19. Mila
By Friday, I’m ready for my internship to move to another part of the hotel. Brooklyn and I are masters at check-in, check-out, room transfers, and have started to get a good understanding of the problems that crop up in the day-to-day operation of the hotel.
People complain about noise. About towels. About temperature. Aisha and Jessica have a running bet on how many people will need to be shown how to work the thermostat controls each day. I’ve become an expert at it, since Brooklyn and I started getting sent to handle room problems. And there are many.
Sasha replaced Sebastian at the front desk, so he was around less. It was a relief not to have to worry about people watching us together, and the probing questions finally stopped.
“I feel like the front desk has to be the most useful station for us,” Brooklyn says as we head to the meeting room at lunchtime.
“We learned a lot,” I say. “I think we saw everything that can go wrong with a guest.”
She bumps my shoulder with hers. “Except when a sex party goes sideways. Notice how we never even saw anyone checking into the super-secret suites. They’re not in the normal database at all. I looked.”
“I did, too!” I bump her back.
“We’re such naughty, naughty interns.”
We laugh as we buzz into the back hall. Raya is providing sandwiches for us as we do the review for the food manager certification on Monday.
It’s the first time all the interns will be together since Monday, although I know that Owen and Brooklyn have had dinner together most nights. Something’s going on there, although Brooklyn insists they’re just friends.
We laugh as we pass through the service door to the employee hall.
“I wonder how Maverick did with the dish room,” Brooklyn says, but then she stops short.
I almost run into her. “You okay?”
She makes a strangled sound, like someone’s choking her.
“Brooklyn?” I spot Maverick in the hall, wildly making out with Kennedy, the redhead from room service. He has his hands all over her, up in her hair, touching the skin exposed at her waist.
He looks up at Brookyln’s garbled cry and spots her, his eyes raking over her body. Gross. He’s literally got his hands all over Kennedy, and he’s ogling Brooklyn?
Then he kisses Kennedy again!
Brooklyn dashes into the meeting space. I take a second to glare at Maverick. What an ass.
No one else is inside the room, and lunch is already set up on the side table. Brooklyn stands in the middle of the rows of chairs, her head down, her shoulders shaking.
What’s going on?
“Brooklyn?” I come up beside her and tap her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
She turns away from me, her entire upper body quivering. Is she crying?
“Brooklyn? What happened?”
I look back at the door. What was going on with Maverick that seeing him kiss Kennedy would upset her this much?
Was he all over Kennedy in the hall on purpose, wanting to be seen? I might have thought he wanted to tweak Raya again, but was it actually Brooklyn he was showing off for?
Brooklyn doesn’t move or speak.
“The others are going to be here any minute,” I say. “Do you want me to make excuses for you? I’m sure you can be gone while we eat. I’ll make a sandwich for you.”
She blows out a long breath. “I can’t give him the satisfaction.”
“Maverick?”
She turns, and I see her whole face is red. She’s not crying much, like she’s more mad than sad, even though her eyes are wet. “I slept with him, Mila. Twice.”
“With Maverick?”
“Yes, Maverick.”
“I thought you were into Owen.”
She throws up her hands. “Owen is nice! Owen is great! But Maverick is…”
“A slime ball. What the hell was that out there?”
“Him getting me back for saying I wouldn’t have sex with him if he was going to flirt with every woman in the castle.”
Oh. One of those. “And you like him?”
“I thought so! And now he’s having sex with the redhead.”
“Maybe. He might have been using her to get to you.”
“He already had me!” She paces around the rows of chairs. “I knew better. But he was so hot. And so sexy. And knew all the right things to say.” She shakes a fist at the ceiling. “He’s a snake charmer! How did I fall for another one of those!”
“When did this happen?”
She whirls around. “Monday night. Then Wednesday night. Last night I said no more.”
“You had time for this?”
“Yeah, he’s like that. Knocks on your door, wham, bam, thank you, ma’am.”
Maverick must be good to have gotten Brooklyn that fast.
But then, I slept with Sebastian within two hours of meeting him.
“You want me to punch him for you?” I ask.
This makes Brooklyn laugh. “Maybe!”
Owen and Ilsa enter the room, and Brooklyn whips in the opposite direction, swiping at her eyes.
“What’s wrong with her?” Ilsa asks, heading straight for the food like she doesn’t care about the answer.
“Brooklyn?” Owen’s voice is full of concern.
“We’re good,” I tell him. “Just a frustrating morning.”
“I get that.” Owen shoves his hands in his pockets. “Room service is no picnic. They complain about everything.”
“I bet.” Did they see Maverick? Was he still out there? I casually move close enough to the door to peek out. The hall is empty. Huh. And he didn’t come to the meeting room. Were they going to continue somewhere? No, I don’t want to think about it.
Brooklyn seems to have it together as she turns back around. “We should eat!” she says brightly.
“I’m on it,” Owen says, passing both of us plates.
All four of us are considering the sandwich choices when Sebastian leans through the door. “I need an intern for a haunted suite!”
“Isn’t that the sex dungeon?” Owen asks.
Sebastian grins at all of us. “It might be! Who wants to come?”
I don’t volunteer. He shouldn’t choose me. It will be too obvious.
“Me, me, me!” Brooklyn says.
“But I want to go,” Owen says.
Ilsa turns with her plate. “I’m the only one of us mature enough to enter that space professionally, and you all know it.”
Owen and Brooklyn wave their hands in the air like they want a magician to choose them to go onstage.
But then Sebastian does exactly the wrong thing. “Mila, let’s go. Come see what all the fuss is about.”
“Awww, she didn’t even volunteer.” Owen loads sandwiches on his plate in consolation.
I spot Brooklyn biting her lip as I return my plate to the stack. She knows.
Ilsa’s eyes narrow, like she also suspects something.
When we get in the hall, Raya approaches us in the corridor.
“Are you stealing my intern?” she asks.
“Mila has been on the front desk dealing with problems all week. I thought she should experience one of the more delicate situations.”
Raya’s face scrunches. “One of the suites?”
He nods. “Thought I should bring a woman with me.”
“Okay.” She looks at me. “Be discreet.”
“Absolutely.” Now my curiosity is huge.
We cut through the kitchen to a service hall that follows the back side of the haunted wing. There’s a door to the old-fashioned Wild West-style haunted saloon, where the bartender wears a period costume.
Then a long service corridor connects to the secure section of the haunted wing, where the suites are. I’ve never been this far, and my belly buzzes with excitement that I might see the sex dungeon.
Sebastian scans us into a small private lobby with a secondary elevator. There’s a security desk here, but it’s currently unmanned.
“Do you have a guard posted here?”
“Only if there’s a party,” Sebastian says, leading us through another secure door into a short hall. “We also check in guests who don’t want to come through the main entrance.”
“Like who?”
“Celebrities. Public figures. Billionaires.”
“Am I about to meet a billionaire?”
He grins. “Tempted?”
“Nope.”
We grin at each other as we approach a room with the sign “Suite of the Dead.”
“This isn’t the sex dungeon,” he says. “It’s just a playroom.” He draws in a deep breath. “But it does have some, well, features. The woman who contacted us can’t come to the door, but she managed to call the front desk requesting help. She’s handcuffed to the wall.”
“Handcuffed to a wall? Was she kidnapped?”
“No. More like…wanted to be.”
“Oh.”
“You ready?”
I’m not sure how you get ready to encounter someone handcuffed to a wall, but I nod.
He unlocks the door. “Hello? It’s the manager and a female assistant. Is there one of us you prefer?”
A high, strained voice comes from deep inside the darkened interior. “I’d like the girl, if that’s okay.”
He nods at me. “I had a feeling. Come right back if there’s anything you can’t handle.”
Oh, wow. Okay.
I push the door wider and slide through the gap, mostly closing it but not letting it latch.
“Hello?” Blackout curtains cover the windows. I can barely see.
“I’m back here,” the voice says.
“Should I turn on the light?”
“Probably. Please don’t laugh.”
Laugh. That sounds like this is embarrassing, but not horrifying.
“I promise.”
I feel around by the door until I find a switch and slide it on.
It’s a nice room, all ruby-red with black accents. There’s a mini kitchen and a bar.
The bed is empty, and so is a strange chair shaped like a triangle with a ledge.
Oh, that’s a sex chair. They must have to clean the heck out of that thing between guests.
I do not envy housekeeping.
The door to the bathroom is open. I flip on that light, but there’s no one in the ruby crystal interior. It’s opulent and sexy and stirring just to be here.
There’s another door, also slightly ajar. I push it open. “Are you in here?”
“Yes.”
The light in this room is blood-red, and occasionally, lightning strikes from a strobe in the corner. A subtle rainstorm is piped in, with thunder cracking at random intervals.
I finally make out the form of a woman by the back wall. She’s stark naked, and her legs are spread with a bar between them.
One arm is in the air, handcuffed to the wall.
The other waves at me.
I hurry over. “Are you okay? Injured? Did someone leave you here?”
She laughs. “I was a bad, bad girl, and this is what happens when you’re a sub who doesn’t obey. But he left hours ago, and I think something might have happened. Or else he really is done with me.”
I examine the handcuff, my gaze rocketing away from her flowing breasts and the spread legs. “Is there a key?”
“He probably has it on him. But it’s a hotel-issue. I assume there’s a spare somewhere?”
“I’ll find out.” I glance down at the bar on her legs. “What about that?”
“Same problem.”
“Hotel-issue?”
She nods.
“Okay, so one, possibly two spare keys. Can I make you more comfortable while I find them?”
“Something to cover myself, maybe? And my cell phone. It’s by the bed in the other room. Thankfully there was a hotel phone I got to.”
I spot the boxy phone, the receiver still off. I don’t know how she stretched to reach it, but she must have called the front desk with it.
I hurry to the other room to gather the bedspread and retrieve her phone. “Here you go.” I hand her the phone and slide the cover over her.
“Thank you so much. Now I don’t have to flip out that housekeeping or maintenance is going to stumble onto me.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I’m grateful I had a free hand.” She waves off my concern. “He’s not a monster. This is how we have fun. Let me call him. I hope he’s just lost.”
But before she can even bring the phone to her ear, the door slams open.
“You better not be free,” a voice booms.
I turn, expecting some big brute of a man, burly and muscled and probably with a twirly mustache.
But he’s maybe a hundred and forty pounds soaking wet, with skinny arms and a clean-shaven face. “Who are you?” he asks.
Sebastian appears behind him. “She’s my assistant, checking on your…person. Do you have the keys?”
“Of course I have the keys.” He stares down at her. “You called the front desk?”
“I thought you might be lost.”
He jerks the covers off her. “You are going to be punished for that.”
Sebastian whirls around and retreats to the other room.
I want to help her, but the woman’s expression is all on the man. “Hurry, while we have an audience.”
Oh. No, thanks.
I race for the door as the man selects a strap from the wall. By the time I hear the first smack, and the woman’s happy cry, Sebastian and I are out in the hall.
“That was more than I expected,” he says. “Was she okay?”
“She sounded more than okay,” I say with a shaky laugh. “People like interesting things.”
“Are you upset? Sometimes this job comes with a side of trauma. It’s not for everyone.”
I shake my head. “That wasn’t traumatizing. It was a little—” I can’t say it. It’s too farfetched for someone who has only had sex one time.
But he knows. “Hot?”
“Does that make me weird?”
He shakes his head. “Not at all.”
Everything in my body starts to stir. “I’m not used to this.”
His gaze is rapt on my face. “It’s all new to you, isn’t it?”
“I think you of all people know exactly what my experience level is.”
“You’re okay, though?”
I press my hand to my chest. “My heart is jumpy.” I take his hand. “Here, feel it.” I want his hands on me. I’m desperate for it. I shakily take his hand and press it where mine was.
“I feel it,” he says, his voice gruff.
“And my cheeks are hot.”
“A little pink, too.” His interest is intense, and it’s making me feel like I might erupt. “I’m listening if you want to keep talking about it.”
I do. I really do. I feel painfully alive. “There’s more. I…I want…” I glance around.
He steps close. “We’re in a secure area. Pretty private.”
I swallow. “I feel like there’s a fire down below. It’s hot and heavy and desperate for someone to touch it.” I suck in a breath. “And talking about it makes it so much worse.”
“Desire can be intense.”
“And you’re right here,” I say.
He lets out a long, slow breath like he’s trying to control himself. “I am.”
I detect the slightest tremor in his hand, still on my chest. “I want to get crazy.”
He doesn’t waste time, but snatches me forward to fit his mouth over mine. Fire licks through me. I want the kiss and the closeness of his body. But I want so much more.
I press against him, desperate to quench this need. My breathing is heavy. “Can we touch?”
He slides his hands over my vest to cup my breast. My whole body burns. I don’t care where we are. We’re alone. There are only two rooms in this secure hall. But maybe we can use the other one. “Is the other room taken?”
“It is,” he says. “I checked them in yesterday.”
“Damn it.” I reach around his back to press him close to me. “I feel like I’m going to combust.”
He presses his face into my hair. “What do you want, Mila?”
I take his hand and press it between my legs. “Make it stop,” I whisper.
Then his hand slips inside my waistband and snakes down.
He holds me close as he slides multiple fingers inside me.
I respond so fast, my head spins. He flutters inside me, and I hang onto his suit jacket like I might fall through the earth.
I can’t kiss him. I need all my concentration to go where he’s working me.
My hand clutches at his shoulder. It’s so wild, so hot, so intense.
Tension builds. I want to feel every part of what’s happening. I close my eyes. My body feels tight, like I’m spiraling inward.
Then everything tightens down. “Oh my god,” I cry before he covers my mouth with his. I breathe against his lips. I pulse against his fingers again and again. I can barely stand. He holds me up, an arm around my waist.
There is lightning in my body. Wave after wave moves around his fingers, pulsing outward. I gasp, trying to figure out which way is up, not sure how I’ve managed to stay on my feet.
Only when my legs are working again does he slide his hand out. I press against the wall, feeling both spent and exhilarated at the same time.
“Did we do that?” I asked.
“We did.” He slides his finger into his mouth, closing his eyes as he tastes me on his skin. “Just like I remember.”
Holy shit.
I flash hot again. Already? What is happening to me?
It must be what made Brooklyn sleep with Maverick—twice. And what made Kennedy make out with him in the hall by the offices where anyone could see.
This is dangerous stuff. A drug. It’s everything. I’m figuring out what everybody else already knew.
And I want more.
“At five o’clock it’s officially the weekend,” I tell him. “Are we going off site or should we break in all the empty rooms?”
He closes his eyes as if thinking of the night ahead. “All of the above.”