ASHTON

T his feels wrong. I shouldn’t be here. And as I enter through the back door of the club, I know why.

Because my thoughts are monopolized by Sadie, and my time would be better spent tracking her down and trying to talk things through with her. It’s the only chance I have left. Avoiding what happened between us, pretending like it never happened at all, isn’t going to make it any easier on either of us—yet, that’s exactly what she’s doing.

I get it, I do. The way things started between us last week; it was unorthodox, to say the least.

But, damn it, something still started. We can’t undo what we did.

And I sure as fuck can’t forget about it.

Yet, here I am, back at Club Sin despite every synapse in my brain telling me that I shouldn’t be.

Which is exactly why I head into Christian’s office first, before getting ready to take over my role in the Seduction Room.

“You’re even earlier than usual,” he smirks, glancing up at the clock. “How’s it going, Ash? I heard about the fire a few days ago. Saw it on the news. You okay?”

The mention of the fire makes my throat thick, and I swear I can still feel the smoke choking me and burning painfully as I breathe it in. “I’m good. It just, you know, puts things in perspective, I guess.” I lower my backpack to the floor, and the thud it makes is the only sound I can hear in the office save for the distant booming of the dance music making the walls hum with vibration from the main room of the club. “Which is something I’d actually like to talk to you about.”

“The fire?” Chris’s brows arch in askance.

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “Perspective.”

***

I ’m just reaching up over my head and pulling my t-shirt off in the locker room when Lydia’s voice floats through the air from the doorway. She won’t come in, unsure if I’m dressed or not. Like almost everyone else that I frequent within the back hallways and rooms of Club Sin, she’s seen me shirtless, though, so it doesn’t faze me at all to come round the corner and meet her gaze.

“You looking for me, Lydia?” I ask, knowing she must be as there’s no one else in the room. “What’s up?”

“Are you on the clock yet, Ashton? There’s a...client waiting.”

Shit, they’re coming here earlier and earlier every week .

“Yeah, sure. I wondered why you’d scurried off in such a hurry.” She’d ended up in Christian’s office about a half hour ago, and I was surprised at how much her insight into everything I’d spoken to my boss about had helped me. Perspective. From a woman’s vantage point. Maybe that was the difference. I gave her a halfhearted smile. “I’ll be there in a few minutes if you want to send her in.”

She seems hesitant, and I wonder if she’s about to say something further. But she finally nods, turning to head back down the hall.

I reach out a tentative hand, touching her shoulder. “Are you okay? Is something wrong?”

It’s Lydia’s turn to offer me a weak smile. “Fine. Just thinking about your conversation with Chris,” she admits. “I’m glad that...I mean, I hope things turn out the way you want them to.”

I don’t know why, but the way she says it, mixed with the faintest hint of a smile on her face, makes my forehead wrinkle slightly in confusion. But I don’t have time to question her further.

There’s someone waiting, and even though my heart’s not in it, I know that I made a promise to Christian in his office tonight. And I always keep my word.

“Me too, Lydia. Me too.”

***

I only have to wait in the darkness for a minute or two before the door across the room opens and the dim light of the hallway washes across the first few tiles of the floor nearest the doorway. Only the faintest hint of the woman’s silhouette is visible, and I have to squint my eyes, intently concentrating on the outline before me.

She’s wearing a tight outfit—which is the norm in a sexuality-fueled place such as Sin—and her hair is long and straight, cascading past her shoulders.

The door closes quickly, though, and any chance I have of seeing any more of her attributes is extinguished.

“Hello,” I say encouragingly, my usual charming tone sounding hollow to my own ears.

I shouldn’t be here , I think to myself for the hundredth time today.

“Come here.” The woman’s whispered beckoning hits me with the force of a tsunami. She speaks too quietly for me to recognize her voice, but there’s something about the cool, confident tone that sparks something within me.

Familiarity.

I obey, taking a few steps. By my estimation, I’m in the middle of the room. I hear shuffling, movement and the slight click of her heels...then nothing.

Silence takes over, and I find myself straining to hear something—anything —in the darkness. “What are—”

“Shh.” Her voice is close enough that every muscle in my body clenches. I don’t expect her to be there. That’s what that sound had been; she’d taken her shoes off, taking away my opportunity to follow her through sound alone.

“I need to know something,” she whispers in sultry voice, and I take in a sharp breath as I feel her fingertips, bent so that her nails graze along the contours of my abdomen, trailing across my skin as she moves silently around me.

I feel suddenly like she’s stalking me, hunting me with a predatory instinct.

That voice...

“What is it?” I reply, my voice husky and coarse. “I’ll tell you what you want—”

The fingertips are suddenly on my lips, shushing me. Her accuracy astounds me, like she’s knows exactly where my mouth is in relation to hers, like she can see me but I can’t see her.

I’m the blind one in this room.

“Tell me,” she breathes, her breath hot and damp on my jaw, “Did you know that being robbed of one sense only heightens the others?”

Her finger moves away from my mouth and I’m about to say her name, but her mouth is on mine in a heartbeat. I’d recognize that kiss anywhere. The delicious sensation of her tongue against mine, the way her mouth fits against my own as though custom made for me...

And the intoxicating taste of coffee and tequila on her lips.

A growl emits from deep in my throat, and I’m on her within seconds, guiding her backward as my body pushes her across the room, up against the wall. My hands roam every inch of her body that I can find, and if I wasn’t absolutely certain it was her before, I do now.

Sadie.

It takes every ounce of control I have to break that goddamn kiss, but I do it, letting my head press against her forehead as we both pant loudly in the looming silence.

“What are you doing here?” It comes out more of a plea than a question.

“I needed to know...if you were serious.” She can barely catch her breath, and I find some pride in knowing that breathlessness is caused by me.

“Serious? About what?” Fuck, I wish I could see her eyes.

“About me.”

Her words take me aback, but then I resist the urge to chuckle. “And did you just get your answer?”

I’m not a betting man, but if I was, I would bet everything I had on the belief that I can hear her smile in the darkness.

“I could feel the moment you realized it was me,” she admits.

“I told you, robbing one sense only heightens the others,” I tease. “I wish you’d start believing me.”

“But what about when you rob me of all my senses?” she chuckles. “Because you do. I lose all sense when you’re around.”

“That’s exactly how I felt the moment I saw you standing there in your parents’ house, Sadie. You’re beautiful,” I confess, my thumb coming up to caress her cheek. “So, when I realized that it was you—”

“I’m not the girl you met on Friday night, Ashton.” Her jaw stiffens beneath my hand. “I mean, it was me, but I don’t—this isn’t something I do.”

“One night,” I whisper. “That’s all it was supposed to be, right?”

She nods against my hand, remaining silent.

I lean down and kiss her again, this time more softly. “And who do you think I wanted two minutes ago, Sadie? It’s not Rose The One Night Stand I want right now,” I say. “It’s you.”

“But you’re here,” she says cautiously. “Back in the Seduction Room. I can’t compete with that.” She clears her throat. “I won’t.”

The idea that she’d even think I’d ask her to should offend me, but I’m also enamored by her willfulness and insistence that she won’t put up with it. This woman is stronger than she gives herself credit for. “I’d never expect you to, Sadie.” I lower my face to hers, nuzzling her jaw just enough to elicit a soft sigh from her. “I came here tonight and told the club’s owner about you. I told him I’m done, Sadie. I respect the guy, and wouldn’t leave him with no one to cover the room tonight, but this is it. I won’t be coming back after tonight. I’m walking away from Club Sin, in hopes that you’ll give me a chance.”

She’s silent and unmoving, presumably processing the weight of what I’ve just proposed.

“And what if I won’t?” she asks.

“Doesn’t change the fact that you came in here and made me see that there’s more to what I want in life than anything Club Sin could offer me. I’m done with this, and I won’t deny that it’s the connection I feel with you that’s the catalyst for my decision.”

“If I tell you I’m not interested in being with you, you’re still—”

“Yes, Sadie. I’m still leaving Sin.” I can’t contain my laughter. “Now, please tell me why you’re still pretending you don’t want to be with me, and yet you shrugged that sexy little body of yours into that dress and came back here to find me.”

“Because...” She seems unsure of the right words to say. “Because I want you.”

I sigh with relief at her admission, even though it doesn’t answer my question. Nothing she could say would sound sweeter on those luscious lips of hers. “There. Was that so hard?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve wanted you since I was a kid. This just seems unreal. We can’t—”

“You’ve wanted me since we were kids?” My mind is reeling.

“How could you not know?” she laughs. “I did everything I possibly could to be near you, all the damn time...”

“I noticed that ,” I say wryly. “But I didn’t know you—”

“Had the biggest crush on you in the history of adolescence?”

“Wow, I’m sorry, Sadie.”

“You should be. You were a total asshole to me when I was younger. Do you remember my twelfth birthday? You yelled and swore at me and everything.”

I do remember, and I’m not proud of it. Hell, Gunner even brings that day up every now and then, purely because of how cruel I was. “Yeah, I remember. I’m pretty sure your devastated expression and quivering lip have been etched into my mind since that day.”

“Because I had a crush on you.”

“I’m sorry, Sadie,” I repeat, realizing I’ve never apologized for that day before.

She leans her head forward, against my bare shoulder. “We’re going to be a lot more sorry if people find out about this.”

I lean back, forcing her to lift her head. Fuck, I want to see her expression . “Is that what’s giving you reservations about us? That people are going to find out that we met here at the club?”

“Do you want people to know that?”

“I’ve got no intentions of telling anyone, Sadie. But what other people think of me—or us, for that matter—means very little to me in the scheme of things.”

“I wish I felt the same way.”

I fold my arms around her, hugging her to me. That’s why she’s hesitant, she fears what other people will think. And all I can think is, That’s it? “Sadie, we can’t change it. But it did give us this chance to see what happens between us, right? Maybe it’s wasn’t such a bad decision after all.”

“Do you always see the bright side of things?” I can feel her mouth twitch against my chest.

“When you’ve seen some of the heartbreaking and dangerous things I’ve seen, you tend to cling to the optimistic stuff when you can.”

“Right. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be whining about this. I’m just worried. It—we, I mean—could change everything. Our families have been practically intertwined for our whole lives.”

“What happens with them isn’t our concern. How they react to you and I isn’t our concern. My only concern is you, Sadie.” My hand comes up to stroke her hair gently, hoping to ease her mind a little. “Do you trust me?” I ask as an afterthought.

There’s a moment’s hesitation, which makes my stomach clench in apprehension, but then Sadie nods against me. “I do.”

“Then, trust me when I say that all we can do is try. I’m not promising anything to you, except that I will give it my all. Do you believe me?”

She raises her head from my chest. “I believe you.”

A sense of calm washes over me. “We’re really going to do this?”

Sadie’s light chuckle meets my ears, making me smile. “I think we are...Nash .”

I push my bodyweight against her, holding her to the wall. “You know what else I think?” I ask, leaning forward and nipping at her jaw tenderly. “I think you’ve still got some time on the clock, Rose .”

“Hmm,” She breathes out, tilting her head back, giving me more access to her throat. “Whatever shall we do?”