expensive. A pang of regret shot through me that I had left before I was able to see the place that had been my home for so long rise from the ashes into something so beautiful. If I’d had my way and had been able to put my money into something in the Point, it would be a place just like this. A place where girls could take their clothes off, make a living, and be proud of it.
A few regulars called out to me and I was stopped by two different cocktail servers that had been here just as long as I had. They both hugged me and told me they loved my new hairdo. I hugged them back and made chitchat as I tried to locate where Reeve might be. I had so much spinning around in my head I needed a safe place to try to lay it all out, and Reeve was the only person that was even kind of my friend.
I caught sight of her dark hair by the bar. She was leaning on the edge of it talking to a huge man that had a wicked-looking scar that bisected one half of his face. He was dressed in a dark gray suit that fit him to a T but he had on heavy and serious-looking boots. When he caught sight of me staring in their direction, he straightened, and there was no missing the black gun tucked into his side. He might look like a businessman, but I would bet anything the business he was in involved a whole lot of blood and broken bones. He inclined his head in my direction and muttered something to Reeve, which had her head jerking up so that she saw me.
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