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I haven’t been able to get her out of my mind all fucking day. The way she looked standing in that dressing room wearing that lingerie. The confidence I could see on her face for the first time. It radiated off her, and damn, if it wasn’t alluring. Confidence looks good on her.
We take the elevator to the underground parking garage. Massimo and Mateo take the front seats, while Bella and I take the back. As Bella slides into the soft leather seat, her hem rides up her thigh. Only a few more inches and I’ll be able to see whether or not she’s wearing panties, and for a guy who hasn’t had sex in God knows how long and who is suffering the worst case of blue balls known to man, it’s almost too much to take.
I force myself to focus on what I’m doing. Stare straight ahead. Breathe. And don’t fucking think about the lack of panties beneath that dress.
I’m a man used to being in control, but large cracks are deepening in every one of my walls.
Not helping matters, her scent is teasing me.
It’s a warm night, and the twilight air is filled with the heavy scent of roasting chestnuts and the sour bite of Ginkgo trees as we pull up to the nondescript building in Lower Manhattan.
Massimo opens the door, and Bella climbs out. But before I can leave the car, I have to adjust myself because I’ve been hard the whole drive over here.
She looks up at the dark building. “Are you sure this is the right place? It doesn’t look like anyone is here?”
“This is an exclusive club,” I explain as I take her elbow and guide her across the street. “We don’t advertise, and we keep it discreet. Only members know its location.”
“Really? Isn’t that bad for business?” she asks.
I grin at her naivety. “I think the best way to answer that is to show you why the exclusivity makes it so popular.”
Before we step inside, she looks up at the neon sign over the door.
It’s one word glowing in red.
Lair.
26
Bella
Lair is nothing like I’ve ever seen before. The front entrance is a long, dimly lit corridor that opens into a room where shadows are lit in deep red. There are booths and tables, and a backlit bar that shines like a diamond in the shadowy light.
“What is this place?” I ask. It looks like a club, but there is a strange undercurrent in the air that I can’t put my finger on.
“It’s where people come to indulge,” Nico replies hotly in my ear.
I glance around me, taking in the other patrons. It’s a mixed crowd. In the corner, a beautiful redhead dances like she’s in a trance, her back pressed against a man who holds her by the hips and sways with her in time to the music, his face buried in her shoulder.
Across from them, sitting at one of the cocktail tables, a young couple leans in close to one another as they have an intense conversation, but the man’s hands have slid along her thigh and are moving beneath her barely-there hem. Wait, is he…?
I almost jump when an attractive woman with a pixie cut wraps her arm around my waist as she dances past, her eyes fluttering up at me as she offers me a beaming smile. There’s a lot on offer in that smile, and when she dances away, she keeps glancing over her shoulder at me until a gentleman at the bar steals her attention, and I’m forgotten.
It’s then I see the cages across the room. Two of them. Where dancers in next-to-nothing gyrate against the steel bars, moving their bodies in time to the throbbing beat of the music.
“Don’t look so worried,” Nico says with the casual assurance that is both charming and dangerous. “You’re quite safe here.”
I don’t feel safe. But I’m not scared either. Something about the club is fascinating. But I can’t explain what it is.
A beautiful woman wearing a cigarette girl uniform approaches us. Her hair is blond and shiny, and carefully coiffed into a 1940s style like an actress from the silver screen. Her ruby lips spread with a dazzling white smile.
“My name is Ginger, and I’ll be your server this evening,” she says, her eyes twinkling in the dim light. “Your room is ready. Will you please follow me?”
Nico wraps his arm around my waist and leans in. “Are you ready to experience Lair?”
His words are spoken in a low, hoarse voice laced with warning and danger but also with a dark promise of excitement and pleasure.
I nod as if controlled by something else.
Something that’s always lived deep inside me, but that I’ve never uncovered before.
A hint of a smile touches his lips. In this light, the shadows curve his cheekbones deeper into his handsome face, and his eyes are impossibly black. They gleam with predatory heat, and I can’t help but feel like I’m a lamb being led to meet an unavoidable fate.
