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What made one of them scared enough to never come back?
So what do I do, now that I’ve walked into the club, heading for the stage? There’s the role to play, yes. There’s the information I’ll gain once this leg of the game is complete.
My breath catches and my chest feels overly tight, making it difficult to draw air into my lungs.
This place brings new meaning to the wordfilth, I note once we’re on the main floor. Red strobe lights do nothing to cut through the gloom. It smells like sweat and sex and cheap liquor. Not even the good kind of cheap, either. The decor looks gathered from garage sales and thrift stores. Anything that can be cobbled together with no eye for comfort, only a place for an ass to land or a person to grip when they’re bent over. The people here are colder than anyone I’ve seen at the Velvet Underground, their eyes empty and their smiles merciless. They’re people who seek to use others and those who resign themselves to being used.
I have to decide which one I am tonight.
How much power the decision will grant me.
And what kind of lessons I’ve learned in my life that will help me get through this.
I stare around at the sea of faces until they all blur, and my gorge rises. A low stage marks the front of the club, with those red flashing lights illuminating its emptiness. There’s no one up there yet, only a steel chair with a flat black seat.
This is a place where sadistic sick fantasies come alive and hope goes to die. And Gabriel wants me to get up on that bleak stage with the threadbare drapes on the side and let him use me? Just to get these people to trust me?
The thought of releasing control to anyone freezes me in place and I can’t take another step forward.
I can’t do this.
“This was a mistake,” I whisper.
I’m about to whirl and get the fuck out of here when Gabriel grabs my arm and hauls me toward his hard chest. “You had your chance to back down.” He leans in close and I feel his breath caressing my ear. “You decided you were a fucking badass, Layla. So be one. Don’t let these people or this place make you feel like anything less.”
He’s not going to let me back down. Not now that we’re in the door. The patrons in the dark pay us no mind and the music is low enough for me to hear the slap of flesh on flesh. The muted cries of people in the throes of passion.
I clench my teeth together. “You’re a dick.”
“I never pretended to be otherwise.” He looks as amused as he sounds, although his hold on me softens. He leads the way up to a black bar where the bartender, a man with a scar across one entire half of his face, pours out a round of shots for the both of us.
It takes me way too long to realize that Gabriel is holding up two fingers with his opposite hand, prompting the shots. I’m out of it, to the point where this will be less about gaining information and more a battle of wills. Me against myself, because Gabriel gives no shits.
He only wants me pliant. Doesn’t he?
“If it helps, I don’t mind making your unwillingness obvious when you submit to me in public.” He grabs a glass and chugs back the shot before the bartender even finishes pouring. “It might even enhance the act.”
And for a little courage to steel my nerves—it’s just sex, why would I be nervous?—I grab one as well. The liquor is adequate enough to trick my system into clearing my head. Not the same kind of stuff I buy when I need the buzz and the clarity, but on the same level.
My hand shakes to the point where the liquid inside the glass sloshes onto the bar top but I finish the shot.
“If I only had my gun,” I tell Gabriel once I’ve swallowed.
I left it behind when I set out to meet him tonight.
“You’d what? Beg me to work it into our act?” he asks. His sharp gaze encompasses the room. “I’m not opposed to a little knife play. I know how much you like it.”
“Shove off, Blackwell.”
“If you want to stop our play, darling, then you’re going to have to use the safe word. Otherwise, you’ll keep your mouth shut. Now stay here.” He points to the floor. “I’ll be right back.”
It wouldn’t have done me any good to keep talking, I think as I watch his retreating back cut through the gloom and smoke in the room. There’s no winning with him. And remembering the burn where he grabbed my arm, Iwantto turn my brain off and obey. I’m tired, so tired of constantly fighting for control and never feeling like I’m ahead.
Never getting in front of my demons.
I want Gabriel to control this, for someone who knows what they’re doing to take the lead.
I want to run with this.
