8. Demi
DEMI
Brian doesn’t come back the next night.
I divide my time alternating between listening for voices and sounds of movement within the building and thinking about him, the man behind the mask.
No one comes to the door.
I have no clients.
Once we’re in our rooms, we’re only allowed out for a comfort break, and we’re escorted to and from the restroom by a bodyguard, usually Michael Douglas, or another guy with zero inclination to be on first-name terms. They provide bottled water to keep us hydrated, so theoretically, the club isn’t breaking any laws; I checked after my first shift, and the Fair Labor Standards Act states that offering meal and rest breaks is at the employer’s discretion.
But this strict regimen of being escorted from room to room is restricting my chances of getting any information on the people at the top of the food chain here. I’ve yet to meet one of the other workers, and I’m not expecting a team bonding event anytime soon.
Still, I’m not convinced that money is their priority.
From what the DI told me, it’s all about the clients.
JADED is a steppingstone between the low ranks of the club’s business associates to the higher echelons.
This is where the wealthiest percentage of the global population gets to squander their billions on human beings as objects to be collected, admired for a short while, and then discarded like a work of art or rare vase or a diamond the size of a boulder.
With so much time on my hands, my mind relentlessly drifts back to Brian. I try to remain focused on catching the fuckers using the club as a front to illegal trafficking, but it’s hard when Brian’s voice keeps sliding into my head and filling me with anticipation.
Is this game he’s playing with me whetting his appetite for a more sordid encounter?
Is he even aware of what awaits him when he gets bored with voices in the dark and wants to take his perversions to the next level?
I don’t want to think of him as some scrawny slimeball who can’t get it up for his wife and comes here to live out his dreams of being a sex god with women falling at his feet.
I don’t want to think about his wife waiting for him to come home to their swanky Manhattan apartment and talk about his heavy workload.
What about kids?
I’m talking myself in and out of slimy worm holes when a knock on the door jolts me back to the present.
“Time to go.” The bodyguard opens the door without waiting for me to acknowledge the knock first.
He looks me up and down as I stand, drawing the sheer robe around me.
Not that it covers anything, and they’ve probably seen all of us in various stages of undress anyway.
I’ve not seen him before. He fits the mold—buzzed black hair, tattoos decorating his thick neck, dark eyes and an absent smile—but I sense this one is different.
Colder, like he just stepped out of a freezer and is yet to thaw out.
“I haven’t had any clients.”
He shrugs, his eyes lingering between my legs.
“Has it been a quiet night?” I ask.
“For you maybe.”
That’s a kick in the fucking teeth, but he’s still staring at me like I’m the steak dinner he’s been salivating over all night.
“Come.” He doesn’t stand aside.
“Is the club closed?”
We’re not allowed watches or cell phones while we’re working. It feels like it’s been a long night, but I might have only been here a couple of hours.
“Yes.” He’s still blocking the doorway.
I want to ask if Brian came tonight, but I don’t know his real name, and the NDA I signed before I started working here stated that I was to have no contact with clients outside of the club. If they think I’m breaking the rules, I’ll be escorted from the premises and not allowed back in.
I cross the room and stand in front of him.
I chose this robe again for Brian. He can’t see it, but he held it in his hands the night before, and even though it smells of fabric softener now, it feels as if he chose it for me. It’s my Brian-uniform. It’s what I was wearing when I made myself come for him.
But I don’t feel sexy wearing it under the bodyguard’s scrutiny.
I feel… unclean. Undressed even though he hasn’t tried to touch me.
“Are you going to move out of my way?” I face him squarely, chin jutting.
“Ask me nicely.”
This is more interaction than I’ve had with anyone else I’ve met since I started working here. Including the men who interviewed me. And I get the sense that he feels he’s above following the rules.
My hackles are up, but I force a smile and say in a saccharin-sweet voice: “Can I get past please?”
He smiles, and a shudder travels down my spine. It isn’t an infectious smile; it doesn’t light up his face or get anywhere remotely near his eyes but instead mimics his lecherous appraisal of my body. “You’re learning.”
He shifts his position in the doorway, giving me barely enough room to squeeze past him. Part of me wants to press my body up against him, stand on tiptoes to whisper in his ear, and ram my knee into his groin. But it will have to wait.
Instead, I commit his features to memory, the silver scar in the right corner of his top lip, the serpent tattoo coiling around his neck, the tiny mole splitting his left eyebrow in two, storing them up for later. Then I brush past him, making sure to rub my nipples against his suit jacket as I go.
“Sorry.” I slant my eyes at him. “I should be more careful.”
I sway my hips as I walk ahead of him to the changing room, sensing his eyes on my ass all the way. I step inside, heart thumping, and close the door before he can stop me.
Brian doesn’t return the following night.
Or the night after that.
I wonder if it’s part of the game, his way of making me want him more. He said he wouldn’t touch me in his fantasies until I begged him to, but he’ll have a fucking long wait. I’m not here for the mind games; I have a job to do, and I mentally thank him for keeping me on track.
Brian doesn’t exist.
He doesn’t want me. I don’t mean anything to him.
I want you to beg me to fuck you. I want you to be afraid but still want me anyway.
It was just a game to him, one that he has probably already moved on from, and won’t even remember in a month’s time.
But my nipples harden each time I replay his words in my head.
I can still hear his voice. I can still smell him, and it hurts to know that I’m not as immune to being desired as I thought I was.
Brian made me feel special, just as he promised, and I lapped it up like a kitten who found a bowl of cream.
You’re fucking better than this. I don’t say the words out loud; I’m being monitored even if I don’t have any clients.
And that sucks too. If no one wants Nyx, I’ll be replaced at the drop of a hat, which will mean I’ve let DI Goss and the entire department down, and who knows if he’ll want to keep me in the specialist unit.
But in the words of Billy Ocean: When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
Fuck Brian.
I’m only here until I can make a difference and take these fuckers down, and then I can get him out of my head and get back to the real world.
So, on the third night of zero clients, and boredom, and long lonely hours spent stuck in my own head waiting for the door to open, I’m ready for the bodyguard when he comes at the end of my shift.
I’m wearing a black satin corset that doesn’t cover my nipples, a tiny black thong that looks as if it is painted on and leaves little to the imagination, and sheer black stockings. I feel sexy even if no one gets to see it apart from me and the bodyguard.
His eyes widen when they travel down my body to my pussy.
“Maybe I won’t bother getting dressed tomorrow,” I say before he can bark his customary ‘Come’. “It seems like a waste of laundry.”
His expression is flat. “It is only a waste if no one gets to know about it.”
I move closer. His cologne is strong, so strong I can feel it coating my tongue, but I allow Brian into my head long enough for my nipples to stand to attention.
“Am I doing something wrong?” I try to sound vulnerable.
I’m not sure if it works when his expression doesn’t flicker.
The other bodyguards don’t interact beyond telling me to hurry up or say goodbye when they close the door behind me, so I’m not sure if he knows he’s crossing a line and doesn’t care, or if he is more important than a regular member of the security team.
Either way, I’m taking a chance on his ego being the largest part of his anatomy.
Then all I need to do is pray it doesn’t backfire on me before I get him on my side.
“It’s life. Some you win, some you lose.”
I shrug. “Maybe tomorrow then.”
I go to move past him in the doorway and deliberately misjudge the gap by angling my body sideways a little. My breasts crush against his chest, and his hands instinctively go to my waist.
For a long moment, we freeze, our bodies squashed together between the door frame, his warm hands on me, his garlic breath on my face.
I hardly dare breathe as he raises one hand to my mouth, his thumb rubbing against my bottom lip. Then he dips his head and sucks my left nipple, teasing it to a stiff point.
Don’t react, don’t react, don’t react. I clench my legs together and fight the bile threatening to rise in my throat, but my traitorous body sends the blood pumping straight down to my pussy anyway.
“Tonight, you win.” His voice is husky as he drags me along the hallway to the changing room.
“Wait.” Adrenaline kicks in as I realize his intention. “What are you doing?”
“You wore this for me, no?” His accent is more prominent now. “Don’t pretend you don’t know exactly what you were doing.”
His grip on my wrist is like iron. I try to dig my heels into the carpet, to find something I could grab hold of to buy me a few precious moments, but the walls are devoid of any kind of embellishments. There isn’t even a shade covering the lightbulb overhead.
“No, stop.” I can hear the panic in my own voice. “I don’t want to get into any trouble. I need this job. I have rent to pay.”