He shot me a filthy grin, even as I could tell he was having trouble sitting down for so long. “Can’t wait. Rocking your world isn’t ever a hardship.”
Baxter glanced sideways at Dalziel, then nudged him with her elbow. “Might have been a whole lot different if we’d had security cameras back in our day, right?” Her eyebrows danced expressively, and I failed to smother my grin at her blatant meaning.
Dalziel ignored her, and did a quick sweep of the table. “Shall we get moving, if everyone’s finished?” He set his empty wine glass down with a definitive clink.
Eleanor got to her feet. “I’ll get on with paying the invoices,” she murmured.
“Invoices?” Charley also rose, looking grateful to take the pressure off his backside. His arse had still been pink after a rest and a shower. I was torn between guilt and pride at having marked him so thoroughly.
Dalziel bestowed an indulgent look on his son. “Transforming the cellar into the backstage area of a seedy nightclub took expertise I don’t have in-house. Of course they need to be paid.”
Charley paled. “I’m such a liability.” He gulped. “I’ll try and pay you back as quick as I can, but I don’t even have a job right now.” I could feel his anxiety rising.
Dalziel palmed his shoulder. “You are mine to worry about. We take care of our own. You do not owe me financially for this.” He waited until Charley gave him a brief nod, then squeezed him before letting go. “Right, let us proceed.”
It seemed we were going straight on with the plan, which was wise, as if I had time to dwell on it, I could probably have come up with a dozen reasons why we shouldn’t. Dalziel led us through a part of the house I’d not been in before, to a room next to the kitchen. It was, I guessed from the ancient sink along one wall, the original scullery, but now it also housed a washing machine and dryer, plus a store of tinned and dried foods. At the far end were two doors, one into the kitchen with a peephole window I realised I’d seen from the other side, and one in the opposite wall. Dalziel pulled that door open and flicked a light switch just inside.
“Do take care on the steps,” he cautioned. “It’s fairly dry, but it’s also over four hundred years old, so not up to modern health and safety standards.” He stepped through the doorway and disappeared.
The steps ran alongside the interior scullery wall, back the way we’d come. Baxter went next, then Charley, then me, bringing up the rear. The steps were narrow, deep and made of stone. Someone had thought to add a rail, not that I needed it, and the lights, although brighter than in the main house, weren’t too dazzling for sensitive eyes. There was the slightly dank aroma of a typically underused subterranean area, but nothing too unpleasant. We followed Dalziel past a few rooms, one of which I saw contained racks of wine, because of course it did. Eventually we rounded a corner and Charley gasped. “Bloody hell, this is exactly like the corridors backstage at Ritzy’s.”
Then he cast his eyes to the floor and I caught the faint blush staining his angular cheekbones. Ahh; if I had to guess how he knew this, he must have been there at some point getting railed, and now he’d given himself away. I bit back a laugh. Cute how he seemed to think I’d magically forget how he’d confessed to being easy within a couple of hours of us meeting. Frankly, I didn’t care what or who he’d done in the past. It was his future I was interested in.
I shuffled past Baxter and draped an arm over Charley’s shoulder, whispering directly into his ear. “You’d better be hot stuff when the camera starts rolling. It’s not very warm down here, and I need little Luc to look his best on film, all right?” I absolutely didnotwant my junk on public display, but I was conceited enough to want it to look impressive if there was no way around this.
Charley cracked a grin as his blush receded. “There’s nothing little about your cock when it’s stuffed down my throat, but I’ll look after you.”
A cough behind me made us both look up. Dalziel was staring at the ceiling, hands in his pockets in a poor attempt at feigning indifference. Baxter, however, had a wide grin splitting her face. “Vampire hearing, guys,” she quipped with a lewd wink.
32
CHARLEY
Luc’s expressionmade me forget my minor discomfiture over the memory of my many escapades at Ritzy’s. He was mortified. It was funnier because he too had superior hearing to humans, but somehow his brain had managed to bypass this vital piece of information, possibly because he was into me as much as I was into him. Difference was, I acknowledged that my dick was in control of my brain; Luc liked to think his mind ran the show. Ha, no. Bottom line, his wolf was in charge when fucking was on the cards, and Luc’s wolf was a total horndog, pun intended.
I squeezed his hand and gave Baxter a cheeky grin of my own. “I’m definitely in the mood now. Shall we get cracking?”
She nodded. “Dalziel can head back up now, and I’ll walk you through what I want you to do, show you where to walk so you appear on the different cameras, and where to position yourselves for the main event. All right?”
“Yep.” Now something was finally happening, however weird it seemed, and whether I trusted Baxter could pull this off or not, I was suddenly pumped and ready to get moving. Plus, going down on Luc was never, ever going to be a hardship, even if we were faking it. I could feel the beginnings of a chub already.
Baxter walked us through several segments of the corridors three times, walking behind us and calling out how she wanted us to act, leaning into each other, stopping for a quick snog against a wall, and then finally into position, apparently half hidden behind a pillar. The reality, she assured us, was at Ritzy’s there was a security camera unlike the others, set into the casing holding some pipe or other, that was screwed into the ceiling joists. The additional camera had been installed three months back, because it directly faced the door to one of the offices, and she’d discovered there had been a spate of discrepancies in the books, which had led the manager to petition Ledge for additional security. She also made sure to mention that she would not be recording sound, so we would enjoy a degree of privacy, such as it could be with us sexing it up for posterity.
She checked our phones were both on silent, although I doubted there’d be a signal underground, and mine was temperamental anyway, then said she’d flash the lights off and then on again, but this time it would be the much dimmer fake emergency lighting to signal we should start. “If I turn them off for a count of three at any point, stop completely and go back to the start. Okay?”
A faint growl emanated from Luc. He shut it down and exhaled, one eye on me. “No pressure, babe, but I’m not in the mood to be edged in a fucking vampire’s cellar. Can we try for one and done?”
Baxter’s lips twitched, but she wisely chose not to rise to the bait, being one of those ‘fucking vampires’. With as straight a face as I could manage, I nodded. “I’ll do my best.”
“Uh, boys, you do know it’s just for show, right? This isn’t a Pornhub special. No happy endings needed here, as long as we get the idea there was.”
This timeIgrowled. “Baxter, not gonna lie, I’m pretty fucking offended right now. I’m not gonnapretend.He’ll come his brains out and enjoy every second of it.”
“Jeezus, Charley, pack it in,” Luc hissed, but Baxter sniggered and gave us two thumbs up. “That’s the spirit. I do like to see enthusiasm in the youth of today. Remember, into position and wait for the lights.” She sashayed off, leaving us alone.
Luc rolled his eyes at her departing back. “Youth? What the fuck? I know she’s a vamp but she can’t have been more than twenty when she was turned.”
“Twenty-two, actually, but thanks. Evidently my impoverished but genteel nineteenth century lifestyle kept me youthful.” Her disembodied voice floated back to us. We cracked up laughing as we made our way to the place where Baxter said to begin. I nudged Luc as he wound one arm around my waist. Very quietly I asked him, “So, Baxter and Dalziel. What d’you reckon?” They had a chemistry I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
