Cam ran a hand through his hair and caught a whiff of the cloying perfume that had been giving him a pounding headache the entire afternoon. He grimaced, took a sip of his drink, and tugged at the knot in his tie. The familiar scotch scorched his throat, sending a wave of welcomed warmth through his stiff body. He loosened a couple of buttons and sat back in the chair, closing his eyes for a moment while he willed the lingering smell and his tension away.

Though he loved his job, being an asset manager for one of the biggest investment firms in Asia often involved dealing with troublesome clients. The one that afternoon had proven more challenging than most. Not that Cam had let that deter him from securing the deal.

The woman, a wealthy widow with more millions than she knew what to do with, had come on to him from the moment he’d sat on the couch in the expensive hotel room where she had insisted their meeting be held. Her fingers and red nails had touched his shoulders and thighs whenever she laughed, while her thick, sweet perfume had choked the air around him, bringing on a rare migraine.

Though he was bisexual and could bed a woman as easily as he could a man, Cam made it a rule to never mix business with pleasure, especially in this kind of high-powered transaction. Besides, he would never do anything to compromise his hard-earned reputation. It was the reason he had been headhunted for this job in the first place; he was the only candidate the firm had been willing to wait over a year for while he made up his mind whether or not to accept their offer. Though it had never been Cam’s intention to keep them hanging for that long, the thrill of power it had given him was compelling validation for everything he had achieved since he turned fifteen.

Bar his closest friend, no one in the circles he ran in knew of his trailer-trash background. He’d be willing to bet that the woman who had so evidently wanted him to bed her that afternoon would run a mile in the other direction if she knew of his heroin-addicted single mother and the institutions where he’d spent his early teens after she died from an overdose, leaving him the clothes on his back and fifty dollars in change.

While the widow openly flirted with him, her secretary had watched on, an apologetic wince occasionally dancing across her face. Cam had smiled at her at one point and masked his amusement when she squirmed in her seat. She had been dressed in a rigid pantsuit, the stark gray color clashing with her fair skin and brown hair. Though she had come across as serious and mousy, he could tell from the way she’d crossed and uncrossed her legs and her faint musky scent that she’d been aroused. If it hadn’t been for the throbbing pain in his skull, he would have invited her for a quick drink and given her the screaming orgasm she so clearly deserved.

Cam had always had a soft spot for the quiet ones. More often than not, they were the sexual partners who surprised him the most in the bedroom, their sensuality and willingness to experiment giving him some of the best climaxes he had ever had, be they male or female.

He’d come straight to Saron from the hotel, the need for a drink and the company of his best friend high on his agenda for the night. Though the club was as busy and noisy as he’d expected it to be on a Friday night, he did not mind the hustle and bustle. Saron had always been an oasis of calm in Cam’s hectic life and the one place bar his condo where he could truly relax.

To his chagrin, Joe wasn’t in yet.

Though he owned Saron outright and had been making a sweet turnover for the last couple of years, Joe Cavendish had not completely given up on his former life as a high-end male escort and still accepted the odd offer from his ex-employer, the woman to whom he owed his current lifestyle in Tokyo and who had helped him escape the shady underworld of New York’s sex clubs.

Cam had been stunned to see Joe when he’d walked into Saron eighteen months ago. The last time the pair had been in each other’s company was the night they ran away from the children’s home where they had been living. Meeting his old friend again twenty years later in the city he now called home had been a most welcome surprise for Cam, and they had fast rekindled the friendship that had kept them sane throughout their time together in the godawful place where they spent their early teenage years.

The fact that Joe was also bisexual had not shocked Cam. He’d always suspected Joe was, just as he himself had come to terms with his own sexual nature when he entered his twenties.

Besides being a haven, Saron was also the place Cam came to when he wanted to bed a man for the night. Relationships weren’t his thing, nor were they Joe’s. Short, hot, wicked sex had always been their style, although things looked likely to change soon for his best friend.

Though he could have his pick of his clientele, Joe also made it a point not to mix business with pleasure, a fact that was causing Ethan Skye, his most successful bartender, to be as ornery as a shaken wasp nest. Cam had watched the rising sexual tension between Joe and Ethan for some eight months now and was willing to bet a month’s wages they would be shacked up by the time the clock struck midnight at the New Year.

There was no doubt in Cam’s mind that the brooding club owner and the feisty bartender suited each other well, and he knew it was the fear of entering a potentially long-term relationship that had Joe currently fleeing for his life.

Cam smiled drily into his drink as he considered whether to have a talk with Joe before Ethan blew a proverbial gasket and attacked him. He was hardly in a position to play the role of agony aunt, considering the lack of romantic relationships in his own life.

Unlike Joe and Ethan, falling in love was something Cam never intended to do. He would never make himself that vulnerable for another person again. Not since he’d walked into the bathroom of the trailer where he had been born and found his mother dying on the floor in her own vomit.

Although she had been far from perfect, she was the only relative he had had in the world and the only person who had ever showed him any love, however scarce those moments had been. The day his mother cruelly abandoned him was the day Cam swore he would never allow himself to care for another person so deeply for as long as he lived.

The age-old pain stabbed through him as he relived the moment of her death once more, the horrible sense of betrayal he had suffered that day threatening to drag him down into an abyss of bitter memories. Despite the success he had achieved and the wealth he had accumulated since he fled the children’s home and decided to carve out a future that would never see him having to beg for food ever again, he didn’t need a psych report to concede that the scars of his past had still not healed.

Cam took another sip of his drink and pushed away the dark thoughts clouding his mind, determined not to let them ruin his night. A commotion ahead and to the right drew his gaze, distracting him.

A man was making his way toward the bar, his passage marked by swiveling heads and stares. Cam caught glimpses of a dark head and a navy blue suit, the outfit hugging a toned build and long legs. He frowned into his drink and swirled the amber liquid around before swallowing another mouthful.

He wasn’t interested in a bed partner tonight.

Cam glanced at his watch and was wondering how much longer Joe would be, when a throaty male laugh reached his ears. The sound raised the hairs on his nape and sent a hot prickle straight to his groin. Cam looked up just as a gap appeared in the crowd and finally saw him.

The tension that had slipped away in the past quarter of an hour returned tenfold. Cam’s whole body tightened, his cock hardening in a matter of seconds.

The guy sitting at the bar talking to Ethan was the most stunningly sexy thing he had ever seen in his life. Cam’s heart stuttered as he hungrily took in every single detail of the stranger through the breach in the throng of men milling the club and the mirror opposite the bar.

Tall, lean, with straight dark hair and an arresting ice-blue gaze, the guy wore an easy smile, the laughter lines at the corners of his eyes wrinkling slightly as he responded to the bartender’s light banter. Though he seemed relaxed, Cam could tell he was tense from the rigid lines of his shoulders.

He found his gaze following the contours of the stranger’s body, from the elegant way he held himself on the barstool to the sensuous line of his spine and his sweet, firm backside. All thoughts of spending the night chilling out with Joe fled Cam’s mind. A shudder raced through him when he glimpsed the taut muscles moving sensuously beneath the fabric of the stranger’s trousers as the latter shifted position on the barstool. Cam wondered how those thighs would feel wrapped around his waist while he fucked that impossibly fine-looking ass.

Would he scream or would he moan?

Cam couldn’t wait to find out. And he knew he would. That this man would be writhing in pleasure beneath him at some point in the coming hours was an undeniable truth. No one had ever refused him.

He forced himself to stay put and watched curiously as several of the club’s regulars approached the guy he intended to bed, only to be politely and resolutely rejected by him with Ethan’s amused assistance. Cam caught the eye of a waiter and waved him over.

“What’s he having?” He tilted his head toward the bar.

The waiter, a newbie, glanced nervously to where he indicated.

“Scotch on the rocks,” he mumbled, ears flushing and eyes nervously taking in Cam’s intimidating presence.

Cam’s gaze locked on the blue-eyed man once more, his arousal straining uncomfortably against his pants.

“Make it a double,” he ordered.

The waiter nodded and disappeared in the crowd.

The man at the bar reached up and rubbed the spot on the back of his neck Cam had been boring into for the last ten minutes. He stilled, his entire body freezing in the next instant. His head rose and he stared straight at Cam through the mirror. The ice-blue gaze flared. Awareness flashed across his gorgeous face as they gazed at one another for a timeless moment.

Cam’s pulse accelerated, blood flooding his already rigid hard-on.

The man suddenly broke eye contact, a scowl darkening his features.

Cam blinked, stunned by an unexpected feeling of loss. Irritation darted through him with his next breath. His ire rose when he caught Ethan staring at him pointedly from behind the counter, his “keep-yourself-and-your-dick-away-from-my-new-buddy” expression plain to see. He poured Cam’s order nonetheless and pushed the glass toward the stranger.

The man looked at it blankly before staring at Ethan. The bartender leaned over and murmured something. The stranger stiffened. He glanced at Cam over his shoulder, an incredulous expression on his face.

That’s it.

Cam swallowed his displeasure, raised his glass in a mocking toast, and flashed a bold smile at the man at the bar before downing his drink. He adjusted his suit jacket to hide his arousal, rose, and headed across the floor.