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Chapter One
Zion
"Ineedafavor."
I scrub a hand down my face, trying to figure out a polite way to tell the hulking, silver-haired billionaire sitting across from my antique desk that we're not doing security for his sex club again. The one—and only—time my brothers and I agreed to that bullshit, we spent half the night fending off horny clubgoers. It wasn't a fun time for any of us. I'm allergic to latex. I had hives in places that a man just shouldn't have hives.
"No disrespect, but last time we did security for you, some old lady with a riding crop slipped her number in my pocket and tried to grab my ass," I tell Madden Banks, deciding the direct route is best.
"It wasn't that bad," he says.
I stare at him levelly. "She was in her seventies, Madden."
"I don't judge." He shrugs, unperturbed. The fucker would be. God only knows what he's seen in his club. The one night I spent inside doing security guard duty was certainly fucking educational.
I didnotknow there were so many uses for a goddamn butt plug.
"She said I'd make a good pet."
He cracks a smile. "Lula Banks is harmless. She's a bored, rich old lady with a particular taste. You fit the bill."
"What the fuck is her bill? Unwilling and terrified?" I was both, looking at her with that riding crop. Until a hail of bullets ended that chapter of my life, taking half my hearing with it, I spent most of my adult life in war zones. Not a single enemy I ever faced made me want to turn tail and run for cover.
But a seventy-four-year-old in leather with a riding crop telling me I'd make a good pet? Shit. I was ready to get the fuckO-U-T. Lickety-split.
I'm not one to kink shame. More power to the old lady if she's getting her kicks at her age. God knows, I've never been laid at my age, let alone in half the ways I saw inDionysusthat night. But some things, a man will never be experienced enough to handle. Lula Banks with a riding crop is one of them.
Madden chuckles, trying to hide a smile behind his hand. "Can't say I blame you. The first time she came onto me, I damn near decided to sell the club," he mutters. "She is not subtle."
I snort my agreement.
"But I don't need you for security for the club."
"Thank God. We like you and your money well enough, but there isn't a chance in hell we're working your club again, man." To each his own, but watching people fuck like rabbits all over the place isn't high on my list of things to do again anytime soon.
Madden's smile grows. I don't know the man well, but I know him well enough to know he doesn't stand on ceremony. He shoots it straight and appreciates when it's handed back the same way. He doesn't require kid gloves and a delicate touch. Thank fuck for that.
With my asshole brothers running amok, I do more than enough sugar-coating around here. Gideon is good at talking to people. He only makes my life difficult on principle. But Zayne? I'm pretty sure that big bastard was put on this earth just to stress me out.
I'm the youngest. It's supposed to be the other way around. But Zayne is who he is, and there's no changing him. He calls it like he sees it, regardless of who the fuck he's talking to. He wouldn't know subtle if it smacked him upside his big ass head.
That may have served him in the military. It doesn't when we're trying to run a business. If it requires a softer touch, he bounces it to me or Gideon to save us all a headache.
How the hell he thinks he's going to convince Emma Cooper to give him the time of day when she's too shy to even look at him, I don't know. But he's been chasing her ass since she walked in the doors on an errand for her boss, Camila Gomes. I fully intend on enjoying every minute of the fucker's misery.
He's caused me more than enough since we opened shop four years ago.
"If you don't need us for the club, what do you need?"
"My wife's best friend needs a bodyguard."
Madden and his wife, Olive, are both big social media stars. Madden runs some kink account that keeps horny housewives drooling. Olive is a choreographer. I don't know the details of their relationship, but it was a big damn deal when the two of them got together. I couldn't scroll my fucking feed without someone talking about Mr. Dad Bod and Tiny Dancer.
"The best friend dances too?" I guess.
"Fuck no. She'll be the first to tell you she couldn't find the rhythm if her life depended on it. Let's just say Kenzie marches to the beat of her own drum."
Fuck my life. That's just what I need. Another pain in the ass client refusing to take orders or listen to reason. They hire us to do a job and then spend half the time making the job virtually impossible. You can't save someone who doesn't want to be saved. And you can't protect someone hellbent on putting themselves in danger at every turn.
