Chapter twenty-two
Lyla
Atdusk,Dainntook her arm and led her to the parking lot of the hotel they were staying at. He’d rented the suite out on a permanent basis since the hotel was both upscale and close to the Club District, the place where he’d mainly needed to be when he was in town. Since he was a semi-permanent resident, the hotel had given him a permanent parking spot, the one where he led her to, a sleek black car waiting for them.
She didn’t know what the car was or the company but it looked fast, and she wasn’t surprised. Between his flying and driving, she’d understood he liked the rush.
Getting into the low, very low car, the interior of it unsurprisingly black too, she strapped herself in and they pulled out.
“Why Blackthorne?” she mused. “Out of all the names you could have picked, why that?”
A side of his mouth twitched. “It was the name of the first man I killed. He was a rich, pompous asshole, and since that’s who I was going to pretend to be, why not?”
Lyla drew in a sharp breath. “How old were you?”
“Six.” The little smile on his face was disturbing. It disturbed her even more that she wasn’t disturbed. Shouldn’t she have been more horrified, more repulsed than sleep with a killer so willingly? Perhaps. Maybe she would have been in an alternative reality where she was normal.
“And why did you kill him?” she kept on, ignoring the thoughts in her head.
He slid her a glance. “He took something from me.”
Something in his tone felt like a door shut. She recognized the tone enough, having been subjected to it a few times in the last two months. Usually, he answered whatever questions she had, let her test as many boundaries as she wanted. But some, he closed up on. And as understanding as she wanted to be, it frustrated her because he knew everything about her, had witnessed her most humiliating moments, and she didn’t have the same privilege when it came to him. She knew his personality, knew who he was, but his past was a vault she hadn’t been given access to yet.
As he swerved around the city, maneuvering the car expertly, she slid him a look. He was dressed up, in a dark suit without the tie, his hair pushed back from the lines of his face, his mismatched eyes dangerous. She was dressed up herself, in a champagne-colored gown with a side split and strings on her shoulders, her hair slightly longer and open in their waves, her lips painted a soft blush she knew he was obsessed with.
She was apprehensive about both being in the city and going to Moonflame. Regardless of what he said, the memory of being tied up and pushed in a maze, of feeling helpless and hunted, was acute in her mind. She didn't know how he could override all that.
Dr. Manson's words came to her.
'Open yourself up to new experiences. Trusting your partner is utmost for any relationship. Has he given you a reason not to trust him?'
No. No, he hadn't.
Reminding herself of that, touching the gold choker on her neck, she watched the city pass by as they pulled into a familiar parking lot. Moonflame was one of the Club District buildings, a simple two-story gray structure that nobody would have given a second look at, not with all the flashy signs everywhere else. A simple black plaque hung on the wooden door, nothing but the logo of an orb on fire. She assumed it was the literal moon on flame.
Parking the car, he turned to face her. "I'll be with you the whole time."
She nodded.
Giving her a soft kiss, he exited, coming around to her side and taking her hand. He put his gloved hand on her back, guiding her to the main door.
Dainn knocked sharply on the door three times with his gloved knuckles, and a man opened the door, letting them into a narrow corridor. The corridor opened in an open hall, and Lyla huddled into his side instinctively as deja-vu flooded her. He held her close, walking into the lounge area done in wooden and reds, and if she didn’t see a few people in different stages of copulation here and there, she wouldn’t have thought it was a sex club at all. It had changed a lot from the last time she had been there.
Dainn led her through the lounge toward the back where there was another door, the one that had led to the maze room, and her heart began to stutter, her feet stumbling.
His hold on her waist tightened, but he continued to lead her.
The door opened, and instead of the maze, there were sets of stairs.
Curious, surprised, she followed as he led her up some stairs to the right, one that opened into a small room painted dark red, with nothing but a couch looking at a large glass wall looking into an auditorium style room, no sign of the maze.
Her lips parted.
A brunette woman was strung up, suspended by a rope hanging from the ceiling, her toes touching the ground, a blindfold over her eyes, her body completely naked.
Lyla looked over and saw at least ten other glass rooms looking down on the scene, the glasses tinted lightly enough to only show silhouettes. She could see the silhouettes of two women playing with each other in the window opposite hers. In another, a woman was down on her knees and sucking a man’s cock. In another, two women and two men were moving.
It was debauchery, nothing like the clubs she’d ever seen.