“—I’ve got to ask you some tough questions. You know, kind of like border agents when you’re at an airport. If you’re going to see his landing strip—”
“I’m seriously going to kill you, Everett.”
“—then I’m going to need to know what the purpose of your visit is, and why,” Everett smirked, “you’re interested incoming.”
“Holy fuck.”
The newcomer, whether luckily or unluckily, seemed charmed by Everett’s cringe-worthy humor. He laughed. “Do you need to see my papers?”
Everett patted Caleb’s dick like one might pat someone on the shoulder, then turned in full to address their guest—Caleb had long ago released his hair. “It depends—do those papers have your name and phone number on them?”
The flirt. Caleb rolled his eyes and said in a mocking tone, “Horny much?”
Everett elbowed him in the chest. Caleb, amused, puffed out a laugh and caught Everett by the arm, dragging him back until Caleb locked him in a bear hug.
“You’ll have to excuse my friend,” Caleb said as he planted his chin on Everett’s shoulder and looked the newcomer over. He met Caleb’s gaze fearlessly, and pinpricks of attraction spread through Caleb’s groin. “Sometimes he gets a little ahead of himself. Hi, I’m Caleb. He’s Everett. If you want to play, we’re always down, but we’re a package deal—you can’t have one without the other. If you’re cool with that, then we’re cool with you.”
The stranger looked over his shoulder again, and this time, Caleb saw what had been lurking behind his carefully constructed facade—he was nervous about something. By the time he looked back, his anxious energy had diminished, and there was a wicked glint in his eyes that made Caleb’s heart race and his cock throb.
Whoever he was, Mr. Glitter-Chest wasn’t playing games.
“Two for the price of one?” With a sway in his hips, he closed what little distance remained between the two of them, sliding in close so he was pressed against Everett’s front. He wove the elegant fingers of one hand through Caleb’s hair, then turned his head so their lips brushed together only momentarily before he drew back to speak. “I’m always down for a good deal, gentlemen, but I’m afraid that if I’m going to play by your rules, you’ll have to play by mine.”
Rules? Caleb’s pulse drummed in his ears, drowning out the distant, throbbing bass. A shiver shot down his spine, then exploded into sparks near the small of his back, exciting his cock. There was a sweet, almost floral taste to the stranger’s lips that was laced with something darker and more tempting—bourbon, or whiskey, or…
Everett spoke, pulling Caleb from his thoughts. “What rules are we talking about?”
One corner of Glitter-Chest’s lips lifted into a smirk. The wicked glint Caleb had seen before still burned in his eyes. “Rule. There’s just one. Get me out of this club and back to your place safely. If you succeed, you’re in for the wildest night of your lives.”
“And if we fail?” Everett asked.
Glitter-Chest nodded down the hallway at the emergency exit door. “If we get going right now, you’ll never have to find out.”
2
Jayne
The emergency exit door at the end of the hallway didn’t appear to be paired with an alarm. It was, however, exit only—the push-bar the door was fitted with wouldn’t permit re-entry. That suited Jayne well enough. Once he was out, he wasn’t planning on getting back in.
“That’s it?” Caleb, the dark-haired one, asked. He tagged behind Jayne somewhat like a lost puppy might have, if puppies were over six feet tall and stacked. “I’m still not getting the catch. Your rule is that we have to take you back to our place? That’s it?”
“Yep. That’s it.” Jayne leaned into the bar. It swung inward and released the door from its frame, allowing him out and the nippy night air in. May, what little there had been of it, had been unseasonably cold this year, but Jayne wasn’t afraid of stiff nipples and goosebumps. There were worse things lurking out there in the dark.
They had to keep going.
Jayne stepped out into the alley and checked in both directions. To the far left was a sidewalk cluttered with people waiting for their chance to get past Circuit Rush’s bouncer. A few of them had left the crowd to clog the first few feet of alley, cigarettes with cherry-red buds dangling from their lips or lit joints pinched between their fingertips. Heady notes of tobacco and the herbal, skunky musk of weed perfused the stench coming from the dumpsters to Jayne’s right.
Jayne wrinkled his nose and took stock of what lay beyond the dumpsters. A few bags of trash, some stuffed until their black casings were strained translucent and some barely filled at all, had been left on the ground. The remains of a soggy, windswept cardboard box drooped sadly a few feet beyond that. Otherwise, there was nothing much to see. The street running behind Circuit Rush was lit by streetlights, but appeared to be unoccupied.
Well, for now.
Jayne pressed onward, heading right. Soon enough, he and his duo of happenstance bodyguards would arrive, and from there, they’d make their way to freedom. All they needed to do was—
“Hold on, wait up!” Everett, the blond, insisted. To his benefit, he didn’t grab Jayne by the arm to get his attention or to hold him in place. Instead, he cut out in front of Jayne and spun on his heel, walking backward so he could make eye contact, but slowing them all in the process.
It made Jayne want to scream.
Did the man have no common sense? A dingy alley at midnight wasn’t the place to have a leisurely stroll and a pleasant conversation. Had Everett never watched a goddamn horror movie in his life? Was hetryingto die?
