Page 2 of Sins of Seduction
“This isn’t going to work, Jax. You keep trying to change me because I don’t fit into the box and labels you had growing up. I love you but not at the expense of losing myself.”
“Losing yourself? Please, Raven. Spare me the bullshit. It’s not normal that you want to fuck every Tom, Dick, and Sally while somehow being in a committed relationship to me. That’s not how relationships work,” Jax spat.
“That’s not how the relationships you know work. I’ve shown you plenty that do work like that. Tell me, are you pissed because you think this brings up an inadequacy in you, or is it because it turns you on just as much as it turns me on to watch you with someone else?”
Her words and taunt had been a wakeup call. It was the last thing she said to him before she walked out of his life for the last time five years ago. They had dated on and off for the better part of ten years, but his insistence on saving her from a life she didn’t need saving from had always broken them up.
Her tastes and her needs were something Jax hadn’t been able to understand in the beginning with his religious upbringing. His mom and grandparents drilled into him that one man and one woman were what was intended to be a successful relationship. When you invited the devil in, you invited problems you’d never recover from.
Jax let a humorless chuckle slip from his lips. His mom and grandparents were probably rolling over in their graves knowing the good Catholic boy they raised had been hanging out with deviants for the past year. Maybe his appetites had been as big as Raven’s were, and it only took her showing him a world outside of his church to find it.
The energy in Lush shifted as the club lights started to dim while the mainstage lights brightened. The stage had one lonely chair and table set up. From where Jax stood, he could see ropes and something else on top of the table. He’d come here enough times to know there would be a performance tonight.
A collective hush fell over the guests, even the threesome disengaged from each other and faced toward the stage. The music had been lowered to a quiet vibration that Jax felt against his skin. He was sure the music choices that filtered through the speakers of Lush had been curated specifically to wrap around his cock the way a lover’s lips would. Even now his body was coiled in anticipation of what was to come. His balls were heavy as his cock throbbed to the point it was bordering a painful type of pleasure.
Jax let out a long breath, doing his best to push down the carnal need that coursed through his body. He wouldn’t dive into a random stranger, not yet. Not until he found Raven.
The eruption of applause had Jax looking at the stage again, and he held his breath. There was a rumor that Raven was performing tonight, something she hadn’t done since he met her. It was the main reason why he was at Lush tonight. He was ready for her to see him.
He started walking toward the stage, hoping that she would see him when she walked out, but his excitement dampened when he saw a woman with thick red locks sauntering on stage. Jax let the disappointment he felt wash over him like a cold shower, keeping his feet rooted in place.
A year.
He’d been coming to Lush for a year and he hadn’t once run into her. There was no way she hadn’t noticed his name on the membership roster. While he hadn’t been ready to see her until tonight, he thought for sure her curiosity about him being at Lush would have granted an audience with her, especially since most of their fights and cause for break ups had been because of Lush and the lifestyle she lived.
Jax took another swig of his drink, which tasted more like whiskey flavored water than actual whiskey, as the performers set up on stage. He heard the whisper of his name and he almost ignored it, thinking he was hearing things, but when he half turned to the right, his heart lurched to his throat. A pair of amber eyes that in the right light looked golden paired with a smile that wrapped around his cock as swiftly as if her lips were actually on him stared back at him.
“Raven,” her name was a plea ripped from his throat. He couldn’t believe she was here standing close enough that he could see the rise and fall of her chest, and yet not close enough to reach out and touch her. Every emotion he’d ever felt for her pumped through his body.
Fuck he missed her.
She was the only one in here not wearing a mask. Her face was bare except for a touch of blush lipstick that coated her lips, and Jax’s wanted nothing more than to smear it with his lips. She was wearing a black bodysuit with fishnet stockings underneath and his hand flexed, an image of him ripping them to shreds crossed his mind. Around her neck she wore a choker, in here it could pass for a collar, and a flash of white hot jealousy coursed through him at the idea that someone else had been able to make Raven submit when he hadn’t been able to.
Their relationship had consisted of this push and pull—neither one of them willing to fall back and let the other lead, and why would they? Jax never truly understood Raven’s needs, and she couldn’t let her guard down long enough to relax around him.
Raven walked the short distance that remained between them, and Jax’s eyes went straight to the sway of her hips—a seductive song that was meant to end with the taste of her on his lips. The air turned hot in Lush, and all he could do was take in Raven as she stopped with just a breath able to pass between them.
“Detective Pierce.” She purred his last name in that way that made him want to drop to his knees and inhale her. “Are you here for work or pleasure? If it’s pleasure,” she took him in, her lips pursed before her golden gaze locked with his in challenge, “I don’t think you have the appetite for what we’re selling.”
The sight of Detective Jax Pierce both annoyed Raven and made her heart flutter in her chest. She hadn’t seen him in five years, and time had done shit to help her forget about the man. He still plagued her mind in the quiet moments she had to herself and in the moments she let herself get lost in a stranger’s body. No one had touched her like Jax had, even with the rift in their relationship—that mountain of things that Jax never wanted to deal with or talk about because it went against everything he was ever taught. They fought hard and fucked even harder. Raven desperately wanted their relationship to work—proof had been her inability to put her foot down and always take him back. Their relationship was everything Raven had needed and wanted.
They were perfect for each other, minus their inability to come to terms with how Raven led her life. She hoped in the ten years that they had known each other, they would be able to find a compromise.
But that day never came.
He was insistent on clipping her wings, so while her heart broke, she walked away, refusing to be stifled by a love that didn’t understand her enough to hear her.
It was as much a slap in the face as it was comical that he was standing here after he called her every name in the book during one of their many fights for owning and partaking in what went on in Lush. This club had been a sore spot for him because it had opened his eyes to a world that existed outside of the beautiful lie he’d been taught. It also opened him up to desires he hadn’t come to terms with, and while that should have been an opportunity for them to communicate and grow as a couple, it had only brought discord.
When she saw his name come across the new members file, she almost declined his membership. Dealing with the crazy zealots who protested outside of Lush on a daily basis was enough, she didn’t need one on the inside tearing it down.
Raven had no idea why she kept his membership active, but she waited, watching from her perch in her office to see exactly what he was here to do. She’d seen him interact with a few customers, nothing above a conversation and a little petting. He enjoyed his one drink max and occasionally walked to the back rooms, but he never took it further than watching the festivities and jerking off when she knew the passion had become too much for him to ignore.
A year.
He showed up frequently over a year’s time, learning the club and the regulars, and still he hadn’t played. Even tonight, she watched from a distance as he seemed enthralled by the threesome on the lounge couch, but he hadn’t made a move to join them. Her own curiosity about him had finally peaked, and she’d come down here to find out exactly what it was that he wanted, from her and from Lush.
“Ms. Wright,” his smile was devastating as it lit up his face. It made him seem as sinister and angelic as what happened behind the walls of Lush. He leaned forward, his hand going to the loop at the collar she wore and giving it a little tug, pulling her closer to him. If this were any other situation, Raven would pull away from his touch, but there was a familiarity between them, one that was wrapped up in an intimacy that years couldn’t remove.
