I thought the street was scary, I thought the guys skulking in alleyways were creepy, but they’ve got nothing on what’s going on inside.
The entrance is one long hall. Like that Stephen King movie, the hallway that goes on forever, but every few feet is a doorway.
Most are closed, but some are open.
Naked people. Dressed people. People on couches. People tied to a cross.
Women crying in ecstasy. Others crying from the crack of a whip. Men circling their prey. Others simply sitting back and watching the show.
I’m both horrified and intrigued at the room with ropes. Ropes everywhere. A woman hanging from the ceiling in a way I think can’t possibly be comfortable, but her cries are of pleasure. She’s not sad to be there.
With my pinky nail caught between my teeth and a horrified fascination as I watch the man work around her, I tilt my head to the side and watch on in a trance as another circles the couple and takes photos. They’re documenting it. The girl doesn’t hide her face. In fact, the cameraman moves in closer and has her moaning with pleasure,literallydripping onto the floor.
Heat rises through my body and settles low in my stomach. I’m not a voyeur. I’m not even into kinky stuff like in the movies. But watching these men circle her, mixed with the feelings of incompletion that Kane’s skilled hands left behind, has me settling into a comfortable warmth that dissipates like smoke when a hand slides along my ass and snaps me back to reality.
Spinning, heart racing, I come eye-to-eye with a stranger.
A creepy stranger.
With a toothy grin and grabby hands, he leans in close to my ear to be heard over the loud music. Close, way too close, he buries his face in my hair and touches my neck with his pointed nose. “There’s a spare room back there. I’m horny, and you’re beautiful. Wanna–”
“No.” Dancing out of his reach, I bring my cell back to my ear like a shield and speed walk through the hall that never ends. My tender ankle goes forgotten at the memory of that man’s hand sliding over the front of my hip. “I’m walking through the club, Kane, and I’m looking for you. Ineedyou to find me.” I speak to no one, but at the same time, I pray my little atheist heart out that he hears me.
Leaving the narrow hall with no less than a dozen ass grabs and a handful of boob squeezes, I emerge into a great room and stop with an indrawn breath. A huge space teeming with the noise of people and their shouts of excitement, the space expands out ahead of me and makes me reconsider the size Ithoughtthis club was.
Their shouts – the screamed bets, the words of encouragement, and the cries of disappointment – make my ears ring, but nothing beats louder than my own heart when my gaze locks onto Kane in the center of the room.
In the center of a boxing ring.
Being slammed to the floor by a giant.
Sex dungeons, crosses, and whips flee my mind the way the fog vanished when I was grabbed in the hall, and instead, the racing beat of my heart takes over and envelopes me in a brand-new panic.
I want to be excited at the sight of a powerful and angry Kane fighting.
I even want to cheer when he bucks the guy off and flips them over. I want to fist bump the air and maybe touch myself a little bit at this new side of Kane Bishop. Shirtless. Sweaty.
Powerful.
But the man’s fists are heavy, and Kane’s face is bleeding.
Strangely, that hurts me.
Women in little more than scraps of lace leave the great room with buckets of money. Literal,actualbuckets.
Men stand around the ring and shout orders at the fighters.
Do this. Do that. Roll over.
Kill him.
Taking my eyes off of the only man I truly want to see right now – like he’s my raft in a swollen sea, my shelter in a violent storm, even though he’s a storm in and of himself – I let my eyes slide around the noisy room that presses in on me.
I wanted an inside view of Infernos club. I wanted to know what theysellhere. What theydohere. How billions of dollars pass through this club when, on the state business register, it’s listed only as a dance club.
I mean, Britt’s husband’s family own a club in town, too. They’re richer than God, but I’m pretty damn sure billions don’t move through their club each year.
Following the crowd with my eyes, I scan the doors that circle the great room.More rooms like the one with ropes? Something else? Kane mentioned rooms we could use…