His to Teach (Club Wyld #2)

Chapter 1

HARPER

This is such a terrible idea.

That’s really all I can think as I stand in front of the dark facade of Club Wyld, trying to find the courage to either go inside or go home. Going home is sounding more and more like the better option. At home I could take off these heels. At home I have ice-cream.

As if somehow sensing my wavering determination from our apartment across town, my best friend Emma chooses that moment to text me.

Are you in yet?

I’m not sure if I should be relieved or annoyed by the message. On one hand, it buys me some time to stay out here on the sidewalk, where I’m safe. On the other hand, I know Emma isn’t going to leave me alone until I step through those heavy wood doors.

I type out a response. Yes, I’m inside. It’s wonderful and exciting and everything you said it would be and I’m being very charming and vivacious and not at all awkward.

Only a few seconds pass before she responds. Liar.

I shiver. It’s unseasonably cool for a late August night in Charlotte, North Carolina, and my jacket feels thin. Or maybe that chill I’m feeling has nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with my nerves.

I type out a response on my phone. I’m still outside. This was a terrible idea.

The device trills in my hand. Emma. I bring it to my ear, bracing myself for the lecture I know I’m about to get.

“Harper,” she says in a familiar, exasperated tone. The tone that just screams look at what I have to put up with. “You’re being silly. Just go inside.”

“I really don’t think I’m up for—”

She raises her voice to be heard over mine. “You’ve been wanting to go for weeks. Months, even.”

She has a point. I scuff the toe of my heel against the pavement. “It sounded a lot less scary in my head.”

“Scary? You’re a grown-ass woman. You can go into a nightclub.”

A nightclub. Yeah, right. Club Wyld is a nightclub the same way the Pacific Ocean is a bit of water. This place is so far beyond the limits of a normal nightclub they shouldn’t even be mentioned in the same breath. And Emma knows it as well as I do.

She switches tactics, going for the guilt angle. “Do you know how hard it was for me to get those passes? Wyld is the most exclusive club in Charlotte.”

“Yes, Em. But the key word there is passes—plural. You’re supposed to be here with me.”

I can practically hear her rolling her eyes over the phone. “I’m very sorry my pneumonia is putting a damper on your kink exploration.”

I groan. It’s bad enough that Emma knows about my predilections when it came to Club Wyld’s offerings—and I can blame some poor decision making over a pitcher of margaritas for telling her that—but does she really have to mention it? Out loud?

It doesn’t escape my notice that the fact I’m uncomfortable even talking about it with my best friend is probably pretty good evidence that I’m not ready to walk into that club.

“Listen,” Emma says, her tone gentler now. “Think of this as research, right? Wasn’t this kind of thing the whole basis of your senior thesis last year? Kinky fucking and the people who enjoy it?”

“Sexual Counterculture and its Impact on Relationship Structure,” I correct. “But yeah, pretty much.”

“So get your ass in there and observe some counterculture, babe,” she urges. “And if you find someone who’s interested in scratching that itch you’ve been trying to hide all these years, even better.”

I don’t really have an argument for that.

I am interested in studying the behavior I’m sure to see beyond those doors.

I’ve been researching the subject for years and plan to really devote my studies to it now that I’m in the sociology master’s program at Denby University.

But there’s only so much you can learn from books.

The scientific part of my brain yearns to get in there and talk to people, to observe, to find out what makes them tick, why they like the things they do.

Why I like the things I do.

I push the thought down. My own sexual desires have nothing to do with this. I’m an academic. A social scientist. Maybe if I can just focus on that I’ll be able to find the courage to walk inside.

Emma’s words flash through my mind. Someone who’s interested in scratching that itch.

No. Nope. Stop right there, Harper Cain. That is not what we’re doing here tonight.

“Okay,” I say, taking a deep breath. “Tell me again about how I’m a grown-ass woman but throw a bunch of compliments in there about how smart and brave I am, too.”

Emma laughs on the other end of the phone. “Totally smart and brave, babe. The smartest. And you’d have to be pretty brave to put up with me all these years, right?”

It’s my turn to laugh. “Yeah, I doubt I’m going to see anything inside that’s scarier than you when someone snags the last pint of Chunky Monkey at the grocery store.”

“Damn straight,” she says, then starts to cough.

“You okay?” I ask, a different kind of worry seeping into my chest. I have a thing about illness, having lost both of my parents at a young age.

I know Emma has been to the doctor and was loaded up on antibiotics but I still can’t shake the feeling that the last place in the world I should be is anywhere more than a block from her.

“I’m fine,” she says firmly. “And don’t you dare try to use me as an excuse to bail.” I bite my lip. I had been about to offer to come home and make her soup. “Seriously, Harper. Do this. You know you’ll regret it if you don’t. You need to take more chances in your life.”

This line of advice is nothing new—she’s been telling me for years that I need to get out of my shell more, take chances. And Club Wyld certainly qualifies as taking a pretty big damn chance.

“Fine,” I say, straightening my shoulders. “I’m going in.”

She cheers so loudly I have to pull the phone away from my ear. Then her shouts are quickly replaced by more coughing and it’s a moment before she can respond.

“Have so much fun. Be safe. And tomorrow you can give me all the juicy details.”

“Got it,” I say, taking another deep breath for strength. I begin to turn back toward those imposing wooden doors. “Just cross your fingers that I don’t pass out in fear.”

Emma starts to respond as I take a first, tentative step toward the entrance.

But I have no idea what she says because at that moment, I smack right into what feels like a brick wall.

I’d been so busy staring at the door that I didn’t even notice the man walking right in front of me.

As I stumble backward, teetering on my unfamiliar heels, he brings his hands up to clasp me around the arms, steadying me.

Only then do I look up into his face—and my eyes have a long way to travel.

The man is huge, a good foot taller than me, his chest and shoulders broad. No wonder it felt like hitting a wall.

When my gaze finally reaches his face, I have to bite back a gasp. Even in the dark outside the club I can make out the most piercing set of blue eyes I’ve ever seen.

“Harper? Harper, what’s going on? Are you there?”

It takes me a moment to realize that Emma is still on the other end of the phone, trying to get my attention. “Sorry,” I mutter, not sure if I’m talking to her or to him. “I…I was just…”

The man squeezes my arms, once, then releases me. “You should be more careful,” he murmurs, his voice like velvet over steel, soft with an undercurrent of something darker, something dangerous. “There are plenty of depraved people around here tonight. You’ll want to take care.”

My throat is completely dry, my head spinning.

I’m not sure if it’s from the force of our collision or from the nearness of him—God, I can feel the body heat pouring off of him even through the thick wool coat he wears.

Or maybe it’s from his warning. He’s telling me to be careful—so why do I get the sense that he’s really urging me to be anything but?

Before I can think of a single thing to say, he turns and walks quickly up the steps to Club Wyld, knocking twice on the heavy wooden door. It opens immediately and he walks inside, never once looking back at me.

“Harper!” Emma sounds frightened now and I let out a shaky breath as I bring the phone back to my ear.

“Holy shit,” I whisper. “I just bumped into the hottest man I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“See!” she crows. “You’re already halfway to scoring and you aren’t even inside yet!”

I snort, bringing my hand up to cover my still rapidly beating heart. “I would hardly call my klutzy stumbling halfway to anything.”

“What I want to know is why you aren’t following this hottie.”

“He went into the club.”

“Damn girl. What are you doing still talking to me?”

I laugh. “You’re right. I’m going in.”

“That’s more like it! Again—have fun, be safe, call me.”

It’s funny—that’s usually my script, intoned every time she goes out while I stay home to read or study. How strange to hear those words directed at me for once.

“I will,” I say, nodding to myself. “Thanks for the pep talk.”

“Anytime. Go get ‘em!”

I pocket my phone, feeling strangely calm for the first time tonight.

I’m not sure what it is about that stranger—besides for the fact that he was insanely hot—but something in me seems drawn to follow him.

Like a string was attached in that brief moment where he held me, and I’m powerless to cut the tie.

All of my nerves seem to quiet, to move into the back of my mind. They don’t feel so pressing anymore, all of those things that I feared about this night. The only thing that’s important is following him inside.

My immediate impression of Club Wyld is somewhat disappointing.

I’ve been fantasizing about this moment, finally stepping through those mysterious wooden doors, for ages now.

I expected to find lush furnishings, sumptuous fabrics and romantic lighting, gorgeous people partially hidden in dark shadows.

Instead I find myself standing in an unremarkable entryway.

The small space is paneled in dark wood, the floor a soft grey marble, the lights overhead bright.

To one side stands a plain desk, empty but for a thick ledger and a potted peace lily.

It looks a lot like the reception area of my brother’s law office, to be honest. Talk about a letdown.

A woman steps through the door behind the desk, smiling at me politely.

I do a double take—she’s freaking beautiful.

Like, model-level gorgeous. Her hair is a smooth sheet of blond, much lighter than my own honey locks, cascading down her back, her eyes a delicate shade of blue.

Tall and willowy, she’s dressed in a black, slim-fitted pantsuit with no shirt under the blazer, her skin pale and creamy in the deep V that cuts down to her bellybutton.

“Can I help you?”

“Yes,” I say, the flutter of nerves returning as I tear my gaze away. “I um, have a pass.” I fumble in my purse, feeling clumsy all over again next to her gentle coolness. “I’m Harper Cain.”

The woman takes the pass when I hold it out, a slim gold plastic rectangle that resembles a credit card, and slides it into a scanner of some kind.

“And do you have your ID, Miss Cain?” I hand her that, too, and she peers at it closely before looking up at me again.

“This all seems to be in order. According to your file, this is your first time visiting us?”

My file? What in the hell does that mean? How do I have a file? I clear my throat, the nerves building again. “Yes. It’s my first time. At the club, I mean.” Shit, I’m babbling, aren’t I? I clear my throat again.

The receptionist maintains her polite smile. “I’ll send a host through to walk you in.”

“Oh,” I say, surprised. “Okay.”

She presses a button on the desk and a moment later, the door behind her opens again, revealing an older man in a dark, perfectly fitted suit.

His hair is thick and greying, his eyes sharp, jaw chiseled.

Total silver fox. If this is what the employees look like, I wonder what in the hell I’ll find inside.

He confers briefly with the woman and then turns to me. “Miss Cain? If you’re ready you may follow me.”

I take a deep breath, my nerves now more intense than they were outside. It’s now or never, Harper.

“I’m ready,” I tell him, and he smiles in response, the expression professional and inviting, before turning to gesture towards another heavy door.

“Welcome to Club Wyld.”