E l y s e stare at him, and I’m not the only one. He’s wedged his body between me and them, his forearm planted across the bar. Do not cross. Not only is he here, but he’s here in all his fucking glory, and he looks pissed. “Sinclair!” the redhead trills, right on cue. I’d roll my eyes if I wasn’t so professional, and it would feel real good. He ignores her. “I promise, not a single guy in here is stupid enough to fuck someone who’s too drunk to consent,” he intones. He’s speaking to them, but he’s looking only at me. His eyes are so blue, his tone so icy that I have secondhand embarrassment for them. “You’re not above the rules. Take the flutes and let her put a fucking stamp on your hands, or I’ll throw you out myself.” Still, he watches me, and I watch him. His dark hair is styled back from his face as if he just came from a rich-guy hair salon, and I have the sudden memory of making a total mess of it as he kissed me afterward. It felt so lush between my fingers. “Fine, just stamp us already,” the clothes-snob friend says. “Fuck’s sake.” Sinclair turns toward them and crosses his arms over his chest like a bouncer, watching as I stamp their hands one by one. His intimidation tactics work—they flounce off with their flutes and their stamps and not another word, although the redhead manages to shoot me a filthy look as she leaves the bottle of DP on the bar. “You shouldn’t have to deal with that shit,” he says in the quiet voice of someone who doesn’t have to raise their voice to make themselves heard. I shrug. “News flash. A lot of rich folk are entitled assholes.” He narrows his eyes. “Is that supposed to include me?” “I think you should decide that for yourself,” I tease. “It’s interesting that you feel attacked. All I would say is that some people think their money entitles them to treat other people however they want.” Our eyes are locked, the air between us thick with the memories of last night. My inner walls flutter in a way they have no business doing. He lays his hands flat on the bar, splaying his fingers. Such gorgeous fingers, long and tan and thick. Gorgeous—and skillful. “You didn’t seem to have a problem with me treating you however I wanted to last night,” he says, very softly and very slowly. Goosebumps break out all over my body, and I stay very still. “I did not.” “Good.” It’s barely audible. Then: “You know that wasn’t about the rules just then.” He jerks his head toward my least favorite customers’ retreating backs. I frown. “It sure sounded like it was, but I’m not sure what made them have such a temper tantrum.” “You did.” He leans in, and it’s hypnotic. “Women like them spend a fortune to look like that. They’re bottomless pits. Then they show up for a night out, and the first person they see is you behind the bar, wearing ‘Target’”—he makes bunny ears with his fingers—“and looking more incandescently beautiful than they
could ever dream of. That’s what set Red off. Doesn’t make it okay, but you sure as fuck shouldn’t let her blatant jealousy ruin another second of your evening.” I’m sorry—my brain is stuck on incandescently beautiful. For a moment, I can’t function. I can barely remember to breathe. “That’s very kind of you to say,” I manage, but he leans in, shaking his head. He is a tan dreamboat this evening in a pale blue shirt, so starched and perfect that you might think he puts a new one on every half-hour. “There’s nothing kind about me, Elyse. Remember that. I wasn’t kind last night. I was selfish. It’s just fortuitous that my selfishness worked out for you, too.” I squeeze my thighs together and stare at his mouth. Honestly, it’s so hot remembering how selfish he was. How unashamedly he gorged himself on my body. Telling me what he wanted. Telling me what I wanted. He glances to his left and his right, then back to me. “And I want to do it again. Same terms—unless you have any counters you’d like to make?” It’s so freaking weird, standing here in the exact same spot with Sinclair Voss as I did last week, having him request my company upstairs again, but in such different circumstances. This time, his isn’t an idle question. This time, I know exactly what I’m getting myself into. But I don’t know how I should r eply. I’m still hung up on this theory that he only propositioned me for novelty value, as a challenge in a club where every other woman present would drop their panties for him in an instant. God knows I would, too, even without the prospect of another tantalizing ten thousand dollars, and I despise myself. Equally, I don’t want to disappoint him, don’t want to make myself too easy a conquest. It seems like my only option is to play it cool as much as I can outside of the private room and hold off for as long as I can inside it before I collapse into a total fucking mess as soon as he whips out his monstrous dick. I lick my lips. “Let me think about it. In the meantime, what can I get you to drink?” A tiny smile. He likes this game. “Glenfarclas 25, neat.” I fetch the scotch and free-pour a shot into a Waterford crystal tumbler, which I slide toward him. “Thank you.” “You’re welcome.” “Out of interest, how much thinking time do you need?” I make a point of looking him up and down, evaluating him as coolly as I can. The blue shirt has a couple buttons open at the neck. There’s a whole world of manly perfection inside of that little V: tan skin, and a smattering of dark hair, and his Adam’s apple, and the hint of his collarbones below. “I have one counter,” I tell him. Check me, negotiating sexy terms with a ruthless billionaire. “Shoot.” “Next time, we both take our clothes off.” The guy is a work of art. It’s a crying shame that he k ept them on last night, even if it made the power dynamic kind of hot. He laughs a little and shakes his head. “Extortion, that’s what it is. Fine.
Done. When?” “Same time next week?” I suggest. His face falls as if he’s a little boy who’s been told Christmas has been canceled. For a dude who falls in my previously stated entitled asshole camp, he’s disgustingly sweet. “Why not sooner?” I lean forward a little and whisper, “A girl needs some recovery time.” From his expression, Christmas is back on. He’s lit up. He full-on cranes his neck to look down at my crotch area in my tight black pleather pants. “Can you still feel me?” he asks. I look away. “And then some.” “Fuck, I love that. Hey—did I mark your shoulder? When I bit it? I want to know.” I nod, fiddling with the ink pad. I can’t look him in the eye after admitting to his face that my vagina is still imprinted with the shape of his dick. “Show me.” Now I do roll my eyes. But the bar area is quiet, and his face looks like he wants this so very badly, so I discreetly push one capped sleeve up to show him the fruits of his labors—a. k. a. a hickey that definitely had me wearing a giant tee to bed last night. “So. Fucking. Hot.” I swear I feel his words against my clit. “Yeah, for you, maybe.” I cover my shoulder again and hold up the stamp. “Hand, please. The rules are for everyone, remember?” He looks straight into my eyes. “Give me the red one.” That makes me freeze. “You’re not going upstairs?” “Nah. Not tonight.” “Need some recovery time, too?” I joke as I mark the back of his hand with the red stamp. I find myself quite amusing sometimes. He doesn’t r eply for a moment but signs the check with a flourish. When he looks up at me, his eyes are all pupil. “Recovery time isn’t an issue for me. Not with you around. Let’s just say there’s nothing that interests me upstairs. Not tonight, in any case.” S I N C L A I R Naturally, my friends spot the controversial stamp as quickly as if I’ve turned up at a frat-house traffic light party in head-to-toe red. “One hour with his new conquest, and he’s officially off the market,” Felix says, looking positively gleeful as I raise my tumbler to my mouth. Kieran, our gym-empire buddy, looks low-key amused. They’ve been here for a while, whereas I just extricated myself from an industry mixer—and not a second too soon. Seeing Elyse dealing with those pains in the ass had my blood boiling, and sparring with her has other physiological effects happening. I purposely
position my back to the bar so as not to give the guys any more ammo. “It’s called being selective, asshole,” I explain to Felix. “Why gorge myself on fast food when I can hold off and anticipate savoring a delicacy properly?” “Life’s about doing both,” Felix says. I shake my head. If he thinks that, he’s enjoying the wrong kind of hookups. I had more fun with Elyse last night than I’ve had in months, and let me tell you, the bar is high when you’re an Alchemy member. Fun isn’t the right word. It was intense as fuck, charged in a way you don’t often get. I guess the stakes were higher, so the reward was bound to be higher, and it makes me reevaluate the reactive way I’ve been conducting my sex life, which is mainly showing up here and finding someone to fuck. In the Playroom, in a private room, whatever. But last night was the culmination of a week of wanting Elyse. I had to form a proposal, get my hatchet man here to make it happen, and then wait. Wait for the yes from Katrin on Saturday. Wait for the night itself to come. All tedious. All frustrating. And all things I’d usually avoid. But I knew she’d be worth it. I spent every spare minute of this week fantasizing about just how worth it she’d be, in minute detail, and the little beauty somehow surpassed every single expectation I had. She was clearly inexperienced, clearly nervous, neither of which were a problem and both a huge turn-on. I can honestly say that leading her through her journey from the ingenue who was almost as pale as her silk robe to the woman writhing wantonly around my cock as I fucked her against that cabinet was one of the most gratifying experiences of my life. “You’re missing out, buddy,” I tell Felix. “Anticipation is everything.” “So you wanna hit that again?” Kieran asks. “That’s almost as hard to swallow as her wanting to hook up again.” I glare at him. Kieran doesn’t say a huge amount. A former pro athlete, he’s used to letting his body do the communicating for him. But he really does choose his moments to pipe up. “A gentleman doesn’t tell.” “There are none of those around here,” Felix says. “Besides, I like Elyse. She’s a lovely girl. I’m not about to disrespect her by asking you for details. But K’s right, mate. It’s not like you to go back for seconds.” I don’t like that he’s right. “I had a great time. She’s a novelty. Why wouldn’t I? It’s efficient.” Obviously, that’s bullshit. Efficient is going upstairs and getting laid without overthinking it, without learning the woman’s name or remembering her face or jumping through hoops to make it happen. “You know what they say about novelties,” Kieran says, and he and Felix chuckle at each other like Beavis and fucking Butt-Head. “Yeah, well, this one hasn’t worn off yet. It makes sense to see it to its logical conclusion.” I am supremely confident of that conclusion being another round with Elyse—possibly a couple more, if it feels easy, before moving on. “After all, I’ve laid the groundwork. I may as well amortize my investment.” “Oh good,” Felix says. “He’s talking about her as if she’s an acquisition.
KPIs and diminishing returns. For a sec there, I was worried he saw her as an actual human woman.” “She is a woman,” I snap. And what a woman. A memory: running my mouth over her firm ass as she stood, bent over on that contraption for me. Sinking my teeth into her ass cheek. Every single thing we did was so fucking perfect. “But I had an hour with her. Believe me, that’s nothing.” “But with your run rate”—Kieran holds up a hand and counts on his fingers—“that’s about twelve rounds, right?” “Just the level of math skills I’d expect from a fucking jock,” I retort, conveniently ignoring the fact that K Klub hit a unicorn valuation without him breaking a sweat. His net worth and BMI are so inversely correlated it’s re volting. His heart rate probably stays below seventy when he fucks. Come to think of it, he probably wears a chest monitor when he fucks. Probably bores his women stupid by pulling up his Oura ring sle ep data the next morning. Wouldn’t put it past him. “Deflection and no denial of his stamina levels. Interesting,” Wolff muses. He is, to use one of his favorite phrases, a smug twat. “You know my stamina is legendary.” It honestly is, though it was a close fucking call a couple times yesterday. I was sweating with the effort of holding off. He relents and slaps me on the shoulder. “Yeah, yeah. We all know. Far too many women in here have told me, and I wish I could un-hear them, but I can’t. So you found a nice girl, you’ve opened Pandora’s box, to use a de eply unfortunate turn of phrase in this instance, and you’ve piqued your own interest. That about right? If so, I’m happy for you, mate. Ride it out. Enjoy.” “Thanks, man,” I say, narrowing my eyes. I don’t always get the British sense of humor. Can’t tell how much he’s fucking with me. “Yeah, sounds about right.” I like that phrase—piqued my interest. It’s a solid description of how I’m feeling. Like I said, an hour wasn’t enough. I was so fucking desperate to loosen her up, break her down—it all went by far too quickly. But her body is FAO fucking Schwarz, and there’s too much to see. Too much good stuff to explore, to play with. I meant it when I threatened her with stirrups next time. I want to stretch her open and enjoy her, and, most important, watch her face as I do. Bending her over was insane, fucking her from behind was insane, but when you get to fuck a woman with a face like that, it’s a waste not to make good use of it. She’s pretty implacable behind the bar, and I want to see just how placable she is when I’m working her. See what I mean? Too much to do and far too little time. I’m definitely not done with her yet. “What’s happening with his face right now?” Kieran wants to know.
“Happy sex dream,” Felix says. “He’s off with Elyse somewhere, buried balls-de ep in her. So, when’s the next hookup?” “Next Wednesday,” I admit, and they both do their Beavis-and-Butt Head snicker again. “Tell me about it,” I groan. “On the plus side, she’s given you plenty for the spank bank in the interim,” Felix says. I close my eyes, pained, because my spank bank is richer than it’s been in a long time. It is spilling over with gold ingots of recent memories and future fantasies. “Not wrong.” “Aren’t you worried it’ll be awkward in here?” Kieran says. “You know, man—when it’s run its course.” “It’s awkward every time any of us walks in here,” I point out. “Nothing new.” He makes a face. “True.” Alchemy has a big membership, but it’s not limitless. We’ve all fucked too many of the same women, and we’re regularly on the receiving end of all kinds of interest from past fucks every time we set foot in here. “Elyse is a cool girl,” Felix says, like he knows her better than us, which pisses me off. “She doesn’t strike me as the type to get all needy. She has self-respect, you know?” I nod. I like that about her. I like that she made me work to get her in a room, that I had to get creative. I like that she was so self-assured just now, even when those witches were taking out their insecurities on her. What she’s doing with me isn’t standard for her, not at all, but she let herself go enough to come for me in that room—not once but twice, and in spectacular fashion. And I like even more the fact that she wants to get me naked next time. That she has a view on how she wants the next session to go. That she’s owning it. I raise my tumbler of truly excellent scotch to my lips. “Maybe it could become a side hustle for her once Voss is done with her,” Felix muses to Kieran as if I’m not standing right here. “Now that she realizes what a hot commodity she is, maybe she’ll monetize it. Become a full-on host upstairs, even. She’d fucking clean up, don’t you think?” Kieran has the audacity to look over my shoulder in the direction of the bar, and his stupid Ken doll face turns appreciative. Suddenly, I feel sick to my stomach. I lower my glass and stomp forward, grabbing the front of his dress shirt (black, open too far) to wrench him from his position. “Cut that out,” I snarl. “And fucking trade places with me.” “So fucking easy to wind up that it’s actually boring,” Felix says. Kieran shifts, snickering to himself. I take in his former view. Over Felix’s shoulder, Elyse is serving some douche at the bar who’s leaning too far into her space. Her posture is excellent, but more importantly, she’s not smiling at him. Doesn’t look like she’s planning on moving on just yet. That’s what I like to see.