Chapter 23
23
ETHAN
This was a huge fucking mistake.
Sitting at the bar, I scanned the room with a beer in my hand, looking for Samson, but there was no sign of him so far. I’d also been watching the tracker on my phone, telling me he was on the move, but again, there was nothing. We were banking on him being here tonight, and if he didn’t show, I wasn’t sure what our next move would be.
To make matters worse, Mila dragged me to a nearby mall to shop for a dress for tonight. She had something specific in mind, so I sat on a chair outside of a dressing room and watched her parade in and out in a series of dresses, one shorter than the next until she finally chose one.
One that I hated.
And I told her I hated it in the store, but she ignored me and bought it anyway. I stared at her across the room while she socialized, very much playing the part of the party girl, but my instincts told me we were looking for trouble. There were a lot of men in this room, and most had their eyes on her, which might cause us problems as the night wears on, but she doesn’t see it that way.
“That your girl?”
My eyes shifted to the man now standing beside me, and I followed his line of sight. No surprise it was locked on Mila.
I jerked up my chin. “Yeah.”
He snickered. “You look like you wanna kill someone, man.”
My eyes once again focused on him, and I decided to play the jealous boyfriend, which wasn’t all that far from the truth. “You sayin’ you wouldn’t?”
He shrugged and lifted his glass as he gestured toward her. “She looks like she wants to party.”
“That’s why we're here.”
“Take it you’re new to our little town?”
“We came for the festival and decided to stay for bike week,” I explained.
“You ride?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Not anymore.”
“How’d you get an invite to this? It’s usually reserved for regulars.”
Now it made sense why he approached me. He knew we weren’t regulars and was trying like hell to figure out why we were here, which only confirmed that outsiders were rarely invited.
I gestured behind me where Steve bartended. “Steve invited us. We met last night. Talked some at the bike rally earlier today. He mentioned a party, and that’s all April needed to hear.”
He chuckled. “Makes sense.”
I glanced at Mila, who was still talking, before shifting my attention back to the man beside me. “What does?”
He took a sip of what looked like whiskey. “Steve usually plans these things. He’s got good instincts on who to invite, especially if he extends that offer to an outsider.”
“I’m assuming you don’t get a lot of outsiders here, then,” I replied dryly.
“You’d be right.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Not a lot of people come out this way. It’s far enough from the lake that no one usually finds us.” His expression remained friendly, but I saw the skepticism in his eyes. Something was going on in this place that everyone was working hard to protect. “How did you find us?”
“Met Jenny and Carl at the festival. They invited us Friday night, but then never showed,” I shared, hoping he might know them, but when he didn’t respond, I figured he wouldn’t share any information, even if he had it.
He nodded slowly while he took another sip from his glass. Lifting the beer bottle to my lips, I did the same while my attention slid back to Mila. My eyes dropped to the dress she was wearing, the dress I hated but couldn’t deny it fit her perfectly. My eyes skimmed over the spaghetti straps and down to her cleavage, which was barely contained. Mila worked out a lot, and it showed by the shape of her body, but she wasn’t skinny. She had curves in all the places I liked, and she wasn’t afraid to show them off. She was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen. However, it wasn’t only her looks that made her sexy. It was her confidence and fearlessness that drew me in.
When my eyes slid up her body and settled on hers, I noticed she was staring at me with an intensity I'd never seen. Something was different about her tonight, something I couldn’t put my finger on, but I felt it in the way she watched me.
She said something to the person across from her before strolling across the room toward me. The subtle sway of her hips garnered the attention of everyone she passed. Her eyes never left mine while she walked. I heard the man next to me say something, but I ignored him. I couldn't stop watching her. When she finally stopped in front of me, she laid her hand on my knee and pushed it gently to the side. Swallowing hard, I spread my thighs so she could move to stand between them.
She laid her hand on my chest and put her lips next to my ear before whispering, “Trust me.”
Lifting my hand, I wrapped it around her hip and squeezed, deciding to go along with whatever she was thinking. I had little experience with this kind of shit, but she did, and something drove her to do this.
“Have I told you how hot you look tonight?” she whispered against my ear.
Sliding my hand along her lower back, I wrapped my arm around her, pulled her body closer to mine, and played along. “Yeah.”
She rubbed her nose along the side of mine. “Do you think I look hot?”
I took a deep breath and released it slowly. “You always look hot.”
Her eyes met mine, her eyelids heavy, and I had to give her credit. She was one hell of an actress because if I didn’t know better, I’d bet money she was attracted to me. “You really think that, don’t you?”
“I don’t think it’s any secret how I feel about you,” I replied, further blurring the line between playing along and honesty.
Her stare dropped to my mouth, and I didn’t fucking care anymore. Wrapping my hand around her neck, I blocked out everyone else and focused on her. If she wanted to play this game, then we’d play.
“Mmm...April, you weren’t wrong in the way you described him.”
She studied me a moment longer, but when her stare left me and she looked to the right, I closed my eyes. I heard her say something, but I had no idea what it was. I didn’t care. I was frustrated and not sure I could fake this relationship anymore. Two weeks felt like an eternity when I was fighting this attraction.
“You guys comin’ or what?”
I shook my head and looked to the right, finally focusing on the conversation beside me.
“You bet we are.” Mila looped her arm around my neck. “Is there alcohol down there, or should we grab another drink?”
“There’s a full bar down there.”
I studied the woman Mila was talking to, but I didn’t say anything until a man came up behind her and wrapped his arm around her waist. She leaned against him and smirked. “I’m so excited for tonight.”
Mila nodded. “Me too.”
“Then let’s go.”
Pushing away, Mila reached down and grabbed my hand when the other couple turned and started across the room.
Walking side by side, she smiled but, in a low voice, gave me some information. “Truly invited us downstairs to play.” Her eyebrows lifted. “I have no idea what that means, considering that’s all she said, but it seemed like she thought I’d know. If anything feels off, find the nearest exit, and we’ll get the hell out of here.”
“You sure this is a good idea?”
She smiled at me and leaned into my side, but I knew why when I saw Truly looking back at us. “Nope.”
“Great.” I grinned, pretending this was exactly what I wanted to do. We followed them to a door at the end of the hallway, and I lowered my voice even more. “This the door?”
Her smile widened. “Yep.”
The man with Truly opened the door, and I expected to see a room, but I saw a staircase. He turned to look at me before muttering, “Close the door behind you.”
I jerked up my chin and pulled it closed after Mila and I walked down a step. She squeezed my hand while we continued down the stairs. We stepped off the final one and faced the room, but all I could see was the bar until we walked farther into the room. Past the bar was an area that looked identical to the one upstairs, but a curtain hung toward the back. We walked right up to the curtain, and Truly glanced over her shoulder at us with a smile before shoving the curtain to the side and walking through.
“Holy shit,” I muttered but was careful to keep my expression neutral.
Truly turned to face us but focused only on Mila. “Didn’t I tell you this was the place to be?”
Mila smiled and gestured behind us. “You were right. We’re gonna grab something from the bar.”
“Okay.” Truly winked. “We’ll find you in a little bit.”
Mila squeezed my hand, and we pushed back through the curtain before I took a deep breath and lowered my head. “What the fuck is going on down here?”
We stepped to the side when someone needed to go through the curtain, and she looked up at me. “Some kind of BDSM thing, I think, but I didn’t get a great look. I wanted to give us a chance to regroup before we go in there.” She frowned. “BDSM isn’t illegal if it’s consensual, so something more is going on behind that curtain. We need to get drinks and get our asses back in there.”
“Did you tell her we’re into this shit?”
“She’s drunk. I just nodded along while she talked, but I couldn’t make much sense of it. I did tell her we weren’t swingers, but we liked to watch other people.” She raised her eyebrows slightly. “We're voyeurs.”
“Great.” I shook my head and ordered two beers when the bartender made his way over to us.
“I thought it was better than being swingers like Truly and her boyfriend are,” she replied quietly.
“It is,” I agreed, knowing there was no way in hell I’d go along with that shit.
She grinned and leaned against my arm. “Something tells me you don’t share.”
I didn’t return her grin because the idea of watching her fuck someone else had my blood pressure skyrocketing. “I don’t.”
Pulling my attention from her, I laid down a twenty-dollar bill for the bartender and picked up our bottles. Handing her one, I motioned to the curtain. “Let’s do this and get the hell out of here.”
She nodded, her expression serious until we turned to face the room, and she forced a smile on her lips. We made our way to the curtain and pushed it open, but as we walked farther, I described exactly what was happening on the bed in the middle of the room when we opened that curtain. “Great, we get to watch a big, hairy guy wearing leather wristbands and nothing else get whipped on a bed.”
Looking around, I was in awe that the crowd of people on the other side of that curtain were dressed and acting normally while not twenty feet from them, people were having sex. It wasn’t my thing. I didn’t give a shit what other people were into if it was consensual, but I sure as hell didn’t want to watch it.
And there was no way in hell I would participate. We could get the shit we needed in a different way.
With my hand still wrapped around Mila’s, I followed and kept my eyes locked on her as she found us a couch to sit on so we could watch the show. I kept her hand in mine, pretending to watch the couple in the middle of the room, but I scanned the people around us. Most had various pieces of clothing removed. Some were having sex, and some were just watching, but it was easy to see we looked out of place.
“We need to do something.” Mila was obviously seeing what I saw, so she stood and turned to climb onto my lap to face me. She sat on my knees and leaned in close so only I heard her when she talked. “We need to look involved, so just follow my lead, okay?”
I nodded but couldn’t resist asking, “How the hell do you know what to do in this place?”
Something flashed through her eyes before she cleared it. I couldn’t say for sure, but it seemed like she was remembering something painful. “When I was undercover, I spent a lot of time in places like this. Well”—she hesitated—“not exactly like this. There wasn’t BDSM, but public sex and nudity were a nightly occurrence. I was also a stripper, so I saw a lot behind the scenes. The most important thing to do is look involved. That way, they aren’t suspicious, and they leave you alone.”
“Was Nick with you?” I asked, concerned that she was alone in these fucking places.
“Sometimes.” She shrugged. “It was better when he was. Motorcycle clubs have a rule that as long as a woman is involved with an MC member, she’s off-limits.”
“Did they abide by that?”
She smiled sadly. “Most of the time.”
I studied her closely, hating the pain I recognized in her eyes. “What happened to you in there?”
Her expression softened. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me,” I replied, squeezing her hips.
She looked around before meeting my stare again. “I don’t think this is the place to share that story.”
She was right, but I had a feeling if we weren’t in this environment and forced to be close, she wouldn’t share at all. “Will you tell me later?”
She laid her hand on my chest. “Let’s just focus on this right now.”
That was a no. She didn’t want to talk about it, but I had a feeling she needed to.
“Besides”—she grinned—“if we’re chatting, we’ll miss the show.”
I wasn’t letting her off the hook, but she was right; this wasn’t the place. Glancing over her shoulder, I saw someone along the back wall with eyes on the couple on the bed. Studying him closely, I squeezed Mila’s hip again. “He’s here.”
I shifted my attention to her and noticed her eyes had widened. “Samson?”
“Yeah.” I glanced in his direction again. “By the back wall. He’s watching the show.”
Sliding down my thighs, she wrapped her arms around my neck and pressed her cheek against mine. She was pretending to also watch the couple on the bed, but I knew she had eyes on him. “He keeps glancing at the door beside him. Do you think he’s waiting for someone?”
“No idea, but I’m starting to feel like there’s always going to be another door to another room that we need to find to get the truth.”
“Me too,” she whispered.
I kept my eyes locked on the bed in the middle of the room, but my focus was on Kevin Samson and the door directly behind him. We sat like that for a while, pretending to watch the couple on the bed having sex, but I couldn’t tell you what they were doing. And I didn’t care. I wanted to know why the hell Samson seemed to be guarding that door. With all of my attention on that room, I noticed something that sent a chill up my spine.
“Have you noticed how many men are going into that room?”
She ran her nose along my cheek and lowered her voice. “Yeah, and the one girl who went in seemed young and either drunk or high.”
“Shit,” I cursed quietly. “He’s looking our way.”
I swallowed hard when she ran her hand over my chest and adjusted herself so her lips could skim my cheek. When her mouth touched my ear, my body roared to life. Any control I’d had was gone with her lips on me, and all I could do was feel. She rocked her hips so her body fit perfectly against mine, and I groaned. I didn’t try to conceal it this time. I couldn’t, not with her being in a position to torment me.
“Is he still looking at us?”
I had no idea. I wasn’t even looking at him anymore. I was so lost in Mila that the entire room could go up in flames, and I’m not sure I’d even notice.
Blinking my eyes slowly, I looked toward Samson. “Yeah.”
“Do you trust me?” she whispered in my ear.
I closed my eyes, knowing that could only mean she was about to do something I would question. I trusted her, and she knew that. I think she liked to ask as a way of telling me she would take this further than she thought I’d be comfortable with, and she was usually right. I appreciated the heads-up, but I followed her into this sex den without question, which only proved I’d follow her anywhere.
“You know I do,” I replied honestly.
She skimmed her lips along my cheek until she could lay them against my own. “Keep an eye on him. Stop me when he looks away.”
With her on my lap and her lips on mine, there wasn’t a chance in hell I would stop her.