“Our office manager, Daisy, calls it that,” Jace interjects, and B nods his head in understanding.
“Like always, I was completely satisfied by the craftsmanship. Seeing it in use will be the highlight of my evening.” He wanders his gaze over me, unashamedly taking in the form-fitting red dress and mile-high, strappy heels Jamie had talked me into donning. “Do you indulge, Ms. Williams? One of my guests, Andrew, is very interested in—”
“She doesn’t,” Jace snaps, and our host’s eyebrows arch. I recognize the name B just said—Andrew’s the man who showed up at EXtreme wanting to order custom manacles. Jace had regarded him icily during their appointment, and his reaction is just as cold tonight. I skim my teeth over the inside of my cheek, staring up at him with wide eyes as he slips from his spot behind me and pulls me close to his side. He lays a possessive hand on the base of my spine. Tingles burst through my skin, through my veins, but he doesn’t seem to notice that I suddenly can’t breathe as he casts a tight smile at his client.
“I’ll be sure to let Andrew know she’s not available.”
“That’s a pity,” B says, cocking his head to one side to flick his dark gaze between Jace and me.
“Right, well Lucy’s indulgences are very singular.” Slate blue eyes momentarily dip to mine. Jace’s gaze is soft and sinful and full of the promise that those singular indulgences will rock my world tonight. “Sadly, we can’t stay long since tomorrow is a work day. Lucy gets very, very tired.”
B presses his lips together and steeples his fingers against them. “Again, that’s a pity,” he says before launching into a conversation with Jace about an idea he came up with the other night. When he uses the term “pussy pump,” I check out of the conversation. I look away to the flower arrangement behind his couch. This time, it’s vivid pink orchids. I admire the flowers for longer than necessary before I eventually bring my focus back to our host.
Thank god their discussion has shifted gears; Jace is in the middle of explaining his plan for a new line of tables just like B’s—only smaller.
“You’ll still be the only man in the world with a piece like yours, though,” Jace promises, assuring our client that he’s won the pissing race where spinning sex tables are concerned. I have to agree. If hadn’t seen B in action the first time I came here, I’d swear the massive table he commissioned was overcompensating.
“I fucking better be the only one with a table like that.” As if he’s just now noticing the intimacy behind Jace’s touch, he smirks. “The two of you?” He doesn’t sound surprised, and Jace responds with a shrug. “No wonder you won’t share with Andrew.”
An angry noise shoves from the back of Jace’s throat and then he responds to B in a low, dangerous voice. “Where Lucy’s concerned, I don’t share. I’ll have to tell Andrew that too.”
I don’t have a chance to turn my face up to his and study his expression because B informs us that he has a few things to attend to before he shows his guests his table. He tells us to help ourselves to whatever we desire—apparently, there’s a bar downstairs that I hadn’t noticed the last time we were here because I was too distracted by all the naked, gyrating bodies.
Just before he excuses himself to the third floor of the house, B pauses on the staircase, looks over his shoulder, and grins broadly. “You’re welcome to use any of the suites in private … if you’d like.”
My mouth falls open as he retreats, and I’m still blinking rapidly when Jace ushers me toward the steps leading downstairs. “That was … strange,” I whisper, following closely behind Jace. “He wanted you to share me with Andrew? I thought he was married.”
At least, that’s what he said when he got the quote for the monogrammed cuffs—he wanted them for his wife, whom he claimed to have married just seven months ago.
Jace pauses a few steps from the bottom and looks up at me. “He called me about you right after I brought you here. I told him you were unavailable. As for his wife—she wouldn’t have given a fuck. They were the couple with Sonora that first night.”
Oh. Oh. I vibrantly recall the mask-wearing couple occupying the Kink Playground during the first party. And the way they’d approached Sonora after Jace showed them how to hook her cuffs on the giant metal X—like predators pouncing on prey. That Andrew had gotten in touch with Jace about me…
I cross my arms over my chest and shudder. “That’s sweet of you to look out for me,” I whisper. Jace reaches up to me, feathering the calloused pad of his thumb over my cheek until my breath becomes nothing but a delicate sigh.
“My motivations were purely selfish at the time,” he admits. “I’ve wanted to be inside you from the moment you stepped into my office—hell, since high school—and I’d be damned if I let someone I knew touch you instead.”
“I like that you’re selfish.”
“Good, love. Because it’s not going to stop—not when it comes to you.”
I’ve got to admit that I'm surprised that the bartender manning the bar is fully dressed, but I'm still a bit skeptical as I ask him for a shot of tequila. “I promise you,” Jace says, pressing his full lips to my ear. “There's no DNA on top of this bar, so you’re safe to take a drink.”
I whip my head to the side to look at him, my mouth falling open. He responds by tucking his finger beneath my chin and snapping it shut. “Careful doing that, Lucy, or I’ll take B up on his offer and carry you off to one of these rooms.”
“I didn't even think that for a second,” I argue, leading our conversation back to his first comment. It seems safer than acknowledging that he’s just propositioned me after what happened not even a half an hour ago in the front seat of his car.
“Right. Well, I can promise you there’s no Molly spiking your drink either.” My eyes narrow into tight slits, so he smirks and grins. “They bring their own and are very stingy with it.”
When the bartender hands me my shot, I toss it back and give him a bold look. “Stop trying to shock me.”
“I'm not trying to shock you at all. I'm just being honest with you.”
I request one more shot, for good measure, and then I follow his lead to an open room where, thank god, nobody is engaged in the act. Plush sofas and cushy armchairs surround the dimly-lit space, and several people are seated around, their heads bent together as they speak.
We choose a loveseat closest to the arched doorway, and when Jace pulls me close to him, I stare at him, my gaze questioning. “What is this place?”
He works his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger, as if he searching for the right way to tell me something awful, before finally saying, “You remember those mixers you went to in college?”
“Sort of.”