Chapter 1
Lucas the job we had to finish.
“That’s an art, not a skill, and based on last night’s tips, it’s one that I’ve crafted to perfection. Why?”
“Oh, no particular reason…” He hummed with a brief pause, rapping his knuckle on the stone counter. “How about dancing?”
“For the love of—Out with it, Luke, you know I hate the cryptic shit. It bugs the fuck out of me when you do this.”
“Alright, alright… Jesus. No need to play Oscar the Grouch so early in the day…” Good thing my knife was already in my back pocket, because I was seconds away from throwing my Sharpie at him.
“Have you thought about taking a different path? Switching up careers, and perhaps dancing in the… Temptations show?”
I stopped what I was doing, staring down at the bottles as I contemplated his question.
Had I considered the show based on all the gossip?
Yeah, more times than I’d like to admit, but the opportunity would be a nice change of pace.
Working in complete air conditioning for once instead of outside in this fucking heat with nothing more than a fan to push the same hot air around like a jet engine.
“You have until I finish with this to share all the details. Better make it convincing, brother.” Which I knew he would. That was always his strong suit. Lucas and the art of persuasion.
While I enjoyed serving drinks and the flexible schedule that came along with twirling bottles at Levitation, after hours of talking, Lucas had—just as I knew he would—managed to sway me into believing that a fresh perspective would be well worth the risk.
Little did he know the full extent that sentiment would hold later down the line…
And just like that, six years later, here we are running the show like it had always been ours.
Cole Ryan passed his leadership position down to us about a year after we had completed our initiation into the Men Under Revue.
He’d finished serving his thirty years, more than ready for his retirement, and from what I’ve heard, his son, Dallas, was following in the same footsteps as the leader of Red Magic.
There were plenty of candidates in line for Cole’s position, but with how effortlessly Lucas and I had handled our tests, there was no better option—the bonus, as always, was us being a two-for-one special.
We could simultaneously manage both the resident show at Heartbreaker and the tour team interchangeably as we saw fit.
Life in the MUR was good—exceptional even.
That was, until I got the not-so-friendly reminder from Dustin Slate—the man in charge of the entire organization—that Lucas and I had six months left to secure our chosen brides before losing our positions as the leaders of the Temptations revue.
Marriage—something neither of us was actively seeking or interested in—the idea of being tied down to a single woman for the rest of our lives…
Now, where was the fun in that?
LUCAS.
A coin has two sides; when flipped, you never know just which one you’ll land on.
Levi and I were the same in that regard. Even though we looked identical, our personalities were far from it.
The only things that remained consistent between us were our party boy attitudes and our taste in women.
As a result, we often found ourselves chasing the same tail.
So, after years of flipping coins to determine who got the girl, surprisingly, we turned to the one thing we never did well as kids—sharing.
Not every woman agreed with how we approached our one-night stands and potential relationships, but that was fair—to each their own.
The polyamorous lifestyle wasn’t for everyone, and with us being twins, I could see how some would consider it taboo. However, our sex life took a dramatic turn once we started sharing, and I would never go back on that decision.
That wasn’t to say that we shared every woman we encountered. There were multiple times when I wasn’t interested in who Levi was trying to fuck, and vice versa. But our problem now was finding the perfect one to marry.
Levi might have been slightly concerned about settling down at first, but I welcomed the idea—that was, only if our beautiful bride could handle having both of us at the same time.
I liked to bend the rules, break them even, and what better way to do that than by sharing a wife. Telling the world to fuck their one-sided standards, all while creating our own.
We share DNA—might as well share a wife, too.
The legal aspect made it so that only one of us would be allowed to marry the chosen woman—another coin toss, but that wouldn’t prevent us from claiming her as ours…
“I see you’ve still got that stick up your ass from Dustin’s text last week.” I playfully mocked, tossing Levi a bottle of water from across the room before falling onto the loveseat sofa and shutting my eyes.
It was a quiet day in the Castiel office. Levi was always the more business-savvy of the two of us, so he handled the majority of the administrative tasks between Temptations and our dance club, while I dealt with the performers and staff.
After completing our initiation and being given our choice in career, aside from the revue itself, we decided that if we were going to live in the world of dance, we might as well commit to it completely—by opening a club right next door to Levitation.
Pulse looked like your typical nightclub. But appearances can be very deceiving.
From the outside, it was just a matte black building, similar to Fallout on the opposite end of The Strip. But once you were inside, you'd find that there were many more colorful activities to behold behind closed doors.
Consider it more aligned to an adult playground of sorts. It wasn’t technically a sex club, per se, but I couldn’t deny that sex was one of the ultimate forms of entertainment provided here—Pulse, in its element, was a hybrid nightclub.
Tourists and locals would show up to dance and party, just like at any other venue on The Strip. Caged dancers on full display, tables lining the outskirts of the main floor, and private suites for those who choose to partake in our supplemental offerings.
“How are you not in the least bit annoyed that we’re being forced to do this?” Levi sighed with agitation, rubbing his temples with elbows propped on his desk and head hanging low. “It’s so stupid—he isn’t even fucking married and he runs the entire society.”
“And you were the one who wanted to ‘bide our time, wait until the right woman came along’. It’s not his fault that you delayed the inevitable until now.
Just be glad he gave us the six-month extension.
” I spoke from my side of the room, resting my hands behind my head and crossing my ankles to get even more comfortable on the couch.
“Why should we have to comply with some bullshit rule that Dustin himself feels he is exempt from? And you know he’ll never agree to us sharing a wife,” my brother groaned, his growing frustration making me smirk.
“Oh, he will. He has no choice but to accept it if he wants to keep us under his control and in his good graces.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“Then he can fuck right off the edge of a cliff. This is our life, Levi, and we are choosing how to live it. The leaders of Temptations will be married per the rules; the specifics shouldn’t matter.”
“Yes, but one of us wouldn’t be legally married.”
The rules of the MUR were tiresome but adaptable.
“Dustin holds power; if that minor detail bothers him enough, he can alter or bend the laws to allow us both to marry her instead of getting all bent out of shape over a tiny technicality.”
Levi and I had agreed to share a wife since Cole informed us of the requirement.
And if he were looking for an excuse not to be tied down, I’d be more than happy to sign the legal documents myself, leaving him to run free.
But that would also mean that the choice of our bride would be entirely mine.
Slamming his fist onto the desk hard enough to make his laptop and office supplies vibrate on the surface, Levi threw himself back in his chair, palms covering his face as he tilted his head back.
“Why is this so fucking difficult…” He muttered in defeat through his hands, his voice muffled, but I heard every word.
I opened my eyes and sat up, bending forward to rest my forearms on my knees as I rolled my lips together in thought, wondering how we would find our perfect woman in such a short period of time.
“I guess we just need to be a little more open-minded over these next few months… Instead of fucking around—as you so frequently love to do—we need to focus on having a more intimate connection with the women we bring home.” I say that like he’s not the romantic… which he is.
“You make it sound as though fucking around isn’t intimate.”
“You know what I mean. You’re the oldest, you should’ve—”
“By forty-five seconds, Luke.” My brother growled, and I laughed at his expense.
“You’re aggravating, do you know that?”
“Not as much as Dustin—and we’re not doing this right now. Let’s just get the hell out of here. Pulse opens in an hour, and we still need to finish setting up and briefing the staff on their duties for the evening.” Levi blew out another heavy sigh while rubbing his eyes with his fingers.
Standing from his desk, he grabbed his black leather jacket from behind his chair and pulled it on.
Without further argument, I followed suit, pushing myself off the couch while dragging a hand through my dirty blond hair and ruffling it slightly, wondering if we would ever find a woman as perfect and sinful as the city itself.
It shouldn’t be too hard… right?