Page 14 of Only For Your Touch
Chapter Five
For the third night in a row, Corrine arrived at Lick. This time, she arrived by taxi, changing up her mode of transportation as Sasha had instructed her. And she’d also switched up her hair. She grinned to herself, patting the ebony wig, the ends of the bob brushing her chin. An illicit thrill spiraled through her. This was the stuff Cinemax movies were made of, and in a really freaking odd twist of fate, she’d ended up the star.
As the cab pulled up to the back of the club—again, as Sasha had instructed—a door under a plain black awning swung open, and Sasha stood in the doorway. Her heart thudded against her sternum, and desire kindled inside her. As if her body immediately recognized the man who could make it sing, make it explode in the sweetest pleasure imaginable. Just looking at him was foreplay.
Foreplay forher, anyway.
Two nights in a row—first in the alley, then in The Loft the evening before—Sasha had introduced her to a pleasure that had damn near fried her brain. And not once, notone damn time,had he allowed her to touch him. It didn’t take a sexual savant to know this was…odd. Unless he didn’t want her to… Immediately, she ditched the thought, just as she had countless times last night as she lay in bed, the doubts crowding her like the people on Lick’s dance floor. He may not have let her caress him, but his erection had prodded her ass last night when he’d held her against him. He’ddefinitelybeen aroused…so what the hell?
At some point in the wee hours of the morning, she’d reached a conclusion. His aversion to her hands on him had everything to do with control. It was about maintaining distance. Well, that shit wasn’t going to cut it. The two times they’d been together, he’d stolen her control. And how could she be distant with his fingers buried in her sex? It was incredibly lopsided and unfair that he have the upper hand in this…this…whatever they were doing.
That ended tonight—tonight he would be just as shattered as she.
Resolution solidified inside her as the taxi braked. Even before the driver put the car in park, Sasha was beside the vehicle, waiting to escort her from the car to the club entrance. Tearing her embarrassingly rapt attention from him, she reached for her purse to pay the driver, but Sasha opened the door and held his hand out to her.
“I just need to—”
“I have it,” he countered, his hand still extended.
She slipped hers in his, and with a quick word to the cab driver, he led her inside the building. Waiting in the vestibule with the Old North Church photograph while Sasha left to pay her fare, she closed her eyes, images from the previous two nights running through her brain like a movie reel. The alley where he’d bound her with his belt and finger-fucked her. The playroom where he’d brought her such pleasure with his mouth in front of a roomful of people. The moments in between and after. The conversations, the glimpses of the man who had a past he guarded. Like having a father who was dead, but wasn’t.
She understood that only too well.
Shaking her head, as if the gesture could dislodge the thought from her mind, she concentrated on the door, waiting for Sasha. At just the mental mention of his name, the arousal spiked higher. The mysterious Russian consumed her—he had since the moment he’d sent her would-be suitor scurrying. She didn’t know anything about him other than that he owned this club and liked cartoons enough to catch her references, but she trusted him. Enough that she’d willingly allowed him to strip her naked and drive his tongue into her pussy in front of witnesses. Heat flamed her face even as her sex clenched. If anyone had told her a couple of weeks ago that she was going to cross that line, she would’ve wondered what drugs they’d been smoking. But not only had she crossed it, she’d raced across it like Usain Bolt.
Quite appropriate since she was running. Running from the press. Running from her suddenly foreign and chaotic life. Running from herself. But who was she rushing headlong to?
Sasha’s face flashed in her mind.
No. Hell no. She didn’t know everything about him, but he didn’t strike her as the relationship type. And besides, she didn’t want one either. Not when her life consisted of ever-unfolding revelations about her family and rabid reporters on the hunt. One of the most important relationships in her life had been based on a lie. At this moment, the only thing she did trust was the response of her body to Sasha. Because she damn sure didn’t trust herself.
Temporary.Temporary. She mentally repeated the word like a mantra. Sasha had stated their…relationshipwas too strong a word…sexual flinghad a time limit, and she clung to that. He’d confessed the night before about dabbling in petty theft and less-than-legal ways to rebel and even provide for his family. In no way did she judge him by his past actions; she was the first one to admit she’d lived a privileged life and had never been forced to walk the paths he had. But it’d made her realize she knew next to nothing about Sasha other than that he owned a sex club. Correction—aphrodisiacclub. For years, she’d thought she’d known her father inside and out. Falling for an enigmatic man, who parceled out information about himself like a kid learning to share his toys, scared her. So no.Temporary.Temporary.
The door to the vestibule opened, and her thoughts scattered. Sasha entered, his tall, imposing body clothed in a white shirt and gray pants that complemented his big but lean frame. Her gaze lingered on his wide chest—the one he’d cradled her against—before dropping to his flat abdomen and strong thighs. Beautiful. The man was a study in masculine beauty, and she’d yet to stroke his body, kiss it. Impatience mixed with the lust simmering inside her.
“You’re late,” Sasha said by way of greeting.
“I know. Sorry about that.” She’d had to finish her sports column and turn it in to her editor atTheBeantown Globe, a popular local e-zine, by her deadline. Since they’d never exchanged numbers, she hadn’t been able to call him. “I feel allMission: Impossiblewith the secrecy,” she teased, attempting to switch the topic and ease the tension humming between them.
“It’s necessary,” he said, his voice containing a touch of ice. So even after the night before when he’d opened up to her, they were back to the aloof Sasha? Disappointment wound through her. But then she remembered her vow in the taxi. She’d crack that reserve before the night was through. “Did you make sure you weren’t tailed? You followed my instructions? You didn’t tell anyone where you were coming tonight? Your family? Your friend?”
“Yes,” she affirmed. “Well, no. I didn’t tell my mother or brothers I was leaving, and I haven’t spoken to Tara. I went to my neighborhood bar, slipped out the back, and called a cab to meet me a couple of blocks over.”
His eyebrows slammed down into a scowl. “You walked the streets at night? Alone?” he growled.
“Calm down. I had Mace. But yes”—she raised her voice when his lips parted to interrupt her—“I was careful.”
He studied her for a long moment. “Good.”
“You do know Tara would never sell me out to the press, don’t you? And my family doesn’t even talk to the reporters camped outside our house.” The greedy bastards were still there, circling like vultures over carrion.
“I don’t know any of that,” he countered. “Besides, the media isn’t the only reason we have to be more than discreet. Corrine, you’re now aware of who your family is…of what they do and are capable of. Since we’ve opened Lick, we’ve fought to stay mob- and gang-free. If this”—he waved a hand between them—“however temporary, became public, it would expose us to a possible threat. You understand?”
“Yes,” she whispered. Paused. Tried to read his reserved expression even as her mind turned over his reminder of howtemporarythey were. “Do you want me to leave?” Her heart thudded against her chest as she waited for his answer.
“It’s a little late for that,lisichka,” he drawled, setting a palm on the small of her back and guiding her up the staircase. “Which is why all the precautions are necessary.”
Silent and digesting what he’d revealed—you’re now aware of who your family is…of what they do and are capable of—she followed him up the stairs and into The Loft. Walking into the open area where people in various stages of undress engaged in sexual acts with complete abandon still jolted her. Some kind of bench that resembled a sawhorse had replaced the table Sasha had laid her on. A woman, her wrists and ankles cuffed in leather, bent over the padded bench, and a big, tattooed man spanked her with a paddle.
