Page 10 of Only For Your Touch
Chapter Four
What part of “you bring attention we don’t need” did his dick not understand? Sasha wondered as he strode through the packed club, his palm resting on the rounded hip of the woman he should’ve been escorting to the club’s exit.
Not just attention from the press, although having their business linked with a crime boss currently on trial for murder and racketeering wasn’t the kind of publicity they were after. Not for Lick or The Loft. Their clientele counted on anonymity. But as annoying as reporters could be, the attention he feared most was from the family her father headed. All Sasha, Rion, and Killian needed was to land on the mob’s radar as another business to try and extort or horn in on. Corrine—and his association with her—would be the perfect inroad for them. And for Sasha, it would be the slippery slope into a world he had climbed and clawed his way out of.
Yet, acknowledging this, he’d still given in to her. Was still leading her toward the entrance to The Loft. Was still imagining how many different ways he could make her scream.Fuck. Like so many men before him, he was allowing his Johnson to hijack his logic. And that shit had worked out so well for Anthony and Cleopatra, David and Bathsheba, Henry the VIII and Anne Boleyn…
A secret. If he kept her presence at the club as well as his involvement with her on the down low, then he could have her.
Let her have him.
His cock jerked against his zipper, lust punching him in the gut. An innocence that had nothing to do with virginity emanated from her like a beacon; he should be afraid that thebaba yaga, the Russian bogeywoman his mother warned him about as a child, would be after his ass for even contemplating corrupting Corrine. But under that purity beat the heart of a siren. Worse, a curious,trustingsiren who was awakening and just starting to comprehend the power she wielded. A power that made him want to conquer and submit. Claim and surrender. Mark and be marked…
Clenching his jaw, he nodded at one of their security personnel before rounding an L-shaped wall that separated a private section from the rest of the club. An ornate wall lamp provided a low glow, but he didn’t need its illumination. Glancing over his shoulder to ensure Corrine stood behind him, he pressed a hand to the keypad on the wall, and a click echoed in the space. A lock disengaged an instant before a door cracked with a pressurized hiss.
“Jinkies,” she whispered.Jinkies? The jolt of amusement caught him off guard—but whether it was her nervous prattling, her honest, hushed confessions, or her bold propositions, most of what Corrine said caught him off guard. Turning in the doorway, he arched an eyebrow. And waited. Even in the dim lighting, he caught the color splashing across her high, elegant cheekbones. Her lips—lips that had damn near coaxed the cum from his cock with her kiss—curved into a small, trembling smile. “Scooby-Doo,” she explained. “Y’know, mysterious door in the wall of the spooky house. The only thing missing is a ghostly hand appearing and making a grab for us…”
Crossing his arms, he stared at her, struggling not to loose the bark of laughter tickling his throat. Jesus, she was so goddamncute. When had he thought that about a woman he wanted? Sexy, hot, double-jointed. Never cute. And not one had ever made him want to laugh. Ever. That realization sobered him up.
Corrine had come to him for the same thing other women did—to screw. To get off. But she wasn’t like the others, and he had to keep that in mind. She represented everything he’d promised his mother he’d quit and what he and his best friends had shed blood to escape. If he wasn’t careful, he could so easily find himself tangled in her world of crime, easy money, and brutality. A world that called to him more often than he cared to admit.
Which made him taking her to The Loft even more insane. But, damn, he wanted her. Hungered to know if her sex was as delicious as the flavor of her kiss. Was greedy to discover how those sweet, mind-stealing clenches and spasms that had squeezed the hell out of his fingers would feel around his cock.
“You okay?” he asked her. Though impatience rode him, he needed to know she was all in. “Changing your mind?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head for added emphasis. “No, I want this. I’m just a little…” She shrugged a shoulder.
“Nervous,” he finished for her. When she nodded, he moved forward, ready to let the private entrance door shut behind him and walk away from this plan. “At any time, you can end this, Corrine. You understand? Any time.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “But I don’t want to. I want you,” she breathed.
It wasn’t the first time she’d said those three words—I want you—but each time she uttered them might as well have been. His reaction—lust tearing his gut to ribbons—was the same.
“So you said,” he murmured. “We’ll see.” Because he wasn’t a nice or easy lover. He fucked just like he lived: hard. Turning, he held the door open for her to pass through. “And you’re wrong.”
“I’m sorry?” she asked, the quiet click of the door closing echoing.
She scanned the large vestibule, and he did as well, seeing it through her eyes. Dark-blue panels lined the walls, a black chaise longue occupied a corner, and one of Rion’s photographs—this one a black-and-white image of the Old North Church—hung on the opposite wall.
“You’re wrong,” Sasha repeated, pausing in front of a large iron staircase. “The door is more X-Men than Scooby-Doo. A pad to read a handprint? More Professor X than Ghost of Mr. Hyde.”
Her head jerked, and she stared at him. Blinked. Then stared some more. Shit. He shouldn’t have opened his mouth.
“I learned English watching American cartoons,” he muttered.
Heat over his admission rushed up his neck and poured into his face. Embarrassment. Another emotion he didn’t experience with a woman.
Yeah, he knew cartoons. Probably with a knowledge that would be disturbing to some people. But like he’d admitted to her for some reason only God knew, while most Americans learned English from the cradle, he’d had weekday afternoons and Saturday mornings of watching Scooby, G.I. Joe, and the Marvel and DC animated series to educate him. He’d had good teachers; some had been amazing. But with classes of thirty or more kids to keep under control, teaching the Russian kid who possessed only a smattering of their language hadn’t been a priority for them.
Stick to the sex,he grimly reminded himself. Stick to the damn sex. No more talking…
“I get that,” she said, nodding. “My grandfather learned English from watchingThe Lone RangerandThe Three Stooges. But I think you might have actually made a joke.” She widened her eyes. “I probably need to keep an eye out for gravity-defying swine.”
His lips twitched, fighting a smile even as he turned and resumed climbing the staircase. Relief mingled with amusement, and his awkwardness and regret over his confession dissipated.
At the top of the stairs, he pressed in a code on the keypad next to the door and twisted the knob. But didn’t push the door open. Instead, he pivoted and faced Corrine. A conscience he’d long believed he’d beaten into submission raised a defiant, weary fist.
“Corrine, before you walk through this door, you need to fully understand where you’re going…what you’re agreeing to.” He flicked a hand in the direction of the door. “Lick is the nightclub, but The Loft…The Loft is totally different. You said you heard rumors. But, baby, the gossip probably doesn’t come anywhere near the truth. It’s where people come to indulge every fantasy, need, or desire they have in a safe, private place.”
