“So good.” She dropped back onto her feet. “This is my friend, Smith. We went to school together.”
“An architect, then?”
I managed a smile and a nod. “Historical Renovation.”
Callum gestured broadly to the walls on either side of us. “Bet you love this place.”
It was hard to appreciate the building when there was so much more around me to look at, but I nodded my agreement.
“What can I get you both to drink?” Callum asked.
“I’ll have a vodka Sprite,” Asha answered, linking her arm through the crook of my elbow and knocking her shoulder into my armpit.
“I’ll have red wine. Pinot Noir if you have it.”
“We have it,” Callum confirmed, and then he was off to mix Asha’s drink and pour mine.
I turned to study the dance floor, and Asha rearranged herself to stay in contact even though my back faced the bar now. There had to be at least fifty people on the dance floor, most of them clothed, but not all. It was a curious mix of people who looked like they were there to really enjoy the music and those who looked like the music wasn’t anything more than background noise for another sort of main attraction.
My stare locked on to two people in the middle of the dance floor, one of them with shoulders so broad he looked like he could hold the building up on his back alone. His partner’s gender was less decipherable, but they weren’t much more than a blur of pale skin and dark hair, long limbs and swaying hips. They danced like they were fucking, and there was absolutely no hiding the shock of interest that rolled through me at the sight ofthem. Asha slid my wine into my hand, distracting me from the sight ahead of me, and I dutifully took a drink.
“Do you want to go see the upstairs?” she asked.
“I want to know how you know about a place like this.”
Asha laughed. “Trip Advisor.”
“I’m being serious.”
“So am I,” she said, jerking her head toward the stairs that hugged the opposite wall of the church. “We can just go look. I know you’re not into any of this. I just thought it might be a nice distraction for the night.”
I wasn’t sure how to tell her I was notnotinto whatever was happening, so instead I let her drag me through the dance floor and up into the old loft. Even though the bass drum reverberated off the walls, it was quieter upstairs, the mood completely opposite from the main floor. The sitting area in the loft smelled like leather and salt, and people moved against each other like they wanted very different kinds of attention than those on the dance floor.
There was a man sitting on the couch with a glass of amber liquor in his hand, another man at his feet, on his knees, eyes closed in bliss. I watched as the man on the couch bent over to whisper into his companion’s ear, and then that man turned in place and nestled his face into the first man’s crotch. My throat was dry as the desert, and I took a larger than polite swallow of wine to unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth.
“Are you all right?” Asha asked me.
“I’m fine,” I promised, and I was, if not a little overwhelmed.
I wondered if Lincoln had been here before, if he knew about this place. This was right up his alley so there was no way he hadn’t been here. God, did that mean my brother had also been here? Groaning, I winced and looked away from the couple on the couch, stare landing on a man against a giant wooden X in the corner of the room. He was naked save for the thick stripsof leather that bound his wrists and ankles to the furniture, a padded black blindfold also covering his eyes. His partner had one hand casually spread against a bare forearm while he laughed at something someone else said. I imagined being ignored like that was torture, being ignored and on display…
Another flare of heat radiated out from the base of my spine, and I chased it down with another drink of wine.
“Normally there’s room to sit up here,” Asha explained, pulling me back toward the stairs. We had to talk down a short hall, doors on the right side that were half open and half closed. Passing by an open door, I peeked inside and found a man bent over a black sawhorse, bound like the man in the loft, but behind him a fiery-haired woman fucked into him with the thickest and longest strap-on I’d ever seen.
Not that I’d seen many strap-ons, but the dick itself, strapped on or not, was massive. The man fought against his bondage, but then went rigid and cried out, obviously lost to the throes of an orgasm. Asha tugged my hand, and obediently I followed her down the stairs and across the dance floor. There was another room on the main floor, this one larger than the upstairs loft, clearly set up to accommodate more than one group of people in the same space.
“Oh, perfect!” Asha said, flinging me toward a couch in the middle of the room.
I sat down and looked around again, finding similar furniture from what I’d seen upstairs and varying people doing the same sorts of things on top of it. The couple from the dance floor was in the corner, the bigger man’s hands under the other person’s shirt, reaching for nipples, I guessed. They kissed each other so passionately, it was impossible to not get swept up in the pleasure of it all. I watched them kiss until there was no denying my own arousal, and with a very unhappy sound, the slender partner pushed away from the man.
“I have to go to work,” they complained.
“You own this place,” the man coaxed, crooking a finger to beckon their partner closer again. “Payroll can wait.”
“Callum would disagree.” They smiled wickedly and took a step toward the door, and another and another. The man pushed off the wall and stalked after them until they were out of the room and off to who knew where.
“Verity,” Asha said into my ear.
