The only doorway up ahead led him into a dim locker room. The tiled space was vacant, except for a lone woman sitting on the floor in the corner. As he stripped his clothes, she was more absorbed by the syringe in her arm than his nudity.
There were no locks on the lockers. He had no choice but to stuff his belongings into one, loathing the idea of leaving the protective shirt. The material looked plain enough, nothing to indicate its worth. If someone robbed him, his biggest concern would be the naked walk back to the apartment.
Moving toward the exit, he grabbed a haphazardly folded robe from a pile, pulled it on, and tied the front closed.
Two baskets sat on a table by the door. He grabbed a fistful of condoms from one, shoving them into the pocket of the robe. The other was filled with silicon bracelets.
Cole’s intel had been right. There were four different colored bracelets. No labels, but Cole said black specified a straight orientation. White was gay, and gray was bisexual. The red ones… Well, he said not to worry about those.
Choosing a color wasn’t difficult. When Tate had unwillingly lost his virginity to a man at fourteen, it had emotionally and physically scarred him enough to never put himself in a situation like that again. And he’d succeeded.
Until Van.
With a bitter taste in his throat, he grabbed a black bracelet. Wrestled it onto his wrist. Left the locker room.
And walked into a setting unlike anything he’d ever seen.
Sex.
Everywhere he looked.
Piles of naked, writhing, sweaty bodies.
By his estimation, there were forty or fifty people with an even ratio of men to women. All naked and moaning, sucking and fucking, moving from partner to partner, and taking turns.
Group sex seemed to be the theme here—threesomes, foursomes, too-many-to-count-somes, gang bangs, daisy chains, double penetration, and the random circle jerk in the corner.
Holy.
Fuck.
Few things shocked him, and orgies were commonplace at the Velvet Den. But the similarities ended there.
A sticky smell clung to the air—a sour brew of smoke and body odor—made worse by the sweet aroma of a Febreze-type spray.
Scuffed furniture, cigarette burns, patched upholstery, dark stains—it was a germaphobe’s worst nightmare. Not that he was obsessed with cleanliness, but some of these folks had clearly thrown hygiene to the wayside. At least they were using condoms. Most of them, anyway.
The seedy club consisted of one room, vast and dimly lit, with a plethora of shadowed alcoves hidden by half walls and equipment rigged for impact play and other fetishes.
Fully aware that several heads had turned his way, he clasped his hands behind him and stepped through the room like he owned it. As his bare feet moved along the worn carpet, he tried not to think about the fluids that were transferring to his skin.
The mismatched couches and futons appeared to be surface-clean, but some of those stains should’ve been burned off. Like most clubs of this kind, the lights were kept low enough to hide stretch-marks and cellulite and just bright enough to ensure intended appendages were stuffing intended holes. Though there didn’t seem to be a right or wrong hole here.
He checked his black bracelet and realized most of the club-goers wore gray or red ones.
The general male fantasy wasn’t picky, but the majority of the men he knew preferred women.
Not the case here.
His aversion to having sex with men was deeply ingrained. Had his life taken a gentler path, maybe he wouldn’t have so much damn dread building in his gut right now. But as he caught the interested stares of numerous men around the room, he couldn’t stop a resentful scowl from thinning his lips.
One thing he hadn’t counted on was his inability to get a hard-on. He was always ready to fuck, but as it stood—or didn’t stand—he wasn’t sure he’d be able to perform.
Then he saw her.
On the far side of the room, Lucia bent over a table, eyes closed and mouth parted, as a burly naked man beat her ass with a cane.
Every muscle in Tate’s body tensed to go to her, but he forced himself to remain in place, to watch and evaluate.
The man’s erection was as impressive as his strikes. He was huge…everywhere, his swings powered by bricks of muscle. With each new stripe across her backside, she relaxed deeper onto the table. There were no creases of tension on her face. No restraints on her arms or legs. Nothing to hold her there but her own will.
She was enjoying the beating, and fuck if that didn’t make Tate’s dick swell with blood. He wasn’t a sadist, but he loved it rough, loved the feel of a woman bending and sighing beneath the aggressive force of his unchecked desire.
He could approach her now, make his move, but that wasn’t his style. When he wanted a woman’s attention, he preferred a subtle approach.
He spotted an unoccupied couch and sat at the center of it, ensuring the robe protected his butt from whatever was breeding in the crusty cushion. The location put him in her direct line of sight. She only needed to open her eyes.
Goddamn, she was hot. Flirty shoulder-length hair. Creamy coffee skin. Thick dark eyelashes. A little on the thin side, but she had a great Latina ass.
He settled back on the couch. Then the piranhas closed in. He held his black bracelet in view, discouraging the men. But three women crept toward him with sex-induced oblivion written all over their faces.
One of them crawled on her knees from a nearby pile of men. Her Barbie-thin waist pinched in between an abundance of hips and tits. She was pretty enough, and as her hand slid up his leg and disappeared beneath his robe, he knew his concern about performance had been unwarranted.
He was as hard as a rock. It had nothing to do with the fingers curling around his length and everything to do with the woman who had just opened her eyes.
Lucia stared at him from twenty-feet away, her cheek pressed against the table and her focus unwavering. She didn’t blink, and neither did he. The cocky part of him exclaimed triumph, knowing he’d irrevocably seized her interest. He only needed to wait for her to come to him, and she would. They always did.
The other two women joined him on the couch. One on each side, they untied the knot on his robe, spreading it open.
He was prepared for this, had made the decision before coming here that he would allow touching and blowjobs from women. What straight man wouldn’t? But the only woman he would fuck tonight was the raven-haired beauty watching him from the table.
The man behind her set aside the cane and gripped his latex-wrapped erection, stepping closer to her to line himself up.
Tate’s jaw tightened, and he shot her a look she couldn’t misinterpret. No.
It was an irrational demand, considering the three women who were currently exploring every inch of his body with hands, lips, and teeth. He was tempted to stop the girl between his legs from rolling a condom down his shaft, but he decided to let this play out, to see what Lucia would do.
He captured her gaze as warm lips stretched around his girth. Ahhh, fuck, that felt good. His skin heated, and his balls tightened, and the ungodly pleasure only intensified in the prison of Lucia’s watchful stare.
He didn’t lift his hands, didn’t touch or look at the women grinding against him. He couldn’t ignore the intoxicating desire they spread through his body, didn’t want to. He felt like putty beneath their ministrations and melted into the couch.
His breathing accelerated, and his cock pulsed in the hot wet cavity of the woman’s mouth. But his eyes were narrowed on Lucia and her alone.
She reached behind her, gripped the burly man’s dick, and stroked it a few times before nudging him away. The man didn’t look too put off by it as he moved to the next girl in line for a beating.
Then she stood and turned to face him fully.
Smallish tits, tight pink nipples, sharp collarbones—her delicate physique rounded into curvy hips and slender legs. The dark trimmed patch of hair between her thighs created a shadow over the part of her he so desperately wanted to see, to taste, to pound until they were both exhausted and sated.
Maybe she was a coldblooded bitch in a kidnapping gang, but unless she had a blade clenched between those tight ass cheeks, she didn’t have the upper hand here.
He found her eyes and sharpened his in silent command. Come here.
Her chest hitched, an exquisite response. Then she slowly walked toward him.
CHAPTER 7
Sweet mother of God, he was beautiful. Easily the sexiest man in the room. Hell, in Lucia’s thirty years, she’d never seen a man that jaw-droppingly stunning.
And that was the most crucial part. She’d never seen him before. Not in this sex club. Not in Caracas.
She would’ve remembered the intensity in those crystal blue eyes, the way they honed in on her, tracked her every move, and took her breath away.
She floated toward him, propelled by curiosity, desire, stupidity. He could’ve been any number of deadly traps—an enemy of Tiago, a Fed for the United States, a kidnapper or serial killer.
Her insides might’ve been damaged, but her gut was trustworthy, and it told her he was none of those things. Besides, it wasn’t like she would leave with him or tell him anything incriminating. If he were simply here to fuck, she’d gladly take him for a ride.
While this was the only place she could have sex on her own terms, the pursuit of pleasure wasn’t the reason she came. She had a job to do, a mandate from Tiago to visit twice a month. He didn’t care who she fucked while she was here, as long as she cataloged the words exchanged around her. Some of Tiago’s competitors frequented the club, and their tongues tended to loosen after an orgasm or two.
This moonlighting gig also aided her own agenda. An agenda Tiago could never, ever find out about.
Sliding one foot in front of the other, she approached the gorgeous stranger with deliberate slowness so that she could savor every glorious inch of him. Dark brows hooded those captivating eyes. Pillowy lips parted with his aroused breaths. Stubble shadowed his cheeks and jaw. And what a jawline. Even with the scruff, she could make out the chiseled angles.