He watched her over the rim of his glass as he let the burn of vodka help wash down her words.
“You’re talking about sex trade. Sex slaves.” He analyzed every move, every flick of her thick lashes.
“That has no place here.” Matteo took the drink Sevastyan offered and held her gaze while drinking it down.
Anger contorted her beautiful eyes, drew her brows together, and reddened her face.
“Are you so sure about that?” Her voice turned razor-sharp. “How many women have gone missing in the last few months? Specifically from this club?”
Little more effort and the whip of her words would have left a burn mark on all three of them. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say she was flatly accusing him of being among those vile people.
He reached for her glass before her death drip caused the thing to shatter. The last thing he wanted was her injuring herself.
Her gaze flew upward as she turned away from the people below. Arctic air would be warmer than the glacial stare she nailed him with.
“You’re bordering on accusing me of using my clubs to do sinister activities.”
She lifted a shoulder. “Sometimes bad things happen and you don’t know until it’s too late. To me, pleasure is a double-edged sword.” She swallowed, licking her lips, and cleared her throat faintly.
Oh no, she didn’t. Like hell he’d let her retreat back and close off when he’d just gotten her to open up a fraction. A little more prying and no telling what he could get from her.
Matteo leaned against the railing, his back toward the crowd. He turned his whole attention to their beauty.
“So pleasure is an idea that holds power over others in your mind? Is that what you felt when I buried myself inside you?”
“Do you think we’re trying to control you through pleasure?” Lucian added to Matteo’s question.
Sevastyan watched her gaze volley between them.
She considered that for a moment, holding his gaze with every word as she elaborated her thoughts.
“Yes. To your first question and I don’t know the second answer,” she whispered lowly.
“Explain.”
Her brows pinched and she looked flustered.
“What people do to find pleasure can hurt others. It’s self-serving when you think about it. For most, it’s a positive experience like with the woman over there.”
They turned and followed her gaze to a woman being pleasured by two men in the semi-privacy of their balcony since they did not lower the second set of curtains that would close them off entirely. They wanted others to see how they gave so freely. From the look on the woman’s face, no desire was being left unattended.
“To every positive, there is a negative?” Matteo posed the statement as a question.
She nodded. “Exactly. Like there.” Again, they followed her direction to the opposite side of the room where a man stood over his submissive, hand fisted in her hair as she took him in her mouth. The contorted pain in her expression said everything and boiled his blood. Men like that made him want to smash something. Them, mainly.
He stepped over to the curtain and gave security instructions to deal with the problem. In his club, he didn’t give a fuck who anyone was. No one crossed lines.
Any other time he stayed in his office and let Roman or Lucian deal with shit like this.
He and Matteo had suspected that was what his brother had originally sought from establishing this club in the first place. A place he could find himself, explore his desire, and find his own haven. Then something went wrong.
“As you can see while pleasure means one thing to some, it has an equally ugly side of selfishness and greed. It’s all a matter of perspective. People will lie, cheat and kill among other things to find theirs, and if it can bring a profit, we both know some have no problem with that either.”
“It goes deeper than perceptive, but I agree. Greed can turn pleasure into someone else’s nightmare.”
She shook her head. “If you’re a young girl being used for her body, believe me, her perspective of pleasure is not the same as yours or mine.”
In her eyes, at that moment he saw the woman behind the false curtain she wanted to keep in place between them, but unknowingly revealed herself through her words, and he knew—knew—she had nothing to do with whatever her father was tied up in that got him killed and knew without a doubt she would be his.