I thought about knocking before I realized just how stupid that was. I opened the door carefully, saw a bit of a hallway, and stepped inside. It didn’t take long for me to take the view in.
A group of men with white shirts but nothing else up top stood on the outskirts of the room, almost looking like butlers and cleaning staff, looking intently at the rest of the club. Men in cuts and women in what could best be described as bikini tops and jean shorts flirted with each other and, in some cases, just outright touched each other.
I think if Leigh had this as an idea in mind, either she’d think this was much too much of a “night out” or I’d discover her partying ways went even further than I thought.
“Hey, sexy little thing,” a deep voice said as I felt someone grab my ass from behind. “You look new to these parts. How’d you like to grab a drink?”
I swiped the hand away from me and turned. The fat man had curly black hair and a beard that looked like it needed a good trimming. On his patch, I saw “Fernandez,” but I couldn’t connect the dots to anything.
“I’m here to see Satan.”
Fernandez cackled.
“You don’t get to see Satan; Satan gets to decide if you see him or not,” he said.
“He told me I could—”
“Yeah, he tells that to every girl that walks through these doors. Satan invites the crowd, picks out who he likes best, and then drives his dick into them.”
I prayed he wasn’t serious. If that were the case, even if I felt some uncontrolled attraction to him, I’d just say fuck it. But then what would I do for a story?
I had to endure this. But figuring out how to follow the balancing act was going to be one of the trickiest things I’d ever done—not to mention one of the most uncomfortable.
“Well, Satan specifically pulled me aside recently into a private room to have this chat.”
“Did he now?” Fernandez said with a raised eyebrow, still toying with me. “Well, you just come with me to do a shot and I’ll keep you company until he makes his first decision of the night.”
He wrapped his arm around me, grabbing my hip, and led me forward. I decided not to fight for now, but if his hand went to my ass again, I’d shove it away and just look around. If it went to my breasts, I’d slap the shit out of him.
That last notion wouldn’t help my cause, but I did have a line where no amount of professional awards would be worth that level of harassment.
“Gentlemen,” Fernandez said as he brought me to a group of four guys and two girls, one of whom looked vaguely familiar, though I couldn’t put a finger on it. “Meet the new girl. Don’t know her name, don’t care.”
Three of the guys laughed. The one I felt I recognized didn’t.
“That’s Satan’s girl.”
Satan’s girl? What the fuck have they been saying about me?
“You take her, Fernandez, you getting your ass whupped.”
“The fuck you talking about, Spawn?”
“Satan specifically said yesterday only he could have this one,” he said, as I did my best to ignore the casual sexism that seemed as widespread as oxygen and the scent of cheap, college-level beer. “You might have said hello, but even that would get your ass in trouble.”
“Satan doesn’t work like that, nice try, but—”
“The fuck you doing, Fernandez!”
It was him.
And judging by the way Fernandez’s arm dropped off me in record time, he knew it too.
“Sir,” Fernandez said, suddenly sounding very much like a private who’d had a five-star general enter the room. “I brought in your girl, sir.”
Satan crossed his arms, not yet turning his attention to me, as he got inches away from Fernandez’s face.
“And what fucking part of ‘brought in’ required you to touch her ass or pull her in by the hip?”
