With a final squeeze to my thigh, he walked away.
I was too surprised to form coherent words, let alone veer around in my stool to watch him ride the elevator hidden in the secluded hallway leading to the sex club.
Was I going to do this?
Common sense told me to go where my friends were, but I was sick and tired of being alone.
When was the last time a man looked at me the way Zeno had—like he wanted to bite, lick, and suck every inch of me?
Never.
No man had ever looked at me the way Zeno had.
My curiosity was piqued. I blamed horniness on the reason why I grabbed my clutch, his key card, and headed discreetly towards the back hallway.
I sent a quick text to Dacia and Ella, letting them know I was going to be away for an hour or so. They’d want answers after tonight. Finding an attractive man in a sex club and letting him coax me into a night of no regrets was out of the norm for me.
But I was finally being bold.
And it felt damn good.
CHAPTER 5
Birthday Sex
Zeno
After spending the better part of last evening being questioned by the MPD and then being released after they figured out that there wasn’t enough evidence to back up that anonymous tip, I deserved to let loose with a whiskey and a warm body for the night.
I’d been frequenting Chaleur for two years now and my private room on the second floor meticulously overlooked the dance floor. Being on good standings with Ashford, Chaleur’s owner, guaranteed the best spot in the entire edifice. Mine just so happened to be a spacious room whose floor was half wood and half glass. It consisted of a one-way mirror glass where we could see directly over the heads of the dancing patrons, but should they look up at the ceiling, they’d see nothing but darkness.
It was singularly the most exciting thing about this room.
I walked deeper into the space and towards the built-in bar, which was already stocked with my favourite liquors.
My life was too fast-paced to slow down and form a real connection with a woman. Nor was I interested in dating. But finding a willing woman who was generous enough to satisfy my dominant tendencies for one night, while I fucked us both into oblivion, no strings attached?
That I could definitely do.
My brother Benjamin dragged me to Chaleur to celebrate my birthday and after one drink, he ended up excusing himself to go screw a woman who’d been eyeing him from the dance floor. Leaving me all alone with my musings by the bar.
That’s when I spotted Darla sauntering into the club.
I’d never seen a woman poised so elegantly, so composed, in a place where people came to lose their inhibitions and engage in X-rated activities. She had this haughty air as she sipped her cherry martini like it was the finest afternoon tea and she was at a salon about to get her hair done, instead of a sex club where men like me wanted nothing more than to fist her hair and fuck her tight hole nine ways to Sunday.
Like the sick motherfucker I was, I wanted to mess up all that perfection with my soiled hands. In another life, classy women like Darla wouldn’t have given me the time of day. Me, a poor Italian kid raised on the streets of Paris, who pickpocketed to make sure he had enough money to eat.
Now that I had assets—estates, cars, offshore accounts—women flocked to me like birds. But now I had an expensive taste for the rich, daddy’s girl types. I liked to bring them to their knees. I liked to shove my cock down their throats. And I liked to see them whimper and cry as I gave them a new master to obey.
I was good at reading people. One look at Darla and I knew she was of the submissive kind who would enjoy crawling to you and getting called all sorts of pet names once you tore down that invisibleI’m-better-than-youlayer and saythank youwhen you were done creaming her little cunt.
My phone vibrated in my pocket and I reached for it, unlocking it to find a text from Antoine Toussaint.
Happy belated birthday, Zed.
I gritted my teeth.
Antoine Toussaint, whose family used to be close to mine before tragedy struck, was a piece of shit I could not stand. I’d known the manipulative fuck for twenty-one years and it was not a pleasant experience. A few months ago, his father—Gabriel Toussaint—and him moved back to France. I hadn’t heard from them in a while.