We were among the last to leave the voyeur room. Mostly because we needed that time to get our shit together. Getting swept up in the heat of the moment was all fun and games until the lights came back on and you realized you’d made a mess and ruined another one of your girl’s outfits. By the time we reemerged into the hall, the night was winding down, but I wasn’t ready to leave Lauren yet.
“Drink?” I asked, threading my fingers through hers.
She nodded, grinning. “Yeah, I could use one.”
Downstairs, the foyer was packed, but we managed to find an unoccupied alcove with two cushy leather chairs in a back corner, away from prying eyes. Lauren explained how ordering alcohol worked in the club, offering me some of the champagne she kept stocked in the back. I opted for coffee instead, knowing my night wasn’t over yet. I still had places to be after I left Velvet, unfortunately. Our latest shipment was due to come in at 3 a.m. and my ass had to be there.
“So,” Lauren said, turning toward me after our drinks were delivered. “Regrets?”
I shook my head and took a sip of coffee. “No, I . . . didn’t hate that.”
Understatement, but I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I’d just watched a threesome while Lauren sucked me off in the middle of a crowded room. It was deviant, depraved. The hottest fucking thing I’d ever done. I wanted more and didn’t know how to feel about it.
My gaze traveled over Lauren as I set my drink aside. Her hair was still a little wild, and I didn’t like how far away she was. “Come here.”
She slid from her seat without protest, just like she had earlier when I’d ordered her between my knees. The word “submissive” floated through my mind, but it was abject, something I’d seen online or in porn. Nowhere on Lauren’s Me4U did she mention wanting to be dominated, but maybe she kept her real desires private to leave some space between her and her subs.
I dragged her into my lap, settling her sideways so I could fix the snarls I’d created. She relaxed into my hold, sipping her champagne and idly kicking her feet in a way that was both cute and petulant at the same time. Like this was her due. And maybe it was, maybe I should be the one responsible for setting her straight after I’d been the one to fuck her up.
“There,” I said, wrapping my hand around her hip when I was done. I lifted my coffee with the other and relaxed back into the chair, and Lauren came with me, tucking her head beneath my chin. “How’s your throat?” I asked. I hadn’t exactly gone easy on her.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“How smug you’ll be if I tell you it’s sore, but it was worth it.”
“The smuggest,” I said.
She flicked my chest, and I fought back a grin. I shouldn’t be happy my dick was big enough to bruise her, but I couldn’t deny the fact that I liked that the soreness would remind her of what we’d done.
Her fingers trailed lower, over my abdomen, and I hissed in a breath.
“Oh, god, I’m sorry,” she said, starting to lift off me. “I forgot about your wound.”
I yanked her back down. “I’m fine. Just watch that side.”
A pastel blur passed in front of the alcove and then backtracked. “Oh, hiii,” Taylor said, sticking her head in. “Sorry to interrupt the aftercare, but Sylvia wants to see us in fifteen.”
Lauren saluted her. “I’ll be there.”
Taylor returned the salute and spun on her heel, disappearing.
Aftercare? Was that what this was? I thought that was limited to BDSM relationships. This just felt like spending time together after getting each other off.
Lauren tucked her head into the crook of my neck, and I tightened my arm around her. “Who’s Sylvia?” I asked, curious.
“Velvet’s founder and primary stakeholder,” Lauren said. “Me, my roommates, and a few others have bought shares as well.”
“Do you meet every night you’re here?”
She shook her head, hair rubbing against the bottom of my chin. “No, Sylvia and her partner, Martin, handle all of the day-to-day business. We’re mostly financial backers and are only called in when big decisions need to be made.”
“Is something like that happening now?” I asked.
She sighed. “Yes. The man who owns the building is raising our rent again, and we’re scrambling to come up with an alternative location. Ryan, Taylor, and I have spent all our free time looking at other buildings and putting out feelers to see if someone else would be willing to work with us.”
“Any luck?”
“Unfortunately, no. Everything is either too expensive, or people don’t want to take on the risk of having us as renters.”
“You’re not breaking any laws, are you?”
“We do absolutely everything by the books,” Lauren said, explaining the city’s zoning and vice laws to me. When she was finished, she added, “We’ve never even had to pay a fine—that’s how careful we are.”
Interesting. “Are you profitable?”
She blew out a breath. “We would be if our landlord wasn’t such a leech.”
“How much is he charging you?” I asked, taking a sip of coffee. Her answer almost made me do a spit take. “That’s bullshit.”
“I know,” she said. “But we might end up having to pay it.”
“Who’s your landlord?” Maybe I knew him and could pull some strings.
“A decrepit asshole named Patrick McKinney.” The name was unfamiliar. “I think he’s trying to force us out with the hikes.”
“Seems like it.” I couldn’t think of any other reason to drive someone’s rent so high. A profitable business was a profitable business, and if they were willing to pay what was already too much money, it didn’t make financial sense to risk losing them. Unless you were a fucking prude and wanted them out. Or you were forced to raise rent for some other reason . . .
The wheels started turning in my head. I’d look into it for her. It might be nothing, but I knew a lot about who owned this city and what made them tick. Something didn’t seem to add up here.
My phone rang in my pocket, and I jostled Lauren a little to get to it.
I nearly swore when I saw “Dad” on the caller ID.
“Yeah?” I asked, picking up.
“Now,” he said.
God-fucking-damnit. Couldn’t I get just a few hours to myself?
Lauren started to sit up, probably feeling how quickly I’d gone from relaxed to pissed. I tugged her back down, deciding now was as good a time as any to start pushing back.
“I’m tied up,” I said. “And I’ve got to be at the docks soon. Get Alec to handle it.”
Dad hung up on me.
I tossed my phone onto the table with more force than necessary and suddenly wished I’d ordered something stronger than coffee.
“Everything okay?” Lauren asked.
I shook my head.
“Do you need to go?”
“We’ll see,” I said. “I have a few more minutes at least.”
“How’s everything going,” she said, and I could feel her wincing, “with that?”
“With the mob, you mean?” I asked, unable to keep from teasing her.
She flicked my chest again. “With your dad, mostly.”
I was quiet for a beat. Between our sexting sessions and teenage discussions, she’d probably pieced together how unhappy I was about being forced into the family business. Even back in high school, I’d had to cancel on her more than once, or I’d shown up late covered in dirt, exhausted and needing a distraction to keep from losing my mind. She’d sensed my inner turmoil and asked questions, but most of them revolved around if I was okay, more worried about my well-being than what I had done.
Fuck, I didn’t deserve her.
“Things with my dad are . . . tense,” I said. “Especially since I’m about to get forced into a position of more responsibility.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
I sighed. “In Italy, the mob has infiltrated the olive oil market. They package and sell what they claim is extra-virgin olive oil, but it isn’t really. It’s a shitty mix of other vegetable oils they advertise as the real thing and make a killing exporting to other countries. We’ve brought some of that over here, but our shipments are still small because we’re new to it. Tonight, my dad asked me to head the operation’s expansion. He wants to build an empire. This scheme has already made the Italian mob billions overseas, and he’s hoping to get a slice of that pie.”
Lauren jerked upright. “Did you just say billions?”
I nodded. “Look up the Agromafia sometime when you get a chance.”
“One sec, I’m making a note to.” She tipped forward to grab her purse from the table, the front of her dress gaping open, and I lost a couple of seconds staring at her cleavage.
She put her phone down next to mine when she was done and settled back into place. “Is it as lucrative here as it is overseas?”
“Yes,” I said. “Unfortunately, my dad still wants to cut as many corners as possible, so there’s just as much illegal shit involved in the operation as anything else he has his hand in.”
Lauren went still, and I could practically see her mind spinning. “Which means that if you’re heading it and something goes wrong, you’ll be the one to go down for everything, not him.”
“Bingo,” I said.
“Let me know if you need a character witness. I would love to lie to a judge.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” I told her.
“I’m really sorry,” she said, sobering. “That’s a terrible position for a parent to put their child in, and I hate that he’s doing it to you.”
I held her close, something in my chest tightening. No one had ever said something like that to me before. “Yeah, well, it’s just another reason for me to get out while I can.”
She lifted her head up enough to look me in the eye. “You want out?”
I held her gaze and nodded. “I’ve been thinking about it for years.”
“What are you going to do instead?” she asked.
“I’m considering joining the priesthood.”
She grinned. “Does that mean I’ll get to call you Daddy?”
I nearly choked. “Isn’t it Father?”
“Tomato, tomahto.”
I huffed out a breath and took a moment to seriously contemplate her question. “I’d settle for doing literally anything else, but I’d like to run some kind of business. Fuck knows I have the experience for it. And after years managing Dad’s cronies, regular employees will feel like a cakewalk in comparison.”
She leaned in and kissed me, just a peck on the cheek. “I’m really proud of you.”
My heart stuttered, and I had to look away. Hearing those words coming from Lauren, of all people, meant more than I could have anticipated. It made me want to be a better man for her, continue making her proud, but suddenly all I could think of was how disappointed she’d be if she ever found out about all the unforgivable things I’d done in my life.
Her father—
Nope. Not going there tonight, I told myself. We needed a subject change. Now.
“What about you?” I asked.
She dropped her head back to my shoulder. “What about me?”
“What do you want to do?” I asked, gesturing past us to the club. “When this is all over?”
I knew the second the words were out of my mouth that I’d misstepped, because she stiffened.
“What do you mean?” she asked, her tone losing its warmth. “‘When this is all over’?”
I ran my hand up her back, trying to soothe her. “I just meant whenever you decide to move on from camwork.”
She pulled out of my arms, sitting up. Fuck, I’d made it worse. “I don’t plan to move on from it.”
“I mean like when you’re fifty,” I clarified.
She stood. Goddamn it, this was not coming out the way I’d intended.
“There are plenty of camworkers in their fifties,” she said. “And I plan to be one of them. This isn’t something I just fell into because I couldn’t hack it doing something else.”
Shit, I’d definitely hit a vein. “I just meant you used to talk about wanting to be a psychologist, having a family.”
She jerked back like I’d slapped her. “I have my psychology degree. It’s done wonders to help me connect with my subs. And being a sex worker doesn’t mean I can’t also have a family, if I choose to, but what I won’t do is have some man try to dictate how I live my life, keep me pregnant and barefoot in his kitchen cooking pasta while he’s off doing god knows what.”
“Jesus, come on—”
Lauren’s eyes sparked with anger. “I love what I do, Junior. My subs are my community.” She pointed toward the foyer, her voice gaining volume. “These people are like family. They are the most kind, welcoming, nonjudgmental humans I have ever met, and I don’t ever plan on leaving them.”
“I didn’t say you had to,” I barked, my voice rising to match hers.
She took a step back, eyes wide. Shit, what had I just done? This goddamn temper.
“I think you should go,” she said.
My chest heaved as I fought to get myself under control. “Just like that? I say one wrong thing, and it’s over?”
She crossed her arms and broke eye contact.
Fuck, I was losing her. I could feel it.
“I’m sorry, Lauren. Look, none of what I said came out right, and I—”
Noises hit my ears. Shouting, a scuffle.
I was out of the alcove in a heartbeat, yelling at Lauren to stay where she was. At the front door, three men were trying to gain entry, and the bouncers were having a hard time containing them, obviously trying to keep from using force or escalating the situation.
One broke past them into the lobby and kept on coming. He was large, white, and obviously shit-faced. “Who wants to fuck?!”
The nerdy professor Lauren had been speaking to earlier approached him. “Hey, you shouldn’t—”
“Not you,” the man said, shoving him so hard that he bounced off the floor. “I want a woman.”
The sudden outburst of violence and obvious threat of more panicked the crowd, everyone moving away.
I stepped into the space they cleared and squared off against the drunk guy. “Out. Now.”
“Fuck you,” he spat.
Couldn’t say I didn’t warn him.
Adrenaline rushed through my veins as I moved forward. I was already wound up because of my father’s manipulation and the misunderstanding with Lauren, and here was my chance to vent some of my pent-up rage. This motherfucker picked the wrong night.
He threw a sloppy punch. I shifted out of the way, grabbed his wrist, and pulled, hard, tugging him off-balance. It was like child’s play, stepping behind him, taking his wrist with me, kicking out his knee, and dropping him to the ground. I put my boot on his spine, yanked his arm up, and with a pop! his shoulder slid out of socket. The room filled with the sound of his pained bellow. I spun him onto his back and leaned down, punching him twice in quick succession, feeling his nose burst beneath my knuckles on the second blow. Blood sprayed, and he went limp on the floor, dazed.
The whole altercation took less than ten seconds.
My pulse roared in my ears as I lifted my eyes to his two friends and smiled, showing all of my teeth. They put their hands up and wisely let the bouncers escort them out, and I tried not to be disappointed that they’d given up so easily.
“Junior.”
A glance toward the alcove revealed Lauren standing in its doorway, Ryan and Taylor at her side, all three of them looking a little green. What? It was only a dislocated shoulder and a broken nose. In six to eight weeks, he’d be fine. It wasn’t like I’d permanently disfigured him or anything.
“You need to leave,” Lauren said.
I released the man and faced her. “Be reasonable.”
Taylor grimaced, shaking her head. Great, I’d said the wrong thing again.
“We don’t allow violence in here,” Lauren said. “You broke the rules. You have to go.”
Fucking hell. “No exceptions for protecting everyone else?”
The crowd watching our little drama play out murmured in what sounded like support, but Lauren remained steadfast in her decision.
“Fine,” I bit out. “Just let me grab my phone.”
She stepped back as I approached, like she didn’t want me near her now.
I snagged the phone from the table and spun on her. “What did you expect, Lo? That after hearing you say how much this place means to you, I’d let some drunken assholes fuck it up?”
“That’s not your job.”
My anger spiked. “Yes. It is. I’ve spent the past decade protecting you, and it’s not like your bouncers were handling it.”
Her eyes flashed wide. “What did you just say?”
Shit. This was why I always kept a cage on my temper. I slipped up when it broke free, caused arguments, said too much. “Nothing,” I ground out, striding past her toward the door.
“Junior, wait a second,” she said, but I ignored her, grabbing my gear from the coat check and striding out into the waiting night.
