Page 2 of Only for You
Anger, bright and hot, flared inside him as he turned into the side alley bordering Lick. Women and loyalty. Not his strong suit. Being narced out to the cops by one didn’t foster trust.
Unlocking a steel door, he stepped inside a tiny, dimly lit vestibule. Like every night, sweat popped out on his forehead, neck, and arms. His chest constricted, as if a vice grip slowly tightened and tightened, compressing the air out of his lungs. Gritting his teeth so hard, his jaw twinged in protest, he punched in a five-digit code on the lit pad next to the second door. As soon as the light flashed green, he pushed through, entering his office with a loud expulsion of breath, followed by a greedy gulp of air.
He stood still on the other side of the entrance, eyes closed, hands curled into fists at his sides.In. Out. In. Out. He drew air in his nostrils, blew it out through his mouth until his body relaxed, and bit by bit, the panic eased its claws out of his psyche.
The two doors with the coded entry were added security measures, but goddamn, every night, he suffered a measure of hell just to enter the building.
Fucking claustrophobia.
Opening his eyes, he rolled his shoulders back and cracked his knuckles. The blissed-out moments the fight had given him were already ebbing. Growling, he stalked to his office bathroom, showered quickly, and changed into a black, long-sleeved shirt and black pants. With efficient movements, he swiped a rubber band off his desk and gathered his dark, shoulder-length hair into a bun at the back of his head.
A knock sounded at the door, and a glance at the bank of monitors on the far wall revealed who stood on the other side. He crossed the room and pressed a button on the underside of his desk, and the lock disengaged. Sasha Merchant entered the office, his blue-gray gaze locating Killian and scanning him from head to toe, pausing on the small bruise he felt darkening along his cheekbone. Wasn’t the first, wouldn’t be the last.
“You should see the other guy,” Killian drawled. A cliché, but, in this case, definitely true.
Sasha grunted, striding across the room. “You just getting in?”
“Yeah.” Killian scrubbed a hand over his chin and jaw, hair bristling against his palms. He’d passed five o’clock shadow about twenty-four hours ago. Narrowing his eyes, he studied the other man. Noted the taut set of his shoulders, the grim set of his mouth. “Why? Is something wrong?”
Rion and Sasha understood Killian’s need to fight, to release the tension, ease the noise. They didn’t give him shit the two or three nights he arrived at Lick after the doors had opened. In charge of security, Killian had hired a professional and skilled team, and they were more than capable of handling any issue that arose in his absence. Still, if Sasha was in Killian’s office—instead of out in the club or up in The Loft—wearing an expression that promised an ass-beating, then there was a problem.
“What is it?” Killian asked again, bracing himself for anything from drug dealers in the club, to overzealous guests trying to snap pictures of celebrity guests in the VIP lounges, to reporters sneaking in and trying to sniff out rumors about a “sex club.”
Not that the rumors were false, but they didn’t need the press hounding the clientele who paid obscenely for discretion and privacy. The second level of Lick—The Loft—offered a safe haven for certain members to indulge in and enjoy their particular desires and fetishes. And the last thing those members wanted—or Killian, Rion, and Sasha needed—were photographs and articles written in detail about the aphrodisiac club on the second floor of Lick.
Sasha nodded toward the monitors behind them. “Pull up the camera behind bar two.”
A sense of dread rose in his chest as he turned around and faced the console behind his desk. With a few taps on the keyboard, he brought up the live feed from the cameras behind one of the long, glass bars that dominated each side of the converted warehouse.
“The one on the far end near the dance floor,” Sasha instructed.
Another tap, and a view of one of their registers, Point Of Sale systems, and bartenders filled the screen. For several long seconds, he scrutinized the images. The bartender filled glasses and rang up drink orders. She didn’t pocket money or over-pour alcohol. So she wasn’t who or what Sasha needed him to see.
Killian shifted his attention to the people filling every available space around the bar. Guy with too much gel and obviously too little game chatting up a woman who wore a frown that practically screamed “kill me now.” Two women sipping cocktails and giggling together.Hmm. They appeared a little on the young side. He needed to have their IDs double-checked to ensure they were actually twenty-one. Another group of women gathered in a tight semi-circle. One, a blonde who seemed vaguely familiar, tipped her head back, laughing. The dark-haired woman on the right lifted her head, smiling directly into the camera…
Holy.Fuck.
The hair was longer, the makeup more understated than he remembered. But those lips. Goddamn, those lips. They hadn’t changed, and he could still easily recall how they were slow to smile, but when they did, the sight had filled him like helium in a balloon, lifting him higher and higher. How they opened so willingly for his tongue, for his kiss.
And the eyes.Christ. Those deep, heavily lashed, purple eyes had glittered in anger, shined in laughter, darkened with lust, and gleamed with love.
Or so he’d thought. The love had been a lie. A cruel, fucked-up lie.
No, regardless of the different length of hair and amount of makeup, he knew that face.
It was the face of the woman who’d once owned every piece of his heart.
The woman who had betrayed him, sent him to hell, and damn near destroyed him.
