Kara raised her glass to the others with a smile. She’d heard the toast several times, but it still amused her.

“To all who screw in her,” she murmured, her eyes touching Dylan’s again, knowing that he was thinking exactly the same as she was. And to all those who’ve already screwed in her.

Or was he? He looked more unsettled than he had a few moments ago, less relaxed. His laid-back Californian feathers definitely seemed ruffled to her eye, practised as it was at looking at him good and hard.

“So what’s your plan tonight?” Kara asked him as Sophie and Lucien wandered away towards the office, his arm protectively around her waist. She leaned over the bar to afford Dylan a clear view down her Jessica Rabbit-style cleavage. “Because I can offer you a really special discount if you come by the boutique. What’s your poison, Sailor?” she murmured, touching the folded back sleeve of his slate grey shirt. “Cuffs?” She circled her fingers firmly around his wrist, feeling the beat of his pulse beneath her thumb pad when she pressed down. “Nipple clamps?” She shimmied her shoulders to jiggle her breasts, gratified by the way his expression softened from tense to turned on. Whatever was on his mind, it was a thrill to know that she could make him forget about it. “Or maybe you’d like something a little kinkier…” she murmured, fucking him with her eyes. “Maybe you’d like to bend me over your knee and spank me with one of our leather riding crops. Because Dylan…” she whispered, pausing to lick her lips. “When this place closes tonight, I plan on being a very, very bad girl.”

Outside ten minutes later, and the place was alive with queuing customers and the flash of cameras hungry for a shot of Lucien Knight, patron saint of the world of erotic clubs. They’d gone to great pains to create Hollywood red carpet-style glamour for the opening night, although the carpet was deep purple rather than scarlet. It was soon obscured by VIP guests milling around and posing for the cameras before entering the club, all keen to be portrayed as risque to enhance their images. Lucien and Sophie stood to the side giving interviews to the press, and he turned to beckon Dylan and Kara across for a photograph of the management team.

Kara nodded across the hordes in acknowledgement and placed her hand on Dylan’s arm. “We’re needed,” she murmured, leaning close so as not to interrupt the conversation he was holding with a group of excited first night attendees. The scent of him filled her head, making her want to lick his neck. He turned to her with a smile, which slid from his face as his gaze moved to Lucien and Sophie and the waiting press photographer.

He excused himself from the conversation, his mind racing. He badly didn’t want to let Lucien down tonight, this was the acid test. Equally, he didn’t want his image splashed across tomorrow morning’s local papers, or more worryingly, over the pages of entertainment industry magazines. The slim chance that someone back home would see the picture was enough to bathe his body in clammy foreboding. He followed Kara slowly because there was no other choice that he could see.

A few weeks here and already this place and these people felt dangerously like home. He didn’t want it entangling with his former life. Fuck.

He met Lucien’s eyes as he drew close, and saw the question in them. Was it written all over his face how much he didn’t want to be photographed?

“So much charisma in one photograph,” Kara said, linking her arm through Sophie’s, her eyes on Dylan and Lucien. “Hope they don’t break the camera lens.”

Lucien reached into his pocket for his phone, flicked the screen on for a second and frowned.

“Sorry guys, minor emergency,” he murmured to the photographers. “Dylan, the DJ’s having some last minute hitches with the energy supply. Would you go and see what’s going on? We open in five.” Lucien moved between Sophie and Kara, an arm around each of their waists. “A thorn between two roses,” he smiled graciously for their benefit, jerking his head imperceptibly at Dylan to disappear.

Moving away into the safety of the crowd, Dylan was well aware that the DJ would not be waiting for his help. He let his breath out on a long, slow huff. That had been close. Too close, and he now owed Lucien his thanks and some kind of explanation. He’d already been more economical with the truth than sat easily with his conscience. He really didn’t want to lie to these people, but there was no way he was dragging them into his mess.

Chapter Eighteen

A couple of hours later, and Dylan was too busy and too fascinated to give any more thought to his problems. The club was full to capacity, the opening night guests were spending freely on cocktails and champagne, and the steady, sexy beat of the music provided a perfect backdrop to the scene unfolding in front of him.

He knew clubs like the back of his hand, but not this one.

He knew clubbers like the back of his hand, but not these people.

They had the same exterior gloss as conventional clubbers, more so, actually. They were exquisitely groomed and dressed to impress, albeit in flesh-revealing outfits and in some cases, lingerie. He’d ducked into the boutique earlier and found it full of interested customers, with Kara in her element as she helped someone choose between two different vibrators. He laughed softly as he moved back towards the bar, remembering back to the first time he’d met her, brandishing a vibrator at him like a gun. She sure was a woman of many facets. Unflinchingly honest, sexy beyond words, and sweet as spun sugar on the inside and out.

Around him, people drank and danced, warming up for the night ahead. There was a sense of expectation in the air, an alive, sexual pulse that throbbed through the entire place. He was finally experiencing the difference between this club and any other he’d managed. Here there was a sense of freedom and of daring, of anything being possible for those brave enough to grasp the opportunity.

Lucien appeared as he moved around the bar and checked in with the staff.

“Walk with me.”

His low tone brooked no argument, not that Dylan would have shied away in any case. He needed to clear things up with Lucien, to show him that the trust he’d placed in him was not misdirected. Satisfied that all was well behind the bar, he caught up alongside his boss as he began to weave through the throng. Together they worked their way around the periphery of the club.

“What do you think?” Lucien asked. Dylan heard in the question confidence and pride but also a desire for reassurance. He knew how much this mattered to Lucien.




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