Honor Read online

  “You can’t hate me, Key. I wouldn’t survive it.”

  I got my hand around him and couldn’t hold back a whispery sigh of satisfaction as he pulsed hot and hard in my hand. He stretched and filled my grasp. He was even pretty and coppery where he stretched and grew to fill my palm. My hand looked so pale and delicate as it started to work him up and down. His body went rigid and his eyes burned at me. I wanted to get closer but he refused to move his hands off the arms of the chair and I couldn’t shift my weight without falling off of his lap or letting go of his cock. His discipline was annoying if admittedly impressive, but I had a lot to lose if I didn’t get him to give in . . . like my heart and soul.

  I put my mouth over his and gave him a biting kiss. I wasn’t surprised when he growled at me in frustration instead of kissing me back. I felt his breathing start to get erratic and grinned at him victoriously when I felt moisture start to leak out of the tip of his cock. I swirled the pearly drop around with the pad of my thumb and watched as it made him shiver. I was manhandling him like he was a piece of meat and his body couldn’t help but react, and I knew that had to drive him crazy. Nassir liked to be in charge of everything and everyone.

  I laughed lightly against his lips, twisted my wrist, and added a little more pressure as I continued to work him over. This time he kissed me back and it stole all the air from my lungs and all the sense from my head. He kissed like he did everything else, with finesse, with skill, with demand and force. My lips tingled and my tongue couldn’t wait to chase his around as he invaded the damp cavern in my mouth. My center clenched and that place that ached for him between my legs went liquid and soft. If I was straddling him instead of sitting across him, I would be grinding myself against that turgid staff that was burning in my palm.

  His head snapped back and his eyes popped with bronze embers as he bit out my name.

  “Key.” I knew he was close to coming and knew that I should calmly get up off his lap, leave him hanging rock hard and unsatisfied to show him I had the upper hand in this game, and show him I could be just as ruthless as he was when it came to getting what I wanted.

  I couldn’t do it, though. I wanted to watch him go over. I wanted to see him come apart for me. I wanted to see this man that manipulated everything and everyone around him fall because he couldn’t control me and his reaction to me. There was a power in that, an intoxication that had me stroking my thumb under the sensitive rim of the head and pumping my fist up and down even faster. I lost myself kissing and licking on the side of his neck until his entire frame coiled up and then shuddered under me as hot liquid burst forth and slicked over both of us. It was a different kind of burn but it felt so good.

  A long sigh escaped him as I lifted my head and looked down at him in satisfaction. He didn’t look happy about the situation, but there was no mistaking the heated desire churning inside his eyes. He didn’t touch me, but he wanted to, and the battle was almost a losing one. It was stamped on every line of his face. I leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek again and whispered softly in his ear, “I can’t hate you, Nassir, but I don’t know if I can love you the way you want me to either. They both feel impossible and scary.”

  He didn’t say anything, but he did shift so he could pull open a drawer of his desk and grab some Kleenex so I could clean myself up after I climbed off of him. He was rumpled and disheveled. It was a good look for him and I had to admire my handiwork. He situated himself back into his pants and stood so that he was looming over me. The fire in his eyes had banked but it didn’t make him look any less dangerous or fierce.

  “The only guarantee in life is that we only have a limited amount of time on this planet, so we better make the most of it. We’ve already wasted a lot of that time skirting around the inevitable, Key. I’m not interested in giving any more of it, or you, up.”

  We both turned as the elevator made a whooshing sound, signaling that Chuck was on his way up to the office.

  “I’m not giving you my heart.” I said it the exact same way that I had told him I was never coming home. Solidifying the fact that I was a terrible liar.

  He reached out a hand like he was going to move some of the bright red hair off my face but then pulled it back at the last minute as if touching me would singe him.

  “You don’t have to give it to me, because I’m going to take it one way or the other. I’ve been stealing bits and pieces for years; you were just too busy struggling against me, determined to do things on your own and without me, to notice.”

  Had he been?

  Was all his silent protection and wordless offering without getting a thing from me in return the way he had been making off with what I was so sure I wasn’t willing to give? When he showed that he could care, that he had the capacity for kindness and compassion, it undid all the warnings he aroused in me. I was going to tell him to stop being sweet so I could think straight, but Chuck barreled through the doors looking stressed and annoyed.

  “Why aren’t you answering the phone and did you not just see what went down in the bar?”

  His eyes shot to the black monitors behind the desk and then over our rumpled appearances. He shook his head and put his hands on his hips.

  “You two are going to be the death of me—or each other. Quit fooling around and get back to business. We have a problem and I need to know how you want to handle it.”

  Nassir shot me a look out of the corner of his eye and I flushed.

  Business-only arrangement, my ass.

  Chapter 8

  Nassir

  The elevator ride down to the club was silent and the tension popping and snapping between me and Key was electric enough that it could power the entire building. Chuck kept giving me a look out of the corner of his eye that I purposely ignored. My nerves were already taut. Every last bit of self-control had already been used up while I wrestled with every instinct I had in order to keep my hands off of her while she played with me, tormented me. The veneer of civility that I wore was thin at best, and with Key poking at it, battering against it in order to get her own way, there wasn’t much left to hold me in check.

  “So some doughy guy and his wife got into it in the bar. Security was just getting ready to intervene when the wife took a beer bottle and smashed it against the edge of the table. She went after him with it, but security got to them before any damage could actually be done.” Chuck shook his head. “Caused business in the bar to shut down for about thirty minutes or so. Security wants to know if you want to call the cops or not.”

  I pushed my hands through my hair and smoothed down the thoroughly wrinkled front of my shirt. I heard Key snicker at the motion, and cut her a hard look.

  “I don’t want the cops anywhere near this place. King will use any excuse he can find to shut us down and we haven’t even been open for a day. I’ll handle it.” I sighed. “I knew jealous spouses were going to be part of the equation when we opened the doors. One person’s wish list often leaves the other out in the cold.”

  Key gave a delicate little snort and was the first to step off the elevator when it hit the ground floor.

  “They shouldn’t be together if their wish list isn’t the same. It’ll never work out.” She glided away like she was a queen leaving her peasants to do her bidding, and I watched her until I couldn’t see her anymore.

  “You’re in trouble with that one, boss.” Humor liberally laced Chuck’s tone as we turned and went the opposite way from the bar.

  “I know, but it’s trouble that will be worth it in the end.” I just had to convince Key of that.

  We headed down a long hallway and to another elevator that went to the lower level of the building. Back when it had been offices the lower floor was used mostly to keep files and store information. I had turned it into a mini-jail of sorts. I knew there were going to be problems. Whenever you mixed sex, booze, and no limits, people tended to lose all their inhibitions and basic rationality. I knew that there were going to be club members that did
n’t want to follow the rules or respect the club, so I made sure I had a place to deal with them in my own way. All the rooms were made of concrete walls, soundproof and escape-proof; whatever happened down here would never be heard anywhere else in the building. It was a scary place to be and I could see that the couple sequestered in this very unforgiving place knew that.

  They were sitting in metal chairs on opposite sides of a small metal table. One of the security guys was standing between them just staring at the door, waiting for my arrival. When I pushed the metal door open he nodded at me silently and slipped out of the room, leaving me and Chuck alone with the obviously nervous couple. The wife was fidgeting with her fingernails and the husband was looking anywhere but at me.

  “You signed a contract when you applied to be members of this club. In that contract it specifically states that you will leave at home any and all bullshit you wade in every day. I’m not a marriage counselor and this isn’t therapy.”

  The man finally looked at me and then away as soon as our eyes met. I heard him gulp from across the room. The woman decided her best shot at getting out of here was to throw him under the bus.

  “I shouldn’t even be here!” She pointed at her husband with a shaking hand. “This is all his fault.”

  I lifted an eyebrow and walked over to take up the spot between them that the security guard had abandoned. I put my hands on the edge of the table and leaned down slightly. The woman reared back and the husband just let his head hang forward.

  “The only law inside these doors is mine.”

  That brought the man’s head up and he shot a pleading look in my direction. “I’m so sorry we disrupted your grand opening. Just let us go and we’ll never come back.” It was obvious he was familiar with the tales of how I handled disruptions in my business. Some of those tales were grossly exaggerated, but most were fairly accurate. I didn’t let anyone mess with my money.

  “Oh, you won’t be coming back, that’s a given. I’m just trying to decide if you’ll be going anywhere from here on out without a permanent limp.”

  The woman let out an earsplitting shriek and shoved her chair back, knocking it over and making it bang loudly against the cement floor.

  “This is all your fault, you pervert! If you could keep your sick perversions in check, we wouldn’t even be here!”

  The husband opened his mouth to argue, but then just gave up and hung his head. The wife was loud and obnoxious; no wonder he didn’t try to fight back when she went after him. I would wager that his life was nothing more than pacifying her and being berated by her. “If I’m a pervert, what does that make you?” These were two people on very different pages.

  I pushed up off the table and pinned the woman with a look. “Why did you come here in the first place if you weren’t going to support his ‘perversions’?”

  She opened her mouth and then snapped it shut. She shook her head and looked at her husband for help. He sighed and let his head fall forward so that his forehead banged heavily on the metal table.

  “She wanted to have a threesome . . . with another woman. It was supposed to put the spark back in our marriage.” It was a common enough fantasy, especially in a union that was as obviously unhappy as this one.

  “And . . . ?” Clearly I was missing part of the story.

  The wife tossed her hair over her shoulder and waved her hand at her defeated spouse. “Kind of hard to have a threesome with another woman when your husband is too busy shoving his dick down a man’s throat.”

  The husband groaned and I barked out a laugh. The woman scowled at me and I narrowed my eyes at her. “You’re mad at him because he wants to be with a man and yet you’re obviously the only one interested in being with another woman? You’re both ridiculous and this isn’t the place for either of you.”

  “We paid a fortune to be a part of this club and then waited forever for it to open.” I couldn’t believe she was going to argue with me.

  To remind her exactly where she was and whose rules she was playing by, I moved around to her side of the table and kept walking toward her until she was backed into the concrete wall. I bent my head so that my mouth was right by her ear and asked her, “So what?”

  She gulped and I could see that she was starting to sweat. The knowledge that I could literally make her and her spouse disappear was finally starting to sink in and she began to shake and get teary-eyed.

  I backed off and gave them both a disgusted look. “I think the worst thing I can do to either one of you is send you home with each other. You can torture each other by staying together and not admitting you want other people. I’m keeping your deposit and the fees for membership.” The wife opened her mouth to argue but I held up a hand to shut her down. “And if you think of calling the cops or trying to come after me for the money, I’ll be more than happy to let your boss at the bank know about the nifty little embezzling scam you have going on.” Knowledge was the ultimate power and I could see that she knew she was defeated.

  Her eyes nearly popped out of her head and she started to sputter. I reached up and grabbed the key dangling around her neck and gave it a light tug. The chain holding it snapped and I motioned for Chuck to get the man’s lock from around his neck. He clapped the man on the shoulder and helped him to his feet.

  “Good luck with that one, son. You’re gonna need it, and maybe stay away from anything sharp and pointy when you get home.” The husband looked at Chuck, then at his wife.

  “I’m leaving. When we get home I’m packing my shit up and I’m gone.”

  Chuck nodded as the irate woman’s jaw dropped open. “What! You can’t leave me!”

  The husband snorted. “Sure I can. You aren’t worth any of this aggravation, and tonight, with that guy, is the first time in years that I’ve had an actual erection without having to pop a Viagra. If I stay with you I will kill you or myself, so before it gets to that point, I’m gone.” His gaze shifted to me and a half grin quirked up the corner of his mouth. “You might not think you’re a marriage counselor, but you fixed this decades-long nightmare in twenty minutes. Thanks for setting me free.”

  Chuck walked to the door and put two fingers in his mouth to whistle for one of the security guards to escort the couple out of my dungeon. Once they were gone, we shared a look and burst out laughing. It was too ridiculous for words. Chuck clapped me on the back as we walked toward the elevator to head back up to the main level of the club.

  “There’s hope for you yet, boss.”

  I grunted. “Glad you think so.”

  Hope wasn’t something I was very familiar with, so I would just have to take his word for it.

  After the tiny hiccup on the first day, the rest of the week went smoothly. Key really settled into her role as hostess and caretaker of the patrons. She seemed to have an innate knack for finding the lost, the confused, and the timid and making them comfortable, helping them open up and really explore the adult playground I had built for them. She was also a wiz at livening up the bar on the slower weeknights, so even if I wasn’t making money on the private rooms, I was still raking in a small fortune in liquor sales. She had no trouble getting on the bar and doing a little shimmy and shake or even putting her old job skills to use and offering up a much tamer peep show to get the crowd going. She was a perfect fit for the club and the perfect business partner. After a few days of watching some of the shyer female patrons, she suggested we do a ladies-only night. It was brilliant and something I doubt would’ve ever occurred to me. And after the debacle with the married couple on opening night, she also suggested we do a couples-only night. I liked the way her mind worked. She saw past the dollar signs to the people attached to the money, and that’s what this place needed. That was something I could never do.

  Along with all the good things that were happening, there were also some really annoying setbacks that seemed to keep popping up, which solidified the idea that someone was trying to mess with the club from the inside. It was also a major h
eadache that I was spending most of my time trying to do damage control rather than persuading Key to give in to me, which is what I really wanted to be focused on. After she worked me over up in my office, she hadn’t put her hands on me again, mostly because she didn’t have an opportunity to do so. We were both working hard and I think she was a little gun-shy. We’d been sitting on a powder keg of repressed desire and untouched emotion for years. She lit the match and the fuse was burning. I think we both knew the explosion waiting for us when we ignited was going to be life-altering.

  One of the annoyances that was taking up my time and making me ready to bang heads together was a missed liquor delivery that caused the bar to run dry one night and cost a fortune to rush-deliver over the weekend. Apparently someone had called in claiming to work for me and canceled the order right before it was supposed to be delivered. Someone went into the women’s restrooms and shoved cotton T-shirts in all of the toilets and then flushed them all, causing a flood of epic proportions and a plumbing bill that was outrageous. They did it on two floors of the building, shutting down operations for half a night until I could get it fixed. The biggest clusterfuck happened on a Friday night. It was a packed house, people were getting their weekend groove on, the bar was full, all the rooms upstairs were full of people doing their thing, and I was finally thinking I was going to catch a break when all hell broke loose on the monitors I was watching behind the desk.

  I saw one of the bartenders scream and jump up on the bar. Soon the other two followed suit and everyone in the packed bar looked like they were losing their damn minds and jumping up on whatever piece of furniture they could find. Key was in the center of the chaos looking as confused as I felt. People started pouring out of all the private rooms in various stages of undress, all with the same panicked look on their faces. I was climbing to my feet to head down to the floor to see what the hell was going on when I saw Key scream as a gigantic black rat ran across her foot. She hopped to her other foot and shot a look up to the camera she knew was watching her.