“Really?” he asks, his eyes on my lips. Self-consciously, I lick them, and he grins wolfishly. “So you have to only be with me tonight? Exclusively?” He puts emphasis on that last word, and I swallow.

“Yes. My boss made me come, and I need this job for now. So here I am.”

“So you’re here because your boss made you,” Dom says slowly. “It has nothing to do with wanting to see me?”

“Why does what I want matter?” I demand. “You didn’t seem to care what I wanted the other night when you ended things. But I’m here now… getting paid to personally serve you drinks.”

“And cater to me,” Dominic adds. “That’s what you do with all the other men… you shove your tits in their faces and laugh at their jokes. I’ll want the same treatment. I want to get my money’s worth.”

His face is dark now, stormy. Dangerous. For a minute, I consider walking out and forgetting about all of this. But I can’t. Until I get a new job, I need this one to pay my rent, which happens to be due next week. But silently, I vow to search the classifieds for a new job as soon as I get home tonight.

“Yes,” I answer sharply. “I suppose if you want me to hang on your arm, I can do that. And if you really want my tits in your face, I guess I can do that, too.”

I can’t read Dominic’s face. I can’t decide if he’s disappointed that I gave in so easily, or if he’s looking forward to the night. Either way, I’m prepared. He’s amusing himself. Nothing more, nothing less. I’ll go through the motions tonight and quit this fucking job as soon as I can.

Dominic holds out his arm.

I stare at him hesitantly.

“Come on, Princess,” he urges. “I’m not going to hurt you. You should at least know that by now.”

“Not where anyone can see, anyway,” I mutter as I lightly place my fingers on his arm. Dominic raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t say anything.

He leads me out of the hall, out of the house, and down the stone path to the pool. Once we step out onto the patio, he sits on a bench and motions for me to sit next to him.

“Why did you fall for me?” he asks bluntly, staring at me in the dark.

I feel like he might as well have bitch-slapped me with such a blunt question. I’m not used to it from him. He usually takes the avoidance tactic. I take a second, take a breath, then shake my head. “I didn’t.”

Lie. I fell fucking hard.

Dominic raises an eyebrow. “No? Are you lying, princess?”

I stare at him, my breath caught in my throat, and I decide that I don’t want to lie.

“Yes,” I say simply.

Dominic startles at my honesty, staring at me hard. I’m quick to continue.

“I fell for you because I thought there was more to you. I thought that deep inside, there’s something ugly and broken, but that I could fix it. I thought you felt more for me than you did. But I was wrong. I know what you and I are. We’re nothing. Once again, I’ve proven to myself that I can’t trust my own judgment. Once tonight is over, I would appreciate it if you told Sin not to request my presence here again.”

I don’t know how I managed to say the words, not with the way he’s looking at me. But I do. I say them and they float between us, hard and ugly.

Dominic nods slowly, and once again I can’t read his face.

“Jacey, you try and see the good in everyone. That’s your mistake. You think that if you look hard enough, you’ll find it, that everyone has something in them that deserves you. But that’s so fucking wrong. Very few people deserve you. And that includes me.”

My heart clenches at his words, at the way he’s trying to validate me, to compliment even my very worst trait. My heart breaks, because I know that not only does Dominic not think he deserves me, he also thinks that he doesn’t deserve anyone.

“We’re so fucked up,” I manage to whisper. Dominic nods solemnly.

“Me more than you.”

I don’t say anything.

Dominic stares at me with those fucking dark eyes, and finally he speaks again.

“After tonight, I don’t want you to come around me, Jacey. I don’t want to hurt you any more than I have already. Tonight is all we have left.”

I nod curtly, his meaning stark.

He smiles a glittering, hard smile.

“So we’ll have to make it count. Know this right now. You don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to. You know me. If you say no, it’s over. Got it?”

I nod. But Dominic shakes his head.

“You understand. Yes or no?”

“Yes,” I murmur.

“If you say no, you can walk out at any time and I promise you that Sin won’t contact Saffron and you won’t suffer any consequences with your boss. Tonight will be… a good-bye. A good-bye worthy of you and me. Yes or no?”

I’m a fucking masochist, because I see the gleam in Dom’s eyes… the dark, dark gleam that can only mean dark, dark things… and I welcome it. I want it. I want him… even if it’s only for tonight.

I love him. The knowledge is so, so painful.

“Yes,” I whisper.

Dominic smiles. “Good. You wanted to know about me the other night. You wanted me to share with you, to explain why I am the way I am. You wanted to know if Amy Ashby was right, if I’m perverted. I want to answer that for you now. I could tell you in words all day long, but it wouldn’t even make sense to you until you see exactly who I am. Until you see exactly the kind of things I like. So tonight, I want you to see it. Can we do that?”

I stare at him in confusion. “See it?”

“My brother has a wild life,” Dom explains. “You’ve seen it. And I’m sure you’ve noticed that at every party, there is always a private, secret party going on in the basement. A party that most aren’t invited to. I’m inviting you tonight. Do you want to come with me?”

My heart pounds, both in apprehension and in excitement. I have noticed the secret party in the basement. Of course I have. It was always part of the confidentiality agreement that I had to sign in order to work at Sin’s house.

Never go into the basement.

But that changes tonight. And with that, I just might get a glimpse of who Dominic really is.

Answers.

Finally.

“Well?” Dominic prompts, staring at me.

“Okay,” I start to say. But at his look, I amend that. “Yes.”

He smiles.

“Come with me.”

He holds out his arm and I take it. As I touch him, he looks down at me and for a moment, my heart flutters. Everything about him pulls me in. His smell, his touch, his stare. His excruciatingly sexy personality. I must definitely be a masochist, because I know beyond any shadow of a doubt that tonight will annihilate me.

Yet I follow him willingly into the house.

Into hell.

Or Eden.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Jacey

Dominic leads me down a back hallway into the exquisitely lavish basement of the house, then through two more hallways until we stop in front of a set of heavy wooden doors. He turns and looks at me.

“You want to do this. Yes or no?”

I’m not sure. I can hear music thumping on the other side, but I can also hear moaning. Sex sounds. Thumping. Lashing? Moaning. More Moaning. Screaming. Shrieking. Moaning.

I look at Dominic and my heart is in my throat.

“Yes.”

He smiles, then opens the doors.

The room before me is a myriad of panting and fucking bodies.

The first thing I focus on are the women in cages.

On all four corners in a huge dimly light room, there are round cages with bars. There’s a woman in each cage, each wearing a collar. Their collars are attached to the chains in the cages. They’re naked but for strange leather straps that crisscross around their breasts, then crisscross again above and below their hips. I’m confused for a second, until a man opens the cage door of the girl closest to me and steps inside.

It’s only then that I see that the leather straps are attached to the roof of the cage. The girl can suspend herself in the air by pulling on the straps. And when she does, they tighten around her breasts and her crotch, so much so that her flesh turns white.

But she seems to like it. She moans as the man dips his head and sucks on her nipples, suckling at the taut flesh. My gaze flies to Dominic, and he’s staring at me, his expression intense.

“They like it,” he assures me. “Trust me, they’re here on their own free will. They like to be tied up, whipped, sucked. They enjoy the pain and I enjoy watching it.”

My heart pounds and warmth spreads to my crotch, moistening my panties. I can’t believe it, but watching it turns me on. All of it. The smells, the sounds, the idea that all of this shit should be happening in the privacy of bedrooms, but instead it’s out here in the open for other consenting adults to watch. It makes my heart pound.

I stand in the doorway and scan the room.

It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.

The walls are covered in stone tile and there are round columns here and there, and fountains. It reminds me of ancient Greece. The ceiling is painted like the night sky, with swirling clouds and brilliant stars, and above us, in a circle on a ledge around the ceiling, statues of the Greek gods stare down at us in approval. Of course they approve. They were all fucked-up freaks too.

There are huge round silk ottomans everywhere, big enough for groups of people to sit on. And groups of people do sit on them, all of them involved in orgies.

This is an orgy of epic proportions.

The realization slams into me, and I feel my knees grow weak because I’m even here.

Everywhere around me, people are fucking, sucking, licking, whipping… I can’t wrap my mind around it. I didn’t know that things like this even existed.

“Is this even legal?” I ask Dominic stupidly. He leads me into the room and closes the doors behind us, then shrugs.

“I don’t know. Everyone is here on their own free will. And this is secret. It isn’t spoken of beyond these walls.”

I nod. I definitely won’t be admitting that I was here. Jesus. My brother would fucking kill me.

I take a deep breath, inhaling the sex-laden air, and turn to Dominic. “What are we doing here?”

He smiles, ever so slightly. “We’re watching. It’s what I like to do.”

Pulling me to the side, we sit on a large sofa hidden in the shadows. He pulls me down onto his lap and turns his attention to the room in front of us.

“Do you come here a lot?” I ask him suddenly. For some reason, even though I’m frustrated with him, and pissed at him, it makes me sad to think that he was spending his time in this room when he and I were still together. He shakes his head.

“Only sometimes,” he tells me. “Why? Does that bother you?”

“It’s your life,” I tell him flippantly.

He stares at me dubiously, but I look away, over to a couple that’s fucking against the wall. They’re both completely naked and glistening with sweat. The man has the woman pinned, slowly fucking her with a red and swollen cock as her legs wrap around his waist. His cock is red from her slapping it every time he pulls out. But he loves it. He moans in ecstasy every time she strikes him.