Across from the doorway I’m still standing in is another door, closed and locked. To the left, a common area. We move that way, and I take in the common space. On the left, there’s a large sectional couch facing a huge TV; another hallway extends directly opposite where I stand, with several closed doors on either side; to the right, two long cafeteria tables separate the common area from the kitchen beyond the tables, and the kitchen is industrial, commercial-grade.
I look at Chance. “So when you said I could live in this club, you weren’t joking.”
He shakes his head slowly. “No.” He moves away from me, into the common area, heading for the kitchen. “What do you want to drink?”
“Just a beer is fine. Anything will do, I’m not particular.” I follow him, leaning hard on my cane; my knee hurts again after the stairs.
He goes to a huge refrigerator, pulls out a bottle of Heineken, flicks the top off with a bottle opener. He points at the couch. “Sit.”
I do need to sit, so as much as I want to stay on my feet just to spite his order, I cross to the couch and lower myself to it. Toss my cane on the couch beside me, the handle near my hand. Chance brings me the beer, then grabs a stack of remotes, brings them to me, tossing them onto my lap.
“Big one is the TV, cable, and DVD player,” he says. “Long thin one is sound. Little one is for the Fire thing.”
I blink up at him. “So I’m just going to hang out in your secret lair beneath the club?”
He arches an eyebrow, a corner of his mouth tipping up—almost a grin. “Yeah. Not my secret lair, though. Ours.”
“Ours? Ours who?” I ask.
“You’ll see,” is his cryptic response. “Just stay here in this room, on the couch. You want to eat, help yourself to the kitchen.”
“Am I allowed to leave?” I ask, my tone bitingly sarcastic.
He snorts. “Yeah, of course.” He gestures at the hallway with the doors on either side. “End of that hall is stairs up to the parking lot, side of the club. “You want to leave, leave. Make sure the door closes behind you. Call a cab, get a Lyft or an Uber. Whatever.”
I eye him. “Why are you helping me?”
He blinks at me. I can almost see him chewing on what to say. “Lotta reasons.”
“Give me one.”
“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Didn’t like how that little fucker was treating you.” He shakes his head again. “There’s more to that situation up there. I know it. More to you. To this.” He gestures between himself and me. “For now, I gotta go back to work.” He turns and heads back the way we came.
“Chance,” I call.
He pauses at the door. “Yeah.”
“This, meaning me and you?”
He gives me a grin, then. A real, full smile. And god almighty, it transforms his features—the hardness dissolves, the blank mask fades, and I see humor in him, mischief, something wild, something intense. “Yeah, mama. Like you and me.”
I frown. “I don’t even know you.”
“Gotta start somewhere.”
“Maybe I don’t want to,” I shoot back.
He blinks slowly, that grin still in place. “You do.”
I glare at him. “You’re sure of that, huh?” I snark, eyebrow lifted. “With your telepathy and all?”
He just nods, as if my statement was not sarcastic. “Pretty much.” He steps through the doorway, then pops his head back out. “Annika?”
I lift a hand, palm up. “Haven’t gone anywhere in the last five seconds.”
“You’re safe here.” That quiet, gentle voice, those deep dark eyes, those fucking words—shit.
I blink hard and swallow harder. “Right. Thanks.”
“I mean it. Whatever the fuck is going on with you, it’s not here. You’re safe.”
“Heard you,” I repeat. “Thanks.”
He vanishes, and I slump—I’ve been holding myself tense, upright, not breathing. Not daring to.
Safe.
What a joke.
I wait, half expecting him to return. I wonder what he wants from me.
But hell, it’s obvious enough, isn’t it? He’ll keep me safe here…and I know damn well what he’ll expect in return.
I turn on the TV, find a nature documentary to watch as I sip my beer. I’m hungry, but now that I’m on the couch, the thought of getting up and fixing myself food sounds way too hard. So I don’t. I sit, I watch the doc, and I sip.
And, at some point, I find myself slumping sideways, fighting to keep my eyes open. I forget how long I’ve been awake—nearly twenty-four hours, by now.
I fall asleep.
I wake to subdued voices—people speaking and moving around but attempting to be quiet about it.
Where am I? I’m not very coherent when I wake up, at the best of times, and these are far from the best of times.
I blink my eyes open—a TV, unfamiliar, set to the home screen of a streaming service, showing the last thing watched, a documentary. I’m on a couch, covered by a thick, soft blanket, fleece on one side, sherpa-lined on the other.
Where am I? Shit, I don’t remember.
I’m stretched out on a comfortable leather couch; I sit up, and my hair feels wild…or, wilder. In my face, in my eyes, poofed everywhere. I brush it out of my eyes and look around. An industrial kitchen, fairly high drop-tile ceiling, incandescent can lights rather than fluorescent.
Ah, I remember. Alvin. The club. Being sent to fetch a girl for him—he’s got this uncanny ability to spot people who are users, who will want what he’s offering and are willing to pay his price. She took one look at him, knew what he was offering and what he wanted, took it and paid his price.
Gross. I shudder in revulsion, remembering all too vividly.
Alvin, tossing me around. Being a dick, but it’s not like he has any other setting. He’s set to full dick, all the time.
The huge guy, Chance—Yeah, mama. Like you and me.
Falling asleep.
I stretch and twist, assessing.
There are people in the kitchen. Men. Two women.
A lot of men—a lot of intensely, bizarrely hot men, hypermasculine, massively muscled beefcake men.
Two blondes, not twins but for sure brothers, both of whom could easily play a Hollywood superhero. A copper-haired man sits with them, with features alike enough to the blondes that he’s their brother as well. Put the three together, and a lesser woman might just have spontaneous orgasms just looking at them—the jawlines, the light eyes, the ridiculous musculature…they’re shirtless, wearing workout shorts and nothing else, sitting together sipping coffee and looking tired and grumpy and fucking delicious.
Those three are at a table on their own. At the other table, more male hotness, and two beautiful women. The men: one is nearly as tall as Chance, with brown skin and a wide short mohawk, shirtless, with muscles sculpted by the good Lord himself; another man with brown skin, but he’s much shorter, perhaps under six feet, but his shoulders are broad and his arms thick, his hair inky black and long and loose, hanging to his shoulders in a glossy raven’s-wing sheet, with a long black beard coming to a neat point at his chest and a debonair mustache which curls up at his cheekbones, also shirtless in shorts with his ripped torso on display; a blond man, long hair brushing his shoulders, with a fairly long, bushy blond beard trimmed in a neat U, again bare chested, and he’s pure brawn, mountains of muscle piled upon mountains of muscle, veiny, hard, bulging, sculpted; Chance, shirtless as all the others, and his tattoos begin at his shoulders and cover his whole upper body, both arms to his wrists, down to his diaphragm, and not a single image is exactly the same as any other.