Page 38 of To Catch a Sub

Andrei snorted and plopped down into a couch. “Get your own bags.”

“Andrei, please search Ms. Beaumont’s bags before you bring them up,” Rolf ordered.

“Ah, now that I’ll do.”

“Planning to fondle my underwear?” Colette shook her head in mock disappointment. “How cliche.”

“Not just fondle,” Andrei said over his shoulder as he headed for the stairs.

The banter between Colette and Andrei shouldn’t bug Landon, but it did. Banter was their thing…except clearly it wasn’t.

He needed to squash this feeling that there was something between them. That the way she was with him meant something. It didn’t, and it never had.

He didn’t touch her, only motioned for her to follow as he wove through the private club towards the opposite wall.

The building was a massive rectangle, with the entrance door, main hallway, and few rooms clustered to one side down on the first floor. Up here, even before they retrofitted it into the club, the space had been more broken up.

Though it wasn’t as open as the former factory floor below, there was still a large open area with a cut out in the floor that looked down onto the public club. The railing around the opening was wide-spaced black iron posts, with thick plexiglass panels between. It looked flimsy and dangerous—by design. In reality the black metal ledge that topped the see-through half-wall was high enough from the floor that only someone Rolf’s height would be in danger of tipping over, and the metal posts were solid steel welded to the main floor supports and able to withstand being hit by a wrecking ball.

Behind them, near the door, were bathrooms built directly above the first-floor bathrooms, as well as storage spaces and even an industrial elevator, though it was rarely used except for deliveries.

The windows up here didn’t have semi-opaque panels covering them, so there was a view over the tops of the other warehouses and industrial businesses that made up Harringay. From one of the windows there was even a glimpse of Tower Bridge.

Above them the vaulted underside of the roof served as a ceiling. Massive wood beams, now reinforced with metal, held up the roof, which was dotted with what had once been vents, but were now small skylights.

Duplicate pieces of equipment sat on low stages, but the St. Andrew’s cross up here was motorized, and could be tipped, tilted, and even inverted. The spanking bench was more heavily padded, allowing for longer scenes, and the height of the leg and arm rests was adjustable.

The half-dozen seating arrangements scattered around not only allowed people to sit and watch scenes, but broke up the larger space into a smaller sections. An open area served as a dance floor—they piped in music from below, though at a much lower volume.

Landon led Colette to the far side of the club, past all the scene spaces, the bar, and the dance floor, to a wide black door which seemed to disappear against the equally black wall.

“No key?” she said when he opened it and motioned her in.

“No.”

The door opened into a short hallway, which dead ended into a longer, perpendicular hallway that ran from the front to the back of the building. He hadn’t bothered to turn on the lights, so the only illumination was the light that spilled in through windows on either end of the long hall.

Lining the hall on both sides were mismatched doors. Some were heavy wood, and clearly original to the building, while others were plain, modern doors.

He turned left, listening to the sound of her footsteps as she followed him. He stopped beside one of the older doors and opened it, ushering her inside.

The room was a good size, with a four-poster double bed, small wood table and matching straight back chair positioned as a desk against the wall by the door, a large armoire, and a long black chest at the foot of the bed. The walls were time-marked lath and plaster, except for the one on the left.

The left wall had a door in it that led to another bedroom. It was easy to tell, because the upper half of the wall was glass. The small, square panes of glass were warped with age, some even bearing a crack or two, but he could clearly see into the room on the other side.

Landon suppressed a snarl. Rolf had forgotten to mention that the two rooms that had once been the foreman’s outer and private offices had a window-wall between them.

Colette walked past him into the room, and Landon stepped in behind her, closing the door. They could get other rooms, but this was the only one with a connecting door.

Colette went to the bed, running her palm up one of the four posters. She paused with her hand at head height, and leaned in, examining the inner curve of the wood post.

She tsked. “I hope this wasn’t an antique.”

Landon joined her. She’d hooked her forefinger through the metal O ring that had been screwed into the post. There was a second O ring lower down at mattress height, and matching sets of anchor points on the other three bedposts.

“Maybe those were put there by the original owner,” he said. “Kink isn’t new.”

She laughed, and it sounded genuine. “No, it’s not. No things are really new, only our feelings and reactions to them.”