Page 1 of Only For Your Touch
Chapter One
Sasha Merchant knew trouble.
In his very checkered lifetime, he’d been the cause of it, been balls-deep in it, and had escaped it. So yeah, he and trouble were intimate partners, a match made in hell. And even though it now walked through the doors of Lick in the form of a stunning redhead with curves that demanded a man take them hard and fast, he wasn’t fooled by the pretty wrapping.
Trouble.
Or as his mother used to say:Volk v ovech’yey shkurye. Wolf in sheep’s pelt.
Maybe he should say fox’s pelt. Because with her bright hair and petite frame, she reminded him of his Russian homeland’s small, red fox. Didn’t matter in the end though. Fox or sheep, the woman was an ill wind that needed to be monitored…and blown back out the door, if necessary.
“You see who just came in?” The deep, gravel-rough voice that belonged to his best friend, Killian Vincent, rumbled in his ear from the discreet piece notched there.
Sasha once more glanced toward the front of the club where more people streamed in through the steel doors. Though he, Killian, and Rion Ward, the third member of their unholy trio, owned Lick equally, Killian often oversaw security. All of them had control issues—as in, needing to have it—but Killian even more so. But when someone else decided what you wore and ate, and when you fucking took a shit, for two years, yeah, control became important. So they let him supervise that aspect of their club. Hell, having a huge, scowling hulk on the premises was often a better deterrent to troublemakers than their many cameras.
“Yeah, I got eyes on her,” Sasha said, tracking the slow progress of the redhead and her friend through the thick crowd. It might’ve been eleven o’clock on a Thursday, but that didn’t matter. If the night ended in “y” then they were packed. It’d been that way since they’d opened their doors a year earlier. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to drink, dance, and find their next hookup in Boston’s newest and most exclusive aphrodisiac club.
Including Corrine Salvaggi, aka The Mob Princess.
“What the hell do you think she’s doing here?” Killian asked as Rion approached the end of the bar where Sasha stood. “Considering the shitstorm that’s circling her, you’d think her family would have her on lockdown.”
“I don’t know,” Sasha rumbled. “But it seems her breaking out of the castle is now our problem, if anyone recognizes her. Goddamn.”
“Exactly.” Rion nodded his thanks at the bartender who slid a tumbler in front of him. Kentucky bourbon, his favorite. “The last thing we need is the Salvaggi family sniffing around here, searching for their wayward royalty. Or worse, having the press associate Lick with them. Even if it’s just in a byline.”
Sasha understood what Rion meant. Perfectly.
Lick was the public face of their business. With its two bustling bars and top-shelf alcohol, dancing, and VIP lounges, the nightclub had quickly become one of the hottest spots to party in Boston. And then there was the aura of sex they deliberately cultivated. From the sensual photographs on the walls to barely and sexily clad men and women dancing on raised platforms to the shadowed alcoves where people kissed and slipped hands under clothes, to the private VIP rooms…sex permeated the atmosphere.
But while the nightclub teased with sex, the private, upper level of Lick—The Loft—delivered on that promise. And catered to more…exotic tastes. Of the sexual variety. Whatever their members desired, they supplied. And in exchange for the admittedly excessive prices people paid for membership, The Loft’s clientele expected discretion and a safe, secure, and protected place to indulge in their sexual fantasies and preferences. So having reporters snooping around trying to catch pictures of Carmine Salvaggi’s daughter partying it up would understandably make them a bit antsy.
Lick was more than income to the men. The three of them had been to hell and back to reach where they were today. Free of the Irish mob. Escapees from the criminal world. Business owners with a modicum of respectability. Of legitimacy. This club represented their new life. Their freedom.
For Sasha, it was his promise to a dying woman.
His parents had left Moscow when Sasha was six, after the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union dissolved. They’d immigrated to America, specifically Boston, seeking a better life and more opportunity. An academic in Russia, his proud father had only been able to find work as a janitor at the local elementary school. But to Val Merchant, it’d still been honest work. And having a son who’d willingly chosen a life of crime—even if it’d been the impulsive decision of a youth who hadn’t felt he’d belonged anywhere else—had been unforgiveable. But two years ago, before dying from complications of COPD, Anna Merchant had come to him and extracted a vow from Sasha: to become the respectable man she’d raised him to be.
He’d sacrificed everything to honor that promise. And even though some days this new life itched like a too-tight, uncomfortable shirt, he wouldn’t allow a pampered, rebelling mob socialite to fuck it up.
“I’ll watch her,” he volunteered, voice grim.
Rion shot him a sharp glance, and Sasha clenched his jaw, easily interpreting the look. Worry. Indecision. Yeah, he got his friend’s doubt. It irritated the fuck out of him, but he got it. Because underneath the annoyance—and in spite of his resentment of Corrine Salvaggi’s presence in their club—a curl of anticipation whispered through him. And Rion probably knew it.
Of the three of them, Sasha still struggled with the life they left behind the most, walking that fine line between legitimacy and craving the thrill, the pure adrenaline rush, of breaking the law. While Rion had never wanted it, and Killian feared it with an animalistic, whites-of-their-eyes terror, Sasha had only walked away because of a promise and his love for his friends. So putting him on someone who had ties to an organized crime family was like waving a bottle of water in front of a man who’d just crawled in from the desert.
“I’ll be fine,” Sasha assured him. “I’m just keeping eyes on her. And considering who she is, Killian won’t do it.” Two years out of jail and still on probation, Killian couldn’t risk being associated with even the daughter of a criminal.
That left Sasha.
Rion’s mouth flattened into a grim line as he nodded then tossed back the rest of his whiskey.
“Maybe she’s just here to drink and dance like everyone else,” Sasha said. Rion didn’t reply, just arched a dark eyebrow.
Yeah, Sasha didn’t believe it either. Not with his gut tightening like a damn noose. That sixth sense had never failed him on a job, and right now it was affirming what he’d thought when he’d first laid eyes on the Mob Princess.
Trouble.
…
