Page 11 of Compulsion

“But?”

I stared at him. “But what?”

He shrugged again. The fabric of his shirt shifted on his shoulders. Even over the deep, throbbing beat of the latest dance number, I imagined that I heard him sigh. The chain glinted in the hollow of his shadowed throat, and he casually ran a single finger down the side of his glass. My jeans went unbearably tight around the crotch. Fuck it, what was going on with me?

“It looks to me like you do have a problem.”

“Me? A problem?” I stared at him and he stared right back. He was reading something in my expression that I didn’t know was there. Something that was holding me back from him, from the pleasure he was offering me. Was he annoyed? He might just turn around and leave. Fuck, I didn’t want that to happen. But I also didn’t know what I was getting into if he stayed.

His white teeth teased briefly at his lower lip. “You’re not sure. I don’t know whether it’s about me or yourself.”

I blinked hard. What the fuck? “It’s not a bad thing, to want to know what’s going on.”

“No. It’s not. Have you always been like that?”

I flushed. “No.” But that’s how I want to be now.

Seve nodded. “You’re right, it’s not a bad thing. What can I tell you?” He stood in that relaxed but assertive way, his shoulders back, his neck tight. Fucking gorgeous.

“Okay. Who are you, why are you here?”

He shook his head a little impatiently. I wondered if he had other things to do, like he’d said last Saturday, but when it came, his answer was calm and his tone pleasant. “This club is part of a newly formed franchise. The owners have other clubs opened or scheduled to open soon. I’m interested in a career in the entertainment business, so I was recruited for this job at Compulsion during its reopening.” He extended a hand with a wry twist of his mouth. “My name is Severino Nuñez.”

I took his hand. It was warm and the handshake very firm. “Max Newman.”

He held my hand for a few seconds longer than was usual, but I wasn’t pulling away either. “Are you sure now, Max?”

Irritation spiked through me. “What the hell kind of a question is that? I was making conversation, that’s all. Like normal people do.”

He dropped my hand and his eyes widened.

I sighed and took a step backward. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I’m just….” Mixed up? Horny? Both?

Seve took a step forward to close the gap again, and he smiled. “You startled me, that’s all. You like to talk, don’t you? To argue as well. You’re very….”

“Very what?”

He didn’t finish. His gaze slid down to look at my mouth, and the desire in his eyes sucked any resistance out of me. I let out a breath that had been building tight in my chest. He looked intrigued now, and I remembered his reaction last week, when we struggled, very briefly, out in the yard. So perhaps he liked a little resistance.

“Come with me, Max,” he said. Very low, very quiet, but full of promise. I might not have heard the words because of the noise surrounding us, but I read those lips. In the middle of the heat of the bar, I felt a chill. He moved away and walked right past me.

I turned and followed him, just like before. There’d never been any doubt I would.

Chapter Seven

WE DIDN’T go out through the back door this time. Seve led me out of the dance area, across the lobby, and toward the exit. Did he have a place nearby? “Where are we going?” I asked.

He didn’t answer, just moved confidently through the crowds of people moving to and fro, pausing for nothing. The dance floor lights were flashing behind us, the noise level loud and distracting. There was a roar of approval from the dancers as the DJ segued into a medley of eighties hits. Seve led us to a short flight of uncarpeted stairs behind the entrance desk. It was roped off as private, and a couple of security men nodded to him as he lifted the rope and slipped through. I ducked under as well. One of the security men continued to follow our path with angry, half-hooded eyes. But the lighting was dim on the staircase, so perhaps I was imagining it.

I concentrated solely on following Seve. Every step was firm, his movement elegant. I’d rarely seen a guy so physically sensual and yet so obviously masculine with it. I felt clumsy compared against him. The stairs led to a small landing with a couple of closed doors. Both of them had a spy hole looking out and a small gilt plaque saying “Private.” No one was around, though I could hear the bustle at the entrance down below. There was a security keypad on the wall, and Seve pressed a few buttons, quickly and confidently. There was a soft snick as the lock disengaged; he pushed the door open and gestured for me to go ahead of him.

I went in, of course. It was dark, and for a moment I couldn’t get my bearings. Seve had followed on my heels—I could feel his breath on my neck—and as I groped around for the light, he kicked the door shut behind us. The room felt small and the air stuffy. The thud of the door was reminiscent of our exit out of the club the previous week, but this time I was being captured indoors rather than thrown out into the fresh air. I still couldn’t find any switch, but Seve eased past me and clicked on a lamp.

It was some kind of office-cum-storeroom. The lamp was on a table pushed to the back of the room, with a plastic chair tucked up against each end. There was a computer on the table, but I didn’t see how anyone could comfortably work, because it was surrounded by box files, reams of copy paper, and a pile of neatly folded towels that looked like they’d just come back from the laundry. On one of the chairs was a tall box with torn flaps at the top and polystyrene chips scattered around the bottom. The packaging had obviously spilled out when the box was opened, and now it looked bizarrely like snowdrifts at the base of a cardboard tower. Three filing cabinets lined the left-hand wall, and a dozen or more boxes covered the wall to our right. From the print on the sides, the boxes seemed to contain cleaning and catering supplies. They were piled high and deep, leaving very little floor space for two men to move about. I considered another of my lame witticisms along the lines of “nice place you have here” but managed to keep it to myself. I wondered what the hell he was up to. “I’m with the new management,” he’d said. Obviously he wasn’t any kind of cleaner, but he could have been anyone from bar supervisor to finance manager and still know the security codes to the storeroom as part of his job. Maybe we were going through here to a larger office, but I couldn’t see any door except the one we’d originally come through.

Seve reached his arm across my body and flipped off the lamp again. Immediately we were plunged into darkness, with no windows to the outside world and barely a sliver of light around the close-fitting door. I took a step toward the table, or so I thought, and almost tripped over one of the boxes of supplies. A crinkled strip of something fluttered up and brushed across my cheek. I shivered in shock until I realized it was probably a stray edge of shrinkwrapping. I was fighting to focus my sight in the blackness when a hand gripped my arm.

“Can’t wait,” Seve said, his voice a hoarse purr.