Page 37 of To Catch a Sub

Rolf tugged a chain from under his shirt, a key dangling from it. Colette studied it out of the corner of her eye.

Merde. It was a cruciform key. Most door keys were pin-tumbler lock style—a flat piece of metal with grooves and notches cut into just one side. A cruciform key was shaped like an X when viewed from the end. Rather than two edges for cuts and biting, a cruciform key had four. And from what she could see, it looked like all four edges had some notching.

They weren’t impossible to pick, but they were damned hard, and unlike a normal key, she couldn’t run down to the corner locksmith and have a duplicate cut in under five minutes.

Rolf went up first, Andrei after him. She hesitated, heart beating hard inside her chest.

“Regretting manipulating me?” Landon said.

His voice came from right beside her and she jumped, not having realized he’d leaned in so close.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she snapped, “I manipulated all of Interpol, not just you.”

She felt his chuckle as much as she heard it. “Admit it, you’re in over your head.”

Colette swallowed and closed her eyes, bending her head forward so that her hair curtained her face, hopefully hiding her expression. Two breaths and she got herself under control.

She shook back her hair and turned to look at Landon.

He had one hand braced on the spiral staircase as he loomed behind her. With her head turned, face tilted up, their lips were mere centimeters apart.

When he exhaled, she felt the soft brush of air against her sensitive lips.

His eyes were so dark that normally it was hard to distinguish pupil from iris, but this close she could see that there were three distinct rings of color—chocolate brown around the pupil, then a narrow, lighter band the color of expensive whiskey, and then a solid dark outer ring.

He frowned as his gaze slid down to her lips, and for a breathless minute she thought maybe he’d kiss her.

Landon jerked back, breaking the spell. Colette swallowed her disappointment.

“Enough stalling,” he said. “You made this bed, now you’re going to have to lie in it.”

She’d much rather lie in whatever sort of bed they had here, than end up tied to Damien’s bed.

Again.

NINE

Landon was struggling not to mentally build scenes around and for Colette. Being here, with her, was exactly as hard and fucked up as he’d anticipated.

“So this is the private club?” She strolled slowly, seemingly completely comfortable in the space though she’d only just entered it. Watching her trail her fingers along the back of a low black leather couch was unexpectedly erotic.

“Yes.” Rolf was watching her too, but he looked as dispassionate as always.

Andrei, however… Andrei was watching her with too much interest. Landon wanted to rip his fucking arms off.

“And how does one become a member?”

“You don’t need to know that,” Landon said. “What you need to understand is what we expect of you while you’re here.”

Colette turned, graceful and calm. “And what do you expect?”

“You need to have that conversation with her first,” Rolf said.

Landon did need to have a conversation with her. He couldn’t tell what answer he was hoping she’d give.

Andrei raised a brow, looking between Landon and Rolf. Landon didn’t bother to enlighten him as to the subject of his conversation with Colette.

“I’ll show you where we’ll be staying,” Landon said, moving towards her. “We can talk there. Andrei, get the bags.”