Page 55 of The Den of Sin
“Okay, go for the maid,” I told her. “It will match his suit.”
“You are the best!” She grabbed the one-piece maid bodysuit and pulled it on, ditching her bra since the suit had a built-in bra. All the while getting dressed, she kept talking. “I’m going to follow your advice and just see where it takes us. I have had a crush on him since college. Maybe he is the one, and I’ve been fighting it.”
I knew she needed this conversation so I just let her talk.
“What do you think?” she questioned me, her eyes searching me out in the reflection of the mirror.
“I think you should just go with the flow and see how it goes,” I suggested. “Don’t overthink it. If it feels right, do it. If it doesn’t, stop it. You’ll know.”
“How about you?”
I inhaled a deep breath and then exhaled slowly. I was better at giving advice and preferred not to think about what felt right for me. There was too much history, dating even further back than my life between Vasili and my family. He thought my mother broke his parents’ marriage, he seduced me to get back at her, and then shattered my heart. And then there was my miscarriage. I blamed myself for it, blamed him for it… it was hard to get past all that and forget.
Yes, he always felt right to me. Even when he barely looked my way, something about him soothed me and excited me at the same time. I wanted him, and from the moment his lips touched mine, I wanted to feel him for the rest of my life. Was I a young and naive girl back then? Yes, but the intensity of our physical attraction was something extraordinary. He must have felt it too, but he threw it away.
Maybe he was coming back around though. Maybe he realized his mistake. The quick lunch we had today showed me a different Vasili. He talked, asked questions, revealed… like he wanted to share glimpses of himself that he kept hidden from everyone else. And mesmerized like a child in a candy store, I wanted to see all of him, his depths and sorrows, desires and wants. And I wanted to help him get it all, but the memory of that night kept holding me back.
I didn’t want to give him a chance to hurt me again.
“Are we ready then?” I asked her instead.
“Fine, fine.” She accepted my elusiveness. “We are ready.” She hopped her way to the corner of her room where she kept a little mini-bar. “But first, let’s have our warm up drinks.”
I chuckled. It was what we always used to do in college before we went out. Warm up alcohol to boost up our mood. Not that our mood needed any boosting. We were quite happy as it was.
She poured vodka into small shot glasses. She handed me one glass and we clinked our glasses.
“Nostrovia.” Cheers in Russian. At the same time, we tilted our heads back and downed our drink.
“Holy shit, I forgot how it burns.”
She giggled. “One more.”
“We are going to be trashed before we even arrive.” She filled both our glasses.
“No, not trashed,” she justified and filled both of our glasses again. “Just buzzed. This is the last one before my driver gets here.”
* * *
We enteredthe club and the name fit this place perfectly. While our college dorm room had this name, it was nothing compared to this. The Den of Sin club was something you saw in the movies and never expected to experience in real life. I thought Tatiana owned it since it was the name we used for our room, but she denied it.
“Oh my gosh,” I murmured to Tatiana. “Please tell me nobody can recognize us in our costumes. I have a feeling it's scandalous to be caught in this club.”
She grinned, like she just discovered a candy store. “Nobody can recognize us, and this is fucking amazing.”
Her head kept whipping from left to right, trying to see it all. I couldn’t blame her. I was pretty much doing the same thing. The red accents everywhere made it look forbidden.Duh, thiswaskind of forbidden.
I spied a corner in which a woman wearing a tiny, white playboy bunny costume and a man dressed as Zorro were sitting. Well, notexactlysitting. She was straddling him, her body grinding against him giving me a pretty good idea of what they were really doing. I quickly looked away, the images of Vasili and me in his Lamborghini coloring my mind.
My eyes traveled over the club. Glittering lights were everywhere, the warm, seductive tones of the club set the atmosphere. The large bar was made out of black marble and the bar stools of red leather. The whole room had mirrored walls, and I wondered if they were one way glass. I hoped not, since I could see a few more corners with questionable activities going on.
“There is Adrian,” she whispered. I followed her gaze to a man dressed as a sexy James Bond.How appropriate.I couldn’t tell it was Adrian with that dark mask but hopefully Tatiana could tell better than me, otherwise she’d spend the night with the wrong man.
She chewed on her bottom lip, shifting from leg to leg. She wanted to go to him, but worried about leaving me behind. Well, this time, I was okay being left behind because I would not be joining the party those two planned.
Yeah, that is a big, fat no.
“Go ahead,” I told her. “I’ll be around. Text me when you are done, and we can meet by the bar.”
