Chapter 2
GAGE
She’s stunning.
I haven’t seen Aeryn Reardon since Logan’s funeral, almost exactly ten years ago.
Then, she was a twenty-one-year-old kid—angry at the world for the shit luck that took her brother in a freak accident.
Angry with me for being on the ice when it happened, for being too concussed to try to stop the bleeding.
Angry with me for a hell of a lot more, if I let myself remember the truth.
Now, she’s a magnificent woman, with that mane of auburn hair and eyes as green as bottle glass. She’s confident, with her shoulders back and her chin held high. She’s distracting as hell in her high-end lingerie, wearing those red-soled shoes.
Aeryn always had good taste. Present company excepted.
I look straight into her eyes. “Of all the sex clubs in all the towns in all the world, you walk into mine.”
“Gage,” she says. Her voice is as cool as an ice rink as she accepts her pour of Jameson. Too late, I remember that Bogart loses Bacall in Casablanca.
I start to ask what brought her to New York, but I suspect her answer will be the upcoming anniversary. I have no idea how I’d respond to that, so I opt for a coward’s escape instead. “Welcome to Kynk.”
“Not quite the place you and Logan planned.” So she isn’t afraid to say his name.
“Plans changed.” I gesture at the room around us. “I grew up.”
Logan didn’t. The old Aeryn—Aeryn at the funeral—would have said it.
“I’m happy for you.” The new Aeryn has a softer edge.
This is the perfect time for me to walk away. I should encourage her to walk around the club I’ve carved out of Brooklyn’s abandoned subway tunnels. Tell her it’s been great seeing her. Wish her a Merry Christmas and get back to my fucking club.
Instead, I ask, “Do you have a minute to catch up?”
Before she can answer, a state senator walks by, tugging the leash of a woman young enough to be his granddaughter.
They pause at the nearest conversation pit where she sinks to her knees and starts to suck him off.
I’m not sure which is the better actor—her for pretending that his stub of a pencil dick is gagging her or him for groaning like a skyscraper about to collapse.
“Maybe in my office?” I suggest. “It’s quieter there.”
Her fingers tighten around her glass. “I’m meeting a friend. The man who brought me here this evening.”
I don’t want to question the hollow feeling that opens beneath my sternum. Fortunately, I keep a professional smile on tap for emergencies. “Of course,” I say.
“Here he is now,” she says, and I’m not sure if that’s relief or regret that spices her words.
The man who steps to her side is half a foot shorter than she is.
His dirty blond hair is damp from a recent shower, and his tight black briefs show off an impressive bulge.
As he kisses Aeryn’s cheek, he eyes a trio of men across the room, paying special attention to the one wearing a necklace of holiday lights shaped like dicks.
“Mr. Lasker,” I say, extending a hand like the welcoming host I am.
“Will,” he says. “Please.”
The last time I saw Lasker at the club, he was spread-eagle on a St. Andrew’s cross, putting on a show with a Daddy Dom on the club’s main stage in the Heart. I’m willing to bet Kynk’s December payroll that his intentions toward Aeryn don’t extend to active play.
Nevertheless, Lasker rests light fingers on her elbow as he tells her, “I’m supposed to remind you about your Christmas Eve catering order. Have you decided on dessert?”
Aeryn’s lips curve in a smile that’s still familiar. “Thanks for looking out for me. I think I’ll go with the cranberry tart.”
He gives her decision more attention than I think it’s worth. His gaze flicks toward me before he asks, “You’re sure?”
“Positive,” she says. “Thank you for asking.”
The guy with the light-up dick necklace laughs, and Lasker’s neck whips around like he’s caught a left hook. “Then if you don’t mind…” he says to Aeryn, his gaze staying glued to the trio across the room.
“Go,” Aeryn says, saluting him with her glass.
“We’ll meet up at two?”
She snorts. I remember making her produce that sound. She used to cover her face in embarrassment, but Aeryn doesn’t look like she gets embarrassed by much anymore. “Please,” she says to Lasker. “You’ll last longer than that.”
He puffs with pride.
“Go,” she says again. “I can get home on my own.”
This time he does manage to peel his gaze away from Dick-light Guy. “Ariel…” he says. There’s honest concern in his voice. Honest affection, too.
She laughs. “I’m fine. But thank you. Go play.”
Third time’s the charm. Lasker brushes another kiss against her cheek before he saunters over to his target.
“How do you know Lasker?” I ask, once he’s out of earshot.
“We were engaged to be married,” she says. “For about twenty-seven seconds.”
“Ouch,” I say.
She twitches one shoulder in a shrug before she finally tastes her whiskey. “He was in the closet. And I thought I was up the duff. My brothers would have killed me if Da didn’t do the job first—so I figured I might as well come home with a ring on my finger.”
I watch her face too closely. “When was this?”
“Ten years ago, come January.”
She’s watching me too. We both know how to count.
I wish to God she’d taken me up on that escape to my office. Even more than that, I wish I drank while I was on the job.
I step closer to create an illusion of privacy. “Was it mine?”
She eyes me steadily. “It wasn’t anyone’s. It was stress. I wasn’t eating right, wasn’t sleeping right. After…”
Logan. So she’s not always comfortable saying his name.
She shakes her head, making her hair gleam in the club’s flattering light. “It was a long time ago.” She squares her shoulders. “So. Do you have time to give me a tour of this place?”
“With pleasure,” I say. And I mean it, even more than my tone can convey.
I offer her my arm as we walk the length of the Great Room.
My years of owning Kynk have taught me that clients and staff alike will demand my attention if I’m not specifically attending to a guest. Besides, while Aeryn moves in those stilettos like a runway model, a little extra support can’t go amiss.
Plus, I want to feel her close by my side.
We make our way past the public playrooms. It’s busy tonight, the Friday before a holiday. From the lavish use of toys, it’s clear that many people have already opened their Christmas gifts.
Aeryn takes it all in with polite interest. The girl I knew a decade ago would have been shocked by some of what we see.
Not the basic bondage, though. I still remember how hard she came the first time I shoved a gag in her mouth.
We had to keep things quiet at the house Logan and I shared in Atlantic City.
That gag led to our exploring Aeryn’s submissive side—my belt wrapped around her wrists, her first spanking, her learning what good girls get after they drop to their knees on command.
But tonight Aeryn seems surprised by Mistress Cynthia’s wax play. And from her wide eyes in the rope room, she hasn’t seen a lot of shibari. She’s intrigued by the dais in the Heart, by the spanking table and the wide selection of impact toys for very public scenes.
Her glass is empty, so I look for the nearest waiter with a tray of champagne flutes. A quick jut of my chin, and Aeryn is sipping Moet & Chandon, her empty whisky glass spirited away.
She rolls her fingers on the stem of the crystal. I know what a woman looks like when she’s aroused, and the lace on that bra leaves nothing to my imagination. Ten years ago, I barely had a chance to explore my first love’s submissive side. Not the way I could do now. Not the way—
“So,” Aeryn asks as I guide her past some of the private playrooms. “Where do you see yourself in ten years?”
I laugh. It’s our old game, one we started the first night she slept in my bed. I was desperate to do anything, say anything to keep her from leaving.
Now, I survey the corridor lined with individual dens of depravity. “Right here,” I say. “In New York. I love owning the club. I have a company that manages my real estate holdings, so I can handle the hockey team, too.”
“The Aces,” she says, once again proving she won’t shy away from our past.
“What about you?” I ask. “Where are you in ten years?”
“In Chicago,” she says immediately. “To keep Da happy. But I’ll have my Michelin stars. Maybe a restaurant in New York too. Vegas, if I can find the right property.”
“Let me guess,” I say. “You’ll serve three dozen courses, each with one bite. And everyone who pays a thousand bucks for the pleasure will go home hungry.”
“Heathen,” she says, elbowing my side.
I resist the urge to catch her arm, to press her up against the distressed brick wall and make her pay for the familiarity.
Before my body overrules my brain, she says, “I’ve been collecting recipes for years. From Dublin. From every place I could get to in County Cork. I have more than a thousand of them. I want to introduce the world to real Irish food.”
“Corned beef and cabbage?”
She frowns. “The flavors, sure. But reworked for fine dining.”
She’s serious. So I say, “You’ll do it then.”
I snag another glass of champagne for her, and we head down the hall toward the Parlor.
It’s a quiet room, a refuge from the rest of the club’s chaos.
A discreet sign reminds members that this space is intended just for conversation and they’re welcome to take other activities elsewhere.
Security circulates on a regular basis, inviting people who don’t read to move on.
I gesture for Aeryn to take one of the armchairs. My breath hitches when she crosses her legs, leaning back like she’s in some corporate boardroom. She raises her glass to me before she drains off half her bubbly wine.
“Where are you in a year?” I ask, because that’s the next question in the catechism.
She makes a face. “Opening my first restaurant. For Da’s benefit.”
I know enough about her father to guess what that means—a place for Irish mobsters to eat and drink and plot their next illegal move. She’ll take in a lot of cash and report even more to the taxing authorities, laundering her clan’s dirty money.
“Not much more than a diner,” she says, confirming my guess. “Can’t be, for Da to be happy. But I plan to keep the kitchen in full view.”
“Exhibitionist.”
She snorts. “If the shoe fits…” she says, flexing her ankle.
I recognize the invitation. I’ve been waiting for just that type of opening.
But we’re in the Parlor now. And she’s finished off the better part of two glasses of champagne, on top of a generous pour of Jameson. And I’d rather she not hate me in the morning. There are very good reasons we haven’t spoken in ten years.
So I answer the question she forgot to ask. “In one year…” I say. “The Aces have won the Stanley Cup. Dubois International opens a new hotel on Madison Avenue in the middle of a block I own.”
“And Kynk?” her eyes glinting a wicked invitation.
I take the easy way out. “Kynk is getting ready for the Mistletoe Masquerade. Same as every year.”
She pouts.
In a desperate attempt to get my mind off those lips, off my memory of exactly what they can do, I ask the last question. “Where are you tomorrow?”
She offers a sardonic smile. “Apparently, I’m alone in my suite at the Waldorf, after a day spent studying some of the finest restaurants in New York City.” She eyes me steadily. “But I have until Christmas morning before I have to be back with family in Chicago.”
It’s still not fair for me to bite. Instead, I ask, “Where are you hosting your Christmas Eve party?”
“Party?”
“The one Lasker mentioned. Where you’re serving cranberry tart.”
She laughs. “That wasn’t a party. That was a get-out-of-jail-free card. We set a code, in case I wanted to leave. If I said tiramisu, he promised to get me out of here.”
“I’m glad you didn’t say tiramisu.”
“So am I,” she says.
I have no business gloating over the fact that she didn’t use a safeword. But I do. And I almost miss her next question.
“And you?” she asks. “Where are you tomorrow?”
“I’m having dinner with a dozen billionaires, along with their wives and girlfriends.”
“As one does,” she teases.
“It’s a…club I belong to. The Diamond Ring. We all keep our investments at a tax haven down in Delaware. The owner sets up monthly meetings—part business, part pleasure. Except tomorrow night is all pleasure—a holiday party with plus ones.”
“Where do a dozen billionaires go for a holiday party?”
“Rockefeller Center, to see the Rockettes. Then a private dining room at Top of the Rock.”
She starts to laugh, but then she says, “Wait. You’re serious.”
“Absolutely.” And then, like I’m a sixteen-year-old kid: “Come with me.”
She snaps her fingers. “Just like that? What about the woman you’ve already invited?”
“There isn’t any woman. I was going alone.”
“And your tax-haven owner will just accept some plus one he’s never met, showing up at the last minute.”
“Absolutely.”
She wants to believe me. She doesn’t.
I take her hand, lacing my fingers with hers. I realize I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time. “We both know why you’re here this weekend. We both miss him. Come to the show tomorrow night. Create one new memory for the Christmas season.”
A tremor ripples across her belly. She’s close enough that I could slip my fingers beneath the lace band of her panties. I could have that bra off with one quick twist of my wrist.
I can have her tonight. I know that. But I also know I want more.
I meet her gaze—no more words, no more deflection. She’s the one who has to decide.
“Yes,” she finally says, and I realize I’ve been holding my breath. “Yes, I’ll see you tomorrow.”