Page 4 of Infatuation

I clear my throat. “I don’t know if I kept any of their emails,” I say. “It’s been about seven months since my membership and I don’t typically keep emails past three months.”

“Shit,” Jonas says. “Would have been nice to have something to trace.”

Jonas goes on to explain that he and Sarah came home fromBelize to find Sarah’s and Kat’s apartments trashed and their computers stolen—which proves, according to Jonas, that The Club will stop at nothing, including physical violence, to keep both women from divulging the supposedly indisputable fact that The Club is actually nothing more than a global prostitution ring.

I don’t reply, partly because I’m simply trying to process Jonas’ reasoning, but also because Kat is so fucking hot, it’s hard for me to think straight in her presence.

I wonder if Kat’s got a boyfriend. Please, God, don’t let her have a boyfriend. Oh shit, what if she’s married? I glance at her finger. No wedding ring. Thank God. Does she live here in Seattle? Yeah, she must—Jonas said she and Sarah spied on Jonas and that other guy at their check-ins in town. Huh. If Kat lives here, the odds are slim she’s a model. I wonder what she does for a living, then. Does she—

Oh.

Jonas is staring at me like he expects me to say something. Shit. I have no idea what he’s been saying for the past few minutes.

“Huh,” I finally say, trying to look deep in thought. “Interesting.”

Jonas exhales a shaky breath, clearly containing some sort of rage at my response. But what the fuck does he expect? I can’t track each and every one ofhis ramblings under the best of circumstances, let alone when a woman like Kat is sitting fifteen feet away from me, looking at me like she’s thinking about sucking my dick.

And, anyway, it’s obvious to me Jonas is probably grossly misinterpreting the situation or, at the very least, overreacting to it (shocker!). Even if Sarah and Kat saw some chick wearing a yellow bracelet after she’d fucked Jonas a few nights earlier wearing a purple one, that doesn’t necessarily mean the sky is falling, does it? It could simply mean some women in The Club are assigned more than one color. Why is that such a fucking revelation? Some people have extremely varied tastes, after all.

Or maybe one of Jonas’ exes found out he’s been dating Sarah and went ballistic, trashing Sarah’s apartment in a fit of jealous rage (and then doing the same thing to Sarah’s best friend’s place, too)? Even if that seems like a far-fetched scenario, it’s probably no crazier an idea than some hitman coming after Sarah and Kat simply because they happened to observe some woman wearing two different colored bracelets.

Jonas is glaring at me again, obviously waiting for me to say something.

I clear my throat. “Wow,” I say. But he’s still waiting, and so are Sarah and Kat. “I’m not sure, bro,” I add. “I met some really great girls.” It’s a true statement—I honestly did meet some really great girls in The Club—but, nonetheless, even as I say it, I cringe at how douche-y it sounds.

I glance at Kat and, yep, she’s put off.

Oh, really? So she’s intrigued when she finds out Ijoineda high-priced sex club, but put off to learn I actuallyenjoyedmy short time in it? Ha! This one’s a handful, I can already tell.

“How long was your membership, Josh?” Sarah asks.

“A month,” I reply.

“And you... completed your entire membership period... successfully?”

Oh my God. Sarah can barely get the words out. This girl really is adorable—and, yep, clearly, there’s not a kinky bone in her body. A total goody-two-shoes, through and through, which is funny considering she processed sex club applications for a living.

“Oh, yeah. Definitely,” I say, looking at Kat and smiling broadly. Maybe I shouldn’t smile, but I can’t help it—I’m enjoying how every little thing I say about The Club pulls an animated reaction from Kat of one kind or another.

Plus, shit, I’m just being honest here: My month in The Club was fucking awesome—just what the doctor ordered after Emma ripped my heart and stuck it into a blender. Fucking yourself back to happy truly shouldn’t be underrated, I gotta say—it was exactly what I needed at the time. Plus, in an unexpected twist, a handful of the women I hooked up with that month stayed with me in my hotel room for hours after we’d fucked and listened to me pour my guts out about my shattered heart. I normally never would have been such a blathering pussy-ass, of course—I’m not Jonas, for fuck’s sake—but I guess there was freedom in knowing I’d never see any of those women again. And so, I let my guard down completely and let it flow—and at the end of that whirlwind month of fucking and fantasy-fulfillment and unexpected gut-spilling, I actually felt like myself again, ready to move on and stop acting like a brokenhearted little pussy.

I’ve never told anyone about my month in The Club, except to suggest to Jonas that he join—(if anyone needs to fuck himself to happy, it’s my brother, that’s for fucking sure)—but now that it’s out in the open in front of Sarah and Kat (and especially Kat), I’m not gonna crawl into a hole and act like I’m embarrassed by it. I was single. It was fun and uniquely cathartic. As far as I’m concerned, I have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of when it comes to my time in The Club. Might some of those girls have been hookers? Well, now that I think about it, sure—how else could The Club have supplied everything I asked for in my application, to the letter? But I can’t believeallof them were straight-up hookers. Some of them might just have been looking for a very wealthy boyfriend with a big ol’ dick.

“There’s no way all those girls were prostitutes,” I say, but even as the words come out of my mouth, I realize I don’t actually believe them. The truth is, even as I filled out my application, I didn’t carehowThe Club supplied what I asked for—just as long as they did. So, okay, if it turns out the women I fucked in The Club were all prostitutes, then fine, they were well worth the money, and then some. Clearly, I needed to do something to move on from Emma—and fucking my way back to beastliness with a bunch of super cool, nonjudgmental, hot-as-hell women was a helluva lot cheaper (and a lot more fun) than a month’s worth of therapy. “They were super cool, all of them,” I say, matter-of-factly. Fuck it.

Sarah crinkles her nose. “They wereallsuper cool, huh?” she asks. “Well, Julia Roberts was ‘super cool’ inPretty Woman, too.”

I chuckle. Oh my God, I absolutely love this girl. “True,” I say. I flash Jonas a look that says, “She’s a cutie, bro,” but his eyes are as hard as fucking flint right now.

Shit. Here we go. I know that look. It means my brother’s about to lose his fucking shit.

“How many women could you possibly have gone through in a month?” Kat suddenly blurts from across the room.

Oh, hello. I lock eyes with Kat and, yup, it’s written all over her gorgeous face: she wants me. Oh, fuck yes, she does. I can’t help but smile as my cock begins tingling at the blatant desire on her face.

“I mean . . .” Kat says, but she doesn’t continue.

I keep staring at her, making her squirm, daring her to say more and show her cards, but she doesn’t.

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