Page 67 of The Inquirer

He was quiet for a moment, then asked, “I don’t want to assume, but is that an invitation for me to stay too?”

“Definitely.” I smiled at him. “I’d like a chance to show you my city.”

I didn’t add that part of my reasoning was selfish. If I could get him to fall in love with New York, maybe distance wouldn’t be a problem for us. Maybe I was getting ahead of myself, but when my eyes met his, I didn’t think so.

Twenty-Eight

Bradyn

When Nyx said she wanted to show me her city, I’d been thinking of things like the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, Central Park, Times Square. The one thing that hadn’t even come close to crossing my mind was Club Privé.

She’d told me that she’d worked there and that the owners had given her a membership as part of her ‘severance package,’ but that had been back when we’d first met. A lot of things had happened since then, and I’d essentially forgotten about it. The fact that I hadn’t immediately remembered that Nyx belonged to the hottest BDSM club to the east of the Mississippi just showed how absolutely crazy things had been between us.

She’d just chosen to remind me by coming out of her bedroom dressed to stop traffic.

She’d certainly stopped my brain from working.

“We don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

The uncertainty in Nyx’s voice made me realize that I’d been staring at her without saying a word for an inappropriate amount of time. Not inappropriate because I shouldn’t be looking at her that way, but because I’d made her feel like I was second-guessing going to the club with her.

“Oh, I want to.” My voice was rough enough that I cleared my throat and tried again. “But I might want to bend you over the couch and fuck you senseless first so every time a man looks at you tonight, I can remember that I’ve been inside you already, and I’ll be inside you again.”

Color flooded her cheeks, but she didn’t look down. Not for the first time, I was grateful my particular kinks didn’t include total, traditional submission. I knew that it was possible she would want to be the Dominant one at the club tonight, and I was fine with it. The Dominant alpha part of me got off on giving my partner what she needed. Whatever she needed. And if that included being in charge, then that would turn me on too.

“I’m going to take all of that as a compliment,” she said, her eyes sparkling.

She wasn’t wearing a lot of makeup, but what she was wearing made her eyes look like emeralds. She’d put her hair up in a style that pulled it back from her face but left the waves falling over her shoulders. Against the soft green color – mint maybe – of her dress, her hair almost looked like someone had spun it from rubies.

The top had a halter tie around the back of her neck and a corset-style front, the combination of which immediately drew attention to those amazing breasts of hers. The rest of it clung to her hips and down to mid-thigh where it ended, leaving the rest of her long legs bare. Her heels put her a few inches closer to my height and did wonderful things to her legs. Then she took a couple steps, and I saw that she had two slits up the outside of each thigh that went almost to her hips and flashed the garters at the top of the thigh-highs she was wearing.

Lust twisted low in my gut, a primal desire that was so much more than want, even more than need.

If we didn’t leave right now, I was going to take her, and we’d never make it to the street, much less the club. As much as I liked that idea, I wanted to see Club Privé, and not just because of its reputation. I understood what Nyx hadn’t explicitly said about it. This place was important to her, probably right underneath her PI business, and I wanted to be a part of it as much for that reason as anything else. It had been the place that had given her the ability to take back some of what had been taken from her.

I held out her jacket like a good Southern gentleman and said, “We’re takin’ a cab.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “I never ride the subway in something this nice. I’m always worried I’ll sit in something.”

I smiled down at her. “Hell, no. We’re not ridin’ the subway because I can’t be held responsible for what I might do if you start flashin’ those garters.” I ran the tip of my index finger just below her full lower lip. “Whether we play tonight or not, if you’re in charge or not, you’re mine, little firebird. It’ll be bad enough havin’ men at the club starin’ at you, but at least there’ll be other women there for them. I’m not sharin’ you.”

Her tongue darted out and caught the pad of my finger. “You’d really be okay following my lead tonight?”

My palm rested on her cheek. “Nyx, haven’t you figured it out yet? I’ll follow you anywhere you want to lead me.”

We stood like that for a minute, me giving her the time to process and hoping that I hadn’t crossed a line. When she took my hand from her cheek, my heart about stopped, but then she kissed it, and I could breathe again.

“Let’s go.”

We didn’t really talk on the way over, but she kept her hand in mine, which I took to mean that she was simply quiet and thinking, not reconsidering taking me to a place that meant so much to her. It wasn’t until we were on our way to the door that she spoke.

“I’m still not used to going in through the front door. Even when I visited on my off days before, I used the employee entrance.” She smiled at the large man standing next to the door. “Good to see you, Gil.”

“You too, Nyx.”

And then we were going through the door, into a small entryway where she handed off her jacket to a young woman and greeted her by name, though I didn’t catch what it was. My attention was on the couple in front of us who’d just opened the door, giving me my first glimpse of the club’s interior.

“You just need to sign this form, and then we can go in,” Nyx said, drawing my attention. “Guests have to sign it when they come in with a member.”

---