“Straight through there?” I point toward the hallway, a haze of blood-red and gold chains dangling from the ceiling.
Hulk grunts again. “Last room on the left,” he says and shuts the door, leaving me and my fate alone.
Music from the dance floor is a low vibration against velvet panels between wood molding. A tufted sofa stretches under a low lighting fixture. To the right is a bar decorated in gold and polished wood. Light from lattice panels skates across the smooth surface, catching top-shelf bottles on display in its reflection.
Where are the bartender and the people? No one is in the open room with a chair facing a leather bed.
“Last door on the left,” I mumble. “Wasn’t that a horror movie?”
Someone might as well jump out of one of these rooms to get on with it. Rosalie said people pay top dollar to release tension and bodily fluids here.
The freaks come out at night but are missing in action.
I reach the red door at the end of an unnecessarily long hallway. It has the same ornate paneling as the one I first entered and a long brass handle daring me to see what’s on the other side.
“Serve your drinks and get out,” I tell myself in a pep talk. “I’ll have someone call Benny to come and get me.”
Where his lying ass is, only GPS knows. He’s yet to show up tonight. Unless he’s on call or works the night shift, nothing legal came up for him to leave me here.
Maybe he’s with another woman.
Then why let me come to this club he has no intention of visiting?
You know what?
On the strength of my patience—thinner than the strip of leather between my coochie lips—I pull the door open.
Euros and dollar bills create a path over black carpet to a stage lit in low red lights. Black seating reflects in a wall of mirrors sheathed in a dark glow. Chandeliers fade as the slow grind of a flute riffs through hidden speakers.
I smell him before I see him.
My knees tremble and my pulse kicks at Benny’s slow approach in sweatpants and a black tee. The gold of his chain blinks in the light as he pulls the cigar in his mouth.
“You owe me a favor, Trouble. Time to pay.”
Chapter 24
Headstand Antics
Salvatore
“Benny, you can kiss my whole ass and the anal lining. I did not sign up for this.” Bianca stands in front of the door, a hand on her hip, attitude ablaze in her eyes. “Why are you in here alone with a blunt?”
I take a pull. “I’m ready for the show.”
She sucks her teeth and cusses me out under her breath.
No one who values their life would dare talk to me the way she does. The fucked up part is I like it.
I’ve been rock hard since dropping my phone in the distribution facility Andrea runs. It happened three times, prompting our employees to wonder what the fuck is wrong with me. Andrea knew to stay off the camera feed, which shows off Bianca’s toned legs and bitable ass. Her curves need a warning label. No one is safe in her line of sight, breaking their necks at the sway of the hips she uses to summon desire without trying.
Even now, as she stands with her arms crossed and her chin high, there’s no denying her allure. I want to possess her in every way.
“Take your freak ass to the main room.”
And fuck that mouth.
I take another pull of my blunt. “We made a deal.”
