I feel a sprinkle land on my skin, and I glance up at the clear evening sky. Must have been condensation from someone’s air-con.
“I know you feel this too,” he says.
I round on him, because dammit, he’s right. I do feel it—this inconvenient, all-consuming attraction to him. He’s peering down at me, skin paler under the moonlight, contrasting against his black shirt, dark hair falling into his hopeful face, a chain around his neck that I want to use to pull his face down to mine. “You’re about to feel my foot up your ass.”
I turn and start to quickly walk away, but he grabs my arm, spinning me around to face him. “Jade.”
“Don’t.”
He takes a step towards me. I take a step back, and he follows.
Tieran is corralling me toward a shop window when Mother Nature decides to have my back and the skies open up, chucking down rain.
“Fuck,” I exclaim.
Tieran grabs my hand, pulling me away from the wall. “Come on. We’ll pop into the next bar and get a drink—wait out the rain.”
I don’t argue, because the slight rain has turned into a torrential downpour, already soaking my clothes and skin. As water fills the street, it becomes slick beneath me,causing me to slip in my heels. Tieran tightens his grip on my hand, and before I know it, he’s guiding us into the first place we see called Stag & Vixen.
The bouncer at the door takes pity on us, waving us through to walk down a long hallway lined in burgundy velvet, floor to ceiling curtains. What kind of bar is this? The hairs on my neck lift and Tieran takes off his jacket, draping it over my shoulders to ward off the goosebumps that erupted across my skin.
Pulsing bass thumps through the walls, and when we make it to the threshold of the main room, I stop dead in my tracks.
We haven’t come into a bar at all.
We walked right into the den of a sex club.
It wasn’t technicallya sex club. They couldn’t call it that—but it was pretty damn close.
Every place my eyes settle is a feast of carnal pleasure. The room we’re standing in is cavernous, easily reaching fifty feet in height with the same deep burgundy curtains lining the walls. At the centre of the room is a round stage, tables and booths placed around it, filled with patrons ready to drink to excess, waiting to watch dancers come out and perform. The space is dimly lit, with small, flickering candles set on tables, and only a few lights around the room casting a soft red glow on the suspended cages filled withnearlynaked men and women as they dance languorously to the sensual baseline of the music.
Everything about Stag & Vixen feels seductive. From the lack of light around the room ensuring a lot of dark corners—little pockets of privacy where people can sneak off to engage in slightly more…illicit activities—to the right of the room, where a hallway with a neon sign above the archway reads,‘Where curiosity and desire meet to dance’.
I would stake my precious car on that hallway leading toprivaterooms.
All I can think about is how uncomfortable Jade must feel right now. She can barely stand to bearound me most days, and being trapped here, of all places, must be putting her on edge.
I glance over to find her standing stiff as a board, eyes darting around the expansive room with a flush climbing from her ample chest to her ears.
“Come on. We can find somewhere else to wait out the rain.” I move to brush past her, but she stops me with a hand to my chest, and I flex a little under the touch, delighting in her warmth seeping through my shirt.
Her amber eyes trail from the scene all around us, down to where her palm rests on my chest, as if she doesn’t know how it ended up there. Jade immediately removes her hand, eyes flicking up beneath inky lashes and locking with mine. So much simmers in that gaze as her eyes shift back and forth—weighing her options. I’d pay a year’s salary to be inside her head right now, but instead, I wait on a knife’s edge, unsure what she’s making of all of this.
“We can stay and get a drink…just until the rain stops.” The last part is barely a whisper. I was prepared for a sharp retort, a fight of some kind. I certainly didn’t expect her to agree so quickly. Now I have to work overtime to keep from letting the happiness show or I’ll spook her. I’ve been wanting to spend time with her for weeks while she’s been working overtime to keep me at arm’s length. I just never imagined it would happen quite like this. Yet, there’s still a fool's hope in my chest that maybe she wants to stay herewithme,not just to evade poor weather.
“Until the rain stops,” I parrot, voice thick.
Risking life and limb, I place my hand on her lower back, bare from the dress that’s been driving me out of my mind from the second she walked through the door tonight. I guide her from our spot by the entrance to the bar, where a mixologist is lighting a cocktail on fire, to the delight of the patron in front of him.
We quickly place our own order, and I scour the room looking for a place for us to sit while we wait for our drinks to be ready. It was busy when we came in, but the room hassignificantly filled up in the last few minutes, with tables mostly full and all the ones closest to the stage occupied. We stand there, close enough that I can feel the heat of her body wrapping around mine. After a few minutes, once we have our drinks in hand, a high top tucked into a secluded corner opens up when the couple heads toward the hallway of debauchery on the opposite side of the room.
“Follow me.” I reach back and grab Jade’s hand, pulling her toward the empty table before anyone else can steal it. Holding her hand is akin to holding a steel beam with how rigid it feels caged inside my grip, but I don’t let go, dragging her deeper into the fray as we weave through the dimly lit room, curious eyes roving over her everywhere we go.
Performers mill about the room, seductively writhing to the lascivious music thrumming through the speakers. The dancers are in an array of hot pants, thongs, and jewel-crusted nipple covers that glow under the red lights as they tease the patrons with lustful glances and not-so-subtle touches. Greedy hands grapple to touch supple skin, and more than one dancer ends up in someone's lap.
When we finally make it to the table, I help Jade onto the barstool, hand still clasping hers as she sits, adjusting the skirt of her dress that shifted higher on her tanned thighs. Forcing my eyes away is a testament to my pure fucking will, but I know if I don’t, it will conjure thoughts I shouldn’t have in this environment, tempting as it may be.
Jade’s honeyed eyes bounce around the cavern over the rim of her martini glass, taking everything in with a wide-eyed curiosity that surprises me. Is she enjoying this? At the very least, she’s intrigued by it, and the thought of her getting excited by our surroundings has me sitting higher in my seat, unable to look away from her.
