Owned (Arcadia #3)

Chapter 1

1

Rowan

I did not like sex clubs, not at all, and standing in front of the dark blue front door, looking at the discreet gold plaque on the brick beside the door frame, I was pretty sure that this was a sex club.

‘Arcadia’, read the gold plaque. Very discreet. As well it might be considering its clientele. I’d heard the rumors — most everyone in New York had — that Arcadia was an exclusive, members-only club providing any kind of entertainment you could imagine. Entertainment, AKA sex.

No one knew the criteria for membership — many thought it was earnings or fame — but everyone knew someone who had a friend, or a friend of a friend who’d gone there one night, and oh my god, do you know what goes on there? Like, actually??

I didn’t listen to rumors and I didn’t care about sex clubs, but I knew one thing, and that was I didn’t want to be here. Except my boss — a sleazy ass on a good day — had asked me to drop a file to him on my way home from the office, and this was the address I’d been given. So here I was with the file like a good little intern.

Of course, what I wanted to do was go straight home to the apartment I shared with my mom, kick off my not-very-high kitten heels, change into sweats, and sit in front of the TV for the next three hours.

Mom would complain about me spending too much time watching TV and not enough with her, but she could deal. This week had been hell on wheels and I desperately wanted to marinate in front of the box in a hazy fog of cheap wine and ice cream.

First though, I had to get this file to Mr Jordan. It wouldn’t take long. Five minutes tops.

Straightening my black suit jacket, I pressed the little button next to the plaque and waited.

There was a pause before the door opened soundlessly, a handsome man in a dark blue suit standing on the other side. He gave me an impersonal up and down look, then smiled politely. “Miss James, I presume?” he asked.

Mr Jordan had told me that he’d let them know I’d be coming so I could gain entry because of the whole members-only thing. I’d have preferred to hand the file to this guy so he could pass it onto my boss, but Mr Jordan was very particular about his files. Client information, privacy, don’t-let-it-out-of-your-sight etc, etc, blah blah blah.

It wasn’t my place to question him, so instead I gave Mr Handsome a polite smile in return and said, “Yes. I have something for Mr Jordan.”

The man inclined his head and gestured for me to step inside.

I did so, pausing beneath the huge crystal chandelier that hung in the high-ceilinged entrance hallway and glancing up at it. The crystal drops glittered and sparkled, casting reflections onto the thick, dark blue carpet and the crimson wallpaper.

A pretty effect. I didn’t care for the over-the-top decor, though. It felt too dark, overpowering, and a little suffocating. Like the too-strong perfumes my mother used to favor before her mental health finally collapsed and I ended up looking after her.

Not that I was looking at the decor. The club didn’t interest me, no matter how high-end it was supposed to be.

“You’ll find Mr Jordan upstairs,” the man said, gesturing to the sweeping staircase that led to the upper floors of the club.

“Thank you.” I made as if to go past him, but he held out his hand.

“Your phone, please.”

I blinked. “What?”

“Any non members who aren’t here as guests need to surrender their phones.” His smile continued to be polite. “I’m afraid I must insist.”

“But Mr Jordan?—”

“Mr Jordan is well aware of the rules, I assure you.”

There didn’t seem to be any other option than to surrender my phone, which appalled me. I needed it for Mom, because what if she had a panic attack and couldn’t reach me? She’d been doing well recently, but anything could set off a backslide, and I didn’t want that.

“I’ll only be five minutes,” I said.

The man’s smile didn’t falter, and he didn’t lower his hand. “I must insist,” he repeated.

I tried not to pull a face. “Fine.” I grabbed it from the depths of my purse and held it out to him. “Here.”

“Thank you.” He took it. “You may retrieve it from me when you’re ready to leave.”

Which would be in five minutes, and hopefully, my mother wouldn’t have a panic attack in the interim. With Mom you never knew. She was fragile at the best of times and always had been.

Not wanting to linger, I nodded my thanks and went up the sweeping staircase. It was carpeted in the same thick, dark blue carpet as the entrance hall, the heels of my cheap black pumps sinking into the pile.

The place was quiet, though every now and then I could hear the murmur of voices and a burst of music from downstairs. The weighty silence felt as if it hid secrets, as if things were going on behind closed doors that would shock and appall me.

It made me deeply uncomfortable.

At the top of the stairs was a long hallway with all kinds of pictures hanging on the red walls and a long line of closed doors. I paused a moment, staring down the hall, realizing that I hadn’t asked Mr Handsome which room Mr Jordan was in.

Not wanting to open a succession of doors and perhaps witnessing something I shouldn’t, I turned back to the stairs, leaning over the banister to see if Mr Handsome was still in the entrance way.

He was, so I started down the stairs, not wanting to yell rudely at him from the second floor, only to stop a third of the way down as a couple came out of a hallway down below and into the entranceway.

The woman was tall and willowy and blonde, wearing some kind of white, grecian-style gown that was half falling off her. A man was with her, a very tall man, the light from the chandelier picking out threads of gold and tawny in his dark hair.

I couldn’t see his face from where I stood, but there was something familiar about him. Unlike Mr Handsome, he was in jeans and a worn leather jacket, which seemed a little down rent for this place, and he towered over both the woman and Mr Handsome.

Something tugged at my memory like a spider moving around its web.

I was sure I knew him or had met him at some point. A client of Mr Jordan’s perhaps? I was doing some paid interning in his finance company and was often with him when he met with clients. Or perhaps he was someone I’d worked with at some point? I’d done a lot of jobs trying to keep Mom and I afloat after all.

Then the man laughed, the sound low, a little rough, a little warm, but most of all disturbingly sexy. Which was when it hit me.

That laugh… I used to hear it in my head, in my dreams. Years ago, when I’d been a silly teenager and Mom had still been married.

To Atlas Blackwood.

My stepfather.

It was him. Holy fuck.

Adrenaline hit me in a wild rush, and before I knew what I was doing, I’d run back up the stairs and had started down the hallway, my only plan to avoid him, the memories of our last meeting far too fresh and far too embarrassing.

It had been eight years ago, and I’d just turned sixteen. Mom still had money back then, and Atlas had lived with us in our large and sunny SoHo apartment.

I’d hated him on sight. He’d been my mom’s age (she’d had me young), and laidback, easy going, really, the best of my mother’s constant parade of men. I hadn’t realized that at the time, though. All I knew was that he was yet another man Mom had lost her head over and who’d probably leave her, as they all did at some point.

In fact, our last meeting had been the day he’d moved out and I’d yelled at him that he was a user and an asshole and I hated him, before running to my room and slamming the door so hard it almost came off its hinges.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been so embarrassed about the teenage tantrum I’d had eight years ago, but I was, and the thought of him accidentally spotting me here, in Arcadia, was the last thing I wanted.

I lingered in the hallway, listening and hoping like hell that Atlas and whoever it was were leaving the building. Only for the lilting sound of the woman’s giggle to come floating up the stairwell. Getting closer.

They were coming upstairs. Great.

I looked at the line of closed doors and grabbed a knob at random, hoping at least one would be unlocked so I could duck into the room and hide. The first was locked, but the second wasn’t, the door opening and letting me slip inside.

The room looked very much like someone’s cozy study, with a fireplace and a couple of armchairs. Tall bookshelves lined the walls, along with a drinks cabinet, bottles of spirits arranged neatly on top of it.

My heart racing, I shut the door then pressed my ear against the wood, listening intently for any sound, but I couldn’t hear a damn thing.

Then much to my horror, I saw the door knob begin to turn.

Oh God, someone — probably him — was coming in here.

Instinct had me turning from the door and scanning the room, looking for a place to hide, and as the door began to open, I bolted over to the windows and ducked behind the heavy blue velvet curtains drawn across the glass, my heart hammering in my ears.

I stood there, trying desperately not to breathe as the sound of soft, feminine laughter filled the room.

“This private enough for you?” a man asked, his voice deep, masculine, hitting me with all the force of a crossbow bolt.

Shit. It was Atlas.

I froze, my mouth dry, trying to stay as silent as I could, all the while praying to any god who would listen that he and the woman would turn around and leave again. But I had no such luck.

“Oh yes,” the woman breathed. “This’ll do nicely.”

“What would you like then, sweetheart?” Atlas’s smoky drawl was rich and liquid as melted honey. “Tell me what you want.”

I’d never thought of him as my stepfather. I’d never thought of him as any kind of father figure at all. He was only my mother’s latest husband, who’d be gone in a couple of months, leaving her devastated as she always was whenever a man left her, unable to deal with her constantly changing moods.

Of course, there was a reason I’d treated him with so much suspicion and anger. A reason that I hadn’t been conscious of back then, and only with the hindsight of years had I understood.

He was hot, that was his essential problem. I hadn’t known at the time, all I’d thought was that he was old. Old, like Mom. Yet somehow, he’d gotten under my skin with his golden eyes and his tawny hair, like a lazy lion I couldn’t help wanting to pet. I used to have dreams about him, dreams that I didn’t remember yet would somehow leave a lingering certainty that they’d been about him. Dreams that made my heart beat fast and my breath catch.

Mom had cried over him when he’d left, and I’d hated him for it.

Now that same man was apparently in this room, asking some woman what she’d like, while I hid behind the curtains like a freak.

I knew I should step out from behind it, let them know I was here, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. He might not recognize me because I’d changed a lot from when I was sixteen, or remember who I was, but he might. And if he did, there might be questions about why I was here and how Mom was doing, and I just didn’t want to get into it. Plus, if I came out, then he’d know I’d been hiding behind the curtain and…Ugh. So embarrassing. Then again, would that be less embarrassing than standing here unseen while they did whatever they were going to do?

I couldn’t decide. And in that moment of paralysis, through a small gap in the curtain, I saw the woman wiggle out of her white dress and stand there fully naked, since she wasn’t wearing a stitch underneath.

Wonderful. I couldn’t move now, not without great embarrassment for all concerned. Then, just as that thought crossed my mind, Atlas himself stepped into view, and for a brief moment, I forgot where I was.

He’d always been a beautiful man, and even back when I was young, even though I’d thought he was ‘old’, I recognized that. He would have been about thirty-three when he married my mother, which to my teenage self was old.

He must be about forty-one now, and somehow, the way it does with some men, age had only made him more attractive. He was tall, six four, with the kind of muscular breadth to his shoulders and chest that would have done an ancient warrior proud. His hair was the dark and dirty gold I’d seen in lions’ manes, and he had a face that when he’d been in his early thirties had been far too pretty.

Age had distilled his looks, sharpening his nose and jawline, turning what had been pretty into something stronger, harder. The very epitome of male beauty.

He’d always had a laid-back, lazy, slow-burn of a smile, and I could see it in evidence now as he looked down at the blonde, clearly liking what he saw.

She put a hand on his broad chest and leaned in. “How about you fuck me from behind,” she murmured.

God. My face felt suddenly very, very hot.

“Nice idea.” The soft roughness of his voice sent a shiver through me. “Turn around then and put your hands on the mantelpiece.” He gripped her chin. “Or would you like me to do that for you?”

My heartbeat began to beat loudly in my ears.

I should look away. I really should. Then pull aside the curtain and tell them I was here. Let them know, not hide myself away like a pervert.

“Oh, yes please,” the blonde said, purring like an overfed cat.

But I didn’t move, unable to look away as he let go of her chin then took her by the shoulders and turned her around, pushing her out of my sightline.

Part of me was glad I didn’t have to see that, and yet another part, a secret part, wanted to open the curtain a little more so I could keep watching. But I wasn’t a damn voyeur so I stayed where I was.

The woman let out a breathy moan and I shut my eyes, trying to pretend I wasn’t here. Wishing I was anywhere else, anywhere at all.

“Stay like that.” Atlas’s voice had gained a rough edge it that tugged at something deep inside me. “You’re a pretty sight.”

I opened my eyes again, unable to help it, only to find Atlas had come into view again, his hand dropping to the buttons of his jeans and undoing them. Slowly.

My cheeks were so hot I wouldn’t have been surprised if I spontaneously combusted on the spot.

They were going to have sex.

They were going to have sex right there.

In front of me.

Hurriedly, I turned to face the windows, looking out into the bright New York night, trying to ignore what was happening in the room beyond the curtains.

“Uh huh, honey,” Atlas murmured. “Be a good girl and stand facing the fireplace. Yeah, just like that.”

That voice, good God. All honey and rough velvet, sex and sin and everything dark and forbidden. The kind of voice you wanted to roll naked in so you could feel it against your bare skin.

I shivered helplessly, wanting to stick my fingers in my ears so I wouldn’t hear, but that might mean I wouldn’t know if my hiding place had been discovered.

“But I want to look at you,” the blonde protested.

I gritted my teeth, stared fixedly at the glass, trying not to breathe.

“Plenty of time for that later,” Atlas said.

There was a silence and then the woman gasped then gave a throaty moan.

“Good girl,” Atlas said roughly, his voice even deeper. “You like that? Tell me so I can give you what you want.”

“Yes,” the blonde whispered and then said something else I didn’t catch.

Silence fell, broken only by the blonde’s loud breathing.

I put shaking hands to my cheeks, trying to calm myself and not pay any attention to them. What was I going to make for dinner tonight when I got home? Mom wouldn’t make anything. She was a hopeless cook and if I wanted something edible, I’d have to do it myself. Mac and cheese again? Soup? Or maybe some burgers with?—

The blonde squeaked and I couldn’t help myself, I turned and peeked through the gap in the curtain. Atlas had never mistreated Mom physically, but maybe he’d hurt this woman?

At least, that’s what I told myself as I looked, adjusting my posture minutely so I could see.

Then once I looked, I wished I hadn’t.

Atlas was standing behind the woman, one hand gripping the back of her neck, while the other stroked down her side to her hip, then over the curve of one ass cheek. He squeezed it, hard, making her squeak again, and it was definitely with pleasure.

My heartbeat got louder and louder. I knew I should look away, I knew it. Yet I couldn’t. I stared, absolutely transfixed as Atlas dropped his hands from the woman and turned to open a small drawer in a nearby side table, getting something out of it. Condom packets.

He threw two of them onto the armchair, then ripped open another, and before I could take another breath, he’d reached down and pulled open his jeans.

My face burned in the darkness behind the curtain as he reached into his boxers and I looked away again, pressing my hot face into the heavy velvet and trying to slow my breathing.

But even though I couldn’t see, I could still hear as the blonde gasped and then another deep moan filled the room. Atlas murmured something and then came the rhythmic sounds of flesh hitting flesh.

Sex was something I hadn’t bothered with in my life so far, not when I had Mom to take care of. Men were an extra annoyance that I didn’t need, and anyway, I didn’t have the time.

I took care of myself, of course, usually in the privacy of my own bed, but none of my private fantasies had ever included hiding behind a curtain listening to Atlas Blackwood have sex.

I don’t know why I looked again. But I did.

The blonde was bent forward, gripping the mantelpiece above the fireplace, knuckles white, her naked body sheened with sweat. While Atlas stood behind her, one hand gripping her neck in a dominating, possessive hold, as he fucked her with deep, hard strokes.

This time I couldn’t look away even if I’d wanted to.

He was mesmerizing, the lines of his face drawn tight with masculine pleasure. He murmured things I couldn’t hear, then his free hand slid around the blonde’s front and down between her legs.

She flung back her head and cried out, her face twisting as his hand moved. He thrust harder, making her breasts bounce, her moans getting hitched and short.

Still, I couldn’t look away.

She cried out, bucking against his hips, but he held her still, thrusting harder and faster until the lines of his face tightened even more and he bared his teeth, hissing as the orgasm took him too.

It was only then that I tore my gaze away, turning back to the windows and pressing my cheek against the cool glass, trying to ignore the throbbing ache between my thighs.

I was not getting turned on by this.

I was not.

After a moment, murmurs filled the room, punctuated by Atlas’s soft laugh, while I prayed desperately for them to leave.

Finally, after what felt like forever, I heard the door close and I put my hand on the curtain to pull it aside.

“You can come out now,” Atlas said.