Chapter 2
two
ASHER
Looking at the banks of monitors in front of me, I let out a sigh.
The security room of the sex club on the corner of Stratton Street is the last place I want to spend my Friday night.
And yet here I am, sitting in front of a dozen screens, my laptop linked to the club’s security system, trying really hard not to look at the dozen different real-life porn scenes playing out in their full, unexpurgated glory.
“Wow.” The owner, a suave suited, bald, sixty-something, leans over me, looking at the interface from my laptop to their security system. “That’s a lot of letters and numbers.”
The multi-million – soon to be billion – dollar cyber security company we formed straight out of college works mostly with government contracts, not with a damn erotic clubs in the middle of Manhattan, but here I am, thanks to my ex-business partner who tried to throw me down the river.
This was one of his many dodgy fucking deals.
I let him run wild last year, mostly because I was neck deep in creating this new security model.
But while Nathan might not be my business partner anymore – or at least he won’t once he accepts the very generous amount of money I’m offering him and signs on the line – I’m not backing out.
He agreed to update their security system to make it state of the art, and that’s what I’ve done.
And as soon as we run the final checks, my job here will be done. I can’t fucking wait.
“It will really alert me before anything happens?” the owner asks me. I start taking him through how the newly designed system works.
A woman slowly spreads her legs on one of the screens in front of me and I immediately look away.
“The software is designed to track interactions,” I tell him.
“It won’t record them, but if it sees behavior out of the norm, an alert goes off.
” Along with a small team, I’ve worked for years on this software, which has never included Nathan.
He was always the smooth talker, businessman, while I worked on the products.
I trusted him. And now I know better. But the events of the past year still leave a bitter taste in my mouth. Bringing my attention back to the man next to me, I give him a short nod.
User and Entity Behavior Analytics is a cybersecurity solution that combines analytics and machine learning to analyze behavior and identify potential threats within systems in real time. We’ve taken it a step further and made it applicable to human movements.
A place like this is where it could work perfectly. Alert the security team to potential bad actors before they even do anything wrong. It can allow this control room to put the right people in the right place before they’re needed.
Most of all, it can protect those who are the most vulnerable.
I look down at the laptop in front of me. The continuous script that I uploaded is running and analyzing. One name keeps coming up.
“Room five.” I nod at the screen. “There’s a guy there worth keeping an eye on. Code name Panther.”
This place only uses code names within their servers. If an investigation was needed, they could track back and find real names, but if you work in this control room or on the floor, you don’t have that level of access.
Despite my wishing I wasn’t here, I’m pretty impressed by the set up.
From a purely professional point of view, of course.
If I ever wanted to go to a club to have sex – which I don’t in case you were wondering – this place would probably be it.
It’s exclusive, anonymous, and full of beautiful people. Like the ones coming up on the screen.
There’s a huge bed at the center of the fifth room, which is lit by red lights, giving it an edgy vibe. And on the bed, there’s a group of naked people. Three guys, one woman. None of them are Panther though.
According to the analytics, he’s in the room. “Zoom in by the door,” I tell them.
They do, and there he is, his eyes narrow, focused.
But not on the bed. He’s staring at a woman across the room, like he’s trying to decide if he wants to make his move.
She’s standing by the wall, though all I can see is the back of her head.
She’s wearing a tight dress, accentuating every curve.
Her legs are long, her arms bare, and her hair is dark, the lighting making it look almost red, as it hangs in a glossy curtain down her back.
“Do you have another camera in there?” I ask, leaning forward.
“On it,” the man monitoring the cameras says.
“Should I call security?” the owner asks me. “I don’t want to spook anybody.”
“Just ask them to wait outside the door,” I say.
He murmurs into his radio as the camera operator changes the view, giving me a full, face-on view of the woman Panther is so fixated on.
She’s beautiful. High cheekbones, wide eyes, and lips that are slightly parted as she watches the sex going on in the bed in front of her. Her chest rises as she inhales and exhales rapidly. Like she can’t take her eyes off the scene playing out.
But her eyes aren’t what makes my mouth drop open. Nor is the way she looks so stupidly innocent and attractive in that dress. It’s the fact that I recognize her.
I know exactly who she fucking is.
Francie Salinger. My baby sister’s best friend. What the hell is she doing here?
FRANCIE
I’m debating whether I can leave the room without anybody noticing. What’s the etiquette? Do I say thank you as I leave? Do I say nothing? Nobody prepares you for how to be polite in a club like this.
It’s actually been hugely educational. In a sexy kind of way.
When I first found out I had to write a group scene before Alice gave me the contract, I’d tried watching porn – another one of Charlie’s helpful suggestions.
But there’d been nothing sensual about any of the videos I watched.
It was all wham, bam, thank you for pretending to orgasm, ma’am.
But this room is different. There are four people on the bed, one woman and three men.
And they’re worshipping her. It’s actually breathtaking, the way they’re so intent on her pleasure.
All of them are beautiful. From the moment they walked in – the woman wearing a gorgeous gold silk dress, the men wearing suits and ties that made them look like they’d just come in from a day commanding their businesses – a feeling of sensuality took over the room.
It was in the way they touched her, kissed her, slowly undressed her while making sure she was the center of their attention. For men who looked so powerful, they were determined to serve her.
I’ve seen enough now. I know I can describe a scene like this without feeling like I’m writing an instruction manual – fit part A into part B, twist part C…
But just as I turn to leave my eyes clash with a man standing in the corner, his face partially shadowed, the rest of it glowing red from the overhead lights. He looks almost devilish, and it sends a shiver down my spine.
He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t move. Just keeps staring at me. It’s unnerving.
Okay. I’m going to go. Without saying thank you. Maybe I’ll just mouth it. My mom brought me up to be polite, after all. But before I can reach for the switch that unlocks the room from the inside, the door flies open, making everybody in the room stop what they’re doing.
Including the poor foursome on the bed.
Whoever it is, they don’t quietly step in and close the door softly behind them, like I know is the etiquette for this room. Instead light floods in from the hallway, ruining the whole ambiance of the room.
It reminds me of the time my oldest brother stormed into my bedroom when I was making out with a pillow to practice my kissing.
He’d assumed I had a boy in there. The memory of him frowning in confusion, then turning around and walking out without saying a word still makes my cheeks pink up.
“Can you close the door please?” one of the men on the bed says, his voice unexpectedly high pitched. “We’re busy here.”
My mouth twitches. I wonder if I can put this in a book.
But instead of closing the door, the rude intruder walks the rest of the way inside. And that’s when my heart stops beating.
Because he’s striding toward me, his lips pressed together, his expression full of fury as he reaches for my arm.
It’s Asher Fitzgerald. Fuck my life. What are the chances of this?
“Francie?” my best friend’s much-older brother says, his voice ominously low. “What the hell are you doing in here?”
His fingers wrap around my wrist. Not hard, but firm. They’re warm, almost possessive. It’s the kind of touch that shoots heat up my arm and settles low in my belly, even as my brain screams danger.
I blink at him, my heart hammering. Because this isn’t the friendly Asher I remember from childhood summers. He looks like someone else entirely. Taller, broader, sharper. His face is hard and beautiful, his jaw flexing as he stares at me like he can’t quite believe what he’s seeing.
Neither can I.
His fingers burn into my skin, strong and tight as I try to get control of my mind, because currently I can’t think. I can’t speak. I can’t do anything, I’m frozen in place.
“I…” My mouth opens and closes like a fish. “We aren’t supposed to use real names.”
The tension in his hand tightens just a fraction. “You shouldn’t be here,” he says, his voice low.
“Neither should you.”
His brows rise. His eyes are ice. But I see the flicker the second he realizes I’m not backing down. And maybe, just maybe, I’m not the little girl he remembers anymore.
“Can you take this outside?” the high-pitched naked man asks from the bed. “This really is doing nothing for my libido.”
Asher shakes his head, like he’s as dumbfounded as I am about this whole situation, which is only a small consolation, because pure, unadulterated embarrassment is starting to rush through me.
Oh. My. God. Why does this kind of thing always happen to me? I’m going to kill Charlie, I really am.